Poor Mum.
Murdo thought things that were totally private. Nobody ever got to know. Not even himself in a weird way. It all mixed in without working it out. Then later something came out. Maybe while he was sleeping. Not dreams, just whatever. Thoughts working their way through. Sometimes he got angry and shouldnt have.
It was just life. Dad met Mum; if he hadnt Murdo and Eilidh wouldnt have been there. Different parents different children.
*
Early next morning Murdo heard the gravel crunch beneath the wheels of the 4x4, then it had gone. Uncle John was on his way to work. Murdo lifted his jacket and walked upstairs, collecting his boots from the rug at the front door, treading past Dad’s bedroom and through into the dining area. He tried to unlock the dining room exit to the patio but it wasnt locked. He opened it and stepped outside. Aunt Maureen was there in the garden. Hey Murdo!
Aunt Maureen! I’m just going a walk.
You’re early?
So are you!
Huh…? Oh, Mister Impatient!
“Mister Impatient” was one of her names for Uncle John. Most every morning Aunt Maureen was up along with Uncle John and sat with him before he went to work. Murdo hadnt thought of that.
He intended walking in a square. The streets roundabout were wide and straight, up and down and side by side, so it was easy walking. The houses neat with trimmed grass lawns, no front hedges. The lawns stretched to the kerb at the edge of the pavement, if ye could call it a pavement; the grass came right down to the kerb. It was like walking on somebody’s grass. Uncle John said about a boy getting shot dead for crossing somebody’s garden. That was hard to avoid. If ye didnt walk on their grass ye would have had to walk on the street.
Surely that was wrong? If there was no actual pavement. Beneath the kerb was a curved drop and a stank to fend off a torrent of water, for when they had floods. Flash floods. They spoke about them on the Weather Channel.
While he was walking a pick-up truck backed out of a driveway. A big man in a check shirt was at the wheel. Murdo had to stop in his tracks to let the guy out. The guy looked at him as if it was Murdo’s fault. On the main road only a few cars passed. A woman walking a dog. Another woman walking a dog. No sign of a bus-stop. If there was a local bus it maybe would go into the city centre. From there there would be buses to everywhere.
It was so peaceful! Then a sudden feeling that he liked it here. Nobody knew ye. They didnt know ye were alive. They hardly even saw ye. It was like a new life! He was on his own and going about. Whatever it was, whatever he did, it was him. That was the feeling. This was the outside world.
Although in a weird way it wasnt. Because he was here. It was an outside world but he was in it. The inside world was in his head. Nobody went in there but him. Murdo grinned: a song in his head, a great one by Beau Jocque.
Ah forty down, a forty down,
a forty down down down down down
dig it down
It was true but Alabama and here he was. It was him and nobody else. Only Beau Jocque, and his brilliant band, swinging along.
Murdo chuckled. So if he was here so was Sarah because it was her gave him the compilation.
He just felt good. So good. Life was good. It was his life.
The idea of that: whatever, just whatever! Where was the accordeon, he needed the accordeon!
True but, ha ha. Back home he would have played! He needed to play, he was wanting to play, he was going to play, and with Queen Monzee-ay. And would tell Dad. He needed to tell him.
He strode on now, power-walking round the block and there was Aunt Maureen’s house in whatever — half an hour?
He walked along the driveway to enter the back door. Aunt Maureen had gone. For breakfast he lifted two bananas, poured a glass of milk, returned downstairs, opened the Road Atlas. Chattanooga wasnt far, if ye had to go through it by bus then it was a case of taking a right into the state of Georgia, over the mountains.
He needed money. Not a lot. He didnt like asking Dad for anything, but that was that and he would have to.
Two accordeons made it special. They got that deep-sounding full thing that can be the best. Ye clenched yer fist thinking about it, and ye could feel it in the big muscle at the top of yer arm. Ye got that tension, a quivering feel to it. Dreams are dreams but this could happen. It was up to Murdo. Queen Monzee-ay knew he could do it. Of course he could. Ye just did it. Ye went ahead and ye did it.
Ye got the lead in and it was fine. By the weekend after next Murdo would have the set in his head. Then with the box. As soon as he got the box. He needed to get the fingers moving. Some proper playing. It would come. But the sooner he had a box the better. That pawnshop in Allentown. Maybe there was one in Chattanooga, or in Huntsville. Buying one out a pawnshop was okay. If it played it played. Ye tried it first. Ye would never buy one without playing it. Especially an accordeon, it would be bloody useless, like it had to be ready so if the reeds needed cleaning, there was no time for anything. A special glue, beeswax. The wax of a bee.
That was life. Everything for something.
There was nothing to worry about. Queen Monzee-ay knew. As soon as she heard him play. Even before! She said she knew when she saw him standing beside the tree! That is the truth! She said that. Just the way he was watching. But that was true. Watching means taking it all in. Ye see the person and then ye watch him. Oh there he is! Ye see the whole person. So watching means seeing all the bits and pieces; how he stands, how he moves, how he listens, how he looks. Queen Monzee-ay saw all that.
She was lead so he was playing to her. Relax, settle down. Then if she asked him for one. Probably she would. In Allentown for the first time he played “Blue Skirt Waltz”. How come? Just because turquoise, that was the accordeon. Then for a girl, a blue skirt dancing. Put on yer blue skirt and dance. Girls dance in that certain way. When ye see a girl’s legs, a girl is dancing and there are her legs. Murdo liked to see them. That is that, just the legs dancing, there is the girl, her legs, look! Jees! Beautiful legs didnt go on and on until one peak, if they were beautiful then that was the peak, that was like music where one thing was this and another thing was that but how could a polka be better than a waltz! it was just the most idiotic thing could be said. A girl’s legs were beautiful but hers were more and hers over there were more and more; that was like beautiful legs + 1, beautiful legs + 2; just stupid nonsense, so three legs were better than two. Daft stuff.
*
Aunt Maureen had come from the house carrying a tray and called to Murdo who was sunbathing at the rear of the garden, lying on his front on the beach towel and reading the Road Atlas book. He had left the hi-fi in the room. There was a cable and lead that would have stretched back into the house, although Dad was there. Anyway, the book, it was just amazing like how ye could trace all where the roads went and the land between and even the distances, it told ye some and ye could work out others, and follow roads all the way up or else across. If ye stayed on the Interstate 75 ye landed way up in Detroit or else the other way it was down the very southernmost tip of America in a place called Mangrove Swamp. What a road! That was interstates. Roads going inbetween all the states. That one was like all the way north to all the way south.