with his free hand. ‘Bye, daddy,’ the wee voice said. Then he was pulled out of the room.
‘Bye, son,’ McHoan said, and smiled. Then he turned back to the window and the rain.
‘It’s a bit damp still.’
‘Ach, yer no afraid of a bit a wet, ur ye? Yer no a girrul ur ye?’
‘No I’m not a girl. But if I get my clothes mucky -’
‘Your dad’s rich; he can buy you new clothes.’
‘Aye; yer paw’s rich. You could probably have new claes every day if you wantit.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. All I’m saying -’
Kenneth could see both points of view; Lachy, in a grimy shirt held together by odd buttons and a safety pin, and tattered, patched short trousers that drooped below his knees and had probably belonged to at least two elder brothers, was already grubby (and sporting the vivid remains of a black eye no one had mentioned because it had probably been his dad who gave it him). Fergus had nice, well-fitting clothes on: grey serge short trousers, a new blue jersey and a tweed jacket with leather patches sewn on the elbows. Even Kenneth felt a little dowdy in comparison. His shorts had been darned at the back, though he was getting a new pair when the next clothes rations came through. The girls all wore skirts, blouses and jerseys; their socks were white, not grey. Emma Urvill had a coat with a little hood that made her look like a pixie.
‘Are we playing this game or not?’ she asked.
‘Patience,’ Lachy said, turning to the girl, still standing holding her bike. ‘Patience, lassie.’
Emma looked skywards and made a tutting noise. Beside her, Kenneth’s sister, Ilsa, also on her bike, shook her head.
The castle stood on the side of the hill. The tall trees around it were still dripping, and its rough, uneven stones were dark and wet from the rain that had not long stopped. A watery sun gleamed on the dark leaves of the ivy that clung to one side of the ruin, and in the forest behind, a wood pigeon cooed softly.
‘Oh, what the heck,’ Fergus Urvill said, and rested his bike against a tree.
Lachy Watt let his bike fall to the ground. Kenneth lowered his to the damp grass alongside. The girls propped theirs against the wooden rails at the start of the bridge. The short wooden bridge, about wide enough for a cart, crossed a steep, bush-choked gully about thirty feet deep. At the bottom of this tiny, dank glen a burn splashed and foamed; it rushed out of the woods, curled round three sides of the rock and grass knoll the roofless castle stood upon, fell over a small waterfall, then progressed gently afterwards, joining the River Add near the main road, so that eventually its waters flowed through and beneath the town of Gallanach and into the bay near the railway pier.
Sun came suddenly, making the grass bright and the ivy leaves sparkle; the wind pushed through the forest with a quiet roar, releasing drops of water all around. Kenneth watched a train on the viaduct at Bridgend, about a mile away; the west wind was keeping its noise from them, but he could see the steam rising quickly from the dark locomotive and whipping back over the half-dozen burgundy coaches in little white clouds that spread and were torn apart and flung away by the wind.
‘Right,’ Lachy said. ‘Who’s het?’
‘Het?’ Fergus said. ‘You mean “it”?’
‘You know what ah mean; who’s goin het first?’
‘Do One potato, Two potato,’ suggested Emma.
‘Oh Goad, all right,’ Lachy said, shaking his head.
‘And you shouldn’t take the Lord’s name in vain,’ Emma told him.
‘Christ, Ah’m sorry,’ Lachy said.
‘You did it again.’
‘You a Tim or sumhin?’
‘I’m a Christian,’ Emma said primly. ‘And I thought you were, too, Lachlan Watt.’
‘Ah’m a Protestant,’ Lachy said. ‘That’s what am are.’
‘Can we get on with this, please?’ Ilsa said.
They all lined up, fists clenched; Lachy ended up being it, much to his own annoyance.
Kenneth had never been inside the old castle; you could just see it from the house, if you knew what you were looking for, and you could see it quite well if you used dad’s binoculars, but it was on the Urvill estate, and even though their families had been friends for years - generations, dad said, which meant even longer - Mr Robb, on whose farm the castle stood, didn’t like children, and chased them off his fields and out of his woods whenever he could, threatening