Stonemouth

We all got in. I was sat in the middle in the back, surrounded by prime Murstonian beef. They closed all the doors and turned to me: Fraser and Callum in the back bracketing me, Murdo and Norrie in the front, glaring over the head restraints. The thing wasn’t even right-hand drive.

Fraser had been driving a chipped and winged Nissan GT-R until recently. He’d knocked down and killed a teenager two years earlier, on a slip road onto the bypass. He got off the careless driving charge — he’d been straight and just under the legal alcohol limit, while the kid he’d hit had been high as a kite — but then the victim’s family had started a civil suit against him. They were new to the area and weren’t to know any better. Some people expected the worst, even when the family lost the court case, but all Fraser did was have the GT-R fully repaired except for the big dent in the bonnet where the kid’s head had hit. He kept that car with its fatal impact crater in the metalwork as a sort of grisly souvenir for nearly two years, and claimed he drove down the street where the kid had lived — and her family still did — every day, just on principle.

‘Now then, Stewart,’ Murdo said.

He was the eldest, the spokesman and reputedly the smartest of the four. He had a short, well-kept beard, fair-haired. Callum had designer stubble and the two younger brothers, both redheads, were clean shaven. I wondered if there was some sort of hierarchy of age-related hirsuteness in the Murston family.

‘We thought we should let you know, the four of us, how we feel about our sister an that, eh?’ Murdo said, to a sort of mini Murston Mexican Wave of nods. ‘Callum here’s put in a good word for you,’ he told me. A good word? I thought. After me cultivating the numpty’s unrewarding friendship for almost the whole of High School? Thanks.

‘An Grandpa,’ Fraser said to Murdo. ‘Him too.’

Murdo nodded. ‘Aye, an Grandpa. He speaks well of you, an that’s all good as far as it goes, eh? But you need to know what she means to this family, aye?’

Murdo looked round at the others. They all nodded again. All four were wearing new jeans — with what looked suspiciously like ironed-in creases — and padded tartan shirts over different designer tees. The tartan shirts were pretty bulky. It was like being intimidated by a convention of Highland hotel sofas.

‘You better no be, like, f … havin fuckin sex wi her,’ Norrie said, frowning mightily at me.

‘Shut up, Norrie,’ Callum said.

Murdo sighed. ‘Get real, Norrie.’

‘Aye, gie yersel peace,’ Fraser chipped in.

Norrie dealt with this concerted disapproval by intensifying his frown.

‘Guys,’ I said, ‘I love the lassie; have for years. Last thing I want—’

‘Aye, aye,’ Murdo said, like he’d heard all this before, or it just didn’t matter. ‘But your da’s best pals wi Mike Mac, an that puts a different kind of complexion on it a bit, eh? I mean, like, who knows, eh? That might no be so bad. But on the other hand it might, so we’ll just have to see, eh?’

Maybe he thought I was looking confused at all this suddenly perceived complexity. ‘But never mind all that,’ he told me. ‘Just you remember: she’s oor sister. We look after our own in this family, okay?’

‘Okay, guys; of course.’

‘We don’t want to see her get hurt, like,’ Norrie said. The others looked at him.

‘Aye,’ Murdo said. ‘An she’s part of this family. An no cunt insults this family, understand?’

‘Of course I—’ I began.

‘You insult her or take the fuckin piss,’ Murdo said, ignoring me, ‘an you’re takin the piss oot of us too. You’re insultin oor da, right?’

‘Right!’ said Callum.

‘Don’t want to insult anybody, guys,’ I told them. I looked round at them all. ‘I respect Ellie. I respect the family. Want you to know that, guys. Okay?’ I nodded, sincerely. Like I say, I’d kind of anticipated a wee talk like this, so I’d rehearsed this series of short, easily understood sentences. All true, too, though a good advocate, barrister or whatever could argue that when I said I respected the family, what I actually meant was that I respected the abstract idea of the family, not the Murston clan in its current incarnation per se. Something like that.

‘Okay,’ Norrie said, looking almost mollified.

‘Make sure it stays that way, eh, Stewie?’ Callum said. He winked at me. Aye, fuck you, I thought, but smiled back.

‘Aye,’ Fraser muttered.

‘Okay,’ Murdo said, draining his can. ‘Team talk over. Time to get pished.’ He crushed the empty can in his hand. A tiny dribble of beer leaked out onto the upholstery.

‘No on the good seats!’ Fraser protested, rubbing the resulting micro stain with his fingers, making it worse. (Not leather, either; some sort of pinprick-pierced vinyl made to look like leather. A bit.)

As they all started opening the doors, Murdo nodded, indicating something just behind me. ‘Mind yer heid on the gun-rack as you get out, eh, Stu?’