Dirt Road (4 page)

The girl was watching him again. How come? She knew nothing about him except he was white. Probably she thought he was American. He kept on down the aisle but his face was red now, if she really did think he was stealing. He had to lift stuff to see the price. He didnt have any option. Prices were on everything and he was able to check it against the $25. Cheese and bread, a carton of orange juice and one of milk. A packet of lettuce and a bottle of water; a wee tin of beans and a carton of fruit yoghurt.

The girl was serving a woman but looking across at the same time. So was the woman. Maybe they both thought he was stealing. If ye took too long people thought ye were waiting yer chance.
He was just working out the money. If there was change out the $25 he would buy a couple of bananas. A few were a reduced price in a basket next to the cash till. Bananas made good sandwiches too. They were overripe but would be fine inside. He queued behind the woman.

The girl's name was Sarah: the tab on her blouse said it. An old-fashioned kind of name. Murdo gazed at the floor not to look at her, then away towards the door. Really she was beautiful. A girl's bare shoulders always look good but hers really really did. And just a beautiful face. That is what ye would say. A smooth face like ye get with lassies and her hair pulled back so it was like her forehead was really smooth too, and how her neck went, then her boobs too like her cleavage, she was just really good-looking.

Then it was his turn and she ignored him. She didnt even look at him. Although he was the customer and she was the server it was like up to him, he was to talk or whatever. That was wrong. Definitely. And he was blushing again. She lifted the grocery stuff out his basket, scanning it through the machine.

Then he noticed the prices on the screen, they were different to the labels. Everything was dearer. Every single thing.

Murdo waited to see the total. It was way more than it should have been. She didnt say a word, not looking at him, just waiting for the money. Except he didnt have enough. It's too dear, he said, it's charging too much.

Huh?

Yer machine's charging too much.

She frowned at him, not understanding him. He lifted the first thing to show her, the packet of cheese, it dropped out his hand. She picked it up. He pointed to the price on the label. It says four forty-nine but the machine charged more, I watched it. The same with everything. Your machine charged more, it's just like every single thing it added on money. The total's all wrong.

She stared at him. Oh you're talking about tax, she said. You got tax on these things.

Tax?

Each one you got there it's got the price then it's tax on top. Is that what you're talking about, tax? The girl held her hand out for the money. You'll see it on the receipt.

It totalled more than $30. He didnt have enough money. He showed her the $25. You'll need to take stuff out.

Huh?

Murdo passed her the lettuce and the yoghurt. Does that make it? he asked.

Mm. She started packing the food into a brown paperbag, paused to place the two tins on a tray behind her. To the side of the cash register was the basket of loose bananas. She did a new cash total and gave him the receipt. He was waiting to see the change. A little more than one dollar in coins. How much for bananas? he said. Can I get two please?

Pardon me?

Murdo held out the change to her. Can I get two bananas please?

She packed in two bananas beside the rest of the food and pushed the full paperbag across.

Thanks, he said.

Sure. She watched him lift the paperbag. Where you from? she said.

Scotland.

Scotland?

Yeah.

Mm.

He held the brown paperbag close to his chest and exited the shop, up along the street and the main road. He started smiling. Because it was good. He felt that. Just everything. America. He liked it. It was different. Had she even heard of Scotland! Ha ha, maybe she hadnt. It was strange to think. America, an American girl. Imagine she smiled at him. Maybe she did. She could have.

Mum would have liked it here. Everything was new; away from the old stuff. Fresh air and breathing. Fresh breathing. Everything!
Murdo felt that strongly. He didnt care about stuff. School and the rest of it. They would all wonder where he was. Ha ha. Here. Thousands of miles away. It was great, just bloody great, and he walked fast: food to eat. Dad too, he must have been hungry.

It was dark by now. He remembered the toilet rolls. In the motel reception office the guy was on the computer. He had a wee pile of books beside him. He must have been a student right enough. Murdo said: We dont have any toilet rolls.

Huh?

I mean like toilet rolls?

You need toilet rolls huh?

Well we dont have any.

The guy turned and opened a cupboard door, withdrew two and gave them to him.

Do we not get any towels?

Huh, you want towels?

Yeah well there arent any.

Okay.

Are we not supposed to get towels?

Sure, yeah. Who's in the room?

Me and my father.

The guy opened the same cupboard door, brought out two towels and handed them across.

Thanks, said Murdo.

Sure.

Back in the room the television was on but he could see Dad had been dozing. Dad yawned, watching him come in the door and carry the towels and toilet rolls into the bathroom. Murdo laid the food and drink along the foot of the single bed then knelt to unlace his boots.

Dad said, Well done son.

The office guy was fine. He just gave me the stuff.

Good, said Dad. What about the shop? How was the walk? Did ye meet anybody?

No.

Dad yawned. Did ye get teabags?

Instead of answering Murdo knelt to retie the bootlaces.

Did ye not get any? asked Dad.

No but I will now, said Murdo, quickly knotting the lace on his left boot.

Dont bother.

No Dad I'll go.

No ye wont.

Dad ye need tea.

I dont.

Ye do.

I dont.

Dad, ye need tea!

Calm down.

But Dad

I dont need tea. We have needs in this life but tea isnay one of them. I'll survive. Dad lifted the towels and toilet paper and entered the bathroom.

Murdo sat a moment then switched on the television. He watched it while preparing the food. When Dad came out the bathroom he saw it on top of the cupboard. Good stuff, he said, well done.

I'll go for tea in the morning, said Murdo.

Dont worry about it.

No, he said, I'll go.

*

Last thing in the evening he went in for a shave. He hadnt done it for a while. The mirror over the washbasin was more a large flat tile but it worked alright for looking into. There were these pimples around his chin. When he shaved the safety-razor cut them, it cut off the tops. The risk was more pimples. The blood out a pimple
caused that to happen. It made them spread. Ye had to be careful if ye scratched them, it could leave scars and brought plooks and boils. Ye were better patting yer face dry with the towel instead of wiping it.

Mum used to give him a separate towel. It was her told him about patting instead of wiping because wiping makes pimples spread. His werent as bad as some. But he didnt have a heavy growth. Some guys did. Dark hair meant ye shaved more. If ye were black ye wouldnt go red at all. How could ye? Then with pimples, probably it disguised them. Ye wouldnt see them as easy if ye were black. He could never imagine that girl in the shop having pimples. Girls get pimples but ye dont think of it. Sarah. It was a good name. He liked her and he could imagine her; she had good lips. People have different lips. He saw his own in the mirror and what did they look like? Thin; thin lips. A guy he knew played the pipes and he had thin lips where ye might have expected thick ones. Because playing the pipes, it was what ye would expect. Some guys were horrible-looking; gross, the worst imaginable. Yet they had girlfriends; wives and children too. So they got kissed. Gay guys kissed each other. Everybody kisses and gets kissed.

When he dried his face there were spots of blood on the towel. The usual wee cuts round his chin and neck. He splashed on the cold water again, patted his chin dry. Dad had the television on when he appeared. He looked over. Murdo said, I was shaving.

Oh.

Murdo shrugged. He sat on the bed with his back to the top end. It was relaxing watching television, except Dad kept the volume low and there were no good programmes and the adverts were like every second minute, the voices droning on, but it was comfy, and thick pillows just like sinking in. Dad woke him later. Ye're better getting inside the sheets, he said.

Murdo undressed and got inside the sheets. A while passed and he was awake again. This time it was the middle of the night. The bedside lamp had been switched off. Although the curtains were
drawn light came through the underside. He thought he heard voices. The television was off. One voice mumbling. Was it Dad? Was he praying? Murdo couldnt tell, not individual words. He didnt want to listen. Dad prayed when Mum died. Murdo didnt – except only before with the pain Mum suffered ye needed to block it out, how she held his hand, gripping it, because with the pain, gripping his middle three fingers like squashing them tight, the pain she was in. Please God make her not in pain, please God. But she was, except with the medication heavier and ye saw her eyes, poor poor Mum, inside her eyes, just like hollow, a hollowness. People said, Oh ye must pray. Murdo tried it before. Not after because what did it matter. People prayed at the funeral. What for? So they wouldnt die? Oh God please make me live forever.

The voice had stopped talking. It must have been Dad. Unless it was Murdo talking out loud. Or in his sleep so he woke himself up. That happened. Dreams woke ye up. Or nightmares. Or something between. Not dreams and not nightmares, and not like wet dreams or whatever, and not music although sometimes music but weird music just like systems and things to do with planets, alien worlds and spirit worlds; worlds for dead people. Stupidities all crowding in, crowding out yer mind; the last nonsense ye heard on television, the more stupid the better. Why did they not just shut up? Some voices Murdo hated and ye wanted to drown them out.

What time was it? Who knows.

Mum and his sister, Eilidh. What world were they in? A spirit world, always surrounding you and you surrounding it. You are within it but they are within you.

*

He was awake early next morning and lay on in bed. Only a minute then he was up and the clothes on. Dad was sleeping. He didnt
want to wake him. The bus was not until mid afternoon so it was okay. Dad liked long lies. The same when Mum was alive, the two of them. There were times they didnt show until after eleven o'clock. It made ye think of something else. So what yer Mum and Dad? if it was sex; sex is sex.

Murdo slugged milk out the fridge and left it at that. Teabags and Sunday breakfast. On his way out he lifted a $10 note from Dad's money and clicked shut the door. With luck he would be there and back before he wakened.

The same five cars in the carpark. A clear blue sky. Already it was warm. So peaceful. What other day could it be but Sunday! Is there something beyond enjoyment! This was more than enjoyment! No cars hardly at all. He was hearing sounds but quiet ones; insects and birds. Definitely. Mum would have loved it.

The sensation that he was seeing everything but nothing was seeing him. The road was here and him walking it. Nobody else. Not Dad and not anybody. He didnt know anybody. He hadnt seen Uncle John and Aunt Maureen since he was a baby. He didnt remember them. Who else? Nobody. Except that lassie in the shop, if ye could say he knew her. But he did. Sarah. And she knew him. Ha ha, it was true, she knew he was Scottish, whatever age she was, maybe older than him, but not much like if she was seventeen; another couple of months and him too. Ye were a man at seventeen. People said that. Sixteen is a boy and seventeen a man. Oh what age are ye? Sixteen. Wait till ye're seventeen.

Would she be there? Maybe. Although late last night and now this morning: that was long hours to work. A girl like her who was very very good-looking and like just very very pretty, she was still a girl working. So if it was long hours that was the job. Otherwise get another. Ye needed money. That was him too, he needed money, he needed to work. So he needed to leave school. Things came back to that. It didnt matter America or Scotland.

He turned off the main road, going along the side street and hearing music, the closer he got, it was accordeon. A waltz. Jeesoh.
People say about their ears playing tricks. With him it was his brains and floating away someplace thinking about whatever he couldnt remember, maybe his sister was there. He never knew until he “woke up”, although he wasnt sleeping.

Murdo and the music. Walking in the beat. The beat was him walking, walking in the rhythm. Going along the street and nobody else. This waltz playing; a nice one with a real good feel, that proper rhythm there for the dance; relaxed, yeah, that was the swing, doodilladooo. That feeling too he had been here already. Or was here already. Not talking about last night.

He approached the shop. It was open. Nobody at the entrance porch. Instead of stepping onto that he kept walking, following the music round the side of the building. A few trees were here, scrawny ones. He stayed behind them, so they wouldnt see him. An old lady, the accordeon player, sitting on a chair wearing a big hat and the girl out the shop – Sarah from last night – playing washboard, stepping from foot to foot. Another lady sat next to her, not as old, but quite old.

The old lady and the girl, it was great seeing them, something just beautiful about it, seeing the two of them there in the music. The accordeon itself; cream-coloured and as fancy as ye ever would see, light glinting in the morning sun, and that brilliant sound! What a sound! That was special. That was so special.

And the girl scrubbed it along facing the old lady who nodded her head on that two three beat rhythm, glancing around at the folk watching, smiling a little but only in the music, like how some musicians did that even when their eyes were shut. This lady kept on looking, seeing the people watching, keeping her eye on them. Murdo liked that. This was
her
playing,
she
was playing. She had her way and there she was.