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‘Lay off the beans, huh?’

‘Yeah.’

‘God, I hope that don’t happen in the morning,’ said Cheri. ‘I’m in show business, so I’ve never farted. When you’re in show business, you have a de-farting operation. Some people get a new nose at the same time. You can have the wrinkles taken away and be de-farted all on the same day.’

There was little danger that the barbecue would cause any problems. As well as the sensational fish, Laine cooked the best mushrooms I’ve ever tasted in my damn life. Actually, they were the only barbecued mushrooms I’ve ever tasted, but that didn’t make them any less stunning. The previous night, I’d eaten in a barbecue restaurant – oh fuck, what a disappointment that had been. Again I’d seen just how dodgy the food could be in the middle of America. On the whole, it was edible, but eating fast food almost every day was really taking its toll. I’d begun to think there was something wrong with me, like I’d left a bit of my body behind … or added a bit. Fast food is okay once or twice a week; but it’s a fucking disaster for your digestion if you eat it every day. So it was doubly delightful to share a proper barbecue with Danny and his family.

Up before dawn the next morning, I found myself crashing through woods before I’d even had breakfast. In semi-darkness – with lights, cameras and a non-farting director in tow – I was following Carolyn and Cheri on a turkey hunt. I reckoned I could hear the turkeys running away. There was a turkey noise – buck-buck-buck-buck-buck-buck – that I think translated roughly as: ‘Let’s get the fuck out of here, boys. There’s a crowd of people with cameras and sound equipment coming.’

After stumbling through the woods for a while, we reached a turkey blind. A camouflaged canvas tent, it was large enough for three of us to fit inside. We peered through a netted slit, watching for wild birds. It was freezing and we sat there for an hour or two while one or other of the twins wandered around with the turkey call. Whenever she stopped, all I could hear was the sound of real turkeys getting further and further away, which delighted me, as I don’t know how I would have reacted if we’d killed one. I like eating them, but I’m not in the killing business. Even when I go fishing, I don’t use barbs on my hooks, so I know that the fish will be unharmed when I release it. I’m fine about people who go fishing and eat whatever they catch, but to catch something, kill it and not eat it is a very bad thing. I’m not a fishmonger, I’m an angler, and I don’t like to kill things. And I think that hunting with guns fitted with telescopic sights gives the human a deeply unfair advantage over the animal. When you’re hunting with a bow and arrow or a crossbow, at least you’re really at the sharp end. You have to be very good to hit anything, and you have to get in close, which demands a bit of cleverness.

Going turkey hunting reminds me of a joke that my daughter Kara claims I told her years ago, although I can’t remember doing so.

‘How do you keep a turkey in suspense?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I’ll tell you tomorrow.’

I wish it was my joke – it’s quite a good one – but I think Kara must have confused me with someone else.

Incidentally, do you know what the Scots call turkeys? Bubbly jocks – because that’s the noise they make when they’re chatting away. Bubbly jock, bubbly jock. We’ve got some great names for other animals, too. Frogs are puddocks, sparrows are speugs, owls are hoolits and a linnet is a lintie, which is lovely, I think.

‘Oh, have you heard Margaret’s big lassie?’

‘Aye, she’s a lovely big lassie.’

‘Have you heard her singing? Sings like a lintie.’ That always pleased me: sings like a lintie.

After the turkey hunt had thankfully ended in abject failure, I left Fanning and the gorgeous twins and had a lovely run on the proper Route 66, away from the interstate. As I’ve said, much of the original route has now disappeared. Some stretches of it hit dead ends while others simply run out of tarmac. And, of course, many miles have been widened, paved over and turned into