Walking on Glass

by Iain Banks

  "You should've come down when I was nearer the front of the queue, you should," he told them. He had bought some small dumpy cans of McEwan's Export, and handed the others one each. He sat down to read.

  "You see?" Slater said loudly, still lying down, his voice slightly affected by the champagne he'd drunk. This man is a fucking socialist at heart and even he doesn't realise it!"

  "Give it a rest, Dick," Ed told him mildly.

  Slater poured the last of his champagne over his own forehead. "He calls me Dick," he gasped in a strangled voice, and rolled over onto his face. "Me: the communal ranger, superhom, the pinko pimpernel, the man in the Faberge mask; I'll scratch the mark of Zero on your foreskin, you -"

  "Shush now," Sara ffitch said, her voice resonating in her chest, buzzing Graham's head with glorious sensation. Slater went quiet; he started snoring lightly a few minutes later.

  A pretty girl, blonde, wearing a short bouncy skin and a thin pink top through which Graham could just make out the outlines of her nipples, passed him on Penton Street. He watched her walk by, but didn't make it obvious.

  He had always worried about this. He didn't want to be sexist, but how the hell did you not look at attractive women? He didn't say anything to them, or try to touch them; he'd never dream of that; he despised the stupid idiots who did that sort of thing; they made him ashamed to be a man; they were the sort Slater accused of "carrying their brains in their scrotums" (or did Slater say "scrota'?); but looking...as long as it didn't embarrass the woman... that was all right.

  Especially now, or maybe, with a bit of luck, until now. It had been a strange, awkwardly sexual time for him. He had been worrying - of all things! - about masturbating.

  He found it difficult, almost unpleasant to think of Sara at night, in bed, before he went to sleep. But to think of other women, previous sexual encounters, seemed wrong too. It was absurd, it was crazy, it was like being pubescent again, or worse; it didn't even make much sense in terms of the beliefs he had worked out long before about sexual fidelity, but there it was. He hated the idea of pornography, even soft pornography, but he had almost come round to the idea that it might be better to buy one of the glossy girlie magazines and accept the inhuman, labial beauty of those seductive image-women; it would at least absolve the release of his sexuality from the responsibilities of the real world.

  "Most people's ultimate sexual fantasies, their idealised desires, are built of clay," he recalled Slater saying. Slater had just discovered that most of the weight of a glossy magazine came from kaolin, the same clay used in a morphine mixture to clog up people's guts when they had the runs. Graham seemed to remember Slater had been talking about gay photo-mags, but the point was the same.

  Anyway, what did it matter now? It might all be over soon; all the worrying and waiting and empty desiring. He was opposite the pub now; he would turn the corner on to the short length of Maygood Street, and there would be Half Moon Crescent.

  The name fascinated him.

  He made a symbol of it:

  )

  _

  2

  Half. Moon. Crescent.

  MR SHARPE

  Drunk!

  He sat on a park bench in the small triangular piece of ground which was called Islington Green. Mr Sharpe sat by his side; they were both drinking from large bottles of cider. Mr Sharpe was smoking a cigarette. Steven felt quite drunk.

  "I mean," Mr Sharpe said, stabbing at the air with his cigarette, "they don't "ave to stay where they fackin" well are, do they? "Course they don't... do they?" Steven shook his head in case Mr Sharpe was really asking him a question. Most of the questions seemed to be rhetorical, though. He couldn't remember what Mr Sharpe was talking about now. Was it the Jews? The Blacks? Scroungers?

  Mr Sharpe was a small man of about fifty-five. He was going bald and his eyes looked yellow in the grey-pink skin of his face, which was lined with grey stubble. He wore a big old coat and working boots. He had approached Grout in the pub he had gone to, the Nag's Head. Steven usually avoided pub drunks, and it was fairly obvious Mr Sharpe was the resident PD in the Nag's Head that lunchtime, but Steven was quite drunk himself, and apart from Mr Sharpe seeming to be encouragingly worried about conspiracies -Grout hadn't entirely given up the idea of finding a fellow exile and cooperating to escape together - Mr Sharpe had also displayed what appeared to be genuine good-heartedness when Steven told him it was his birthday. A few small tears had come to his eyes, in fact, when Mr Sharpe shook his hand for a long time and wished him many happy returns several times in a loud voice.

  Steven had bought most of the drinks from then on, as Mr Sharpe wasn't working and didn't have very much money, but Steven didn't mind. He showed Mr Sharpe all the money he had, explaining that he had been paid off that day.

  "The cans," Mr Sharpe had said, spitting inadvertently, "the fackin" cans; I bet it was them unions, wasn't it?"

  Grout hadn't been sure about that, but he told Mr Sharpe he wasn't sorry anyway. He did say he couldn't spend all the money, of course, he had to keep some by for his rent and food and things, and he had to wait for his unemployment money. Mr Sharpe said he was quite right, but to watch out; there were plenty of smart jewboys and big black muggers around; the jewboys would swindle it off you and the niggers would slit your throat as soon as look at you.

  After the pub shut at three, they went over to the Green with a couple of bottles of stout they had bought to carry out. Steven had bought Mr Sharpe a packet of cigarettes, too, and some matches. "You're a gent, Steve, that's what you are; a gent," Mr Sharpe had said, and Steven felt almost as good as when the policeman had called him "sir'. He sniffed, eyes tingling.

  They drank the bottles of stout, then Mr Sharpe said why didn't they nip over to the off-licence in Marks and Sparks on Chapel Market and get a couple of bottles of cider? It was cheap. In fact, if Steve would lend him the money; a fiver, say... no, make it a tenner, seeing as he felt generous and Steve was a real pal... he'd get the drink himself, seeing as Steve had been so generous in the pub and all. He'd pay him back next Wednesday, when his Giro came through.

  Steven thought this sounded fair, and so he gave Mr Sharpe two ten pound notes. "Have twenty," he said. Mr Sharpe was taken aback and said again what a gent Steven was. He went off to the shop and got four bottles of cider and a canon of cigarettes.

  Although he felt drunk, Steven didn't feel all morose like he usually did when he'd had a lot to drink; he felt quite happy, sitting on the bench under the trees of Islington Green with the traffic rushing harmlessly by all around. It was nice to have somebody to talk to, somebody you felt was on your side, who didn't laugh at you or show contempt for you, who felt sympathy for the way you were treated but not pity for who or what you were; somebody who wished you happy birthday. He didn't mind that Mr Sharpe was doing all the talking.

  "You take the likes of my old boss, right?" Mr Sharpe was saying, drawing smoky patterns with the cigarette he held between his fingers. "Good bloke, good bloke, you know; strict but fair; wouldn't stand for any nonsense or people turning up late or anyfink, but straight, know what I mean? In the textile trade "e was; "ad to mix with a lot of Jews. Didn't like it, of course, but that's business, innit? "E went bust last year, didn't "e? "Ad to lay me an" the rest of the lads off, see? Recession, it was, basically, but also the fackin" unions. "E used to give them short shrift, I can tell you; wouldn't "ave them in the place, an" quite right too, say I, but "e reckoned they'd got at "im be'ind "is back, like, an "e's a smart bloke, right? Anyway, it was the recession what really did it, "e said, and "e said "e was really choked "e "ad to let us go on account of "ow we'd all stood be'ind "im. An" we did; when "e explained to us what was "appenin" a couple of years ago, we didn't take no pay rise, did we? We even took a pay cut last year, that was "ow much we was prepared to look after our jobs, see? Not like these fackin" union cans; we was responsible, we was. Yeah, "e was really choked, Mr Inglis was. That was "is name, was'n" it? 'Inglis by name and Eng
lish by birth, and proud of it', "e would say." Mr Sharpe laughed.

  Steven took his blue safety helmet off and wiped his brow. He would have to go for a pee soon. It was lucky there were toilets at one end of the Green. "Yeah, "e's a good bloke, that Mr Inglis. An" you know wot "e told me? "E told me "e didn't even make a profit the last five years. These fackin" Troskyists, they talk about bosses an" that, but they don't know nuffink, do they? I know, "cos one of my nephews; "e's a Troskyist, isn't "e? Little can; I nearly knocked "is bleedin" teeth out last time I saw "im; only tryin" to tell me I was one of them racialists, wasn't "e? I said, 'Lissen, son,' I said 'I've worked with blacks an" I've even made friends with some of them, which is prob'ly more than you've ever done, an" I quite liked some of "em; they was Jamaicans - not these little Pakkie cans -and they was okay, some of them, but that don't alter the fact there's too many of them over "ere, an" that don't make me your racialist, now, does it?' Little can. That's wot I told "im. Straight, I did." Mr Sharpe nodded aggressively, reliving the confrontation.

  Steven was toying with the leather sweatband of the hard hat.

  He was hot. It was probably safe to take the hat off; there was no scaffolding nearby. He put the hat down on the bench, between him and Mr Sharpe, who went on,

  "Where was I? Oh, yeah; Mr Inglis, "e said "e "adn't made a profit for five years, but people think just because "e rides round in a Rolls-Royce, people fink "e's bleedin" rich, don't they? They don't know, see, that it don't even belong to "im; it's "is company's. Even "is "ouse isn't "is; it's "is wife's, innit? "E'd just as soon drive a Mini, but people in the trade wouldn't take "im seriously, would they? Specially them jewboys."

  Steven shook his head, thinking this seemed to be required. He wasn't all that happy about this mention of a Rolls-Royce. He considered telling Mr Sharpe about the dangers of disembowel-lings by Rolls-Royce mascots, but he thought he'd better not.

  "But I'm glad to say," Mr Sharpe said, smiling, lighting another cigarette, "e's managed to get back on "is feet again. I "appened to see "im the other day when I was looking for a job; "e's got a new place up in Islington Park Street making dresses an" all an" repairing machines. "Course, the place is full of these little wog wimmin, but, like Mr Inglis says, "e'd love to "ave whites working for "im but people've got lazy, "aven't they? "E can't find white wimmin to work for them wages, an" why? Cos the fackin" money they're gettin" from the government an" from workin" on the side's too much, that's why. Mr Inglis, "e'd love to take me an" the lads back on for the machines, but the fackin" unions they've priced us all out of a job, "aven't they? Mr Inglis can't afford to take on more than a couple of experienced blokes an" all the rest are these YOPs or wotever they're called; you know, them young kids wot the government pays you to train, an" that."

  Steven nodded. He watched the reflections of the trees above him as they slid and swayed about the shiny blue surface of his safety helmet. It really was the most lovely shade of blue. He took it off the bench and put it on his lap.

  "An" that stupid young nephew of mine, "e'll tell you they won't take our jobs! Little poof. I think "e's on that canopus stuff; I bet if you looked at "is arms you'd find them pot-marks. I tried that stuff, you know; when I was in the navy I did, out in wogland somewhere; some fackin" place... but it didn't do nuffink for me an" anyway I wasn't that stupid to take enough to get me "ooked, was I? Not me, mate; give me a pint an" a fag an" I'm quite "appy."

  Mr Sharpe puffed on his cigarette and took a drink of his cider.

  Grout was thinking about beer crates. He'd had one, once; he remembered coming down Essex Road, on the very bit of pavement they could see in front of them, over the grass. The crate had seemed like such a good idea at first; a way round searching for parked cars all the time. He had taken the beer crate, which he'd found behind a pub one night, with him when he went to look for work one day, about a year ago. Whenever he was running out of breath and there were no parked cars or low walls to protect him from the laser-axles, he simply had to put the crate down on the ground and then stand on it. Safety at last!

  It had been a brilliant idea, but people treated him like some son of maniac. Young men shouted at him, women with children avoided him, a gang of kids started to follow him. He threw the crate into the canal eventually, cruelly hurt not just by the reaction people had exhibited, but also because he knew he didn't have the strength of character to resist them; he couldn't take that much scorn, he couldn't keep up such a high profile for long.

  Yes, it had hurt, but he liked to think he had learned from the experience. He knew how cunning they were now, how carefully they made sure that he had no easy ways out. Mere ingenuity wouldn't help him live any easier here. He had to concentrate on escape, on finding the Key, the Way Out. Maybe he should ask Mr Sharpe about Hotblack Desiato. He seemed to know the area a bit, though Steven couldn't remember having seen him before either in the Nag's Head or anywhere else... but he said he lived locally. Maybe he would have some idea.

  Yes, he supposed, the beer crate hadn't been such a good idea; it had shown them too obviously that he was on to them, that he felt contempt for them. He had to be more subtle.

  "... what a little can, eh? Calling me a can..." Mr Sharpe was saying. Steven nodded. He really must go to the toilet soon. He took the safety helmet and hung it on the end of the bench. He put his bottle of cider down on the tarmac at his feet; it wobbled and fell, and rolled away spilling cider from the top for a couple of seconds before he could get hold of it again. He set it down more carefully.

  "Oops-a-daisy," he said.

  " "Ere, Steve," Mr Sharpe said, nudging him with his bottle, "you wanna watch that. That's precious stuff, that is. You can't afford to go wasting precious stuff like that, now can you? Not on your burfday even you can't, eh?" Mr Sharpe laughed. Steven laughed too, and got up from the bench. His tummy hurt a bit. He staggered slightly as he left the bench, and his right foot hit the plastic carrier bag with the rest of the drink and the carton of cigarettes Mr Sharpe had bought. "Steady on," Mr Sharpe laughed, putting out one hand to catch Grout.

  "Just going to the lav," Steven said. He patted Mr Sharpe's hand and started off.

  " "Ere, Steve, do one for me!" Mr Sharpe shouted after him, and laughed. Steven laughed too.

  He didn't feel too bad, but he couldn't stand up properly; it was like having appendicitis or something like that. He walked bent over. Luckily it wasn't too far to the public toilets.

  In the gents he had a good long pee and felt much better. He was quite drunk, he knew, but he didn't feel sick. Actually he felt pretty good. It was nice to have somebody to talk to, somebody who seemed to understand. He was glad he had met Mr Sharpe. Steven combed his hair slowly and carefully. It was a pity there was nowhere to wash his hands, which were a bit sticky, but never mind. He took some deep breaths to clear his head.

  Outside the toilet, he stood looking at Jim's Cafe, across the street. Maybe he would treat Mr Sharpe to a meal. That would be nice. He swayed slightly as he went back into the little park. There were quite a few other men in the park. Some of them looked very poor and dead-beat, and Grout felt sorry for them.

  When he got back to the bench, Mr Sharpe had gone.

  He stood looking at the bench, swaying, staring at it, trying to work out if it really was the right bench. At first, though it seemed to be in the right position, he thought it couldn't be, because his good blue hat wasn't there, hanging on the end of it. The carrier bag and everything else had gone, too. He looked, mystified, at the nearby benches. Just a few tramps. He scratched his head. What could have happened? Maybe it wasn't the right bench, maybe he was in completely the wrong place. But no, here was quite a lot of grey cigarette ash on the ground, and an empty cider bottle lying behind the bench, against the concrete kerb which separated tarmac path from green grass. His own bottle had gone.

  He looked round. Traffic buzzed down Essex Road; buses moved redly up and down Upper Street. What could have happened? Had the police mist
aken Mr Sharpe for a tramp and taken him away? Surely not the Tormentors; they wouldn't dare do anything so flagrant, so against the rules, would they? Just because he and Mr Sharpe had been getting on so well?

  He kept looking around, thinking that suddenly he would see Mr Sharpe waving from another bench, beckoning him to come and finish his cider and stop being so stupid. Maybe Mr Sharpe had moved to another bench; that must be it. He looked round all the other benches, but all he saw were tramps and dead-beats. Had they done something to Mr Sharpe?

  It had to be the Tormentors. It was one of their tricks, one of their filthy tests. He didn't believe it was the Jews, like Mr Sharpe had said; he knew it was the Tormentors. They had done this. He'd get them, though, he swore. He'd get to the bottom of this, right now!

  He went to the nearest tramp, an old man lying on the grass. He had very long greasy black hair and a collection of plastic carrier bags spread out on the ground around him.

  "What happened to my friend?" Grout said. The tramp opened his eyes. His face was very tanned and dirty.

  "I didnae do anythin', honest I didnae, son," he said. A bloody drunken Scotsman! Grout thought.

  "What happened?" Grout insisted.

  "What, son?" The Scot tried to lever himself up off the grass, but couldn't. "I didnae see anythin', honest. I've just been sleepin', honest. I havnae touched anythin', son. Don't you accuse me. Honest. It's no crime to sleep, you know, son. I've been abroad, you know, son, to foreign countries."

  Grout puzzled over this last statement, then shook his head. "You're sure you didn't see anything?" he asked carefully, showing this drunk Scot that he at least knew how to speak correctly. He put some menace into his voice as he finished. "Quite sure?"