Espedair Street

by Iain Banks

  Espedair Street

  Iain Banks

  Daniel Weir used to be a famous — not to say infamous — rock star. Maybe still is. At thirty-one he has been both a brilliant failure and a dull success. He's made a lot of mistakes that have paid off and a lot of smart moves he'll regret forever (however long that turns out to be). Daniel Weir has gone from rags to riches and back, and managed to hold onto them both, though not much else. His friends all seem to be dead, fed up with him or just disgusted — and who can blame them? And now Daniel Weir is all alone. As he contemplates his life, Daniel realises he only has two problems: the past and the future. He knows how bad the past has been. But the future — well, the future is something else.

  Iain BANKS

  Espedair Street

  ONE

  Two days ago I decided to kill myself. I would walk and hitch and sail away from this dark city to the bright spaces of the wet west coast, and there throw myself into the tall, glittering seas beyond Iona (with its cargo of mouldering kings) to let the gulls and seals and tides have their way with my remains, and in my dying moments look forward to an encounter with Staffa's six-sided columns and Fingal's cave; or I might head south to Corryvrecken, to be spun inside the whirlpool and listen with my waterlogged deaf ears to its mile-wide voice ringing over the wave-race; or be borne north, to where the white sands sing and coral hides, pink-fingered and hard-soft, beneath the ocean swell, and the rampart cliffs climb thousand-foot above the seething acres of milky foam, rainbow-buttressed.

  Last night I changed my mind and decided to stay alive. Everything that follows is... just to try and explain.

  Memories first. It all begins with memories, the way most things do. First: making a cloud.

  Inez and I made a cloud once. Seriously; a cloud, a real honest-to-goodness cloud up in the big blue sky. I was happy then, and doing something like creating a cloud just filled me with delight and awe and a delicious, frightening feeling of power and tininess together; after it happened I laughed and hugged Inez and we danced in the cinders and kicked up the black smoking debris which scorched our ankles while we jigged and swirled, choking, eyes watering, laughing and pointing at the vast thing we'd made, as it gradually drifted away from us.

  The sooty lengths of straw smudged our jeans and shirts and faces; we made each other up as commandos, painting dry streaks on the other's brows and cheeks and nose. The smell clung to our hair and stayed under our nails and up our noses after we changed and only washed quickly , did not shower, and at dinner with her parents we kept glancing and remembering and grinning at each other, and when as usual I crept along to her room that night just as usually feeling foolish; if my fans could see me now; tiptoeing like some scared kid — the smoke smell was in her hair and on her pillow and the taste of it on her skin.

  Now, making a cloud would doubtless depress me. Something to block the sun, cast a pall, rain soot, rain rain, and cast a shadow...

  That was... long ago. We'd just finished working on Night Shines Darkly, or maybe it was Gauche; I can't remember. Inez always kept a diary and I used to ask her things about the past sometimes, but I grew too used to that, and now... now I'm sort of lost without her to tell me what happened when. Maybe it was '76. Whenever. I was there that summer. End of summer... September? Is that when they harvest? I'm a city boy so I'm not sure; a country lad would know.

  Her parents were farmers, in Hampshire; Winchester was the nearest big town. I only remember that because I kept humming 'Winchester Cathedral' all the time, which was pretty ancient even then, and annoyed me almost as much as it annoyed Inez. The harvest had just been gathered and the fields shorn and the stubble lay about in long raggedy lines (Blonde on Blonde, I remember thinking), and crows flew about, twirling and dipping and bouncing when they landed, and strutting and jabbing at the hard dry ground. Inez's dad usually burned off the stubble by dragging a petrol-soaked rag behind his tractor, but Inez asked if she and I could do it that day, on the top field, because the wind was right and anyway it wasn't near a road.

  So we walked sweating through the fields on a beautiful bright day; the fields were either crew-cut, still waiting to be set alight, or burned black-flat, so that from above the whole countryside must have looked like some haphazard, anarchic chessboard. We sweated up the hill with rags and jerrican, past a rusty old half-fallen building, all corrugated decrepitude, through a copse of tall trees (for the shade) and then to the field, where the passing shadows of small clouds moved slowly.

  And we set fire to the stubble. Soaked the rags with gasoline and then dragged them on lengths of rope and chain down two sides of the huge square field, until the fire had caught in a pair of long crackling lines, and the bright orange flames surged through the dry straw, rolling yellow-red inside the dark grey bank of smoke while we stood, breathless, wiping sweat from our brows, kicking dust-dry clods of earth over the guttering flames of the rags we'd towed.

  The blaze moved over the field, leaping down the rows of desiccated stalks and flinging them burned or burning to the sky; flames flicked curling against the wall of grey smoke like broad whips, leaving the scorched ground smoking greyly, tiny clumps still burning, miniature whirlwinds dancing madly while the wall of fire crackled and flowed and leapt beyond. Smoke flooded the sky, brown against the blue; it made a shining copper coin of the sun. I remember shouting, running down the side of the field, to keep pace, to see, to be part of it. Inez followed, striding down that smoky margin, arms crossed, face gleaming, watching me.

  The piled stubble burned quickly, and the fierceness of the blaze made me squint; the heat of the flames hurt my eyes, and the smoke when it swirled, backing up momentarily, filled my nose and mouth and made me cough. Rabbits ran away from the wave of fire, white tails bobbing into the wood; fieldmice scampered for ditches, and the crows circled away and swooped for the tree tops, croaking distantly over the sizzling voice of the fire.

  When the flames began to die, reaching the barren edges of the field, Inez looked up, and there was our cloud; a thunderhead of white crowned the vast fist of grey-brown smoke we'd sent up. It towered over us, slowly drifting away with the rest of the puffy white clouds, its white-capped head plain and perfect above the lumpy stalk of swirling brown smoke. I was amazed; I just stood and stared, mouth open.

  I thought even then it looked like a mushroom; it was an apt description, and as the cloud and the last of the smoke drifted off, casting its shadow over a village in the next valley, you couldn't help but make the obvious comparisons... but it was beautiful; and it hadn't hurt anybody, it was part of the way country life was run, part of the seasons' cycle, glorious and sublime.

  Normally, I'm sure I'd have thought there must be some way of using the experience; there had to be an idea, a song in there somewhere... but I didn't, maybe because we'd just finished the album and I was sick of songs, especially my own, and this whole rustic thing was supposed to be a complete holiday from work. Can't fool the old subconscious, though; if it sees a fast buck to be made out of something that's happened, it'll use it, whether you like it or not, and — much later — I realised that that was just what had happened.

  One of the ideas for the 1980 world tour came from that sight, that day, I'm sure. We called it the Great Contra-flow Smoke Curtain. It cost a fortune to get right and ages to set up, and it was only because I was so insistent that we persevered with it; nobody else thought it was worth the trouble. Big Sam, our manager (and, for a manager, remarkably close to being human), couldn't see past the columns of figures, never mind the columns of smoke; total apoplexy; just couldn't understand my reasoning, but there was nothing he could do except shout, and I have a gift for listening quietly regardless of the incoming decibels. Listening quietly, but not at the ri
ght time.

  Story of my life, or a sub-plot at least. Either I know I ought to do something but I just don't get round to it, or I keep hammering away furiously at something I end up profoundly regretting later. The Great Contra-flow Smoke Curtain was an instance of the latter. We got the damn thing to work eventually, but I wish we hadn't. I wish I'd listened, and I'll blame myself to the end of my days for being so determined to impose my own will on the others. I didn't know what was going to happen, I couldn't have guessed the eventual, awful, result of my expensive pig-headedness, and nobody ever said they held me responsible, but... The point here is, however, that the cloud Inez and I made was used; money was made out of it. Exploitation will out. It has its own survival instinct.

  Now that's something Big Sam would have understood.

  There you are, though; story of a day in the country. If anything like that happened now, the comparison, the accidental creation of the image of our deathcap threat, would upset me, plunge me into some crushed state of absolute dejection, reflecting that no matter what I did, regardless of my actions and whatever good intent lay behind them, emblems of chaos and destruction dogged me; my personal shades.

  But not then. It was different then. Everything was different then. I was happy.

  And, God almighty, it all seemed so easy; the living, the playing, the songs:

  Why do you bite me on the shoulder,

  Why do you scratch me on my back?

  Why do you always have to make love

  Like you're making an attack?

  Liza-bet, do you love me?

  I asked her one fine morning

  Yes indeed I do said she

  And loved me without warning

  I am old, my thoughts get blown like ash

  By the winds of grief and pain,

  Young minds only do not fear such blasts,

  Which but serve to fan the flame.

  Three of the better examples there. Bits I'm almost proud of. I could have chosen... but no, I'm too embarrassed. I still have some pride left.

  And now there's a new song, anyway. Something else to work on, after so long. I need a few new words, but the beat and the music are already there, a framework; a skeleton.

  A new song. Is this a good sign or a bad one? Wish I knew. Never mind the consequences, just get on with the work. Try not to think about the past twenty-four hours or the last week, because they've been too fraught and traumatic and ridiculous; pay attention to the song, instead, play to your strengths, such as they are.

  I thought this must be the end... Well, it's not.

  Jeez, what a day. From the brink of likely death to genuine financial suicide; not to mention an insane and doubtless doomed new scheme, a last crazy chance to grasp whatever the hell it is I really want; happiness maybe, absolution certainly.

  I'd love to put everything into the one song, to sing a song of birds and dogs and mermaids, hammerheaded friends and bad news from far away (again, like confirmation, like a lesson, like vengeance), a song of supermarket trolleys and seaplanes, falling leaves and power stations, fatal connections and live performances, fans that spin and fans that crush... but I know too well I can't. Stick to the one song, verse and chorus, sing the music, tap the beat, fit the words in... and call it 'Espedair Street'.

  That's what it's called. I know what the ending of the song is but I don't know how this ends. I know (I think) what the song means... but I still don't know what this means. Maybe nothing. Maybe neither is meant to mean anything; this is always a possibility. Nothing always is.

  Three-twenty in the morning according to the watch I bought this afternoon. My eyes are sore and gritty-feeling. The city sleeps on. Maybe I should make more coffee. Funny how quiet Glasgow gets at this time in the morning. I can hear, quite distinctly, the engine of a truck on the motorway, its engine echoing in the concrete trench, then fading under the bridges and tunnels, finally sounding distant and small as it reaches the Kingston Bridge and arcs over the Clyde, heading south and west.

  Three twenty-one, if the watch is right. That means two and a half hours to wait. Can I bear that? I suppose I have to. I've borne the waiting so far. Two and a half hours... five minutes to get ready, then... how long to the station? Can't be more than fifteen minutes. Total of twenty minutes. Call it half an hour. That leaves only two hours to wait. Or I could leave even earlier and spend more time in the station. Might be a café open, or a hamburger van in George Square (though I'm still too nervous to be hungry). I could just go for a walk, waste time wandering through the cold streets kicking at the litter, but I don't feel like that. I want to sit here in my preposterous stone tower looking over the city, thinking about the past twelve years and the last week and the day just gone, then I want to get up and go and maybe never come back. Three twenty-two and a bit. Doesn't time go quickly when you're having fun?

  Where is that train now? Two and a half hours away; or less ... yes, less. Two hours and a bit; Carlisle? A bit further south maybe; still in England definitely. Perhaps hauling itself up to Shap Summit, through the thin drifts of starlit snow, hauling its load of rocking, sleeping passengers northwards. If it comes that way; I didn't ask about that when I went to the station. Maybe it comes up the east coast route, stopping at Edinburgh before heading west. Damn, I should have checked; it seems very important to know now. I need something to keep me occupied.

  Three twenty-three! Is that all? Doesn't time — no, I've already said that, thought that. I sit and watch the seconds change on the watch. I used to have a limited edition Rolex worth the price of a new car but I lost it. It was a present from... Christine? No, Inez. She got fed up with me always having to ask other people what the time was; embarrassed on my behalf.

  I grew up — I ended grown-up lacking so many of the standard props; a watch, a wallet, a diary, a driving licence, a chequebook ... and not just the props, not just the hardware, but the brain-implanted software to make use of them, so that even when I did end up with all that gear I never really felt it was part of me. Even after Inez bought me the Rolex I'd wander up to roadies and ask them how long we had to the start of the gig. The record company gave me a Gucci wallet, but I'd still stuff pounds and fivers into various pockets — I'd even cram them into the pocket where I'd put my wallet, absently wondering why it was so difficult to squeeze the crumpled bits of paper in there.

  Hopeless. Just a hopeless case; always have been.

  Inez kept a diary for me because I never could; I always started faithfully every second of January (I think Scots require some sort of special dispensation to admit to doing anything organised on the first of January), but by the second week I always found that — somehow, quite unaccountably — I'd already missed out several days. Those blank spaces, accusatory, filled me with a nervous dread; my memory instantly locked up; I could never remember what had happened during the missing days, and felt too ashamed to ask anybody else. The easiest thing was to throw the embarrassing diary away. I still don't have a driving licence, and I kept losing chequebooks ... nowadays I stick to cash and plastic money which, if you're sufficiently well off, is wonderful.

  Always hated telephones, too. Don't have one in the house (not that you'd call this a house, but never mind). If I had a phone I could call up Queen Street station, to find out what route the train takes, and where it is now. But I don't have a telephone and I can't be bothered looking for an undamaged public phonebox. No television either. I am screenless. They have that Ceefax or Prestel or whatever they call it, these days. I might be able to find out from that where the sleeper train from Euston is now.

  Oh, God, what am I doing? Do I know what I'm doing? I don't think I do. I don't think I'd be asking myself this now if I did know what I'm doing. Not that this confusion is my fault, really it isn't; just a troubadour with a very limited attention span; a technician in the machine where the industry standard is the three or four minute single (single, you'll notice; as in track, as in mind. Of course, if you'd prefer a three record set
concept album...). Hell, I never claimed to be an intellectual, I never even thought I was clever. Not for long, anyway. I just knew what I was good at and how good I was compared to everybody else, and that I was going to make it. Oh, the ambition was there, but it was a helpless, stupid sort of ambition; blinkered.

  Talent. That's what I had, all I had; some talent... And even a small amount of talent can go an appallingly long way, these days. I'd love to claim there was more to it, but I can't. Being honest with myself, I know I was never... driven enough to be more than just talented and lucky. I didn't have to do what I did, I just wanted to, a lot. If they'd said I couldn't ever write a note of music or a word of lyric for the rest of my life, but there was a secure job waiting for me in computing, or (to be more realistic) a distillery, then I wouldn't have minded that much. And everything would have been a hell of a lot simpler.

  So I tell myself, now.

  Three twenty-five and a quarter. Dear God, it's slowing down. Check out the surroundings. A mostly clear sky; sharp little stars and a sliver of moOn.

  Silence in the city and no one to talk to.

  A car drones down St Vincent Street, stops at the Newton Street traffic lights, idling in the mixture of darkness and yellow sodium-vapour light. Its exhaust curls, the left indicator winks. The trough of the buried motorway, cut through the city like a deep scar, lies beyond, on the far side of the lights, beneath the St Vincent Street flyover. No traffic on the motorway. Little green men become little red men; the main lights change, the car moves off, quiet and alone.

  Wish I could drive. I always meant to learn but — like a lot of things in my life — I never got round to it, and went too quickly from not being able to afford a car at all to having a chauffeuse for my Panther de Ville, and seriously thinking about going straight from pedestrianism to learning how to fly (a helicopter). Well, I never got around to that either.