Stonemouth

by Iain Banks

  Powell looks very pleased with himself for knowing this phrase. He’s a man it’s easy to dismiss intellectually, given his looks and size and just the way he carries and expresses himself sometimes, but he always could play a lot dumber than he is, and even when he was kept back that year at school he let it be known he had done this deliberately, for his own good reasons, the better to dominate all around him.

  A few people scoffed a tad too publicly at that and paid for it. Only the first one had to cough up blood and a tooth; the others suddenly found it necessary to contribute a tenner or so to Powell’s never-to-be-used-for-its-stated-purpose college fund. That was the thing about Powell, even then: he didn’t mistake fear for respect, however grudging; he knew where to draw the line, and he certainly never enjoyed violence so much he’d prioritise it above a decent payday. He might have been educationally challenged, but he was always destined to do well with a certain sort of organisational hierarchy around him.

  There’s movement outside his window. Black-and-white check pattern. Jeez, it’s the cops.

  Powell swivels, grins, thumbs the window down. ‘Douglas, that you?’ he asks the uniform standing in the light rain outside.

  ‘Evening, Mr Imrie,’ the cop says. I think I recognise the face but I’m not sure.

  Powell laughs. ‘What you doin this side of the firth, Dougie? This is fuckin bandit country for you guys, is it no?’

  ‘Aye,’ the officer says with a sheepish grin. He nods towards the bridge control buildings. ‘Over seein the bro-in-law; he’s a rigger.’

  Powell looks down at him. ‘I’d invite you in,’ he says. ‘But you’re dripping.’

  ‘Naw, it’s all right.’ He stares in at me. His face scrunches up a little. ‘Stewart?’ he asks.

  Werrock. Dougie Werrock. That’s his name. Year or two below us. I nod. ‘Hi, Dougie. Officer Werrock.’ I glance at Powell.

  ‘That your Ka over there, Stewart?’ Dougie asks.

  ‘Aye. Hired.’

  ‘Saw that. Left your sidelights on, sir,’ he says, with a professional expression.

  ‘Did I? Thanks. Thought I heard an extra beep or two. Shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll be on my way shortly anyway, should think,’ I tell him, with another glance at Powell.

  ‘Right you are.’ Officer Werrock gives me a sort of half-nod. Powell merits a full nod and even a touch of hand to cap. ‘Nice to see you, Mr Imrie,’ Dougie says, then turns.

  He’s a couple of steps away when Powell leans out and says, a little more quietly, ‘Aw, Dougie. Did we get that wee …?’

  I can just about make out what Dougie says. ‘Eh? Oh. Aye. Aye, that’s all … That’s been … No, we’re fine there.’

  ‘Splendid. Hunky McDory. Right, Dougie. Mind how you go.’ Dougie walks off through the drizzle. Powell runs the window back up and sighs. ‘Cunt,’ he breathes, though he sounds almost affectionate.

  I look at him.

  ‘Where were we?’ He sighs, pinches his nose. ‘Oh yes. Aye, you’re clear to land, Stewie-boy. No harm scheduled to befall. Not at our hands, anyway. You’re still not on Mr M’s Christmas list, and he’d appreciate a wee visit, maybe this evening, just so you can pay your respects, but no; you’re fine.’ He leans over and, with one enormous fist, punches me very gently on the thigh. It really is gentle, more of a push than a punch, but I can still feel the power behind it. ‘Appreciate you asking first, though,’ he tells me, winking. ‘Smart thing to do.’ He sits back, stretches a little as he looks through the just-cleared screen, as though some formality has been dealt with, before looking back at me. ‘You here long?’

  ‘Just the weekend.’

  ‘For Joe’s funeral, aye?’

  ‘Aye, for the funeral,’ I tell him. ‘Joe asked for me to be there, be here, himself,’ I add, still feeling I need to justify myself, or at least my presence. As soon as I say it I wish I hadn’t; it sounds like I’m pleading. I bite my lip, stop doing that, then feel like I’m starting to blush. Jeez, I tell myself. Make it all obvious, why don’t you?

  Powell appears oblivious. ‘Uh-huh. You know the time’s changed?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Still Monday, but it’s been brought forward to eleven.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’

  ‘Aye. Mrs M didn’t want to change the time of her keep-fit class.’

  I look at him. He keeps a neutral expression, then just shrugs. He clears his throat and says, ‘Staying at your folks’, aye?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’ I put my hand on the door handle, then hesitate. ‘Any special time Donnie wants me at the house?’

  ‘Naw.’ Powell looks at his watch, which is something wide and bling and might have cost more than the Range Rover. ‘Just head on up now if ye want. I’ll no be there; stuff to do, but I’ll phone ahead. See you around, eh?’

  ‘Aye, see you around.’ I open the door. A few drops of rain swirl in. It looks like the sky is brightening, though that might be just the contrast with the Rangie’s tinted windows. I get out and stand looking in at Powell. ‘Thanks, Pow,’ I tell him.

  He looks pleased at this, so it was probably worth the small amount of self-esteem it cost me. He winks again. ‘Say hi to your mum and dad, eh?’ he says.

  ‘Will do.’

  The door closes with a thud so solid I could believe there’s some armour in there. For all I know, there is. Powell’s Range Rover burbles off into the evening while I walk over to my hire car.

  The still-on sidelights welcome me, reproachful.

  Five minutes later I’m driving into Stonemouth.

  2

  The quickest road from the bridge to the Murston house doesn’t go through the centre of town. I almost take the slower route anyway, just to see what’s changed over the last five years, but the traffic’s heavy enough coming off the bridge and on all sides of the big roundabout beyond, so I take the Erscliff road and end up going past the old High School. It’s still there: three tall stone storeys and a Community College now; fewer outbuildings and huts than in our time, plus a bit sprucer, and grass where the tarmac playground used to be. We were there for only a year before we were moved to the achingly modern new school at Qualcults, on the other side of town.

  I first saw the Murston house from a couple of the higher classrooms in the old school. It nestled in a little hollow between the two curved tops of a small hill a couple of kilometres away, just on the outskirts of town towards the sea. What fascinated me about it then was that it was only from those two or three classrooms on the top floor of the school that you could see the place; from the other classrooms, the playground and all the various routes to school it was effectively invisible. The house sort of peeped out through the greenery crowding around it, half hidden by tall round trees bunched on either side like green eruptions of water. The trees were so dense that even when they unleafed in the autumn you hardly saw any more of the house hiding amongst them.

  Sometimes in winter there was snow up there for days before any appeared on the ground in the town and the house seemed like some sort of half-mythical mountain palace. I thought it looked very grand, remote and mysterious; romantic even. A view that met with some incomprehension and even derision amongst my school pals.

  ‘You sure you’re no gay, Stu?’ and ‘That’s old man Murston’s crib, fuckwit,’ were two of the more informative and useful comments. And of course you could see the house from various other places too: the top deck of the number 42 bus for a start, as it passed along Steindrum Drive, as a couple of people pointed out to me, and from Justin Cutcheon’s mum’s attic window if you stood on a crate.

  Callum Murston denying it was his mum and dad’s house when I pointed it out to him from Art Room Two didn’t help demystify it either.

  ‘Hey, Callum,’ I said, ‘isn’t that your house up there, on the hill?’

  Callum squinted, already frowning aggressively, and finally saw where I was pointing. ‘Naw it’s naw,’ he said, sounding angry and looking like he was going to hit me.r />
  Callum was never far from throwing a punch when he thought people were taking the piss. Which, to be fair, we were all prone to do, though not quite as often as Callum assumed we were. Almost any other kid in school would long since have been kicked into a less hair-trigger attitude, but Callum was a Murston (a fact we’d known since primary school meant something serious in Stonemouth), his elder brother Murdo was the biggest kid in sixth year – even if he rarely resorted to blows – and Powell Imrie – Stonemouth High School’s very own Weapon of Mass Destruction – had already sort of aligned himself with the Murston clan. That made Callum pretty much untouchable, even when he was in the wrong. Unless a teacher got involved, of course; Callum had already been suspended once for violent behaviour and was on verbal warnings almost constantly. And he really did look like he was winding up to belt me.

  So I backed off immediately, smiling and holding up both hands. ‘Sorry, Cal. Chill.’

  He still looked angry but he let me walk away.

  Just another Callum Murston WTF ? moment.

  By that time I’d come to accept that the place was the Murston family gaff and I just assumed he was denying it to fuck with me or because he was oddly embarrassed at coming from what was obviously a very large house, but it turned out later he honestly didn’t recognise it from that angle, and his in-head sat-nav couldn’t do the maths required to work it out. Callum never was the sharpest chiv in the amnesty box.

  All the same, it was largely because of the house glimpsed through the trees that I persevered in getting to know Callum and becoming one of his friends, and it was largely through Callum – and the just-deceased Joe – that I got to know the rest of the family: Mr M himself (a bit), Mrs M (a slighter bit), Murdo (a bit more), Fraser and Norrie, the twins from the year below (fairly well) and, of course, Ellie. And Grier, her kid sister; I got to know her too and we even became sort of friends. But Ellie, mostly. Ellie more than all the rest, Ellie more than anybody ever, until I fucked it all up.

  The cloud is clearing a little as I swing the Ka between the tall, ornate gateposts of the Murston house, high on the hill. It’s called Hill House, so no prizes for imagination there. A still-clinging haze to the east obscures the North Sea, and to the west the clouds glow yellow-orange and hide the north-eastern tip of the Cairngorms. The wrought-iron gates stay open these days, though they are electric and there is an intercom. The driveway snakes down through a broad slope of striped lawn studded with ornamental bushes and life-size statues of stags. I park between a sleekly silver four-door AMG Merc and a spanking-new green Range Rover.

  The triple garage I remember has been joined by an added-on-looking fourth. There’s a wee boxy Japanese van parked outside it. The van’s filled with equipment and a compressor of some sort, hoses snaking into the open garage doorway. There’s a big foamy wet patch on the forecourt and inside there’s a monstrous pick-up truck. Its bonnet – hood – is as high as my shoulders. The badge says it’s a Dodge. The machine is truly vast; the new garage is wider and taller than the other three, as if built to contain the thing. The truck is gleaming: all massive chrome bull bars and deep, sparkling, flaked crimson paint with a rack of extra lights on a bar across the roof. Inside the four-door cab I can just see a Confederate flag stretched across the back. A guy in blue overalls appears from behind the truck and comes out, holding a duster. He frowns, then grins when he sees me. It’s Stevie Ross, from the year above me at school.

  ‘Hiya, stranger,’ he says, and comes up and shakes my hand. There’s some fast catching up – yes, me doing okay, thanks, him with this cleaning business, still playing in the band at weekends – and then I ask if the mega pick-up is Donald’s new toy or one of the boys’.

  ‘Nah, this was Callum’s,’ Stevie says, crossing his arms and staring at the thing. The registration plate reads RE8E1. Stevie looks proud and sort of reverent at the same time. ‘Hasnae moved for two years, apart from me pulling it out to clean it every few months and then rolling it back in again.’ He frowns at me. ‘You know about Callum, eh?’

  ‘Off the bridge,’ I say, nodding.

  ‘Aye,’ he says, voice a little quieter. ‘Well, this was his. This is what he left sitting on the bridge, night he jumped. Mr M had it brought up here, built this new garage for it. Keeps it nice.’ He nods approvingly. He glances back at the house, looks at me. ‘You okay to be here, aye?’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah; come to pay my respects.’

  He looks at his watch. ‘Aye, well. Time to go. Got a stretch limo to clean for Party Wagons.’ He shakes his head. ‘Ye wouldnae believe the mess a bunch of fourteen-year-old girls can leave one of those things in.’

  ‘Don’t envy you.’

  ‘Aye, well, still; it’s dependable work. Every other fucker’s economising. Never mind. Good to see you, Stewart.’

  ‘You too.’ I leave him packing up and go to the front door.

  A young Asian woman I don’t recognise answers the bell and shows me into the remaining conservatory. There used to be two; the other one was knocked down to make room for the new wing, sometime around the Millennium. Mr Murston will be with me shortly.

  The conservatory is big, full of cane furniture with Burberry cushions. Two gleaming, life-size ceramic cheetahs stand guard at the double doors from the house. The conservatory looks out southwest across a terrace with a giant trampoline to one side and some wrought-iron furniture. The trampoline has lots of brown leaves on it. The table holds a collapsed giant parasol, green and white. The trees surrounding the house are mostly turning yellow, orange and red. Beyond, down in the haze, I can just make out a sliver of the town. I stand looking at it for a while. I can hear a radio or iPod playing pop somewhere in the house. I listen for some sounds from the erratic population of wee yappy dogs Mrs M has always favoured, but I can’t hear them.

  After a few minutes I start to suspect I’m being put in my place by being made to wait, so I sit down, and wait. I pull out the iPhone. Normally I’d play a game or check emails, but all I do is Tweet where I am and put the phone away. Even that’s just a sort of residual paranoia; despite an initial burst of enthusiasm about a year or two ago, I never really got into Tweeting. I’ve taken it up again this weekend only as a security measure because I reckon there’s a chance, however slim, that convincing some bad guys who might wish to do you harm that, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, people know exactly where you are/where you were last seen alive (you always assume the extreme when you’re gaming these things in your head) will somehow put them off. Seems a bit ridiculous now, but there you go.

  I sit, trying to identify the song playing frustratingly quietly in some other part of the house. It’s something really old; KLF possibly. The coffee table in front of me has copies of Vogue, Angling and Game, Fore! and Scottish Country Life, though they all look unread. I open a couple and they still have the insert flyers inside. A hefty pair of binoculars sits on a windowsill.

  Before I ever got to know the Murstons or got invited to their house, a gang of us set off on an expedition to check the place out one sunny Sunday afternoon. There was me, Dom Lennot, Al Dunn, Wee Malky and Bodie Ferguson. We were almost but not quite past the age of playing soldiers, and we might have been indulging in an outdoor version of Laser Quest (the town’s own indoor arena, in an old bingo hall that had once been a cinema, had opened and closed within a year), or Paintball Frenzy (we were too young to use the real thing, on a farm near Finlassen) or possibly we were re-enacting some combat game. I wasn’t allowed any computer games at home at the time so I got to play only on other kids’ machines, but maybe it was Call of Duty, if that existed at the time, so perhaps we were US Special Forces moving stealthily in on a Taliban leader’s compound. Though, equally likely, we were mujahedin sneaking up on a US Marine base – we were kind of promiscuous that way.

  Around the house were the sheltering trees, themselves surrounded by broad clumps of gorse and broom and, a little further down, tilted meadows where sometimes horse
s and sheep grazed. Lower down the hillside, beyond a straggled line of trees, lay the long, wavily manicured fairways of Jamphside Golf Club. We argued about whether to avoid the course altogether – it was only the second-most exclusive club in the area, but it was the most forbidding, surrounded by fences and great thickets of jaggy whin and bramble, fiercely patrolled by some very humourless and proprietorial ground staff. Having the effrontery to cross its sculpted, obsessively tended greens was not like louping across the scruffier municipal course down by the firth or even braving the dunes, gorse and sands of Olness, the older links course on the coast, cheerily pretending obliviousness to any distant yells from annoyed golfers. Still, we decided to go for it, crossing at what we were assured by Wee Malky was the narrowest part of the course – his granda had been a green-keeper so he claimed local knowledge.

  We found a way over a fence using a handy tree, used a sort of tunnel through the whin that was probably a deer route and got to the edge of the twelfth fairway to find there was only one group of golfers within sight, heading away from us. We’d probably have been fine except that Dom, who always had been one of the class bampots, suddenly decided it’d be the height of wit to deposit what he described as ‘a big steamin tolley’ down the nearest hole (which happened to be the eleventh). The rest of us, in our twelve-to-thirteen-year-old wisdom, had thought Dom had grown out of this sort of frankly childish nonsense, but obviously not. Dom spent most of his time indoors playing computer games so maybe all the fresh air had gone to his head.

  ‘Aw, Dom, for fuck’s sake!’

  ‘Dinnae be fucking daft, man!’

  ‘I am not staying to witness this!’

  ‘You’ll get the jail!’

  ‘Fuck this.’

  ‘Naw, ah am. Ah’m drappin one in that hole, so ah am. An youse are comin wi me.’

  That would be, in order: me, Al, Ferg, Wee Malky, me again and then Dom talking there.