‘I’m sorry, the pop group Travis,’ he continued. ‘My knowledge of pop is more than a little suspect at the best of times.’
The reaction to his joke would not have been out of place at the Cenotaph at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. The silence brought a cold sweat to his brow. The congregation were clearly against him but he steeled himself to struggle on, feeling that the next item might win them round. ‘As Ian was taken from us at such an early age we are going to break with the traditional service at this time to listen to Ian's’ favourite recording of… Travis. Some of his classmates have brought along a CD player and will play the song for us.’
Two High School pupils, a boy and a girl, wearing school blazers and exuding the air of being responsible young people, moved out from the end of a pew and were escorted by an elder to a position to the right of McNish where they set up the player. They got up, folded their hands behind their backs and stood there with bowed heads as the music started.
McNish kept his eyes firmly fixed on the boarded — up window as the sound of Travis singing, ‘You’re driftwood, floating on the water,’ filled the church. He felt his buttocks clench and his toes curl under his feet in total embarrassment as the awful irony came to him.
McNish fudged his way through to the end of the service and joined the family in the first car behind the hearse for the short trip up to Canal Field Cemetery. He could feel their disappointment at his dismal performance although they said nothing — maybe because they said nothing. He desperately wanted everything to be over but he knew there was a bit to go yet. There were so many following along behind on foot that there would be a considerable wait by the graveside before the actual burial could commence.
McNish found himself a clod of earth to concentrate his gaze on while people gathered round the site of the excavated grave. The coffin sat on two rough wooden supports over the hole until such times as they would be removed and it would be lowered down into the opening by the council gravediggers with relatives holding symbolic cords.
The fading of murmured conversation told him that everyone had now arrived and were now waiting for him to begin. He took up stance beside the coffin and began reading the burial service. ‘Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to…’ He froze in abject horror when he saw a rat jump up on to the lid of the coffin and sit there staring at him. Several mourners screamed and two women turned to flee in blind panic.
For McNish, it was the final straw. He lost the place completely and a red mist swam before his eyes and he swung out at the creature with his prayer book, shouting — almost screaming at the top of his voice, ‘Fil-thy — fuck-ing thing! Get to fuck out of it, you verminous little bastard!’
The frightened animal leapt from the coffin and ran off through a gap that opened up in front of it as if by magic as people leapt out of its way.
McNish, totally out of control, threw his prayer book after it along with another volley of abuse. Worse still, he lost his footing on the wet grass and tumbled backwards to fall down beside the maw of the waiting grave. His vestments rode up exposing his Doc Martins to public view as he clutched desperately at one of the wooden coffin supports to prevent himself sliding into the hole. Council workers rushed to his aid and hoisted him back on to his feet where he stood, breathing deeply and staring down at the earth, his ears burning.
‘Can you go on, minister?’ asked a voice at his elbow.
After a few more deep breaths, McNish nodded. Someone tentatively handed him his prayer book, as if not wanting to come too close. The book itself was badly torn and covered in mud. ‘Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live…’ he continued.
McNish was acutely aware of being given lots of space as the burial came to an end and people turned to leave. The family in particular were avoiding him so he chose to walk back to the manse on his own, rather than ride in the car in deafening silence. He recognised that he was now going to be the main topic of conversation at the family gathering, which he had pointedly not been invited back to. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. The only thing he wanted right now was a drink, several drinks, as many as it took to stop the pain inside his head.
The remains of the vodka bottle in the sideboard lasted less than a minute and was followed by a frantic search for another which he felt sure was somewhere in the house but just for the moment, he couldn’t think where. He knew that he’d put it somewhere where that damned nosy cleaner wouldn’t come across it, but just where exactly that was…
He remembered now. He’d put it under the artificial straw in the Christmas crib, which was stored in the small back bedroom. He staggered through and retrieved it from under the baby Jesus to greedily slug from it before returning to sit down in the dining room at the table and going over in his mind all that had happened that morning. Christ! There had even been photographers there, he remembered. They had been hanging back, keeping in the background but he distinctly remembered seeing the long lenses of their cameras when the car had turned in through the cemetery gates. His nightmare was going to be all over the papers. ‘A fucking rat,’ he murmured. ‘A dirty little fucking rat.’
McNish rose from the table unsteadily and staggered over to the fireplace where he picked up a heavy brass poker. ‘Destroy me, would you? You verminous little fuckers! We’ll see about that.’
Amazingly, no one noticed McNish weave his way back up the road to Canal Field Cemetery and climb up on to the canal towpath behind. Perhaps they were all staying indoors out of respect for the Ferguson family or maybe some did see him but chose not to say anything about it. The Scots were as good as anyone at not seeing what they found embarrassing.
McNish staggered along the towpath at the back of Peat Ridge Farm, waving the poker above his head and challenging rats in a loud voice to come out and get what was coming to them. He stopped when he saw one run out from the rape field and pause in the middle of the towpath. He became convinced in his own booze-addled mind that this was the one that had jumped up on the boy's coffin and brought about his nemesis. He became hell bent on revenge.
‘Here, ratty watty… here, ratty watty. Come to daddy… there’s a good ratty watty.’ McNish inched closer while the rat watched him.
‘There’s a good little… Bastard!’ McNish launched himself at the rat and went all his length as he brought the poker down with all his might but only to make contact with a large flat stone. The pain shot up his arm and brought tears to his eyes as he lay there, close to despair. When his vision had cleared of tears he saw that the rat had not run off. It was sitting there looking at him.
‘Why you filthy, fucking…’ He paused when he saw that there were now two of them and blinked to make sure it wasn’t just his eyesight. He scrabbled in the dirt with his right hand, searching for his glasses, which had come off in the fall. He made contact with them and put them back on, clumsily forcing them up his nose with the heel of his hand. There were two. Fear entered the equation. This just wasn’t how it should be.
McNish backed away a little and tried to get up into a kneeling position. He needed to find the poker. He would feel better with the poker in his hand but it had flown off somewhere when he’d hit the stone and he couldn’t see it. ‘Shoo, you bastards,’ he said, waving his hands at them but the rats didn’t move.
Fear was having a sobering effect on him. Rats were supposed to run off when you challenged them.