by Iain Banks
‘Dear God, please say you’re joking.’
‘Holy piss up a rope, who’s that?’
‘Who?’
‘There, in the red.’
‘Where?’
‘There! Good grief, did you see her already and wank yourself blind?’
‘Ah. That’s Jel. Anjelica MacAvett?’
‘Ay, caramba,’ Ferg breathed, ‘I leave the place for three years to get a proper education and the bumpkins suddenly all turn luscious. Look at her! If I wasn’t bi already I swear I’d turn, just on the chance of getting nuts deep into that.’
‘Ever the romantic,’ I sighed.
Actually Jel was looking pretty fabulous; she wore a stunning red dress, high-necked but with a shoulder-to-shoulder window cut across the top of her breasts, and split from ankle to mid-thigh. Long red satin gloves stretching to above her elbows. Waist narrow enough to be wearing a corset. We were not the only guys looking at her as she stood by one of the tables, smiling as she talked to some white-haired oldies. Her hair was the colour of champagne, and as bubbly: a cascade suffused with ringlets.
‘Wasn’t she the dumpy bairn that used to jump on your lap and tell you she loved you? Usually at a crucial point in Doom, as I recall.’
‘I missed a few high scores that way.’
‘Fuck me,’ Ferg muttered. ‘You wouldn’t push her off and give her fifty pence to go away now.’
I looked round for Ellie, who’d stopped to talk to some old school pals as we’d entered the hotel foyer. El was as tall, elegant and cool in electric blue as Jel was small, curvaceous and, well, blisteringly sexy in red. No sign.
A small boy suddenly appeared in front of us clutching a camera in his chubby hands and pointing it vaguely towards Ferg and me. The flash went off and the boy scuttled away giggling. There had been a few blue-white flashes in other parts of the room over the last minute or so, most emanating from below table height.
‘Is there a knee-level identity parade later or what?’ Ferg asked, mystified.
‘I’d get used to it,’ I told him, dark spots dancing in front of my eyes. ‘Drew’s dad thought it would be a hoot to give all the small children cheap digi cameras, to keep the little scamps amused.’
Ferg appeared confused. ‘Drew? Who’s Drew?’
I looked at him. ‘The groom, Ferg?’
‘Oh.’ Ferg nodded, finished his second whisky. ‘That’s nice. So we’re going to have hip-high Toun bairns spatting about the place, letting off camera flashes all evening?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘Cripes. Could be a long night.’
‘Wait till they show the results on the big screen,’ I said, nodding at the stage.
‘Dear Christ, have they no pity?’
‘Prepare yourself for a lot of photos of floor tiles and table legs. Oh, and corners.’
‘Corners?’
‘Kids love corners. Find them terribly photogenic. No idea why.’
‘Fuck.’ Ferg looked suitably appalled. ‘It’s the new slide carousel. Inhuman.’ He shook dramatically and sucked the last dregs of whisky from his glass. ‘This calls for a pint. Where’s the bar?’ He glanced round. ‘It is free, isn’t it?’
‘Hey, Stewart.’
I’d just finished my coffee after the meal. Ellie’s cup of tea lay where it had been left, untouched, just like her main course had been; she’d spent most of the meal dashing off to see people and was currently nowhere to be found. I’d done a little room-working myself, and Mike Mac had stopped by, sat and had a fairly phatic natter a few minutes earlier.
I turned round as a hand rested on my shoulder. ‘Jolie! Good to see you!’ I stood up and we hugged, only slightly awkwardly, given she was holding a wee girl in one arm. ‘And who’s this?’
‘This is Hannah,’ Jolie told me, smiling broadly.
‘Hello, Hannah,’ I said, though the bairn was shy and turned away, burying her face in Jolie’s shoulder-length brown hair.
‘Two next month,’ Jolie said.
I stroked the back of one of Hannah’s hands with a finger. The wee fist took an even tighter grip of her mum’s hair. ‘She’s gorgeous,’ I said. Hannah pressed her face deeper in towards Jolie’s neck. ‘Third one?’ I asked. ‘Or have there been more?’
‘Third,’ Jolie said, ‘and I think we’ll stop there. Three’s quite enough.’
Jolie McColl was my first girlfriend, the first girl I took on proper dates and had any sort of extended relationship with. Medium height and build, glossy, thickly heavy hair and a face that looked nice enough but plain only until she smiled, when rooms lit up.
I have to keep reminding myself ours was a relatively innocent relationship because although we never did have full-on sex there was a lot of everything else just short of it. Not for the want of me trying, begging and wheedling, mind, but Jolie was not to be moved; hands-down-pants and up-skirt mutual pleasuring was fine, and she was perfectly happy to go down on me, but her knickers might as well have been held on with superglue.
I suppose now it wouldn’t seem so terrible – we had a lot of fun together and a lot of this nine-tenths sex – but when you’re sixteen, bubbling with hormones and your friends are, allegedly, getting properly, penetratively and frequently laid all over the place, this not being allowed to Go All The Way seems to matter a hell of a lot.
Jolie’s attitude was that what we had was close enough to sex for it not really to matter. She wanted to stay a virgin, maybe until she was married and/or settled down and had kids. Only maybe, though; possibly she’d change her mind, so this restriction wasn’t necessarily for ever. What she wasn’t going to be was pressured or bullied into sex, by me or some of her so-called girlfriends.
I admired and respected her resolution absolutely, I just wished it didn’t affect me personally and drive me to bouts of such wild, so-near-and-yet-so-far frustration.
In the end my metaphorical cherry was popped when I had my one-night stand with Kat Naughton, on what had started out as just a lads-only drinking night. Arguably that would have relaxed me and I’d have been happy to give Jolie as long as she wanted to come round to the idea of us being proper lovers; however, somebody told her about me and Kat, and we had this big argument and split up.
We didn’t talk for about a year, then we did, then we became friends again. Not good friends, but more than just civil. She’d settled down a couple of years ago with a nice guy called Mark who worked on the rig-supply boats; last I’d heard they’d had two children, both boys. Now, there was Hannah as well. Jolie was a friend of Lauren, and Ellie and I had invited her and Mark to our wedding too.
‘How’s Mark?’ I asked.
‘Fine. Working this weekend. He’ll be here for you and Ellie’s.’ Jolie looked at Hannah, who was peeking at me through her mum’s hair. ‘Left the boys with Mum but thought I’d bring this one along to see her first wedding.’
‘I was just on my way to the bar. Get you anything?’
‘I’ll come along. G&T for me.’
‘Any tips?’
‘What for?’
‘A happy marriage.’
‘I’m not married?’
‘As good as, though, yeah?’
‘As good as,’ Jolie conceded.
We were sitting at her table. It was mostly deserted as people danced. She watched Hannah tentatively exploring the seats and sections of table close to where we sat. Hannah looked back at Jolie every now and again. I’d caught a glimpse of Ellie, dancing.
‘Let me think,’ Jolie said. ‘I know: don’t have children.’
‘Eh?’ I said.
‘Seriously.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Your decision, the two of you, obviously,’ Jolie said. ‘But, yes, that’s my advice.’
‘But you’ve got three!’
‘So I know what I’m talking about.’ Jolie waved at Hannah, who was holding onto a chair at another table a few metres away. Jolie looked back to me and gave a small laugh. She le
aned forward and patted me on the hand. ‘And I love them all dearly,’ she said, in a sort of there-there-it’s-all-right voice, ‘and I wouldn’t be without them, and I love Mark too and he makes me feel loved and cherished and protected and all that, but if I could rewind the clock, had never had the kids, didn’t know them as people … No, I wouldn’t have any.’
‘Fuck!’ I breathed, then glanced guiltily at Hannah, though she was probably too far away to hear; the music was loud. ‘Beg your pardon.’ I leaned closer. ‘But why not?’
Jolie played with her empty G&T glass, revolving it on the white tablecloth. ‘Oh, just because they take over your life. They become your life. I sort of had plans? But, well.’
I felt shocked. Jolie had been a great snowboarder and her ambition had been to represent the UK at the Olympics, and she had wanted to be a doctor: specifically a cancer specialist, after watching her mum’s mum waste away. I wasn’t sure what to say.
‘Another G&T?’ I asked.
She smiled. ‘Why not?’
Heading for the bar, I caught a glimpse of electric blue, bright in the flash of a camera, and saw Ellie, polkaing wildly with a guy I half recognised. I waved, but she was too busy trying not to get her feet stood on.
When I came back from the bar, two couples had sat back down at the table, red-faced after the latest dance. Hannah was on Jolie’s lap. Hannah sniffed, as if she’d been crying.
‘Got a flash right in her face,’ Jolie told me.
‘Aw,’ I said to Hannah. She turned away a little, but then looked back. I got a wee smile. A tiny wee smile, and my heart melted. I looked back at her mum, frowning a lot and shaking my head.
‘Seriously seriously?’
Jolie laughed. Hannah gazed straight up at her mum’s chin.
‘Stewart,’ Jolie said, smiling, ‘I love them, they mean everything to me, I’m happy with Mark and this is my life now and I’ve accepted that, but you asked for a tip and that’s mine.’ She sighed. ‘Though, of course, you’re the man. As a tip, I suppose it’s not really directed at you.’ She looked down at Hannah, carefully smoothing her fine auburn hair. ‘Everybody says kids are what it’s all about, don’t they? But then that just means you have kids so they can have kids and then those kids can have kids too, and so on and so on ad infinitum, and you have to stop at some point and think, Hold on, shouldn’t some of it be about me, or, well, about any of the people from any of those generations? Shouldn’t we have something else apart from just being a link in this chain of procreation for the sake of it?’ She sighed again, arranged Hannah’s hair just so. ‘Not as though the human race is in any danger of dying out. And we have choice, now.’
‘No time machines, though.’
‘No, no time machines,’ she agreed. Her smile was still as beautiful as it had been.
‘Intending to pass this tip on to Hannah?’ I asked quietly.
Jolie shrugged. ‘Hope I have the courage to,’ she said. ‘Probably not the boys; they won’t take any notice of me anyway.’ Jolie smiled ruefully and lifted her child up to cuddle her again.
‘You two okay?’ said a concerned female voice, and I turned to find the stunning vision of curvaceous pulchritude that was Anjelica MacAvett, a vision in crimson at my side. A wave of her perfume rolled over me.
Jolie smiled. ‘We’re fine,’ she told Jel.
‘Can I borrow him?’ Jel asked. ‘It’s an Eightsome Reel; all hands report to the dance floor.’
‘He’s not mine to lend,’ Jolie said, hugging Hannah to her. ‘You can have him.’
‘Stop groaning,’ Jel said, using a finger to flick me on the ear. She was still wearing the long red satin gloves.
‘Not an Eightsome,’ I said, though I was already starting to get up out of my seat. ‘Do I have to?’
‘Thanks,’ Jel told Jolie, then to me, ‘Yes. Stop being such an old man. Get your ass out there.’
‘Me legs, me feet, me old war wound,’ I said in a weak, wavering voice. I was pushed hard in the small of the back, towards the dance floor.
Omens, portents. A fire alarm went off just after the Eightsome Reel finished. Everybody – standing at the bar, sitting at tables, trudging wearily off the dance floor – just looked at one another with that Oh, come on look, but then the staff started ushering everybody outside.
‘Aw, blinkin heck,’ I said – very restrainedly, I thought, ‘we’re not even going to get to sit down!’
‘Nearest fire exit’s behind us,’ one of the guys pointed out, so Jel and I and the other six of our Eightsome survivors group found ourselves shambling down a brightly lit service corridor. I was arm in arm with Jel, who was wincing with each step. She got me to stop briefly, leaning against me as she slipped her shoes off. We hobbled the rest of the way to the fire doors at the rear of the hotel.
‘Great, the bins,’ Jel said with a sigh, surveying the less than lovely backyard full of industrial-size refuse bins we’d emerged into. She put her shoes back on.
‘Chaps? Chapesses? Think the assembly area’s round the front of the hotel,’ our group know-it-all announced.
‘I’m sitting here,’ Jel announced, lowering herself delicately onto one of three red, sun-faded plastic chairs, which looked like they were there for when the smokers amongst the staff wanted a fag break.
I tried Ellie’s phone, but it wasn’t on or had no reception. Everybody else was wandering off towards the assembly area in the car park round the front.
‘Go, go,’ Jel said, when she saw me hesitating. ‘I’m fine. See you back in there.’
The best part of two hundred and fifty people were swirling about the car park. A lot of them had brought glasses and bottles outside with them. The evening was pleasantly warm, the air was clear out over the sands, and the water was dark blue with pink clouds piled just over the horizon. The party had just moved outside. It helped that it was so obviously a false alarm, with no smoke or flames visible coming from the hotel, so everybody was confident we’d be back inside again soon to continue the fun.
I moved around, said hellos, shook hands, high-fived, and air-kissed various cheeks as I meandered through the press of bodies. My blue-suede shoes attracted a few comments, almost all of them favourable. I got a beery one-arm hug from Murdo Murston, a nod from Donald and a smile from Mrs M.
‘Aye, we’ll make a Murston out of ye yet!’ Callum said, gripping me in a full-on bear-hug and trying to get my feet off the ground, but failing. He smelled of Morgan’s Spiced Rum and I could see hints of white powder in his patchy moustache. That was a surprise in itself; Donald was known to disapprove strongly of the boys partaking. ‘We’ll make a Murston out of ye yet!’ he said again, in case I hadn’t heard him the first time. Even so, he still liked this phrase so much he repeated it a few more times.
There had been a little light joshing over the last couple of months about it maybe making more sense for me to take Ellie’s surname rather than her to take mine, or – as we’d made quite clear – what would be happening: us keeping our own names and double-barrelling our surnames for any children. Probably. Light joshing in Murston terms involved what would look to most people like serious intimidatory bullying, but – with Ellie’s help – I’d stood up to it pretty well, I thought.
A big cheer went up from the crowd as Josh MacAvett arrived in a taxi, fresh off a plane from London; I stopped to say hi, then went on trying to find Ellie. I accepted a couple of sips of wine and beer from happy revellers, and a toke on a joint from Ferg, skulking with some other smokers by some interesting topiary near the top of the steps that led down to lower garden terraces.
Which was where I caught another glimpse of electric blue, and walked down and along a terrace and found Ellie in a clinch, basically, with the guy she’d been dancing with earlier. I recognised him now; he was the guy she’d gone out with before Josh MacAvett, the guy I’d always suspected had been her first lover, the guy who’d taken her virginity. Dean somebody. Dean Watts. That was him.
They were on a terrace one level further down, standing, his hands cupping her backside.
I think my mouth fell open. I stopped, stared. So far, they hadn’t seen me. The way they were standing, Ellie with her back to me, he was the one most likely to spot me. I just stood there, crossed my arms.
What the fuck, was all I could think. What the fuck?
It was weird; I felt sort of hollow, emptied out, all dredged of feeling. I felt I ought to feel shocked, horrified, angry and betrayed – I wanted to feel those things – but I didn’t. My main reaction just seemed to be: Oh.
And the aforementioned, What the fuck?
I could hear sirens in the distance.
A breeze brought their voices and a hint of Ellie’s perfume up to me. ‘No, listen, Dean, stop. No, no, just stop,’ I heard Ellie say as he tried to kiss her again. Dean was maybe my height: dark hair, pretty fit-looking. Kilty outfit, sporran currently to the side, where you put it to dance. Or if you’re hoping for a shag, I suppose. Ellie pushed him away. ‘That’s enough.’
‘Aw, come on. Old times’ sake, El,’ Dean said, pulling her back towards him. They’d turned a little by now so I wouldn’t be in his line of sight if he just raised his eyes.
‘No! I shouldn’t have let you kiss me, let alone – no! Come on, before somebody sees us.’
This should have been Dean’s cue to look about, maybe see me, but he only had eyes for Ellie. She did look good in that dress: hair still up, just a few wisps shaken loose by dancing.
‘That all you’re worried ab—’ he started to say.
‘No! No, it’s not! Just stop. Come on; let’s head back. It’s just a false alarm.’
‘Aw, El, come on, you know you—’
‘Will you just—’
‘Hon, you’re not even married yet; come on.’
‘This isn’t—’
Dean tried hard to bring her close enough to kiss again, pulling at her, making El bend back and push hard against him, protesting.
Finally she stamped on his right brogue with her heel, leaving him hopping and going ‘Ow!’ Then she slapped him on the cheek for good measure. I didn’t think people slapped like that any more, only in movies. Looked like a sting-y one. Good for you, lass, I thought. Ellie marched off for the nearest steps, leaving Dean to half sit, half fall onto a bench.