Espedair Street

by Iain Banks

  The shopping trolley was loaded with white cylinders.

  I got down to the door just as he rang the bell.

  'Aw, hi there, Jim; ye all right, aye?'

  'Fine. Come in.' He came in, dripping rain from anorak and trolley. 'Tommy, why have you brought a shopping trolley full of' — I looked closer— 'whipped cream containers?'

  Tommy had about a hundred of the pressurised cans all jumbled in the trolley. He had. enough whipped cream there to cover a small building with the stuff. Tommy hung his anorak up and stood looking down at the rain-spotted white cans. 'Laughin gas,' he said, in a conspiratorial tone. I shook my head.

  'This is whipped cream, Tommy. You wanted a dentist's, not the dairy section of Tesco's.'

  'Na, na,' he said, picking one of the containers up. 'There's gas inside here too; the stuff that pushes the cream out. It's laughing gas; nitric oxide.'

  I took a can from the pile in the trolley and inspected it. 'What? You sure?' I found the ingredients label; sure enough, the propellant was nitrous oxide. Inez, Dave, Christine and I had had some laughing gas once, in Madrid I think it was. Very odd stuff.

  'Aye, I'm sure. One of ma mates said his brother read about it in Scientific American.'

  'Good grief.'

  'Want tae try some, eh?'

  'Mm, not particularly, but don't let me stop you. Come on into the body of the kirk.'

  The space heater was on at full blast, filling the folly with its booming white noise. I'd put on some Gregorian Chants to compete with the sound. Tommy and I sat in a couple of the CRM chairs, just far enough downwind from the space heater not to overheat. Tommy had taken his black socks and black jumper off to let them dry; he draped them over the shopping trolley we'd brought up the steps from the vestry. He selected a can of foam. 'Ah'm really sorry about the dug the other day, Jim,' he told me, shaking his head and compressing his lips. 'That dug was right out of order, so it was. Ah'd a skelped it, but it wouldnae have done any good.'

  He didn't add that it would probably have eaten him if he had.

  'It's all right,' I said. 'I cleaned everything up. Don't worry about it.'

  'Well, it's back with ma uncle now, so Ah reckon we're safe from it now. Unless his piles act up again, of course.'

  'Well, of course.'

  'Sure you don't want one of these?' Tommy offered me a whipped-cream container. I shook my head.

  'I'm trying to give them up. Do you want a drink?'

  Tommy thought about this. 'Aye; Ah'll take a wee voddy, if that's all right, Jim.'

  I brought a bottle of Stolichnaya and two glasses. There had been a brief hiss while my back was turned. When I got back to the seat, Tommy was pressing down the top of the cream can and frowning. 'Get anything?' I asked. He shook his head.

  'No much.' He put that canister on the floor and took another one, raising it to one nostril and then pressing the nozzle button. He jerked back as a small blob of foam squirted up his nose. 'Ah, ya bastard!' I tried not to laugh as he leant forward, blowing his nose.

  'Try bumping the base a bit first,' I suggested.

  Tommy tried that with the next one, and avoided getting a nostril full of foam. The hiss of gas was still very short, though. He smiled ruefully and reached for another container.

  'Where did you get all these, anyway?' I asked him.

  'I've got a pal works in Presto's; he's been stashing the odd can from the boxes as they come through, ye know? Got them out tae me today cos of the Christmas rush, 'nat.' He snorted from another can, then put it down too. He giggled, experimentally, then looked at me as though waiting for a reaction. I shrugged.

  'Anything?' I asked.

  'Nup. Don't think so.' Tommy started taking the containers out two at a time, bashing them on the carpet-covered stone floor and snorting from both at once. He went through about twelve of the cans that way, then sat back, breathing hard and looking a little odd. He tried giggling again.

  'Now?' I asked him.

  'Bit light-headed,' he said.

  'Oxygen high,' I told him.

  'Is that what ye get from them?' Tommy looked at another can. 'Well, Ah dinnae feel smashed.'

  'No, you still look glazed.'

  Tommy looked at me, then giggled again, then started laughing. I sat back with my vodka for a moment or two, decided it hadn't been that funny and reached for a couple of the cans.

  The truth is, I don't know if the damn cans worked or not. Wee Tommy and I sat there, telling each other jokes and laughing and giggling, but for all I know it was just suggestion, and the minuscule amounts of gas in the canisters had little or no effect. We laughed because we thought we ought to.

  I've seen people fooled into thinking Capstan Full Strength cigarettes were joints, accept speed and paracetamol as cocaine, and not notice that their drinks have been watered down until they're practically alcohol-free. It all depends what you're expecting, what you've been told to believe in.

  Tommy left to go and sign on, leaving me with a shopping trolley full of dud whipped-cream cans. I guess the folly, with its bulky stacks of Comecon produce, seemed like an appropriate resting place for the massed containers. Full of 'product'. That's what the cans say. They're full of whipped 'product'. Not 'cream' or 'milk-derived froth', or even 'tacky white gunge bearing a vague resemblance to something that might actually have come from a cow', but 'product'.

  Product. Jeez, the buzzword of the century. Everything's 'product'. Music is 'product'; product produced by producers for the industry to sell to the consumers. I don't think anyone has quite had the nerve yet to refer to paintings as 'product' yet (except as a put-down, perhaps), but it must be on the way. They'll quote the works of dead painters on the stock exchange. Picasso's blue-chip period. Gilt-edged frames. We put a value on what we treasure, and so cheapen it.

  I felt like sitting there, amongst all my Eastern Bloc goods, feet up on my CRM chair, the space heater filling the folly with throaty white noise and the comforting trace-smell of paraffin, and finishing off the bottle of Stolichnaya by myself... but instead I went down to the crypt and footered about with some of my appallingly expensive musical equipment, tinkering with ideas that would probably end up as advertising jingles, or themes to movies that were never quite as good as their trailers promised.

  I met McCann in the Griffin. We always meet there on a Saturday night; we Go Out, we Do The Town. We even dress up; I have been known to wear a tie, and what would pass for a suit. For some reason, I wore just those things on this occasion.

  I had no idea this would lead to disaster .

  'You're lookin smart, Jimmy.'

  'Appearances can be deceptive,' I told McCann.

  'Whit dae ye want?'

  'A half and a half,' I said, and suddenly wondered why a half-pint of heavy and a whisky isn't just called a 'One', or a 'Whole'. Maybe they are, somewhere. McCann returned through the crowd with the drinks; the Griffin was busy and noisy. I brushed some sleet and snowflakes off my coat.

  'This you gettin yerself tarted up fur this man comin ta morrow?'

  I looked at McCann over my beer glass. I had almost forgotten that Rick Tumber was coming tomorrow; working on music for any length of time has that sort of effect on me. I shook my head. 'No,' I said.

  'Oh. Where are we goin tae go then?'

  I thought. McCann looked moderately presentable himself. I was in a sort of restless, challenging mood that made me want to do something I wouldn't normally do, go somewhere I wouldn't normally go. 'Somewhere different.'

  McCann looked thoughtful. 'Ma boay,' he said, referring to his son, who is about twenty and has earned his father's undying scorn by joining the army, 'wiz tellin me aboot one of they fancy nightclubs, last time he wiz here. Place called Monty's. Just aff Buchanan Street.' McCann looked at my battered but still echoingly stylish handmade Italian boots, and my newly cleaned greatcoat, then pulled one slightly frayed shirt-cuff down from under his jacket sleeve. 'They might let us in.'

  'A nightc
lub?' I said, grimacing. I've never liked these places; they're better up here than they are down in London, where they tend to be full of noisy, mannered, ill-mannered, over-privileged people I'd normally pay a great deal of money just to avoid, but even in Glasgow I object to paying outrageous amounts of money to drink suspiciously bland cocktails in the sort of place where people go to be seen.

  'Just fur a look,' McCann said. 'The boay wiz sayin that wan o the wa's is glass; like an aquarium; there's a big tank full a fush behind it, an a mermaid swims aroon inside.'

  'Oh, good grief.'

  'Or we could do the clockwork orange pub crawl.'

  'What?' I glared at McCann. The Glasgow underground runs in a circle. The trains used to be red and have leather upholstery and wooden interiors; they creaked a lot and had a smell you never forgot; nowadays they're wee plastic-looking bright orange things, and they've been nicknamed the clockwork orange. The associated pub crawl involves travelling right round the tube circuit, stopping at each of the fifteen stations and walking to the nearest pub for a pint and a whisky (or a half and a half, if you're some sort of cissy). McCann and I have been going to do this for at least a year, but we haven't got around to it yet. 'This is hardly the weather for it,' I said.

  'You decide then,' McCann said, shrugging.

  The mermaid in the room-sized tank looked vaguely familiar, but if I had ever seen the girl before, I couldn't place her.

  A young blond waiter brought our drinks. This was a relief; I'd been afraid that the mermaid in the wall-tank would be just the beginning, and the whole club would be planned around some agonisingly literally worked-out theme based on mermaids and mermen, or the sea, or something equally awful.

  It wasn't; it was just a posh bar with an atmosphere somewhere between a private library and a lively gentlemen's club; shelves full of books, a deep carpet, rather nice wooden tables with leather tops, and a surprisingly young clientele (or maybe I'm just getting old). The ceiling fans, whirling gently under a black roof, were something of an affectation, especially in December, but I'd seen a lot worse.

  Not a laser or a fog-bank of dry ice or a flashing light in sight. The drinks were only breathtakingly expensive, not coronary-inducingly dear, and McCann seemed pleased we had a table where we could see the mermaid, who had long black hair and large breasts. The aquarium filled most of one wall of the club, and teemed with bright fish swimming between pillars of rock and coral; tall green fronds waved above a floor of golden sand.

  'That's a bonny lassie,' McCann said, watching the tank avidly.

  'I hope she's not the only reason you wanted to come here,' I said, drinking what certainly tasted like a full-strength Manhattan. McCann had been going to ask for A Long Sloe Comfortable Screw Up Against The Wall, but changed his mind when he saw we were getting a waiter rather than a waitress, and got a Killer Zombie instead.

  'Not at all.' McCann looked disgusted with me. 'Ye don't think Ah wanted tae come here just tae ogle some poor exploitit lassie forced tae dress up like half a fush tae earn a crust, dae ye?'

  'Hmm,' I said. 'No, I suppose not.' In fact I wasn't sure about this at all, but I couldn't be bothered arguing. Apart from anything else, the mermaid looked quite happy in her job. She didn't look cold, none of the fish in there with her appeared hungry, and she was smiling in a non-air-stewardesslike way when she dived down from the unseen surface, waving at people at nearby tables. Also, she wasn't likely to be molested by the customers unless they'd brought along a frogman's outfit, or a sufficiently large explosive charge to breach the tank's glass. As for being exploited ... who wasn't? Would McCann have been happier if she'd been working at a supermarket checkout, or clattering away at a typewriter in some office?

  I've known people who dressed in Savile Row suits and Gucci shoes and were still complete bastards, so what in hell's wrong with looking like half a fish? Dammit, we'd dressed up to come here; McCann and I had had to conform to some sort of code, to have any chance of getting into a place with bouncers on the door .

  Even when I was Weird, when I was The Man In The Black Coat With The Greased Back Hair And The Beard And The Mirror-Shades, I was dressing up; that was still a sort of uniform, because it became expected of me, and that's what makes the difference, that's what makes a uniform a uniform, not official rules and regulations... jeez, the number of kids I've seen dressed exactly the same as each other who've said they dress the way they do to be 'different'.

  Ho ho.

  'Ma roon, want anothir wan?' McCann said suddenly. I looked at my glass. My God, that had gone down quickly. I was comfortably settled in a large leatherish easy chair. We'd agreed just to call in here for one drink and then go somewhere else, but it was cold and sleety outside, and... what the hell. I had enough cash. I could always lend McCann some if he ran short. Probably end up going for a curry later, I shouldn't be surprised.

  'Aye' I said. 'Same again. Easy on the ice.'

  We had a few more drinks. McCann became convinced the mermaid was looking at him when she smiled and waved, but then just as he was talking himself into going up to the glass and waving back — maybe holding up his address or a note asking what the girl was doing after work when she'd found her land-legs again, or asking her if she needed help out of those wet things the mermaid left the pool; McCann watched with dismay as her scaly blue plastic tail disappeared through the mirror surface of the pool.

  'She's gone,' he said.

  'She can't,' I told him, 'stand being apart from you any longer and she's gone to get dressed to come round and ask you what a nice Marxist like you's doing in a capitalist clip-joint like this.'

  'Aw, shit,' McCann said, ignoring me and dipping his head down to the table top to look up through the glass to the surface of the pool.

  'Still after a piece of tail,' I said, shaking my head.

  'Aw, come back, hen,' McCann groaned from the table top.

  Hen? I thought. From fish to fowl in less than a minute. God, that was fast evolution. I looked round the busy bar. Actually, I knew how McCann felt. There were some good-looking women in the place, and I was lusting after several of them at once. One, standing at the bar, one foot on the brass rail, reminded me a lot of Inez. The same hair, roguishly tangled and perfectly kempt at once; the same long back and easy stance; definitely the same backside. The woman at the bar was wearing light-brown trousers. Inez wore jeans and trousers a lot, too. There was nothing wrong with her legs (though she thought there was), but her bum was just fabulous.

  I signalled to one of the waitresses, stared at the woman at the bar, and thought about Inez. Ah Jayzuz, Inez, Inez; my bitch in britches, my salop in salopettes. I think she was the only one who ever really hurt me, just because I eventually did believe that it might last. It never crossed my mind, before or after, that a relationship I might have with a woman would prove permanent; I always assumed they were either taking pity on me, were merely satisfying their curiosity, or had made some uncharacteristic mistake in a moment of weakness.

  I saw myself as the sort of guy who gets women on the rebound, if he happens to be in the right place at the right time; it was close to inconceivable that I might form a relationship entirely on my own merits. Even when sheer weight of numbers seemed to disprove this theory, I just assumed that a proportion of the women who'd thrown themselves at me, or hadn't run off screaming when I threw myself at them, were only doing it because I was famous, a Rock Star. So I never did expect too much, and thus was never grossly disappointed. Maybe I was trying not to get into something that might remind me of my parents' God-awful running-battle of a marriage, but if so, it wasn't deliberate. I just always assumed that I was an unattractive git who'd be picked only once all the nice guys had been spoken for .

  But Inez slipped in under my guard. I don't know if she had her own assumptions — about permanence and making a home, maybe — and these assumptions were somehow stronger than my rather casual, unfounded premises, so that I absorbed hers, and was slowly, osmotically, v
irally, taken over... but however the hell it worked, however she became part of me, it hurt when she tore herself away.

  Hell, I didn't really mind that she'd been screwing Davey (but was that why I later went with Christine, to avenge myself?); what annoyed me was that they'd been doing it so long and hidden it so carefully. And it stopped, after that night when they were caught in the strobe lights. That was, crazily enough, even more worrymg.

  I wouldn't have minded having a good excuse to diversify myself a little bit, with Inez there to come back to, and I'd have been equally happy for her to have the same freedom. Ah, those wonderful days when the worst you had to worry about was VD, or, in my case, a paternity suit. Inez and Davey could have gone on if they liked; I wouldn't have sulked. I could have handled it, I swear. But instead they both vowed never to do it again, and I was left with a nagging sense that it shouldn't have mattered that much in the first place.

  Actually, to this day I think we were largely right about relationships, and I still think there's far too much of a fuss made about both sex itself and any fidelity associated with it... but these are not the times to shout about that too much, I guess.

  'Same again?' I nudged McCann. He drained his glass, nodding. I looked around for the waitress I'd signalled earlier. I couldn't see her. I caught the eye of a waiter cruising nearby, and ordered a double round. This seemed like a wise precaution if the waiting staff were becoming as lackadaisical as the continuing absence of the waitress suggested. I considered whether perhaps she'd thought we'd had enough to drink already and had deliberately avoided us, but this was quite out of the question as we were both still fairly sober.

  'Ah'm away fur a pee,' McCann told me. I nodded. He seemed to have a little difficulty standing up, but he does have a bad leg from an accident in the yards when he was an apprentice, so that wasn't really surprising. I went back to contemplating the girl with the fabulous bum. She really was like Inez. I'd seen her face by now, which was quite different from Inez', but everything else about her was right.