by Iain Banks
‘And what have you brought, eh? Something flash, eh?’ he asks, going to the lounge windows to see what’s in the driveway, once things have settled down a bit and the tears and hugs are out of the way. Mum’s gone to clatter some tea and cakes out of the kitchen, still sniffing (it’s not as though they haven’t seen me since I left; they’ve been to London loads over the last five years and they stayed in my flat this summer when they were flying out to Orlando). ‘Oh,’ Dad says, when he sees the boring blue Ka. He looks at me. ‘You gone all green or something?’
‘Yeah,’ I tell him. ‘Thought I’d save the planet personally so you guys don’t have to.’
Actually I did think of hiring something bigger at the airport, something people would be impressed with as I swept into town, and I was all pumped to get a Mondeo at least, maybe even a Jag or something, but then I thought that might look a bit too flash in the circumstances. I’m not really rich yet, though I get to live like I’m rich, on expenses and with a mortgage on the flat in Stepney. Plus there’s that thing about flaunting it; people are still a bit old-fashioned that way up here, despite everything. Still a bit old-fashioned about a lot of things, frankly. Plus I had to think about what people like the Murstons might think if I looked like I was rubbing their noses in how I’d landed on my feet after getting run out of town. Mr M especially. Five years ago this would never have occurred to me, but I’m mature now.
Anyway, when I landed at Dyce this afternoon, the Ka is what I went for. Aberdeen looked even bigger from the air than I remembered, and you could see the line of the new bypass. Dyce was the usual cramped chaos, and very helicoptery.
Dad just makes that sort of huffing, snorting sound he does, which is his equivalent of ‘Aye, right.’ He’s a ginge, like me, though he’s a good bit shorter, sort of bulkier, and his eyes are brown, not green like mine. His hair’s gone darker and straighter over the years and he keeps it shorter than he used to. Beginning to lose it on top, but then what do you expect in your forties?
‘Ah well, you’ll save money on petrol, eh?’ he concedes, dropping himself into a chair. He looks me in the eye, glances at the door to the hall and drops his voice slightly. ‘You all right to come back, aye?’
‘Met with Powell Imrie. Already been to see Donald,’ I tell him. ‘Reckon I’ll get out of town alive.’
He still looks serious. ‘They were both okay?’
‘Powell was fine. Donald was a bit, well, like Donald. But okay.’
Dad nods. Another kitchen-ward glance, voice dropping a little again. ‘I told Mike you might be coming back for the funeral,’ he says quietly. ‘He’s been saying for a while it was probably okay. Said if there was any trouble to give him a call, eh? Or one of his boys.’ Mike MacAvett is the other Daddy in town. Though when Al – my dad – says ‘his boys’ he doesn’t mean either of Mike Mac’s sons. On the other hand, he doesn’t mean proper, full-on, tooled-up, Mafia-style gangsters, either. We’re not at that point here, not yet, anyway. All a bit more subtle and low-key than that. The Murstons and Mike Mac run their businesses with the minimum of fuss, and no guns. They have the weaponry, but they’ve broken it out only twice in the last fifteen years, as far as I know, when a couple of gangs from Aberdeen and Glasgow thought they might muscle their way in towards what they mistakenly thought looked like easy pickings amongst us hicks up here.
Didn’t work; faced with two long-entrenched and now armed concerns working in frankly startlingly close cooperation with the local cops, they quickly disappeared. Mostly they quickly disappeared straight back down the A90, the way they’d come, but there were strong, believable rumours that a couple went over the side of deepsea trawlers somewhere between the Hebrides and Iceland, or into a fishmeal plant, or beneath multiple layers of replaced rock in worked-out, open-cast coal mines, at least one of these unfortunates meeting their end after some very painful attention from Fraser Murston, who, allegedly, had turned out to be quite creative in the unpleasantness-inflicting department.
Anyway, if you’re talking rival families, the MacAvetts are the Vauxhall to the Murstons’ Ford. Or the Celtic to their Rangers or something … Though not in a religious way; I think they’re both Prods, technically. But you know what I mean.
I say, ‘Thanks, Al,’ though it doesn’t mean too much.
Mike MacAvett and his boys wouldn’t be able to save me from Powell Imrie and associates if the word went out. Wouldn’t want to, either: not enough in it. Mike MacAvett would step between Donald and a subject of his righteous ire only for something truly important and worthwhile that promised a serious pay-off at the end, not just to protect a guy who dug his own hole years ago, even if he is the son of his oldest friend. Business, and all that. And keeping the peace, frankly, too; not threatening a whole web of mutually beneficial arrangements by attacking each other and – if things get really out of hand – making it impossible for the cops to keep on turning a blind eye.
Whatever. Dad sits back, relaxes. He looks at me properly. ‘Lookin well. You doin all right? What you driving? You got a car yet?’
And with that we’re safely into small-talk, largely about what I do and don’t possess. I don’t possess a car, for example, which Dad seems to think is almost sacrilegious. I keep telling him I don’t need one in London. Dad thinks it’s political and I’m about to go and start hugging trees and blowing up nuclear power stations or refineries or something. He’s worked all his life in oil – he’s harbourmaster at the new docks these days, where the rig supply and support ships hang out – and so he’s sort of defensive on the subject, but at least not an outright denier.
Mum comes in with a big tray and asks about whether I’m happy, and about girls. I sit holding my favourite old SpongeBob SquarePants mug – I mean, really? – and think about saying something like, They’re all shaved these days, Mum. Pubic hair’s an endangered species amongst girls my age, did you know that? But that would be a bit weird. And probably wouldn’t even shock Mum anyway. Mum’s Dad’s age, looks a bit boho in jeans and a long flowing top (she’s an art teacher, so, fair enough). Barefoot, as she usually is round the house. She’s dark blonde, still mostly slim, though getting heavier as the years plod on. I always forget she’s got really good tits for a woman her age. I used to waver between being proud she’s still good-looking and not being able to wait for her to stop being a MILF, as my leering pals used to assure me she was. She’s probably just about dropped off that radar screen now.
I tell her I’m not involved with anybody long-term at present; too busy.
‘What about that Zoraiya lass? She seemed nice.’
Zoraiya was the Iranian girl I was seeing on and off during the summer: trainee lawyer. ‘She was nice. Still is.’ I shrug. ‘We’ve just gone in different directions.’ I smile big. ‘As you do.’
She smiles too. ‘Good to have you back, son.’
‘Good to be back, Mum.’
‘Aye,’ Dad says.
4
‘No; classical music.’
‘Like the Beatles?’
‘Not exactly. Beethoven, that sort of thing.’
‘That no a dug? Ah saw that fillum.’
‘Never mind.’
‘Evening.’
‘Stewart! Thank fuck. Great to see you. Mine’s whatever overpriced Continental lager this is. Ask BB for details.’
Ferg holds up a nearly drained pint glass. We’re in The Head in Hand. Ferg – lanky, darkly foppish-haired, eyes glinting – is the same Bodie Ferguson of the golf course story. The Head in Hand is the latest name for a pub on Union Street in the town centre where we’ve all been hanging out since before we were legally allowed to. When we first started sidling in for a bottle of alcopop and two straws it was called Sneaky Pete’s, then it became Murphy’s during Stonemouth’s belated and short-lived Irish-bar phase, then The Mason’s Arms, and for the last couple of years it’s been The H in H, apparently. Overdue for a name change.
The decor changes more slowly; still much like it always wa
s, which is nondescript. On the outside, on Union Street itself, there’s a big awning all the smokers congregate under; inside it’s the usual Friday night crush, with most people standing. Our lot form a knot of bodies corralled into a little raised area with wooden railings near the food service end of the bar, handy for the gents. I get a lot of hugs and claps on the back from the guys, who are mostly actual guys, though with some lady drinking buddies too. BB is Big Bairn: Nichol Dunn. I find him, find out who’s drinking what and head for the bar.
While I’m waiting, trying to catch an eye, Ferg puts his glass down, sliding it between me and the big rustic-looking guy next to me, then follows his arm in, wriggling until he’s squeezed himself between us, his body pressed against mine. The big farmer chappie scowls at him and rumbles in the near subsonic but Ferg ignores him.
‘I’ll give you a hand,’ he tells me. ‘You well?’ He frowns, picks at my jacket with two fingers, rubbing. ‘What’s this? You haven’t developed taste while you’ve been away, have you? Who put you up to it? Is it a girl?’
‘No,’ I tell him, ‘it’s money.’
‘Not a girl?’
‘Girldom in general. No one specific. Girls like the—’
‘So, where’ve you been? Why have you been out of touch?’
‘All over. And I’ve not been out of touch; you have.’
‘I most certainly have not. Few people I know have a higher level of in-touchability than I do. Possibly none.’
‘You keep changing phone numbers.’
‘I keep changing phones. Accidents happen to the little fuckers.’
‘You can take your number with you.’
‘So people keep telling me. I can never be bothered with the paperwork.’
‘Well—’
‘And “All over”? Excuse me? Could you be a little more vague?’
Ferg was my great rival at school for prizes, especially the English prize. He was pretty good at Art but I was better, and he was a lot more adept at Maths and Physics than me. I usually prevailed in French and Chemistry. The rest of the subjects were sort of shared between us, with the occasional other kid allowed to best us on an ad hoc basis (I did a year of Latin by mistake). Quite an intense rivalry. I think the only subject we weren’t that bothered about was PE, and even there we were far from being the class weeds; middle rankers in the team-choosing ritual. Anyway, my best friend, for want of a better term, until I left in such a hurry and we lost touch.
‘I’m based in London,’ I tell him. ‘Not that I’m there often. I spend a lot of time at thirty-five thousand—’
‘You’re in London? Why wasn’t I informed? I’m in London sometimes! Which bit? Is it one of the cool areas? Do you have a spare room?’
‘Stepney.’
Ferg looks briefly thoughtful. I use the interval to wave at a lady barperson. ‘Is that a cool area?’ he asks.
‘Would it matter, if I had a spare room?’
‘Possibly not. We should swap numbers.’
‘Call me; I’ve kept the same number.’
‘So, where do you go when you’re not in London?’
‘Everywhere. Cities, mostly. I’ve been to at least three cities in China with populations greater than the whole of Scotland, which I guarantee you’ve never—’
‘So you’re in oil.’
‘Ferg!’ I glare at his thin, fascinated-looking face. ‘I went to art school. You came through to visit me and practically swooned when I took you round the Mackintosh building. What the fuck would I be doing—’
‘Oh yes. I forgot. Still, stranger things happen.’ I shake my head. ‘Only to you, Ferg.’
There’s silence for a moment. I catch the lady barperson’s eyes again and smile. Jeez, she looks young. You can’t serve behind a bar if you’re too young to be served in front of it, can you? This is just starting to happen to me, a sign of my advancing years. She nods, holds up one finger. In a polite way, like, One moment, sir.
Ferg says, ‘So what is it you do again?’
‘I light buildings.’
‘You’re a pyromaniac?’
‘Ha! Be still, my aching sides. No, I—’
‘I’m not the first to make that—’
‘Not quite.’
‘You should probably stop phrasing it like that then.’
‘I work for a consultancy; we design lighting for buildings. Usually buildings of some architectural distinction.’
‘So basically you do floodlighting. You’re a floodlighter.’
‘Yes, I’m a floodlighter,’ I sigh, as the girl comes over. I smile, say Hi, take my phone out and read off the drinks order.
‘Yes,’ Ferg says, sighing, ‘you would have an iPhone, wouldn’t you?’
‘Yes, I would. And a BlackBerry for—’
‘So, Stewart, you stick big lights round buildings and make sure they’re pointing sort of generally towards it. That’s your job. That’s what you do. This is your career.’
‘Well, obviously it’s not quite as complicated as you make it sound. What about you?’
Ferg jerks back as far as he can in the crush, bringing another scowl from the farmerish-looking guy behind him. ‘You’re offering to floodlight me?’
I find myself sighing, too. This has always happened when I’m around Ferg, like his mannerisms are contagious. Or he’s just always being annoying.
‘Do you have a job, Ferg?’
‘Of course! I’m a wildly talented games designer. You’ve probably played some of the games I’ve designed.’
‘Oh, I think we can all say that, Ferg,’ I tell him, archly, glancing back at the crowd of our friends in the raised area. He almost laughs, throwing his head back as though he’s about to, but then not. ‘How the fuck did you end up in games design?’ I ask him. ‘You told me games reached their peak with Asteroids.’
‘I may have exaggerated.’
‘And I thought games were designed by huge teams these days anyway.’
‘They are, once you get past the individual genius, bolt-from-the-blue inspiration phase. I’ll leave you to guess—’
‘I see. And this means you’re based where?’
‘Dundee. Don’t laugh; it’s quite cool these days. Well, cold. Naturally I fantasise about the heady delights of the central belt – the dreaming spires of Edinburgh, the urban chic of downtown Glasgow – but at least it’s not here, the land that time forgot.’
He glances at the big farmer. Thankfully, the big farmer doesn’t seem to have heard. Ferg has got me into a couple of fights with remarks like that in places like this and most of his pals can tell the same story. Ferg himself rarely feels the need to stick around for the resulting fisticuffs, however. Probably reckons he’s done his job with the individual genius, bolt-from-the-blue inspiration phase. Anyway, Faintheart was one of many potential nicknames Ferg very nearly got stuck with.
‘Dundee it is for now,’ he concludes, sounding wistful. It’s …’ He looks away for a moment as the girl starts delivering our drinks.
‘Handy.’
‘How nice.’
‘And cheap,’ he tells me, eyes glittering. ‘I have a duplex. It’s huge. You should come visit. You can see Fife from most of the rooms, though you mustn’t let that put you off.’
‘Maybe one day.’
‘You could bring some floodlights.’
‘Here,’ I tell him, handing him the first three pints. ‘Break the habit of a lifetime and make yourself useful.’ I nod at the glasses while he’s still on the inward breath of synthetic outrage. ‘Yours, BB’s and Mona’s. Try not to drink them all before they get to their rightful owners.’
Ferg’s eyes narrow as he takes the glasses in a triangle of fingers. He used to be notorious for taking sips from everybody’s drinks as he carried them, ‘To stop them spilling.’ Sipper Ferguson was another nickname that very nearly became permanent.
‘You are a hard, embittered man, Stewart Gilmour.’
‘Ferg, you’d fist a skunk if y
ou thought there was a drink in it.’ Ferg shakes his head as he walks carefully away. ‘Rude, as well.’
It’s a good night. Lot of chat, craic, whatever, lot of laughing. Good to be with the old gang again. We visit several bars. Ferg, an equal-opportunities predator, hits on three women and at least two guys, including, he later claims, the big burly farmer from The Head in Hand. Exchanged numbers and everything. Books and covers and all that shit.
We’re walking between bars near the docks when I catch a whiff of something sharp, like chlorine or whatever it is they put in swimming pools, and I’m right back, the first time I definitely saw Ellie, years and years ago.
It was one of those hot, hazy summers from my teens, the enveloping mist starting each day off soft and silky, everything sort of quiet and mysterious, the whole firth, the horizon-stretching beaches north and south, and the town itself submerged from above by the enfolding grey presence of the clouds, then the sun burning it all off by breakfast, leaving only long, low banks of mist skulking out to sea that rarely ventured back in towards land before evening, when the sun slid north and west across the long shadow of the hills, its trajectory almost matching the sloped profile of the land, so that it hung there, orange and huge, as though forever on the brink of setting.
We spent a lot of time at the Lido that summer. It was built on the striated rocks that extend to the north of the estuary mouth, its cream-white walls washed by the waves at high tide. It had one Olympic-sized pool, various shallow ponds for children to splash about in, a separate diving pool, a Turkish baths complex, a glass-walled solarium, a café and lots of deckchairs on wide terraces, gently sloped to make it easier to catch the sun.
It had been built in the thirties, had its heyday then and in the fifties – it was closed for most of the Second World War – went to seed in the sixties, fell into disrepair in the seventies and eighties, was closed during the nineties and got refurbished with Millennium lottery money in 1999, opening in the spring of 2000. It became the cool new place to hang out, especially if you were too young to drink. Too young to drink without getting hassled all the time, anyway.