by Iain Banks
"Ah... excuse me..." They both turned to look at the winding-stair door, where the small attendant was peeking round the side, most of its body hidden in the twisted darkness beyond.
"What?" Quiss said.
"Ah... sorry..." the attendant said, in a small voice.
"Eh?" Quiss shouted, his voice altering in pitch. Ajayi took a deep breath and sat back on the stool. She'd heard. She thought Quiss had too, but he didn't want to admit it to himself. "Speak up, you wretch!" Quiss roared.
"That wasn't it," the attendant said, staying in the doorway. Its voice was still small; Ajayi found herself straining to catch its hesitant words; "that wasn't the right answer. I really am -"
"Liar!" Quiss rose off his seat, shaking with rage. The attendant yelped and disappeared. Ajayi sighed. She looked up at Quiss, who stood, fists clenched, glaring at the distant, empty doorway. He turned, whirled round to look down at her, the scraps of fur around him flying out. "Your answer, lady," he shouted at her, "your answer; remember that!"
"Quiss -" she began quietly. He shook his head, kicked the small chair he had been sitting on, and marched off across the squeaking, grating glass floor, heading for his own apartments. Before he left the games room for the short corridor which led to his rooms, he stopped by the side wall of the room, where more conventional paper and cardboard books lined the slate fabric of the castle - the masons" lame attempt at insulation. Quiss clawed at the wall, tearing the faded, yellowing books away from it, throwing them behind him like a dog digging a hole in the sand, bellowing incoherently and tearing and swiping at the wall, baring the green-black slate beneath as the torn, ripped pages fluttered away behind him, falling to the grimy glass floor like some flat, grubby snow.
Quiss stormed off, slamming a door somewhere, and Ajayi was left alone. She walked over to where the just-savaged books lay strewn across the floor, and stirred them with the toe of her boot. Some of the languages she knew, she thought (it was hard to tell in the uncertain light, and she was too stiff to be bothered bending down), and some she did not recognise.
She left the pages where they lay, one-dimensional flakes littering the murky floor, and she went to stand by the balcony window again.
Against the unending, unaltering whiteness of the plain, a flight of dark birds flew. The same sky looked down, blank and forgettable and grey, itself unchanging.
"And what next?" she asked herself in a low voice. She shivered and hugged herself tighter. Her short hair refused to grow any longer, and her furs had no hood. Her ears were cold. What was next, they knew already from the castle seneschal, was something called Open-Plan Go. Goodness knew how long that would take them to work out and play, assuming Quiss came back from his sulk. The seneschal had muttered something about this next game being the closest analogue of the Wars themselves, which worried Ajayi for a start. That sounded awfully complex, and long.
She had asked the seneschal where the ideas for these odd games came from. He said from a place which was the castle's chosen Subject, and had hinted, she thought, that there was another way to get to this place, but refused to be more specific. Ajayi was trying to cultivate the seneschal's acquaintance (when her sore leg and stiff back let her get down to the basement levels where he was usually to be found) whereas Quiss had started out trying to intimidate him. When the man had first arrived he had tried to torture information on how to escape from one of the waiters. It hadn't worked, of course, just made the others frightened.
Ajayi's belly rumbled. It must be mealtime soon. Waiters would appear shortly, if they weren't too frightened of Quiss being in a bad mood. Damn the man.
Open-Plan Go, she thought, and shivered again.
"You'll be saw-ree!" croaked a passing rook, cruising past on black wings and using the voice of an old, bitterly remembered lover.
"Oh, shut up," she muttered, and went back inside.
PART TWO
ROSEBERY AVENUE
On the bridge which carried Rosebery Avenue over Warner Street, there was a smell of paint. Black dust lay on the pavement, collecting in the spaces of the bridge's primed balustrade. Graham hoped they would paint the bridge tastefully. He looked into the cradle the painters were using to paint the outside of the balustrade from, and saw an old radio so spotted with paint it could have been an exhibit. The man in the cradle was whistling to himself and coiling a length of rope.
Graham felt oddly satisfied at seeing life go on around him like this; he felt almost smug at walking past people and them not giving him a second glance, at least not now he'd got rid of Slater. He was like some vital cell in the bloodstream of the city; tiny but important; a message bearer, a point of growth and change.
She would be waiting for him now, getting ready, perhaps only now getting dressed, or still in the bath or shower. Now at last it was coming out right, the bad times were over, Stock deposed. It was his time, his turn.
He wondered what she thought of him now. When they had first met she thought he was funny, he guessed, though kind too. Now she had had time to get to know him better, see other sides of him as well. Perhaps she loved him. He thought he loved her. He could imagine them living together, even marrying. He would make a living as an artist - probably just a commercial artist at first, until his name became known - and she could do... whatever she wanted.
On his left were more buildings; light industrial and office premises topped by flats. Outside an open door of something called the Wells Workshop, at the kerb, stood a large American sports car. It was a Trans Am. Graham frowned as he passed it, partly at its loud white-lettered tyres and obtrusive styling, but partly because it reminded him of something; something to do with Slater, with Sara even.
Then he remembered; appropriately enough it had been at the party when Slater had first introduced Graham and Sara to each other. The coincidence amused Graham.
A smell of new shoes from another workshop wafted around him as he looked up at the old, stopped clock jutting out, two-faced, over the pavement from the first floor of the workshop, hands frozen at twenty-past-two (he glanced at his watch; it was actually 3:49). Graham smiled to himself, and recalled that night, another of Slater's never-to-be-written plots.
"Right. It's Science Fiction. There's this -"
"Oh no," Graham said. They were standing by the mantelpiece in the front room of Martin Hunter's large house in Gospel Oak. Mr Hunter - Martin, to his students - was one of the lecturers at the Art School, and was giving his customary late Christmas party, in January. Slater had been invited, and had persuaded Graham he would not be gate-crashing if he came along too. They took along a box of wine they bought between them, and were drinking the red vin de table from plastic half-pint glasses. Apart from some salty garlic bread, neither of them had had anything to eat for some hours beforehand so, despite the fact that the party was hardly properly underway yet, they were both feeling the effects of the drink.
Music played loudly from the dining-room next door, where the carpets had been rolled back so that people could dance. Most of the people in the front room were sitting on couches or beanbags. Martin Hunter's own paintings, large gaudy canvases which looked like close-ups of minestrone soup seen under the effects of a powerful hallucinatory drug, adorned the walls.
"Just listen. There's this lot of weird aliens called the Sproati and they decide to invade Earth -"
"I think this has been done before," Graham said, taking a drink. Slater looked exasperated.
"You won't let me finish," he said. He wore a pair of grey shoes, baggy white trousers and what appeared to be a red tuxedo. He took a drink and went on, "Okay, so they're invading Earth, but they're doing it as a tax dodge so that -"
"A tax dodge?" Graham said, leaning forward and looking Slater in the eye. Slater giggled.
"Yeah, they have to spend so much of the galactic year out of the Milky Way or the galactic tax federation hammers them for gigacredits, but instead of paying for expensive inter-galactic travel they camp out on some backwat
er planet still in the galaxy and just hide, see? But: something goes wrong. They're coming in on a starship disguised as a Boeing 747 so that the locals won't suspect until it's too late, but when they land at London Heathrow their baggage gets lost; all their heavy weaponry ends up in Miami and gets mixed up with the luggage of some psychiatrists attending an international symposium on anal-fixation after death, and: Freudians take over the world with the captured high-tech, arms. The Sproati all get interned by the British immigration authorities; thanks to a false reading on a spectograph when they were planning the operation they've all taken too many tannin pills and they're almost black. Usually they're light blue. One -"
"What do they look like?" Graham interrupted. Slater looked confused, then waved his free hand dismissively.
"I don't know. Vaguely humanoid, I suppose. Anyway, one of them escapes and sets up home in an abandoned but working car-wash in Hayes, Middlesex, while the rest die of starvation in the internment cells."
"Doesn't sound like there's all that many of them, for an entire species..." Graham grumbled into his glass.
"They're very shy," Slater hissed. "Now will you be quiet? This one Sproati - we'll call him Gloppo -"
A couple of girls entered the room from the hall. Graham recognised them from the Art School; they were talking and laughing. He watched to see if they would look over at him and Slater, but they didn't. He had on his new black cords for the first time (they were a Christmas present from his mother. He'd told her what to get; she'd been going to get him flared jeans!), and he thought he looked pretty good in his snow-white shirt, black jacket, white trainers and lightly blonded dark hair.
"Look, stop looking at those females and pay attention; you are following all this, aren't you?" Slater put his face towards Graham's, leaning forward along the mantelpiece.
Graham shrugged, looked at the red wine in his glass, and said, 1 don't know about following, feels more like I'm being pursued."
"Oh, tres droll." Slater smiled artificially. "Anyway, Gloppo installs a brain in the car-wash so he can have sex with it- all those brushes and rollers and foam and stuff, you know? - while in Florida the Freudians are tightening their grip; they ban all phallic symbols including gear sticks, Jumbo jets, submarines and rockets and missiles. AH motorbikes have to be ridden side-saddle and bondage is right out: rolled umbrellas, stretch jeans and fishnet stockings are banned, on pain of having a Sony Walkman taped permanently to your skull playing a looped tape of Barry Manilow's Greatest Hits... except for Barry Manilow fans, who get John Cage instead."
"What about," Graham said, pointing one finger at Slater, who pursed his lips and tapped his foot impatiently on the fire-surround, "those people who like Barry Manilow and John Cage?"
Slater rolled his eyes. "This is Science Fiction, Graham, not Monty Python. Anyway, Gloppo discovers the car-wash has been unfaithful in his absence with a metallic-blue Trans Am -"
"I thought that was an airline."
"It's a car. Now be quiet. Gloppo finds the Trans Am has been screwing the car-wash -"
"And the car-wash's been riding the car," Graham sniggered.
"Shut up. Gloppo disconnects the low-fidelity car-wash. Now then..."
There were more people in the room now; groups of men and women; most of them young, about his age, stood and talked and drank and laughed. The two girls he had noticed earlier were standing talking to some other girls. Graham hoped they all realised that just because he was standing talking to Slater, that didn't mean he was gay too. He looked back, nodding appreciatively, as Slater, talking quickly, waving his arms about, eyes glittering, seemed to approach the end of the story.
"... shit-scared because he's about to be blasted into particles even smaller and more radioactive than Ronald Reagan's brain, goes to the loo; by sheer coincidence the crap he does solidifies in the intense cold of outer space and the pursuing spaceship runs into it at about half the speed of light and is totally destroyed.
"Gloppo and his pal discover the joys of oral sex, the Freudians blow up the world, but that was going to happen anyway, and our two heroes live comparatively happily ever after." Slater grinned widely, took a deep, panting breath, then a drink. "What do you think? Good, isn't it?"
"Well..." Graham said, looking at the ceiling.
"Don't tease, you young blaggard. It's terrific; admit it."
"You've been reading that book," Graham said. "You know; that book by that guy
"Specific as ever, Graham. What an incisive mind; straight for the capillary. I stand in awe."
"You know the one I mean," Graham said, looking down at the blocked-off fireplace and snapping his fingers. That one that was on the telly
"Well, we're narrowing it down," Slater said with a thoughtful nod. He took another drink.
"Earth got blown up in that one too... ah..." Graham kept snapping his fingers. Slater was silent for a second, gazing disdainfully at Graham's snapping fingers, then he said tiredly,
"Graham, either concentrate on searching for the title of the book you're talking about or devote your full energies to practising calling for a waiter; I'm not convinced you possess the RAM for doing both at the same time."
The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Universe!" Graham exclaimed.
"Galaxy," Slater corrected dourly.
"Well, it sounds like it."
"Nothing like it. You just don't recognise real talent when you meet it."
"Oh, I don't know..." Graham grinned, looking over at the two Art School girls, who were now sitting on the floor on the other side of the room, talking to each other. Slater slapped his forehead.
Thinking with your gonads again! It's pathetic. Here I am, yours for the asking; talented, handsome, lovable and affectionate, and all you can do is gawk at a couple of brainless broads."
"Not so loud, you idiot," Graham - feeling somewhat drunk -scolded Slater. They'll hear you." He took a drink and looked at the other young man. "And stop going on about how wonderful you are. You can be very boring, you know. I keep telling you I'm not gay."
"My God," Slater breathed, shaking his head, "have you no ambition?"
Now, on this June day, Graham smiled at the memory. It would have been a good party anyway, even if he hadn't met Sara, he thought. The people were friendly, there was plenty to eat if they'd wanted it, and from what he'd seen there were quite a few unattached girls around. He'd been thinking of asking one of the two who had entered the front room during Slater's monologue -the more attractive of them - for a dance even as Slater was telling him how desirable Richard Slater was.
It was funny, Graham thought; the party seemed so long ago, but the memory was more fresh and real for him than things that had happened even just last week. He breathed deeply as he thought about it, passing postal workers from the Mount Pleasant sorting office standing talking just outside a small cafe. A big red Italian car was parked at the kerb. Slater would have liked it. Graham smiled and crossed the road to the sorting office, smelling its new coat of paint.
Slater saw Sara standing at the door of the room. His face lit up, he put his plastic tumbler down on the mantelpiece. "Sara darling!" he called, and went over to her, through a couple of groups of other people, and put his arms round her. She didn't respond, but when Slater drew back her face held a slight smile. Graham was staring, and saw the woman's eyes flicker his way for a moment. Slater led her past the other people, over towards the mantelpiece and him. Graham felt frozen. People were still talking, chattering away. Hadn't anybody else in the room seen her?
She was slim, quite tall. Her hair was black and thick and looked tangled, as though she had just got out of bed and not brushed it. Her face, all her exposed skin, was white. She wore a black dress, an old thing with slightly tattered lace which filmed about her like some black froth. On top of the thin dress she wore a brightly coloured, predominantly red, Chinese padded jacket; it seemed to sparkle in the room's dim lights. Black tights, black low heels.
She was taking off h
er gloves as she approached. Her upper chest, exposed for the breadth of a hand by the black dress, showed a strange white mark, like a sort of ragged and wide necklace settled loosely over her shoulders. As she came closer he saw it was a scar, the scar tissue even more white than the skin around it. Her eyes were black, wide as though with some sustained surprise, the skin from their outer corners to her small ears taut. Her lips were pale, and nearly too full for her small mouth, like something bled but bruised. He had never seen anyone or anything quite so beautiful in his life; instantly, in less than the time it took her to walk from one side of the room to the other, he knew he loved her.
"This is the little ingenu I keep trying to seduce, Sara," Slater said, presenting Graham with one delicate roll of the hand. "Mr Graham Park, this is Mrs Sara ffitch. Quite the most gorgeous and elegant thing to come out of Shropshire since... well, me."
She stopped in front of him, her head lowered just a little. His heart was beating too hard. He must be shaking. She was looking at Slater through the black web of her hair; now her head tilted, she turned to face him, put her small hand out. A Mrs! She was married! He couldn't believe it. For the merest instant, some final, irreducible unit of desire, he had glimpsed a feeling, an urge within himself he had not imagined himself capable of, but now this tiny, standard piece of information, these few letters, had switched his hopes off like some cheap lightbulb. (Two summers ago, on holiday in Greece with a school pal he had since lost touch with, he'd been on a small, crowded, ramshackle train heading out of Athens over a scrubby plain in blistering heat. Parched ochre land and scrappy shrubs moved monotonously by. The rattling carriage was full of rucksacks and hikers, and black-dressed Greek ladies with chickens. Then his friend Dave shouted "Look!" and when he turned, for a few moments only he glimpsed the Corinth canal; a sudden gulf sliced in the landscape, blue space sparkling, a ship in the deep distance; fathomless light and air. Then the barren plain resumed.)