Espedair Street

by Iain Banks

  'It's Santa,' I said to Tommy.

  'Ye remember leavin here?' McCann said.

  '... not exactly.'

  'Ye made a date with Bella.' He smiled widely to show us his yellowing teeth and much more healthy-looking falsers.

  'Oh,' I said. 'Well, she'll understand.' I looked for her at the bar, but she wasn't there.

  'We went to the Ashoka; remember that? But no for a takeaway. Dae ye remember sword fightin with the manager?'

  'What?'

  'Ye dinnae, dae ye?' McCann's grin widened to take in his farthest rear molars.

  'McCann, if you're making this up...' This was serious. The Ashoka was my favourite Indian. A swordfight?

  'Ah, it wiz only with kebab skewers; Ah think ye'll get back in. Ye were havin a laugh.'

  'Yeah, I'll bet I was, but was he?'

  'Aw, aye.'

  'Thank God for that.'

  'Ye remember dancin on the... "road", aye?' McCann winked at Tommy.

  'Vaguely.'

  'D'ye no remember whit bit a road it wiz?'

  'Not exactly. Wasn't outside the police station, was it?'

  'Naw.' McCann winked at the grinning Tommy again, then took a long, slow drink of heavy. I waited.

  'How about do in the striptease?' he asked, stage-whispering.

  '... Oh dear...' I said.

  'Ye still no remember?'

  'No,' I said miserably. Was that what had happened to my clothes?

  'Ye know,' McCann began slowly, leaning forward over the table to me and Tommy, 'the sawn-off flyover?'

  Tommy was silent for a second, then sniggered loudly into his vodka and lemonade. I gazed in horror at McCann. I could feel my eyes bulging. McCann's smile threatened to lift the top of his head off.

  'Oh shit,' I said.

  'Yes,' McCann said, rapping the table with one hand.

  'Oh, dear God, dear holy shit.' I buried my head in my hands. I brought it out and looked up at McCann. 'How did we get away with... ? oh no... no... no...' I buried my head in my hands again. McCann laughed; Tommy laughed. I think Bella laughed. I wasn't too sure I couldn't hear the dog laugh.

  The M8 motorway plunges straight through Glasgow; it loops round the northern extent of the city centre and swoops down between the centre and West End, before curving over the Clyde via the Kingston Bridge and completing the bottom half of its S shaped journey through the city by curving west for Paisley and Greenock. It destroyed a great deal, but the city survived nevertheless, and it was left with what's probably the fastest city-centre to airport car journey in Europe.

  But there were planning errors, bits where they left slip-roads that don't connect with anything, exits that end in earth banks, forks in the elevated section that only go one way; the other ends in mid air. One of these little motorway follies consists of a third level of roadway, just north of the Sauchiehall Street flyover. The elevated roadway crosses the motorway beneath, but doesn't go anywhere; it's only as long as the motorway is wide, and stuck up in the air all by itself. At some point, the town planners must have thought they could use the stubby relic as a pedestrian footbridge, because there are wide steps at the North Street end. However, these are fenced off, and there are no matching steps at the Newton Street end, so that idea must have fallen through.

  This useless flyover is protected from the attentions of children and idiots by sheer concrete legs, overhangs, and those black steel gates across the North Street steps. None of which, it turned out, had stopped me. I'd climbed over the gates and danced on the plant-choked road surface, God knows how far above the motorway traffic. Did a strip. According to McCann I dropped or threw about half my clothes over the edge, trying to hit passing trucks and so distribute my clothing around the country — or even the world — on the tops of containers... I just hoped I'd thrown the trainers down and not left them up there; how many people in this city wear one size eleven and one size twelve? At least I knew now why my feet had been so dirty in the shower this morning.

  Then a police car had pulled up at the steps, and McCann had shouted to me to get away. I'd dreeped (suspended myself over the drop by my fingers and then let go) into the bushes at the Newton Street end, and run off, dripping and cackling, into the night.

  I'm a crazy man. I admit it. I try to act responsibly, but ever now and again I totally surprise myself and just go haywire.

  It's the drink that does it, I swear.

  'Who's this guy Tumbler that's comin tae see ye anyhow, eh?' McCann said later, when the three of us were sitting in St Jute's;

  they were sampling some Hungarian brandy and washing it down with Bud. I was still being good, on orange juice and fizzy spring water. I froze when McCann mentioned — well, more or less mentioned — Tumber's name.

  I must have said something about Rick when I was drunk last night. This was something I'd always worried about; getting drunk and giving the whole game away to somebody like McCann; letting them know I was this immensely, disgustingly rich rock star. McCann wouldn't be my friend any more; I have about a million times too much capital to play with. Wee Tommy would resent the fact I'd been the driving force behind one of those glitteringly narcissistic, monolithic seventies' rock groups ... and both would resent the fact I'd lied to them. I wish I hadn't, but... well, it's too late now.

  What had I said? I tried to think of something that might fit.

  When in doubt, tell something close to the truth. 'He's from the record company that put out your man's songs,' I told McCann. 'Why, what was I saying about him?' I was distracted from McCann by the sight of Wee Tommy's dog loping slowly past the end of the pew carrying something in his mouth that looked like one of my trainers.

  'Ye were goantae park the bulldozer on his Porsche.'

  Oh, God. I bet I said 'my bulldozer', too. I gave a little laugh.

  'Did I say that?' I took a nice long drink of Bud. Tommy belched. Chewing noises came from the north transept. 'Well,' I said, 'he's coming to have a look round, so... I'm just hoping he doesn't find anything... he doesn't like.'

  'What,' Tommy said, 'like five hundred empty Budweiser bottles in the bulldozer?'

  'Well... no, I was told I could have the drink, but... I don't know. I suppose I'm just resentin anybody coming to check up on me...' I shrugged, took another long slug. I wondered how I was doing. 'Not to worry. He's not coming until... aahm ... the twenty-first, I think he said.'

  'Izzy cumin up for Christmas, like?' Tommy said.

  'No, just the day, I think.'

  'So he'll no bring his car then?' McCann said.

  'Probably fly,' I agreed.

  'Take ye a while tae get the 'dozer tae the airport,' McCann said helpfully. 'Better start noo.'

  'Forget the bulldozer. No licence for it anyway, and it's lefthand drive. Maybe I'll just clean the place up a bit and make him a cup of tea.'

  'Ye'll need tae hire a skip tae clear the empties.'

  'Aye, right enough.' I cleared my throat and turned to look in the direction of the north transept, where the chewing noises had ceased, to be replaced by what sounded like canine vomiting. Tommy looked over too, briefly. The dog had bought its round in the Griffin, and kept pace with us for the next hour or so. Bella even let Tommy take it to the gents with him; his uncle had trained it to pee into toilet gutters. We'd all had some food, but the dog had turned its nose up at the plate of pie and beans I'd bought him. 'He's on a high fibre diet these days,' Tommy had explained.

  'Beans are high fibre.'

  'Aye, but there's too much sugar in the sauce, like.'

  'Spoilt brat,' I'd told the dog, then divided the pie and beans up between the three of us. We'd come back to the folly when the dog's money ran out. The hound walked straight but kept stopping at lamp posts, and tried to pick a fight with a great dane on Bath Street. Tommy didn't have a lead for the beast, so it was a matter of forming a defensive wall between the snarling great dane (and its terrified lady owner) and the crouching, quietly growling TB. Suddenly I knew how
footballers felt facing a direct free kick. I kept my hands over my crotch.

  When we got to St Jute's I suggested the dog might want another drink too. 'Oh.' Tommy shook his head. 'Ah don't know if he's really developed a taste for these continental lagers. Ye don't have any stout at all, dae ye?'

  'No.'

  'Ach well, try him on the Bud then.' TB liked Bud. He was drinking it faster than McCann, who's no slowcoach himself. Of course, TB wasn't having to cope with brandy chasers as well. We'd left him in the kitchen, standing over a Tupperware bowl I'd poured three bottles into. I wondered if he'd eaten my trainer.

  'So we better no come round on the twenty-first, then, naw?' McCann said. I nodded.

  'Better not to. But it'll be all right. I can handle it.'

  'Fair enough, pal.' McCann finished another glass of brandy, belched, then lit a fag. I refilled the brandy glasses then went for a pee. On the way back, I passed the hi-fi gear stacked at the front of the pulpit. I'd left a Tom Waites record lying on the turntable: I thought I noticed something on it. I went over to look. It was a pale splatter of pigeon shit. I looked up at the nave roof, thinking about shotguns.

  When I got back, Tommy was sitting at the end of the pew, scratching TB behind the ears. The dog was swaying slightly and looking at McCann's cigarette. I wondered if it smoked. Probably didn't like tipped. 'Think we could fix the dug up wi some food?' Tommy asked. 'Ah think it's gettin hungry. Wid that be possible, maybe, aye?'

  'Sure. Does it like pigeon? Can it climb?'

  'What?' Tommy said, then the hound turned and loped off, heading for the kitchen in the south transept. Tommy just shrugged. 'Aw, never mind then. Cannae be that hungry.' I watched the beast go, and worried about where it would pee. This building was turning into a menagerie, and I don't even like animals.

  Well, I don't mind them, but I don't miss them if they're not around. I don't have a pet, and I don't have any plants in the place either. Just not that sort of person, I guess. Inez never did understand me; she had to have plants and animals and people around her all the time. Maybe it was being brought up on a farm that did it, I don't know. She loved animals; she even ended up loving her baby armadillos, which I thought was either saintly or perverse. She got on well with people, she was a natural with animals and she could make any plant flourish. She even had plants that she took on tour with us, to make the dressing rooms feel more human (not that that made sense to me). She had a cat that came with us when we toured the UK, and on the very first date of the European tour, in Amsterdam, she found some cruffy, ragged-eared little black kitten on the way from the hotel the gig; took it all round Europe for three months and had it quarantined for six months when we came back to Britain. I'd suggested when we first started going together that I might represent a sort of subconscious compromise for her; half-human, half-animal. She'd looked puzzled and said, 'Human?'

  I breathed in the slipstream smoke from McCann's cigarette and thought of Inez. Not because she smoked, but because she was an addiction. I found it hard to give her up. I still think of her. I gave up smoking at the same time, and it tempts me back every so often too. Just one more wouldn't make any difference...

  'What's this guy Weird like anyway?' Tommy said.

  'Eh?' I said. 'Oh... quiet. Very quiet. Tall dark silent type. Doesn't have much to say for himself. He's got a bad stutter, which I think is why he doesn't like talking. I mean, I hardly ever see him, but... anyway, he pays all right though... umm.'

  'Izzy weird like, though?'

  'Well ... yeah, a bit.' I pretended to think. 'Like, he only hires people taller than him. He's six-five; sensitive about his height. Only takes people on who make him look small. You should see his chauffeur; he's bigger than me; six-eight. Even his girlfriend's over six foot. You, ah... never seen any photies of him?'

  I'm always nervous when the conversation gets round to Weird. All Tommy would have to do is go into a record store and pick up that first album and he'd see a photograph of the band on the back, with me staring over the top of the others, big-eyed and grinning. I don't know if I'm recognisable or not; I don't think so, but how can I be sure? Nobody's run up to me in the street wanting my autograph, not for half a decade, but what does that prove?

  Thank God for changing hairstyles. I look totally different now (apart from the height, the physique, the wild staring eyes...); I used to have a fuzzy bush of long hair, which I wore in something close to an afro style when we were offstage, and had slicked back with old-fashioned hair oil and tied in a blood knot at the back when we were on stage. I had a big bushy beard too; first of all because I still had spots for the first two years of our fame, then because I liked hiding behind it.

  And I always wore mirror shades. They became a trade mark. I was hiding behind those too, but they also looked good on stage and they put photographers off; the flash tended to reflect back into the cameras. I spent a lot of time annoying photographers by not removing the shades, and pissing off interviewers by hamming up my stutter and not having a lot to say anyway. Probably just as well; on one of the few occasions I did give a straight interview, it caused us terrible problems.

  On the whole, I communicated best when I didn't say anything. Thanks to Dave and Chris, I got away with this anti-social behaviour. Either one was photogenic enough for an entire band; together they were stunning. They took the heat off me. I'd just have gotten embarrassed, having my big baw-face plastered all over album covers and posters and music papers.

  Anyway, I have short hair and I'm clean-shaven now. According to the record company's publicity department, Weird now lives in seclusion on a Caribbean island. Because ARC never say which island, it's a perfect cover story; at least one journalist wasted two months trying to find me, to get an 'up-date on the reclusive life of the mysterious figure behind seventies mega rock band Frozen Gold, the man they called "The Eminence Grease"' (that was the hair oil. Thank you, NME). ARC and I started another two back-up rumours; the first is that I'm not living on a Caribbean island at all, I'm dead; and the second is that that too is just a ruse, and I'm living in a ruined monastery in Ladakh.

  'He's a tax exile, anyway; doesn't come back much,' I told Tommy.

  'Ha!' McCann said. 'Ah dinnae ken why he bothers; this fuckin country's practically a tax haven these days.' He drained his Bud bottle disgustedly. He was right, of course; I knew quite a few tax exiles who'd come back to Britain since the Tories dropped the higher tax rates. I didn't say anything.

  There was a ragged thumping noise from the stairwell which led to the tower; TB the dog appeared, half-falling, half-running down the steps. He staggered as he hit the tiled floor of the nave, then wobbled upright, and padded off towards the choir , snuffling.

  'Parasitic bastard,' McCann said. I thought this was being a little hard on the dog, but then he added, 'Bloody pop stars.'

  'Aw well,' Tommy said. 'Ah suppose he was only tryin tae make a bit a cash like.'

  '"A bit a cash",' McCann said, scornfully. 'How much is this bastard worth, dae ye know, Jim?'

  I shrugged, frowning. I could hear some funny noises coming from the choir. Heavy breathing, it sounded like. What was that animal up to? 'No idea,' I said. 'Millions, probably.'

  'There ye are,' McCann said. 'Millions. Probably invested in South Africa and British Telecom and British and American Tobacco and the so-called " Aerospace" and "Defence" industries. Ha!'

  Well, Scottish forests and Swedish Government Bonds, actually. Could be a lot worse.

  But what do you do? Real soon now I'm going to give it all away to the Labour Party and progressive charities... or the ANC or something... I don't know. Just as soon as I've decided who's right, just as soon as I think I can give up what I do have... I'm as generous as I can be without becoming conspicuous. Specific things for leftish causes, and not a few Glaswegian tramps have been stunned to ask for the price of a cup of tea and be given the price of a bottle of malt whisky. All salves for my own conscience, of course, but it's not alwa
ys easy to be generous, damn it. There was a time, with me and Balfour and a Rolls Royce...

  'Ye cannae just condemn the man like that,' Tommy said, very reasonably I thought. He seemed to catch the odd noises from the choir too, and looked round. 'What's he supposed tae dae with aw that money?'

  'Why make it in the first place?' McCann said indignantly, apparently perfectly serious. 'His own class no good enough for him, eh? If he had any talent at all — an get tin millions a teena-gers tae buy yur records is no guarantee whatsoever that the buggir did have any talent, let me tell ye — if he did have any talent, then he should have devoted it to the advancement of his own people.' McCann pointed at Tommy with the neck of his Bud bottle.

  'Whit, Paisley people?' Tommy said. Shit, I thought. I didn't know he even knew that much about Weird. How much more?

  'Naw naw naw, son,' McCann said exasperatedly, screwing his face up. 'The workers. The working people of the world, the toilers.

  'Aw.' Tommy nodded, standing on the pew and looking down to the choir, where the panting noises had become louder.

  McCann's face was stern, severe, decided. The workers; the toilers. Oh, God yes, I wanted to write something that would make a difference to something other than my bank balance and the state of the charts. I tried; there was some socially relevant stuff in there; I even had a couple of Vietnam war songs ready, but the thing ended before we could get them out. I wanted to write anthems for the working class, marching tunes for disaffected youth and oppressed minorities, but... I never got round to it.

  'Ah... Jim...' Tommy said. 'I think TB's get tin a bit overaffectionate with your coat.'

  I got to my feet. 'What?'

  Tommy set off for the choir. 'Naw! TB! Stop that! Bad dug! Get away from that!' He disappeared behind some packing cases.

  McCann and I followed him. TB was in the choir, near the still blowing space heater, bent across a chest I'd thrown my old naval greatcoat over. He was trying to mate with it. His rump, supported by two wobbling, tile-skidding legs, was still pumping away enthusiastically at the dark blue mass of the coat when Tommy came up behind him and kicked his backside.