Espedair Street

by Iain Banks

  'Well,' I said, noncommittally, and left it at that.

  'Oh, here, wait a minute,' the bouncer said, with the look and tone of somebody who's just had a really good idea; he disappeared round the side of the bar. The manager was inspecting the voucher I'd signed. He'd already had me confirm the name and address of my lawyers, which the Amex people had given him as the place they sent my statements to, but he was still suspicious.

  The bouncer who'd been a fan came back with an album. One of ours. Well, in a way; it was Nuggets, the God-awful-titled collection of album off-cuts and not-quite-good-enough attempts at singles that ARC put out after we'd split up. It was a poor album; the best thing on it was a high-speed punk version of 'Long-Haired Lover From Liverpool' we'd done as a joke one very drunken night in Paris. I'd disowned the LP when they brought it out, and still had arguments with Rick Tumber about it (and especially about that title; Nuggets, I ask you).

  'Hey, Mr Weird, would ye sign this, aye?' The bouncer looked enthusiastic, grinning happily.

  I sighed. 'Sure.'

  McCann had had the nerve to order another drink; he slurped noisily at a lager and scowled at me. My earlier euphoria at not being turned into a mewling heap of pulped flesh and broken bones had evaporated. The bouncer with the album looked at my picture on the cover, looked at me, and grinned boyishly. ' Aye, ye can see it's you. That's amazin. You just back here visitin, aye?'

  'Aye,' I said, getting off the bar stool and handing the manager back his pen. He took it and put it in his inside jacket pocket, along with the carefully folded Amex voucher.

  'Hey,' the bouncer said, looking serious all of a sudden, 'Mr Weird, I was really sorry, ye know? Tae hear about...'

  'Yeah,' I said, quickly. 'I know. I don't like talking about it ... sorry .' I shrugged, looked down. He patted me on the shoulder.

  'Aye, 'sokay, Mr Weird.' He sounded sincere. Jesus, I thought. Six years; six years ago it happened and people still talk about it like it happened last week.

  I gave the guy a weak smile and walked over to McCann. 'You okay?' I asked him. 'Ready to go?'

  McCann nodded. He finished his lager. We made our apologies again, shook hands with the bouncers (they were getting five hundred each; there were no really serious injuries, so they were happy enough), then we left.

  We walked in silence through the smirring rain and sleet to West Nile Street, where I hailed a taxi.

  'You really who they said?' McCann asked, standing outside, the taxi as I held the door open for him. His wee, grey eyes stared into mine. There was still some dried blood on his face.

  'Aye.' I looked down at the dark, glistening road, then back to his eyes. 'Yes, I am.'

  McCann nodded, then turned on his heel and walked away.

  I stood there, still holding on to the cold handle of the opened taxi door, and watched him go. Sleet curled on gusts before the slabs of light from shops. Headlights and rear lights moved above the rain-bright roads, and the streetlights seemed to wear little flowing capes of rain and snow, swirling cones under the orange lamps.

  'Haw, Jimmy!' the driver shouted. 'Sgettin cold in here; you gettin in or no?'

  I looked at him, a white face in the darkness.

  'Aye.' I climbed in and closed the door.

  TEN

  You can't even give the stuff away. Crazy Davey once tried to give away his Rolls Royce, just to prove a point.

  It was the eve of the Three Chimneys tour (not that I knew that at the time). We were driving through the leafy lanes of Kent, just off the motorway, heading for Davey's mansion near Maidstone.

  It was... summer of '80, I think. We were leaving for the States on the first leg of our new world tour the following week. Davey and I had been up in the East End of London, at a rented warehouse in Stepney where a frighteningly large number of roadies and technicians had been putting the finishing touches to the stage set we'd be using on the tour, including the Great Contra-Flow Smoke Curtain.

  We'd had a final test of the whole rig the previous night, and it all worked; the Curtain itself, the lights and lasers and magnesium charges and smoke bombs... everything. We'd even bought a new sound system, perversely enough to keep Wes quiet. I told people the old one was bought by a quarry company in Aberdeen; they just pointed it at a granite rock face and played some Sex Pistols at maximum volume; much cheaper than dynamite.

  If you ever saw that set, Smoke Curtain and all, you won't need me to tell you how good it was. If you didn't, well, tough; you never will. It was dismantled and never used again after one hot and humid night in Miami, just a month later.

  'What do you want to do?' Davey said, shaking his head. He lit a cigarette, put the cigar lighter back in the dash. He was driving appallingly fast; he made Jasmine look safe for Christ's sake. I was just glad that he'd chosen the Roller for the trip up to London. It wasn't as fast or as flimsy as the 'only slightly rusty' Daytona he'd bought himself for Christmas.

  Davey had started collecting cars. The Rolls hadn't been his first choice of limo; he'd wanted a Russian Zil ('You know; one of those big black bastards the Politburo boys hang out in'), but hadn't yet got his hands on one.

  I took up all the tension I could on the seat belt and told myself Rollers were solidly enough built to let you crash in comfort. 'I mean,' Davey said, waving the cigarette round vaguely in my direction. 'So we've got some money; okay; a hell of a lot, as far as what we might have thought we'd ever get, yeah?'

  'Yeah,' I said quickly, wondering if agreeing quickly would make Davey put both hands on the wheel again.

  'But it's nothing really, I mean not compared to what some people have, like... Getty, or the Sultan of Brunei, or the... ah... the Saudis; you know, the royals. Even our royals have more, and, like, companies have even more. IBM; ATT; Exxon ... I mean, what they've got makes our... our money look like petty cash, am I right?' He looked round at me.

  I nodded as quickly as possible, hoping he'd look back at the road. I certainly did. 'And countries,' Davey went on. 'Look what the States or the Russians spend on weapons, billions, isn't it?'

  'Sure,' I said, watching the thirty-mile-an-hour limit signs of a village approach rapidly with a feeling of cautious relief. 'But that doesn't mean we couldn't do something.'

  'What, though?' Davey said, braking as we passed the speed limit signs, so that we were only doing about fifty-five. 'I mean, we already donated that studio in Paisley. Probably the best thing we could have done, but what else could we do?'

  The no-limit signs flashed by and the Roller lifted its snout as we accelerated again. I wondered again why the hell I'd agreed to let Davey drive me down to his place. Wanted to show me his new plane.

  Jesus, what was I doing? Stay out of the plane, I told myself. I couldn't forget that trip down the Corinth canal in the unmarked plane. What would he try here? Flying through the Dartford Tunnel? Stay out of the plane.

  I clutched the edges of my seat, considering whether it would be more or less terrifying if I closed my eyes. 'I don't know,' I said (my voice still sounded normal, don't ask me how). 'Maybe just... give it to the Labour Party, or something like that.'

  Davey looked at me as though I was crazy, an opinion I was starting to share. I looked away and concentrated on the appallingly narrow road ahead, hoping he might take the hint and do the same thing. 'We do contribute,' he said. 'We're all fucking members. You made us all join when you won that forfeit game of Diplomacy in Geneva, remember?'

  I remembered. I already gave lots of money to the Labour Party; I even gave lots of money to the Communist Party, even though I hadn't dared join (they still asked you about having been a member on the US visa application) .

  'Yeah,' I said, 'but I mean give a lot to them, like... I don't know; ninety per cent; just keep back what we need to...'

  'NINETY PER CENT?' Davey screamed. 'Are you insane?'

  'Well, I don't know; that was just a f-figure off the...'

  'You must be crazy, Dan; I mean, why the hell bother
with all this if you're going to give it all away? I mean, okay, we get well paid; we know that. Sure; we get paid more than a nurse or a doctor and people, and sure that's a bit crazy, but we do work, for Christ's sake; we put in the hours, we sweat, man... and how long's it going to last, eh? You know what it's like; we've been flavour of the month for a few years, but how many people get that? Fuck all; that's how many. Very damn few indeed.' Davey took both hands off the wheel to gesture Italianately. I closed my eyes. 'Us; The Stones, Led Zep ... the Who, I guess... but how long's it going to last?' I dared to look; Davey had both hands on the wheel again. 'There aren't any guarantees, you know that. We could be nobodies... next month. Next year, anyway. No money... or bugger all money coming in, and with all our overheads, and tax to pay to... to wherever we're supposed to be living these days.' Davey shrugged. Another village swung into sight round a bend and Davey eased the brakes on again; hey, only fifty this time. We zipped past parked cars and bunches of kids leaving school.

  'Oh, come on,' I said. 'Even if we didn't make another penny, none of us would be p-poor, ever. We might have to sell a house or two; you might have to get rid of the plane, but...'

  'Yeah, exactly,' Davey said. 'So why not enjoy it now, while we can?'

  'We could still have a damn good time on a hell of a lot less.'

  'Yeah, and we could lose whatever the hell it is we've got that puts bums on seats and... and albums on turntables, because we'd know ninety per cent of everything we did was for somebody else.'

  This struck me as an almost sensible comment. I looked, mildly surprised, at Davey as we cleared the speed limit and powered off again.

  'Some people do it,' I said. 'They play for the love of it and they don't need all the money they make. They put it back.'

  'That's them. We're us. I'm a middle-class kiddy, Danny boy. It would go against the grain. You do it; don't let me stop you. But don't be too surprised if you get no thanks. It isn't as easy to give money away as you think.'

  'Hmm,' I said, in a sceptical tone of voice.

  'You don't believe me, do you?' Balfour grinned. 'Okay; next village we get to, we'll try and give some away.'

  'Davey,' I shook my head. 'Don't...'

  'No; I'm serious. We'll try and give some away. We'll see who'll take it.'

  'That's not what I meant; that isn't the sort of thing I...'

  'It's the same principle.' Davey slowed the car again as a small village appeared over the summit of a small hill. 'Here; we'll try this place.' The Roller dropped below forty for about the first time since London. 'I know;' Davey said, grinning. 'I'll try and give the car away; that's putting my money where my mouth is, isn't it? Must be worth thirty K, minimum. I'll try to get rid of it.'

  'Davey,' I said, tiredly.

  'No, no.' He held up one hand, and put the cigarette out, blowing grey smoke at the windscreen. 'I insist.'

  So we stopped in this little village somewhere north-west of Maidstone and got out — me still protesting: Jeez, you'd have thought it was my car — and Davey took the keys out of the ignition and went up to a man cutting his hedge in front of a smallish terrace house. 'Excuse me!' he said breezily. He brandished the keys with the RR tag and pointed at the car, standing at the kerb, door open. The man was about fifty, greying, heavily bespectacled; a soft, gentle-looking guy.

  'Yes?'

  'Would you like that car?' Davey said, pointing. The man looked surprised at first, then smiled.

  'Oh,' he said slowly, looking at the Roller. 'Yes. It's very nice.'

  'Would you like one of those?' Davey said.

  'Oh, I suppose, yes, I would, but I don't know I could aff...'

  'It's yours,' Balfour said, thrusting the keys at the chap. The man looked down at the keys. He laughed, shook his head, but didn't seem to know what to say. 'Go on,' Davey said. 'I'm serious; you can have it; I'm trying to give it away. Take them; we can complete the formalities later. Go on!' He pushed his hand with the palm-held keys spread on it towards the man, who actually backed off a little. The old guy smiled uncertainly and looked around; at me, at the car, up and down the road, at the nearby houses, including his own.

  I leaned against the car, elbow on the warm bonnet. It was a mild summer evening, slightly hazy, and with the smell of woodsmoke on the gentlest of warm, lazy breezes. I heard the hooter of a train, in the far distance, and a dog barked. Balfour went on trying to get the guy to take the keys, but he wouldn't. He kept smiling and shaking his head and looking round. I wondered if he was looking for his wife or somebody, or just feeling embarrassed and hoping his neighbours weren't watching.

  Finally, he said, 'You're from that programme, aren't you?' He laughed nervously and looked up and down the road again, shading his eyes at one point. He smiled at Davey. 'You are, aren't you? That... what d'you call it? Aren't you?' Davey looked back at me. I shrugged.

  'You found us out, sir,' Davey said, smiling insincerely and taking out his wallet. He handed the guy a twenty-pound note.

  'Thank you for taking part, though.' We left the guy looking puzzled and holding the twenty-quid note up to the light, shears still in one hand.

  'A draw,' I said. 'You did get him to take some money; twenty notes, to be precise. And it was a rotten example anyway. Totally irrelevant.'

  Davey was still beaming as we swung off the public road and into a poplar-lined gravel drive which led to a large house in the distance, past a small airstrip and a new concrete and steel hangar. 'Bullshit, Danny. He turned down thirty grand. Even if he had taken it, you think he wouldn't have stayed suspicious? I mean even after he'd got the log book in his name? Or if he did believe I'd done it, know what he'd think of me? Know what he'd think of the guy who'd been so kind and generous? He'd think "What a stupid bastard," that's what he'd think. Believe me.'

  I toyed with the idea of making some remark on the lines of, If the guy with the hedge clippers hadn't believed him, why should I? but we were doing eighty up that narrow gravel drive, and there was a nasty-looking corner coming up Balfour had already braced himself for, so I just shut my eyes and dug my fingers into the leather under my thighs instead and waited for the sickening lurch of the four-wheel drift I knew was coming.

  Musical beds, and starting to feel... not old, but that events in the lives of those I knew and used to know, were gathering pace ... starting to feel no longer young, I suppose.

  Davey and Christine had gone to the Greek islands that spring, after the European tour ended. Inez and I joined them on Naxos for the second two weeks. We stayed at a villa on one of the less frequented lengths of coast; the house belonged to the promoter of the tour we'd just finished and had a jacuzzi and all the luxuries but, best of all, it didn't have a telephone.

  The villa came complete with its own fast cruiser, but that wasn't good enough for our Davey; he'd got his pilot's licence justthe year before, and he'd always thought the ideal way to tour the islands — apart from taking a year or two and going by yacht — was to have a nice villa somewhere fairly central, and a seaplane.

  Which was exactly what we had. Davey had hired a six-seat seaplane which we used to visit a different island every couple of days. This seemed like a rather frantic pace to me; I'd thought the whole idea of coming here was to get away from the pressure of tight schedules and being somewhere different every second night, but Davey didn't seem to see it that way.

  So we flew as far afield as Crete, Rhodes, Thasos, and even, one day, Levkas, which is on the far side of the Greek mainland from Naxos, and a good couple of hours flying time away. I think the main reason Davey wanted to go there was so he'd have an excuse to fly down the Corinth canal (under the bridges, of course: 'You mad bastard; that's why you painted the registration number out this morning,' 'Don't worry; it's only emulsion; it'll wash off.').

  Then one lunchtime, on Naxos, I got drunk and Inez didn't, and I fell asleep, and when I woke up there was nobody else about. I found a note on the kitchen table, in Inez' hand: Gone to Piraeus for fresh (cows
) milk. Back for dinner.

  I shook my head at the lack of an inverted comma, threw the note away and took a slice of melon from the fridge. I wandered through the dining room, dripping and scattering little black seeds. Luxury to be so messy without Inez there to shout at me. I sat on the terrace with my feet up on the rails and looked out over a small olive grove and the villa's cove of beach towards the bright blue sea; a haze was just starting to form. Tiny white specks, wavering on the uncertain surface, were ferries. It was at least six hours by ship to Piraeus, but the seaplane could be there and back in two.

  It wasn't too terrible to be alone; in fact I thought it might be quite pleasant, just for a change. I went for a walk, to a little village on a hill, and sat drinking a cold beer or two under the shade of an ancient, gnarled tree, mirror shades gazing out to sea over the brilliant white jumble of buildings. In certain directions, all I could see was either white or blue; whitewashed stone or the sea-sky vault. Donkeys clopped and clattered up from the lower village, loaded with bottles and giant tin cans. A cat came and sat looking up at me; I ordered a little pastry for it.

  The cat ate the pastry; I drank my beer and watched the donkeys pass, wondering what it must be like to live in a village like this... One of those places where nothing changes much, where time must seem like a standing wave, not something always at your back, the breaking surf, the breathtaking one-way ride to the dry, dead beach, Goodbye...

  I'd heard that one of my prod flatmates had been killed in a car crash, last time I'd gone back to Paisley. I'd looked up one of my other flatmates, and we'd met for a drink. That was when he told me; it had happened two years ago. And I'd bumped into one of Jean Webb's aunts, in a Glasgow coffee shop where my ma and I were taking a time-out during a shopping expedition. The old woman came over to chat with my ma, and mentioned that Jean was married now; she and Gerald had a wee girl (I didn't catch the name); just toddling now; och, a bonnie wee thing.