No Great Mischief

Following Calum’s conviction, Alex’s brothers go their separate ways. One drives a school bus, while the other goes to Scotland, where he meets a man at a train station who recognizes his heritage and offers him work on a fish farm.

Alex’s Grandpa dies from jumping up in the air and trying to click his heels together twice. His grandfather dies while reading a book on the history of the Scottish Highlands. Alex is appointed as the executor of his will and splits up the estate between the various grandchildren. His Grandma lives to be 110 and works hard until the end, eventually moving into a nursing home. When Alex visits her, she forgets herself and speaks about her family as though he were a stranger. She recounts her whole life for him, and they sing together in Gaelic. When Alex reveals that he is her grandson, she laughs and tells him that her grandson is 1,000 miles away and that she would recognize him anywhere in the world.

Alex thinks about his early days as a dentist, when he wielded a drill not unlike the one they used in the mines. As he drives home, he thinks again about the fruit pickers and the Masai, the people who move slowly across the landscape as though they are from a distant world.