Stonemouth Read Online Free PDF

T-shirt. He’s stomping around on a giant mat with flashing coloured splodges all over it like some demented version of Twister, working out to what looks like some weird knock-off version of Dance Challenge, facing the biggest plasma screen I’ve ever seen and trying to follow the steps of a dancing pink dragon. The tiny wee man from Paisley Park is crooning something about how money don’t matter tonight while Mr M tries to synch his shapes. This must just be coincidence; I never had the Don down as an ironicist.
    He glances at me. ‘Aye. It’s yourself, Stewart.’
    Hard to argue with that. I nod, though he isn’t looking at me. ‘Evening, Mr M.’
    ‘Too feart to call me Donald these days, eh, Stewart?’
    Five years ago I’d have been all defensive or denying after a remark like that, talking away and saying Certainly not, just been a while, not wanting to take anything for granted, you know… or gone the other way and said Hell, yeah, utterly terrified; you’d be able to hear my knees knocking if the music wasn’t so loud. Now I’m the wrong side of twenty-five – if only just – so I’m practically grizzled. Anyway I know when to shut up and say nothing. So that’s what I do. Mustn’t forget I’m here on sufferance, to bend the knee, kiss the ring, whatever. All the same, I smile a little, just to show I’m not
that
intimidated, if he looks at me.
    After a little while, though, when he still doesn’t look at me or say anything, I say, ‘So how are you, Donald?’
    He holds up one hand to me, wordlessly concentrating on his steps as the song comes to its end. When it stops he taps a small black circle in the corner of the mat, freezing the screen and pausing the next song before it can start. He turns to me, grabs a fluffy white towel from the back of a white leather recliner. ‘Bearing up, Stewart. We’ll all miss the old guy.’
    ‘Aye,well, I was sorry to hear. He had a—’
    ‘Still, we all have our time, don’t we?’ he says.
    ‘I suppose,’ I say.
    Mr M nods, and inspects me, taking his time to look me down and up as he towels off round his face and neck. Mr M is fifty or so but in reasonable shape for a man of his age; I’m guessing he still swims in the pool and uses all the gym gear cluttering this end of the pool complex. He’s got the dark-sand hair of most of the Murstons, a pale complexion and big dark brown eyes (though not as big and brown as Ellie’s). Stubby nose, broken from his days as a boxer in the Youth Club. Full lips (though not as full as – well, you get the idea). Bit of a barrel chest: long back, short legs. He doesn’t look that menacing, but there you go; doesn’t wear a black hat, either.
    The Murstons were poor farmers just two generations ago, then some arguably (depends who you talk to) shady deals with other farmers in the area made them not-so-poor farmers. Their real fortune came from timber first, then peat. Now they have a thriving road haulage business and an extensive regional property portfolio. The machine harvesting of peat in the great bogs that start twenty kilometres to the north-west still represent the family’s main business. In theory.
    He nods, inspection finished. ‘Done all right for yourself, Stewart?’
    ‘I—’ I begin.
    ‘Or just putting on an act, eh, dressing up?’
    The breath I was going to use to speak sort of collapses out of me, but I smile as tolerantly as I can. ‘I’m doing okay.’
    ‘What is it you do, anyway?’
    ‘Lighting.’
    ‘Lighting?’ He frowns. At this point, people usually ask whether I mean stage lighting, or selling table lamps in B&Q. Donald, however, just keeps frowning.
    ‘Buildings,’ I tell him. ‘Commercial, public; some industrial. Occasional private commission. Exteriors, mostly.’
    ‘Lighting,’he says. He does not look especially impressed.
    ‘Aye, lighting.’ The look he’s giving me, I’m starting to get unimpressed with it myself.
    His eyes narrow a little. ‘How’d