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know up in the forest you sometimes see those things for beating out fires?'
'The big flappy things?'
'Yes; they're big bits of rubber - old tyres - attached to wooden handles, for
beating out fires on the ground. Well, in the old days, those used to be made
from twigs, and even longer ago people used to use brooms like that to sweep
the streets and even to sweep their houses. Not all that long ago, either; I
can remember seeing a man sweeping the paths in the park in Gallanach with a
broom like that, when I was older than either of you are now.'
'Ah, but dad, you're ancient!'
'Ha ha ha ha!'
'That's enough. Now listen; about these brooms, right?'
'What?'
'What, dad?'
The man who had been a rich merchant, and who was now a beggar, had to make
brooms for the town. He had a little hut with a stone floor, and a supply of
handles and twigs. But to teach the man a lesson they had given him a supply
of twigs that were old and weak; poor twigs for making brooms with.
'So, by the time he had made one broom the floor of the hut was covered in
bits of twigs, and he had to use the broom he'd just made to sweep the floor
of his hut clean before he could start making the next broom. But by the time
he'd cleaned the floor to his satisfaction, the broom had worn right away,
right down to the handle. So he had to start on another one. And the same
thing happened with that broom, too. And the next, and the next; the mess made
making each broom had to be cleared up with that same broom, and wore it away.
So at the end of the day there was a great big pile of twigs outside the hut,
but not one broom left.'
'That's silly!'
'That's a waste, sure it is, dad?'
'Both. But the people had done it to teach the man a lesson.'
'What lesson, dad?'
'Ah-hah. You'll have to work that out for yourselves.'
'Aw, dad!'
'Dad, I know!'
'What?' Kenneth asked Prentice.
'Not to be so damn silly!'
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Kenneth laughed. He reached up and ruffled Prentice's hair in the
semi-darkness; the boy's head was hanging out over the top bunk. 'Well,
maybe,' he said.
'Dad,' James said from the lower bunk. 'What happened to the merchant?'
Kenneth sighed, scratched his bearded chin. 'Well, some people say he died in
the town, always trying to make a broom that would last; others say he just
gave up and wasted away, others that he got somebody else to make the brooms
and found somebody to provide better twigs, and got people to sell the brooms
in other towns and cities, and hired more people to make more brooms, and
built a broom-making factory, and made lots of money and had a splendid house
made . . . And other people say he just lived quietly in the town after
learning his lesson. That's a thing about stories, sometimes; they have
different endings according to who you listen to, and some have sort of open
endings, and some don't actually have proper endings yet.'
'Aw, but dad . . . '
'But one thing's definite.'
'What, dad?'
'It's light-out time.'
'Aw. . . '
'Night-night.'
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'Night, dad.'
'Yeah; night.'
'Sleep tight.'
'Don't let the bugs bite.'
'Right. Now lie down properly; noddles on pillows.'
He made sure they were both tucked in and went to the door. The night-light
glowed softly on the top of the chest of drawers.
'Okay . . . Dad?'
'What?'
'Did the man not have any family, dad?' Prentice asked. 'In the story: the
merchant. Did he not have any family?'
'No,' Kenneth said, holding the door open. 'He did, once, but he threw them
out of his house;
he thought he wasted too much time telling his two youngest sons bed-time
stories.'
'Aww. . . '
'Aww. . . '
He smiled, padded back into the room, kissed the boys' foreheads. 'But then he
was a silly man, wasn't he?'
*
They left Margot to look after the children and set off in the car, heading
for Gallanach. Kenneth smiled when he saw the hand-painted sign at the
outskirts of the village that said, 'Thank You.'
'What are you grinning at?' Mary asked him. She was bending down in her seat,
staring into the little mirror that hinged up from the glove-box flap,
inspecting her lip-stick.
'Just that sign,' he said. 'The one that goes with the Slow Children sign at
the other end of the village.'
'Huh,' Mary said. 'Slow children, indeed. I hope you weren't telling my bairns
horrible stories that'll keep them awake all night.'
'Na ' he said. The Volvo estate accelerated down the straight through the
forest towards Port
Ann. 'Though maggoty meat and people with one eye did come into it at one
point.
'Hmm,' Mary said. She snapped the glove-box closed. 'I heard Lachy Watt's back
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in the town; is that true?'
'Apparently.' Kenneth rotated his shoulders as he drove, trying to ease the
nagging pain in them that too much drink the night before always seemed to
give him these days.
They had spent Hogmanay at home, welcoming the groups of people roaming the
village as they came round. The last revellers had finally been seen off at
nine in the morning; they and Margot had done some cleaning up before going to
bed, though Ken had anyway had a couple of hours' sleep between three and
five, when he'd fallen into a deep slumber on the wicker couch in the
conservatory. The boys had gone out to play on the forestry tracks with their
new bikes on what had proved a bright but cold day; Mary had got three hours'
sleep before they came back, noisily demanding to be fed.
'Haven't seem him for . . . what? Ten years?' Mary said. 'Has he been away at
sea all that time?'
'Well, hardly,' Ken said. 'He was in Australia, wasn't he? Settled down there
for a while. Had some sort of job in Sydney, I heard.'
'What was he doing?'
'Don't know; you could ask him yourself. Supposed to be coming to Hamish and
Tone's shindig tonight.' [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]