by Iain Banks
Verushka and Aunt Clara are talking:
‘I don’t understand. What can that mean, “Where are the numbers?”’
‘I think it means, Do they exist as abstract entities - like physical laws, as functions of the nature of the universe; or are they cultural constructs? Do they exist without somebody thinking them?’
‘This sounds awfully complicated.’ They are sitting together at dinner that evening. The dining room is wood-panelled, quite highceilinged, and very long. Verushka thinks it’s a little like being in an enormous coffin, but has thought better of actually saying this aloud. ‘Awfully complicated,’ Clara says again. ‘My husband might have understood this, I doubt I shall.’ Clara’s husband James had died of a heart attack in 2001 and Clara inherited all his shares.
‘I don’t know about complicated. Esoteric, maybe.’
‘Esoteric,’ Graeme Wopuld says. Alban’s Uncle Graeme, the Norfolk farmer and husband of Aunt Lauren, has been trying to get Verushka to talk to him for the last twenty minutes, without noticeable success. ‘What a wonderful word, don’t you think?’ Graeme is a craggy-looking fellow with wispy, sandy hair, extensive eyebrows and full lips he feels the need to lick rather a lot.
‘Isn’t it?’ Verushka agrees, glancing at him before turning back to Clara, who says,
‘And so, what do you think?’
‘About where are the numbers?’
‘Yes. What’s your answer?’
(‘What was the question?’ Graeme asks.)
‘I think I have to put it in the form of another question,’ Verushka tells Clara.
‘I was somewhat afraid of that.’
‘Alban got me thinking about it this way.’
‘Alban? Really?’
‘Yes. He said, “Where you left them,” which is pretty much just flippant, but there’s a wee grain of possibility there and so my answer to the question, “Where are the numbers?” is, “Where do you think?” See what I’m doing there?’
‘Not really. That sounds flippant too.’
‘Well, it sounds it at first, but if you take it out of the context of flippancy and treat it as a new question in its own right, you’re asking, Where does your thinking happen?’
‘In your brain?’
‘Well, yes, so if you use one question as an answer to the first, you’re saying that the numbers exist in your head.’
‘Mine feels rather tight at the moment. Like it’s about to burst with numbers and odd questions.’
‘Yeah, I get that a lot. Anyway. It’s more interesting than just saying, “The numbers are in your head,” because otherwise why put it in the form of a question at all? Why not just say that?’
‘You mean, say, “The numbers are in your head”?’
‘Yes. Because then it becomes a question about boundaries.’
‘Boundaries.’
‘When you think about numbers, are you using a little bit of the universe to think about it, or is it using a little bit of itself to think about itself, or, even, about something - about these entities called numbers - that might be said to exist outside of itself, if one uses one of the less ultimately inclusive definitions of the word “universe”?’ Verushka sits back, triumphant. ‘See?’
‘Not really,’ Clara admits. ‘And my old head is rather starting to spin.’
‘Well, to be fair,’ Verushka agrees, ‘it’s an incomplete answer. But I like the direction it’s going in.’
‘This all sounds very fascinating,’ Graeme says.
‘It is, isn’t it?’ Verushka says brightly before turning back to Clara as she says,
‘And you do this for a living?’
‘Not this part, no; this is just for fun.’
‘Good heavens.’
‘May I?’ Verushka offers to top up Clara’s glass of red.
‘Oh, thank you.’
‘Any left?’ Graeme asks, holding out his glass. Verushka hands him the bottle.
‘Sophie’s your daughter, isn’t she?’ she says to Clara.
‘Yes, she is. Arriving tomorrow, we’re told.’
‘She and Alban. They were . . . They were fond of each other once, weren’t they?’
‘Yes. Well, they thought they were. They were far too young of course. And they are first cousins, and, well, there are sound reasons for not breeding that close. I’ve been breeding Labs since I lost James - my mother did the same - and you learn the pitfalls.’
‘You think there was a danger of them breeding?’ Verushka says, putting her hand to her mouth and widening her eyes to indicate shock.
‘My dear,’ Clara says, and pats the other woman’s forearm, ‘it’s all a long time ago and a lot of water’s flown under the bridge since then. It’s not really a subject I care to talk much about. There’s really no point.’
‘I see.’ Verushka smiles. ‘Well, I’m leaving early tomorrow so I probably shan’t get to meet Sophie, but you must be looking forward to seeing her again.’
‘Oh yes,’ Clara nods slowly. Her face is deeply lined, her red hair thinning, scalp visible beneath, though she is not yet in her seventies. ‘Though in a way I stopped recognising her a long time ago.’
Verushka hesitates at this, but then leans close to the older woman, gently holding one elbow. ‘I’m sure she’s looking forward to seeing you again.’
‘I do hope so.’
Alban was standing minding his own business in the drawing room after the meal - VG was talking animatedly with Kennard, Haydn and Chay - when Aunt Lauren came up to him.
‘Alban?’
He was half in, half out of the curtains shielding one tall window, looking up at the distant, moonlit cliff and the white trace of the waterfall. The forecast wasn’t good. The weather hadn’t broken yet, though he could see a deep shadow of black cloud spreading slowly from the west. He let the curtains fall back.
‘Lauren. Hi.’
‘Won’t you come and talk to Win? She’d love to see you.’
Win was sitting over by the fire at one end of the room.
‘How could I disobey?’ he sighed. He followed Lauren, pulled a seat over and sat by Win in her easy chair. Lauren turned to talk to somebody else. Aunt Linda - a vision of florid pink corpulence who always reminded Alban of the late Queen Mother, though her tipple was brandy rather than gin - was sitting in the matching wing-backed easy chair on the other side of the fireplace from Win, but she seemed to have fallen asleep.
‘Ah, Alban.’ Win held out her almost empty whisky tumbler. ‘Would you be an absolute dear and refresh this for me? Indulge an old woman.’
‘Of course, Win.’
He returned, presented her with the glass.
‘Oh, Alban,’ she said, ‘are you trying to get me drunk?’ She shook her head.
He held his hand back out towards the glass. ‘I’ll drink some of it for you if it’s too much.’
Win tutted. She tested the whisky. ‘It might need a little more water,’ she said. She held the glass out to him. ‘Would you mind -’
‘I have some here,’ he said, holding out his own glass. He’d switched to water.
‘Oh. Well. If you—All right.’
Once she was happy with her drink, had been reassured that her walking stick was to hand, a log had been added to the fire and Alban had removed the brandy ballon from Aunt Linda’s slack fingers - in case it fell and smashed on the hearth - Win was finally ready to talk.
‘Your young lady seems perfectly pleasant,’ she said.
‘Actually she’s a couple of years older than me,’ Alban told her.
‘Really? Well, one’s tastes change over the years, I suppose.’
‘And how are you keeping, Win? I didn’t really get a chance for a full update on all the latest aches and pains.’
‘Now, Alban. You don’t really want to hear an old woman complaining about all the things wrong with her.’
He smiled with his mouth. ‘Sorry to be giving up the old place?’ He looked away to the far end of
the room, over most of his family, chattering and drinking.
‘I’ll miss it,’ she said. ‘I wish we’d buried Bert somewhere else, now.’ Old Bert’s grave was on a small circular island at the near end of the loch, just a few metres offshore. Alban remembered that Neil McBride had been unhappy with the choice; he was fairly sure the island had been the site of a Bronze Age crannog and should be left undisturbed until it was properly excavated, but Win had wanted her husband buried there and there hadn’t been a lot Neil could do about it. ‘Maybe Lydcombe would have been better.’ She sighed. ‘Still. His tomb will stay here. We’ll have some sort of continuing presence, something to show for our ownership. We did build the place after all. I’ve put it into the conditions of sale that it’s never interfered with. The grave, I mean.’
‘Any such proviso in the contract with Spraint?’
‘None that I know of, dear. Why, do you think there ought to be?’
‘Not particularly. They’d baulk.’
‘They will be paying us for our name, if the sale goes through. That will go on.’
‘For a time, I guess.’
‘I am minded to vote against, you know, Alban,’ she told him. ‘Don’t cast me as the wicked witch, dear. I’ve done what I could to muster support for at least showing a bit of resistance. It’s mostly your generation that’s showing all the enthusiasm for selling.’
He looked back at the rest of the room. ‘I kind of thought you’d be on their side.’
‘Did you? Well, I’m glad that even at my advanced age I can still surprise you.’
‘You’ve always been good at that, Win.’
‘Have I? I’ve always tried to be rather predictable and dependable, to tell the truth. I didn’t think being surprising was really one of my strengths.’
‘The Spraint people, what time are we expecting them tomorrow?’
‘I think they’re expected about noon. They’re arriving by helicopter, apparently. That should be exciting.’
‘What about the rest of our lot?’
‘Oh, I dare say they’ll appear in dribs and drabs over the course of the day. I think everybody’s flying to Inverness and then taking cars. Then there’s Fielding and the two old girls. Haydn has a better idea of who’s arriving when.’
‘We are going to have a chance for a private meeting, just the family, the shareholders, before the EGM, aren’t we?’
‘Do you think we should?’
‘Yes, I think we should, or have a formal part of the EGM without the Spraint people present; whatever.’
The Extraordinary General Meeting was scheduled for the Saturday evening before dinner, with the Spraint people present. Alban wanted to be able to get everybody in the family together - certainly all the voting shareholders - so they could discuss the proposed sell-out together before the EGM, without the Spraint guys around. It seemed blindingly obvious to him that they should all have some sort of idea what they felt individually and in groups - pro, anti, undecided, whatever - before it all kicked off in public, just to see what sort of united front it might be possible to present to their potential buyers, but when he’d talked to Haydn about this he’d seemed distracted and vague and suggested taking the matter up with Win.
‘Yes, a sort of meeting before the meeting,’ Win said. ‘I suppose we ought. Yes, I’m sure we can arrange that.’
‘And would you say something?’
‘What, in front of everybody?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, I don’t think so. What do you think I ought to say?’
‘Say what you feel, what you think. Say whether you’re for or against the sale.’
‘I’ve told you - I’m against it. Well, I think.’
‘You kind of have to make your mind up, Win, by tomorrow.’
‘Don’t rush me, Alban, please. I’m old. I rather want to see how everybody feels. I mean, if they’re all going to say yes, what’s the point in me jamming a spanner in the works?’
‘They’re not all going to say yes. I’ve already talked to a few people.’
‘You have? Well, yes, of course you have.’
‘It’s not a done deal, Win.’
‘I suppose not.’ Win looked thoughtful.
‘If you feel the family should keep the firm, Gran, say so; tell people.’
She turned to him and smiled. She looked old but still bright, her skin wrinkled but soft in the firelight. ‘Well, I shall, perhaps, I dare say.’
‘Win,’ he said, clearing his throat, ‘you’re sort of the keeper of the family archives and photographs and so on, aren’t you?’
‘Oh, I suppose so. What about them?’
‘I’d like to take a look at some of them.’
‘Really? Which ones?’
‘From when Irene and Andy first met, when all the brothers were in London and you were there too, back in the late Sixties.’
‘Oh,’ Win said, and looked up and away for a few moments. ‘I think they’re all packed up already. I’m so sorry. Perhaps once I’m settled again.’
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘That’s a pity.’
Win was gesturing to somebody. Aunt Lauren came over and stood, bending, at Win’s side. ‘Lauren, dear,’ Win said. ‘I’m ever so tired now. This fire is so hot. I’m sweltering. Do you think you could see me up to my room?’
‘Of course, Win,’ Lauren said.
‘I’m sorry, Alban,’ Win said as Lauren helped her from her chair and he presented her with her stick. ‘Thanks, dearest,’ she said to Lauren.
‘Good night, Gran,’ he said.
‘Night-night, Alban.’
He’d already talked to various of his relations before dinner. After a little thought, he’d deliberately targeted the ones that were least likely to be fully in play following the meal. Now he started doing something he kind of hated, which was working the room. It was a horrible-sounding phrase and it could be a pretty grisly process at the best of times. He wasn’t sure if having to do it with your own family - well, with his own family - made it better or worse. During this process he kept bumping into Aunt Lauren, who appeared to be doing something very similar.
He saw Neil McBride and decided to take a break from the family business stuff.
‘Neil. How’s the sunlight?’
‘What’s that?’ Neil looked merry. He was holding a large whisky. Neil was dressed in his Sunday-best suit, tie still knotted.
‘The sunlight. That funny glass thing that tells you—’
‘Oh, I was right! Did you no’ see the Horizon programme? About Global Dimming?’
‘Missed it. Sorry. Why, were you on it?’
‘No! Dinnae be daft. But I was right. No’ the first to spot it - some bloke down in Australia noticed it before I did - but the point is it’s accepted now, it’s science, no’ just some daft punter in a deerstalker on a Highland estate havering about it. So there you are.’
‘They should call it the McBride effect.’
‘Aye, that’ll be right.’ He drank from his glass. ‘So, you still foresting away? I’ve got a few hundred Sitka need chopping if you’ve brought your chainsaw.’
‘I got invalided out, Neil.’ He held up a couple of fingers. ‘White finger.’
‘Christ, you’re kidding.’
‘’Fraid not.’
‘I thought it was all done with dirty great machines these days, no?’
‘Yeah, a lot is, but not all, and we were the steep slope specialists. ’
‘Must have had ye on hell of an old gear. I’ve an old Huskie that vibrates like a bastard - scuse my whatsit - but I’ve never had any problems.’ Neil looked at his own right hand with an exaggeratedly worried expression.
‘Aye, but you’re not handling one of the things day-in, day-out for months on end. I worked out there was one time in Kielder we were cutting every single day, uninterrupted, for eighty-five days solid; twelve weeks without even a Sunday off.’
‘Jesus! Must have been a hell of a bonus at the end of tha
t one.’
‘Aye, well. That and we’d all got barred from the only pub within twenty miles on the second night.’
Neil laughed. ‘So what’re you going to do with yourself now then?’
‘Don’t know. I was doing chainsaw sculptures and sold a few; that’s out the window now.’
‘Anyway, Alban, nobody makes a living selling chainsaw sculptures. ’
‘No, I guess not.’
‘Back to the family firm?’
‘We’re probably going to be selling up to these Spraint people.’
‘They might still want you.’
‘I doubt that, and anyway I’m not interested. Had my fill of life in a suit.’
‘Aye.’ Neil nodded. ‘I see you couldn’t be bothered with a tie this evening.’
‘Only comes out for funerals.’
‘Think they’ll - well, you’ll - sell, then, aye?’
‘I think it’s going to be tighter than some people were expecting, but . . . I wouldn’t be surprised. What about you? You staying with the estate?’
‘Ah, we’ll see. It’ll be up to the new owners.’
‘You going to be okay? I mean, if they want to bring in somebody else?’
‘I’ll be fine. Got a great reference from the old girl if I need to relocate, and I’ve always got the house in Sloy; that’s no’ tied. Spare room if you ever want to come stay.’
‘Cheers. Might well take you up on that. That’s very kind. Surprised they haven’t asked you to put people up this weekend.’
‘Na, no need. You could always just open up the north wing.’
‘They’re not using that?’ He’d thought that even though what felt like half the developed world seemed to be staying at Garbadale this weekend the old place ought to have been big enough to swallow everybody without Haydn having to do any room-juggling. Now he thought about it, he’d never been in the north wing, not even as a child.
‘Bit damp,’ Neil said, nose wrinkling. ‘No central heating. Liable to wake up to the sound of wee scampery things scurrying about during the night. You’d have to start setting traps, and making fires in grates, and then it’d be pot luck which chimneys are blocked by bird nests. You’d have to be pretty desperate. That your bird, by the way?’ Neil nodded at Verushka, standing laughing with Aunt Kathleen.