The Steep Approach to Garbadale

by Iain Banks

  Well, whatever. That was just the way the world worked and you might as well get on with it. No point worrying. Anyway, he already had a love of his life and much good it had ever done him.

  A tall, hulking guy who looks like a lumberjack arrives on the little podium at the end of the room and goes up to the lectern. He takes off his watch, sets it on the lectern, shuffles his papers, takes a look out over the people there to listen to him and starts reading without preamble, save for the words, ‘Good morning.’ Coincidentally, these are pretty much the last two consecutive words Alban understands. He struggles for a minute, comprehending perhaps one word in fifteen, then gives up. He’s still trying to decide how long he can give it before decently leaving when he falls asleep.

  He’s woken by somebody knocking into his seat. He starts, jerks upright and sees everybody leaving. He looks round and sees that the only person near him is the girl with the spiky hair, now moving smartly away from the end of the row of seats he’s sitting on. She doesn’t look back.

  ‘You want more water?’

  ‘No, thanks, I’ll take it as it is. I can drink it too easily with water.’

  ‘I find it numbs, sometimes.’ Andy waved vaguely at his face.

  ‘Kind of the idea, isn’t it?’ Alban smiled.

  Andy gave a small laugh. ‘I meant the mouth and tongue, but, yeah, I suppose.’

  They sat in Andy’s study, surrounded by bookcases, filing cabinets and screens. Andy had poured decent measures of Springbank. Leah had gone to bed.

  Alban knew there should be one small framed photo of Irene on a narrow stretch of wall between two bookcases, and had duly found it. He stood looking at it, sipping the whisky.

  ‘Do you think about her often?’ Andy asked him. He was sitting on the corner of his desk. He couldn’t see the picture, but he knew what Alban was looking at.

  ‘To be honest, no,’ Alban said. ‘Once or twice a week, maybe.’ He looked at Andy. He couldn’t read the expression on Andy’s face. He felt a frown gather on his own. ‘I suppose some people would say that is quite often.’

  ‘Some people,’ Andy agreed mildly. ‘Maybe.’

  Alban took a deep breath. ‘It’s something we’ve never really talked about, isn’t it?’

  ‘Your mother?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I thought we had,’ Andy said. He shrugged. ‘While ago, I suppose, back when you were a kid. Up to adolescence. We talked about her quite a lot. You wanted to know all you could about her. Come on, kiddo, you can’t have forgotten.’

  Alban had only very vague memories of this. When he thought about it, he realised they were some of the most vague memories he had from that period of his life, precisely as though he’d been trying to bury them all this time.

  ‘Yeah, I suppose,’ he said, uneasy. ‘But it’s been a while.’

  ‘There’s only so much that can be said, Alban,’ Andy told him. ‘Sometimes you just end up hurting yourself and others more, going back over old ground.’

  He wasn’t sure what to say at first, so he said nothing, just sipped his whisky and looked at the old photo of Irene. She was sitting in the sunlight on a low stone wall somewhere high, a light blue sea behind her, pale islands in the distance. She wore a short blue dress and her fair brown hair was gathered up. Her legs were crossed and she was holding a glass, looking just to the side of the camera, mouth open, smiling or laughing. Happy.

  ‘I was talking to old Beryl the other night, before we left Glasgow,’ Alban said.

  ‘Oh yes?’

  He told Andy what she’d told him.

  Andy listened, stood, drank about half his whisky, stood for a bit longer, then walked round the back of his desk, sitting in the leather wing-back chair. He put the glass down on the desk. He looked at Alban, who pulled up a seat in front of the desk.

  Andy seemed to be about to say something, then appeared to catch himself and said, ‘It’s not a brain tumour, is it? Aunt Beryl, I mean. She’s pretty old, after all. She’s not going—?’

  ‘No,’ Alban said. ‘If anything it’s like she’s gained a few marbles.’

  Andy looked thoughtful, nodded. ‘Well, it certainly wasn’t me,’ he said. ‘I mean, about not wanting her, not wanting Irene, to keep it.’ He looked down at the desk, running a thumbnail along the edge of the inset leather surface. ‘I did everything I could to make sure she did keep it, keep you, kiddo.’ His smile was small and sad.

  ‘Did she - was she thinking of an abortion?’

  Andy did a lot of swallowing, then picked up his glass again. He sighed. ‘Are you sure you really want to know about all this stuff, Alban?’ He shook his head. ‘It’s all so old, and it’s all so painful. Sometimes it’s best to let things scab over, to let things heal up.’

  ‘I’d really like to know, Dad.’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ Andy said, drinking. He frowned at his nearly empty glass. ‘Yes, I think your mother did - well, I know she did - think about getting an abortion.’ He patted the desk. ‘It wasn’t something I thought you needed to know.’ He didn’t look at Alban, preferring to study his hand on the desk, but he said, ‘Please tell me you understand this, Alban. More than anything else, Leah and I wanted you to feel wanted, to feel loved.’ He cleared his throat.

  ‘Well, I always did, so—’

  ‘We even delayed trying for a child of our own—’

  ‘I appreciate all that, Dad.’

  ‘Ah, shit,’ Andy said, putting his hand to the bridge of his nose, pressing and wiping. He sniffed.

  Alban felt oddly calm and nowhere near crying. ‘Honestly, Dad. I don’t blame you for not mentioning the abortion thing. I’m glad you didn’t. You did the right thing. And - look, my problems with this family have always been with the whole family, not you and Leah. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me.’

  ‘She’s been a good mother to you, Alban,’ Andy said, looking away to the side, towards the hidden photo of Irene. ‘She’s been your real mother, the one who’s been there throughout, in all the important ways.’

  ‘I know,’ Alban said. ‘I know. Leah’s been great, she’s been lovely; she always has. She’s been kind and tolerant and loving and that’s more than a lot of kids get from their biological mothers.’ He smiled, spread his arms. ‘And I’m okay. Seriously. I’m enjoying my life. I had a good career in the firm and then I got fed up with it and I had a highly satisfying job working in the forests and now I’m thinking about what happens next, but I’m happy.’

  ‘This white finger thing—’

  ‘Yeah, well, I was getting a bit bored with the sound of buzz saws by then, too. No biggie.’

  ‘Look, I’m sorry, but do you need any money or—?’

  ‘Dad, I sold my shares. Well, except for that block of a hundred, so I can still vote. Anyway, I didn’t give them away. The family trust bought them. And I haven’t been spending it all on horses or girls or drugs.’

  ‘Oh, well. But this thing with your fingers . . .’

  ‘Nothing serious. If I’d kept on working with a chainsaw, it would gradually have got worse. But I’m not, so I’ll be okay. Absolutely not debilitating.’

  ‘Do you think you should have a specialist?’

  ‘Dad, please.’ He let the words hang for a bit. ‘Don’t worry about it. It’s nothing. Really.’

  Andy nodded. He drained his glass. ‘Refill?’

  ‘I’ll take a top-up.’

  Andy crossed to the drinks trolley near the door and poured the whiskies.

  ‘Do you think you and Irene would have married if I hadn’t been on the way?’ Alban asked him. Andy paused as he palmed the cork back into the neck of the bottle.

  ‘Maybe not,’ he said. He handed Alban back his glass. He sat in his big seat again, studied his whisky. ‘I would have. I mean, the reluctance, if there was reluctance, wasn’t from me.’ He looked at Alban. ‘I loved her from the first time I saw her, in a lecture theatre. LSE. Well, you know what I mean; I started to fall for her,
I wanted to get to know her, I was convinced she was the one for me and I was the one for her. Instantly. Made a nuisance of myself for a year; chased her, basically.’

  ‘Was she seeing anybody else?’

  ‘No - I think she was too busy with her studies and a bunch of girls she hung out with. Then there was the family, of course.’

  Andy looked back to his whisky. ‘There was always somebody passing through London, staying at Bert and Win’s, usually. And James had a flat in Bloomsbury at the time. He and Blake were doing their sort of hippy playboy thing, running around with a bunch of artists who used to stage these Happening things, and the sort of junior aristo who gets sent down from Oxbridge for something unspeakable. Graeme and Kennard were part of the same set.’ He snorted, drank. ‘There was a degree of Upper Class Twit of the Year to the whole thing, except with velvet jackets and drugs. She never got that involved with them. Anyway. I finally—’ he looked at Alban, laughed. ‘Irene was still a virgin when we, when we finally ended up in bed together.’ He held up one hand, apologetic. ‘Stop me if this is grossing you out; I know most children prefer to think their parents never actually had sex.’

  ‘Somehow I’m coping.’

  ‘But,’ Andy sighed heavily and looked vaguely in the direction of the photograph, ‘I don’t think I kidded myself at the time and I don’t believe I ever have kidded myself since that she felt as much for me as I felt for her. I loved her with all my heart. She—’ He stopped, shrugged, looked down. ‘Well, she liked me. She thought I was fun to be with.’ He gave a sort of shy laugh and glanced at Alban. ‘Anyway, I made her laugh, and we had fun together, and we were boyfriend and girlfriend, going steady - all that - but she never pretended to love me. At least, not as more than a, more than a friend.’ He shrugged again. ‘But a good friend.’ He drank. ‘I hope.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Anyway, I hope you’ve realised by now - you were a wanted child. I wanted you. I wanted her. She . . . Oh,’ Andy said, and it was a long, slightly drunken ‘oh’; ‘she accepted me. Accepted you. Just couldn’t accept herself, accept living in this world.’ He shrugged, drank.

  ‘I’m sorry to have brought this up, Dad.’

  ‘Ah . . .’ Andy waved one hand.

  ‘How close was she to her own dad?’

  ‘Bert?’ Andy said. ‘Oh, they were very close. She was more like a first daughter to both of them. Linda and Lizzie were always different; kind of a unit because they were twins, you know what I mean? Practically had their own language until they were teenagers. Anyway, there was a nanny for them; Irene was closer to Bert and Win.’

  ‘Do you think it was Bert, then?’ Alban asked. ‘Who didn’t want her to have the baby,’ he added when Andy looked uncertain. Andy’s eyes were shining.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Andy confessed. ‘Bit late to ask him.’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘Bit late to ask him about ten years before he died, poor old bugger.’

  ‘Well, he might have loved her but he might have been one of these fathers who can’t stand the thought of his little girl having sex, let alone having a baby.’ Alban sipped his whisky. ‘Did you get on okay with him?’

  ‘Mm-hmm,’ Andy said. ‘Yeah, we were cool. Nice enough old guy. He was in Egypt and the Far East during the war; hair-raising stories. Not a great business brain, but at least he’d had the sense to marry Win, who was. Is.’ He shook his head. ‘Eight children, and she’s been the real hand on the tiller for nearly sixty bloody years.’ He shook his head again. ‘Hell of a woman.’

  ‘Do you think Bert thought you were good enough for his little girl?’

  Andy looked into the distance and rolled his bottom lip. ‘I think so. We got on all right. No arguments or anything. I worshipped his daughter, I got a good degree, I was a good fit for the firm - I mean, okay, for a long time I didn’t fit in anywhere; I was helping to manage Garbadale for a bit and then doing a bit of painting for the first few years at Lydcombe, but I took the shilling in the end and I’ve done my best for the business. Can’t think they have any complaints. No, no, I liked him. Decent old guy.’

  ‘What about Irene’s brothers? Would any of them have disapproved? ’

  ‘Of me and her?’

  ‘And her getting pregnant.’

  ‘If they did they kept quiet about it, which wouldn’t have been like them.’

  ‘So you got on okay with them? Blake, James, Kennard, Graeme? Were you mates?’

  ‘No, I was never mates with them. They were like officer class. I was the first person in my family to go to Uni. But I met them a few times and they were okay. They were a bit loud, a bit hoorayish, but we got on all right.’

  Alban smiled. ‘You get on all right with everybody, Dad.’

  ‘Yes, I know, and I assume everybody’s as easy-going as I am. Terrible failing, I’ve been told. But anyway, bloody hypocrisy if they had objected,’ Andy said. ‘They were all shagging around all over the place. Well, Kennard wasn’t especially, he was always the quiet one. But the rest . . . James - no, it might have been . . . no, it was James . . . anyway, got at least one girl pregnant. Abortion. Posh girl. Became Lady something, later. Anyway, don’t know of any illegitimate little Wopulds running around out there. Enough of the blighters born in wedlock, God knows. Oh, I don’t know, I shouldn’t be—’

  ‘Was it Mum who delayed you two marrying until just before I was born?’

  ‘Hmm? Yes. Yes, it wasn’t parental disapproval or anything. Certainly not me. I wanted to marry her as soon as we knew she was pregnant.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. Maybe we did the wrong thing staying at Garbadale. She wanted to be there, she said. And I came to love it. It felt right, and Bert and Win seemed happy we were there - they were still in Knightsbridge at the time, mostly, but they were coming up quite often - but maybe we should have stayed in London. She might have got better medical treatment. They couldn’t really do all that much for postnatal depression, but they might have been able to do more.’ He shrugged again, drank. ‘She’d been prescribed some antidepressant - Valium or whatever they had at the time - but she wouldn’t take it. Chemicals.’ He held up his glass, looking at it.

  Alban said, ‘Beryl told me Irene walked in front of a bus after coming out of a clinic in town. That was how she came to be in hospital, when Beryl heard her say this thing about somebody not wanting her to have the baby. She wondered if that was a first attempt at suicide.’

  ‘Did she?’ Andy said, over a deep breath. He drank some more. ‘Did she now.’

  ‘It is a thought.’

  ‘Thoughts. Don’t ya love ’em?’ Andy said. He downed his whisky then put the empty glass down on the desk with a smack. ‘Oops.’

  ‘She never said anything to you about this?’ Alban asked.

  ‘We never talked about it,’ Andy told him. ‘We kind of drew a line below everything that happened before your birth, when we moved to Garbadale. Maybe not the most sensible thing to do, but it’s what we did. No counselling or analysis or post-traumatic whatsit, just good old British stiff upper lip not talking about unpleasantness and hoping it’ll all go away with time. And that’s what we did. I swear. We just didn’t talk about it.’ He pat-patted the desk again. ‘Anyway, look, you’ll have to excuse me; I am suddenly very drunk all of a sudden and I had best get to me scratcher. Excuse I.’ He got to his feet, waving towards the drinks trolley. ‘Help yourself. Sorry about this. Party pooper. Disgraceful.’

  Alban stood and put his arm briefly round his dad’s shoulder as he passed. They wished each other good night again and Alban sat in the study by himself for a while, finishing his whisky.

  He keeps thinking about her. She is so not his type, but, over the course of that long Shanghai day, he can’t seem to get her out of his head. He duly does the trade fair stuff on the firm’s stand, does the glad-handing and sincere smiling and two-handed business card handing-over thing and the evening drinks thing and the dinner at whatever glitzy restaurant with whoever it is to be bought food by or buy food for thing a
nd at the end of it rather than go for more drinks he claims he needs a breath of fresh air and maybe an early night and leaves Fielding quite happily assuming the chef du parti role and getting overexcited about the idea of the internet being everything good and wonderful in the world of the future, and actually manufacturing stuff being boring and something he calls Sunset (to a group of Chinese and Korean manufacturers, who look mystified) while Alban heads off but - rather than go to bed - makes for the part of the hotel and conference complex where the mathematicians appear to hang out.

  A bit of walking and listening and tracing a finger over floor plans brings him to a busy bar where the people might be mathematicians or not, he can’t be sure; they look very normal. Drinks and loud talking and a few people smoking. He sees a group of people bent over a low table, one of them sketching something that reminds him of high-school geometry, and he starts to think he’s in the right place. He makes his way to the bar, listening, gets a bottle of Tsingtao and starts wandering slowly through the press of people. It is crowded. Somebody mentions something about a packing problem and he wonders if this is a practical.

  No sign. He wanders a few corridors, ends up back at the same bar and asks an affable-looking little guy in jeans and a T-shirt covered in what appears to be the first few hundred digits of Pi if there’s another bar where the maths people are hanging out because he’s looking for somebody.

  ‘Who are you looking for?’ the little guy asks.

  ‘I don’t know her name. She’s kind of . . . Tall and blonde? Sort of sticky-out hair. Saw her at a thing on Game Theory early this morning. Dark business suit, white shirt. Dark -’

  ‘Sounds like Graef. Lecturer. Glasgow.’ He looks away, shakes his head. ‘Odd choice. Sure Cambridge offered.’ He looks back. ‘Could try the cocktail bar. Some of the hard-core tiling people seem to have colonised it.’

  He’s not sure quite what this means, and thinks the better of asking. ‘How do you spell that name?’ he asks.

  The cocktail bar is quiet and dark, with good views over the river, ten floors further up in the hotel. He sees her sitting talking with another, older woman and four men, three young, one about his father’s age. She looks at him as he enters the bar, watching him while still talking to one of the younger men. She’s wearing glasses with round, clear lenses.