sick; he said he was infected with reason. I said Reason was his God, and it was false; it was the true idol.’ Hamish sighed. ‘The street was wet; there had been rain. I remember noticing that ... Kenneth shouted at me, told me...’ Hamish shook his head. ‘... he said; “Hamish; all the gods are false. Faith itself is idolatry.”’
Uncle Hamish swivelled his big, grey head and gazed gloomily at me. His eyes looked cold and jelly-like; they reminded me of frog-spawn discovered in some ditch. ‘“All the gods are false. Faith itself is idolatry,”’ Uncle Hamish breathed, staring at me. I shivered. ‘Can you credit that, Prentice?’ He looked down, away from me, shaking his head.
Hamish returned his gaze to the puzzle tray. His thumbs kept circling. ‘I can’t remember exactly what he said,’ Hamish whispered, and then sighed. ‘But he jumped off the wall and ran over to the church. He started climbing.’
I heard my mother sob once, very quietly.
‘I had to climb over the wall,’ Hamish breathed, ‘Gate was locked. By the time I got there he was out of reach. I thought he was shinning up a drainpipe. Just assumed. Heard rumbles, I think, but ... didn’t think anything of it. No flashes, that I can remember. Kenneth was yelling and swearing and shouting imprecations; calling down all sorts of punishment; I was trying to get him to come down; told him he’d fall; told him the police were coming; told him to think of his family. But he kept climbing.’
I studied my hands in the pink-tinged light, turning them over and looking at the lines on my palm, the veins on the back. I tried to imagine dad, climbing up that tower, hauling himself up, hand over hand, sweating and straining in the darkness, trusting to his own strength and the cool metal strip beneath his hands.
The block beneath me was silent now; the last of the waves had retreated from it and were breaking further down the beach as the tide went out. The sky was still gaudy with crimson clouds, though much of the brightness had gone. I glanced at my watch. I ought to be jumping down off this thing and heading back to the road; it was a rough hike over the headland, and dangerous in the dark. But the red streaks of the clouds were dissolving as the sunset went on, leaving the sky clear above me. This near the centre of the year, on a clear night, it would never get totally dark. I had a while yet, but I wouldn’t leave it too late; mum would worry. That would just be the cherry on it, me taking the Crow Road too.
Uncle Hamish took another sip of his tea, frowned at the cup and spat the tea back into it. ‘Cold,’ he said apologetically to his wife. He dabbed at his lips with his handkerchief. I realised only then I hadn’t touched the cup that Aunt Tone had poured for me.
Hamish went on: ‘There was a very strange noise, a sort of humming noise seemed to come from under my feet, from the stones of the church. Couldn’t work out what it was, thought it was the drink or just the effect of looking up like that, craning my neck. But it wouldn’t go away, and it got louder and I felt my hair stand on end. I shouted up to Kenneth; he was about half-way up, still climbing. Then there was a flash, a blinding flash.
‘Saw a glowing red line in front of me, like a vein of burning blood, like lava, in front of me. Noise terrific. Smell of sulphur; something of that nature; smell of the devil, though I think that was just coincidence. Fell down. Half blind, thought a bomb had gone off. Heard ringing, like the church bells all going on at once.’ Uncle Hamish went to sip from his tea again, then thought the better of it and put the cup back on the saucer. ‘Realised it had been lightning. I still couldn’t believe it; found Kenneth behind me, lying on the grass and a sort of slab thing, over a grave. Hands burned. Been climbing the lightning conductor, blew him off. Don’t know if that would have killed him, but he’d landed on the stone. Dead. Blood from his head.’ Hamish looked slowly over at mum, who was crying silently. ‘Sorry,’ he told her.
She didn’t say anything.
‘Idiot,’ I whispered, sitting there