Free Descent by Ken MacLeod Page A

and tax forms and the like, fucking ancient. The spring can only just hold them in. He clicks it back and under a wadge ae papers there’s this big thick heavy book. Leather binding, kindae frayed around the edges. Tiny flecks ae gold at the top of the spine, but nae title left tae read.
    ‘So he opens it and the pages are aw white-looking, and its full ae tiny writing or printing and wee drawings, swords and battles and kindae Gandalf-looking geezers wi robes and beards. And he flicks through tae near the back and there’s dragons and burning cities and then there’s this picture.
    ‘“Whit’s this,” I says, looking down at it, “some kindae Grey alien?” And the old man gies me a smack upside the head – no hard like, it’s his way ae showing affection – and tells me that’s what the gadgies call them, but we should show more respect, so we call them the Fine.’
    ‘The Fine?’ I pronounced it ‘feenih’, suddenly feeling clever. ‘Meaning “the people”, like in the Gaelic?’
    ‘No,’ said Calum. ‘Like in the English. Fine, as in fine folk.’
    ‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘If he said “the gadgies” then …’
    I didn’t quite want to say it.
    ‘Oh, aye,’ said Calum. ‘There’s a bit ae the travelling folk in us Williamsons, nae doubt about it, though it’s generations since we settled down. That’s no a secret, though my ma tries to keep quiet about it.’
    He looked at me curiously. We’d done almost a circuit of the field, and the bell would soon ring. ‘You never knew?’
    ‘To tell you the truth,’ I said, ‘if I ever thought about it I sort of vaguely assumed there was a touch of the Pure Race in your family, maybe a Black American soldier or African sailor or something, like Sophie’s great-grand-dad or whatever.’
    Calum clapped my shoulder. ‘That’s touching,’ he said. ‘Nah, we’re tinks, way back. Anyhow, like I say, no secret. What my da told me might be, though. In fact it is. He damn near swore me to secrecy, though maybe not quite, so I’m going to fucking swear you before I say any mair.’
    I laughed. ‘What do you want me to swear on? The Bible?
The Origin of Species
?’
    Calum looked as if he were considering this carefully. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘That’ll do.’
    ‘OK. I swear by God and Darwin I won’t repeat what you’re going to tell me.’
    (I’m now of course breaking this oath, but I expect God and Darwin will forgive me. As Roy Batty might have put it, it’s nothing that the god of evolution would keep me out of heaven for.)
    ‘He telt me the book was handed down through the family from way, way back, hundreds ae years like, from when the Romanies were in Romania, or wherever the fuck they came fae. He’s no saying
we’re
Roma, by the way. Our branch ae the Williamsons are unquestionably tinks fae Ireland, surviving camp-followers ae Bonnie Prince Charlie’s army according tae family legend, but beyond that there’s some Spanish connection, via a shipwrecked Armada sailor as the story goes, back tae where some Romany rover had his way. So there’s just a wee drap ae authentic Gypsy blood in our ancestry, which I can believe well enough. And the book, handed down in secret.’
    ‘Why secret?’
    ‘He said in the old days folks could get burned if they got caught wi it. Naebody kens any more what the book is. Naebody kens what language it’s in, or how tae read the funny lettering, or even what the lettering is. Couldnae make head nor tail of it myself. Maybe in the old days they could read it, or somebody they kent could, the family itself having aw been fucking illiterate until some time after the 1872 Education Act. They must hae hung on tae the book wi’ nae clue as tae what it said. Some ancient work ae magic or lore or whitever, that’s what he reckons it is.’
    ‘And he keeps it on a shelf in the garage?’
    ‘Safest place for it. Who’s going to steal old receipts?’
    ‘Point,’ I admitted.
    Calum shook his