by Iain Banks
‘But it wasn’t a moral blank cheque. For fuck’s sake, if any people should have known what it was to be demonised, victimised and oppressed and suffer under an arrogant, militaristic occupying regime, and possess the wit to see what was happening to them and what they were doing to others, they should have.
‘So when Palestinian youths use sling-shots against tanks and the tanks put high explosive into tents where mothers are nursing, when every Arab village has its orchards razed, its houses dynamited and roads dug up – I mean can’t you see what you’re doing there? Those are ghettos you’re creating! When the Israeli Army seriously claims that Mohammed Al-Durrah and his father were shot by Palestinian gunmen, as though this isn’t the same shit in microcosm as claiming the death camps were built by the Allies after the War… I’m, I’m, I’m tearing my fucking hair out here, Jude! And then letters appear in the papers talking about appeasing the Palestinians and comparing Israel to Czechoslovakia just before the Second World War, and that’s just absurd! Czechoslovakia was not the best-armed state in Europe at the time, it was one of the weakest; it was not the only regional superpower with a monopoly on weapons of mass destruction, it was not the tooled-up victor of three earlier wars sitting on the occupied territory of others.’
‘But they kill us! Step on a bus, go for a pizza, drive back from worship, walk down the wrong path in your own city-’
‘And you’ve both got to stop! I know that! But you have the most control in this! You’re the ones coming from a position of strength! It’s always the one with the most power who has to give up the most, who has to exercise the most restraint, who has to take the final few blows before all the blows stop!’
Jude was shaking her tear-stained face at me. ‘You are so full of shit. You’ll never understand. You’ll just never understand. So we’re not perfect. Who is? We’re fighting for our lives. All you do and all you say just gives succour to those who’d drive us into the waves. You’re with the enemy, you’re with the exterminators. We haven’t become the Nazis; you have.’
I buried my face in my hands and when I surfaced, looking at Jude’s angry, reddened face, all I could say was, ‘I never said you had. And there is an Israeli Peace Movement, Jude. There are people, Jews, in Israel who oppose Sharon and what’s been done, what’s being done to the Palestinians. Who want peace. Peace for land if that’s what it takes, but peace. Reservists who’re refusing to fight in the Occupied territories. That’s who I’m with. That’s who I respect these days. I’ve escaped my adolescent crush on Israel but I’ll never stop respecting, loving the Jewish people for all they’ve done… it’s just that I can’t stand to see what’s being perpetrated in their name now by that fat, white-haired, war-criminal bastard.’
‘Fuck you. Sharon was democratically elected. He’s said he will trade land for peace. So fuck you. Fuck you!’
‘Jude-’
‘No! Goodbye, Ken. I won’t bother to say I’ll see you, because I hope I don’t. And don’t bother to call. In fact, don’t ever bother again. Not ever.’
‘Jude-’
‘… I’m ashamed I ever let you so much as touch me.’
And with that, my ex-wife threw her drink over me, turned on her heel and walked off.
Happy New Year.
Bit later. Drunk and maudlin and time to go to bed. I was crashing at Craig’s place, in the second spare bedroom. Some people had been using it as an unofficial cloakroom, dumping their coats and jackets on the bed; I gathered them up and took them next door to the box room, which was the official cloakroom.
‘Oh, hi, Nikki.’
‘Ken,’ Nikki said, taking something from her jacket. She was dressed in a fluffy pink sweater and tight black jeans. ‘How are you doing?’
‘Tired,’ I said, dumping the coats and jackets onto the pile on the bed. Music sounded pumping from downstairs and I could hear people whooping. The box room was devoid of furniture apart from an old desk – also piled with coats and stuff – and the narrow, mounded bed. Lots of shelves with books and assorted junk; a collapsible wallpaper table and a stepladder against one wall. The room’s bulb was bare, unshielded. Nikki stood grinning at me. Even with the short hair she looked great.
She held up the slim silvery thing she’d taken from her jacket. Large orange lozenges. ‘Got a cold,’ she said through her smile, almost smugly. Under the direct light of the room’s single bulb, her hair showed spiky highlights of glossy red and deep ochre.
I narrowed my eyes and looked at her as though over some glasses. ‘What are you on?’
‘Oh. Is it obvious? Uh-oh.’ She giggled. She put her hands behind her back and stood there, staring up at the ceiling and swivelling back and forth. Her jaw was working from side to side, in time.
I shook my head. ‘You young whipper-snapper; you’re loved up, aren’t you?’
‘Fraid so, Uncle Ken.’
‘Well, have fun, but remember Leah Betts; don’t drink too much water.’
‘I love you, Uncle Ken,’ she said, leaning forward and smiling broadly.
I laughed. ‘Yeah, I love you too, Nikki.’
She brandished the throat lozenges in my face like some sort of treat. ‘Would you like a Strepsil?’
‘Thanks. I’m trying to give them up.’
‘Okay.’
I stepped to one side and grasped the handle of the door, which had swung shut. ‘After you, ma’am,’ I said, opening it.
‘Thenk-yuh!’ she said, stepping forward, then bumped into the edge of the door and thudded into my chest. ‘Happy New Year, Ken.’ She raised her face to mine, still grinning.
True enough, I thought, we’d managed to miss each other somehow in the hours since the bells. ‘Happy New Y-’ I said.
She pushed her mouth against mine and gave me a big wet sloppy kiss, then pulled away, smiling happily, then did a little side-to-side thing with her head, made a noise that might have been, mm-hmm, and came forward again and kissed me once more. With a certain amount of openness, it has to be said. Though no tongues.
Oh my God, oh shit, oh fuck, part of me was thinking. I mean, another part was thinking, Well, Yesss!, but most of me was thinking bad things of one sort or another. I put my arms around her and kissed back, tasting and smelling her, sucking in her sweet breath as though desperate for some transfusion of youth. She squirmed in my arms, pressing herself against me and slipping her arms round my sides and back.
Something dropped to the floor; the lozenges.
Then she pushed back, blinking, and I had to let her go. The smile was gone for a moment. Then she shook her head and started laughing gently. She wiped her mouth delicately with the back of one hand.
‘What am I doing?’ she breathed, still shaking her head. I thought of the way her hair would have moved when she did that, if it had still been long.
‘Well,’ I said, swallowing. ‘Making an old man very happy, obviously, but, um, I don’t think…’
‘No, I don’t think either…’ she said softly, then laughed loudly, then started coughing. She shook her head and looked down at the floor. I stooped and handed her the packet of throat lozenges.
Nikki’s hoarse laugh echoed in the room. ‘Oh, Uncle Ken, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… I’m sorry.’
I held up one hand. ‘No problem. And please stop apologising. It was fine for me, believe me. But, ah…’
Nikki coughed. The harsh sound echoed in the bare-walled room. She made a visible effort to pull herself together. ‘Yes,’ she said, and cleared her throat noisily. ‘We probably better just pretend…’
‘… that none of this happened, yeah.’ I nodded.
She nodded too. ‘Just until, you know, we die,’ she suggested.
‘Agree completely,’ I said.
She shivered. ‘Sorry, Ken, but this is all just a bit…’
‘Weird?’ I suggested.
‘Yeah, weird.’
I’d opened the door again. ‘Oh. Hi, Emma.’
‘Mum! Hi!’ Nik
ki waved, her smile broad across her face.
‘What’s weird?’ Emma said, walking into the room and looking gloweringly suspicious. Little black number. Hair in pearled black Alice band like a soft tiara, black pearls round her throat. Already holding a dark coat over her arm.
I waved one hand dismissively and nodded at the pack of throat lozenges in Nikki’s hand. ‘I was trying to proposition your daughter by offering her drugs, but she wasn’t having it.’ I smiled sadly and let my shoulders sag while Emma glared into my eyes. ‘Just trying to get to bed, actually, Em; dog-tired. This you off too?’
Emma wavered, but then clearly decided I’d been just casual enough. Nothing going on. Nothing you’d want to think about, certainly. ‘Yes,’ she said, then looked at her daughter. ‘Nikki; you ready?’
Nikki popped a lozenge, flicked it into the air and stepped forward with her mouth open, teeth clacking shut. She stepped back again with the throat sweet displayed between her teeth. ‘Regy,’ she said. She turned and rummaged in the pile of coats until she found her jacket. ‘Night, Ken,’ she said, pulling on her jacket and kissing me lightly on the cheek.
‘Night, kid.’
‘I’ll be down in one minute,’ Emma told Nikki.
‘Okey-doke,’ Nikki said as the door started to swing closed again. ‘I’ll say bye to Dad…’
Emma looked at me.
Oh-oh, I thought. Now what?
‘Great kid,’ I said to Emma, nodding towards the closing door. ‘Love her to bits.’
‘You all right?’ Em said. She looked genuinely concerned. I relaxed.
‘Tired,’ I said, honestly.
‘I heard Jude gave you a hard time.’
‘It was mutual, but yes.’ I sighed, yawned. ‘Oh, dear. Sorry, sorry.’
‘It’s all right.’
‘Jude and I agreed to disagree,’ I said. ‘Although, come to think of it, I’m not sure we even agreed that.’
Emma nodded, looked down at my chest briefly. She put one hand out and touched my arm, patting it. ‘You get some sleep.’
‘Best idea I’ve heard all night.’ I held the door open for her.
‘Night, Ken. You take care.’ She kissed me lightly on the cheek, just like her daughter had. She turned at the top of the stairs as I was opening the door to my bedroom, and gave me a small, brave smile. She raised one hand hesitantly, then went quickly down the steps.
I stripped to my underpants and got into the bed. I went to sleep thinking about Celia, hoping she was well and safe with her family on Martinique. I did this quite often these days. Part of me hoped that by going to sleep thinking of her I’d see her in my dreams, but so far this hadn’t happened.
I slept well for about half an hour until some people piled into the room, turning on the light and looking for their coats. I told them where they were, then once they’d gone I got up, pulled on my trousers and went through to the official cloakroom and pulled all the coats and jackets off the bed and hung them over the banister rail outside. This didn’t stop another group of drunks coming into the room, turning on the light and looking for their coats.
I took the bulb out of the central light fixture and the next time somebody came in, muttering about coats and clicking the light switch about ten times, I snored very loudly until they went away.
When I wake up I’m dressed as an SS officer with my cock hanging out. I’m handcuffed to the bed and there’s gaffer tape over my mouth and Jo’s; they rape her, slit her throat and leave her lying on me. They’ve taken stuff to make it look like a robbery gone wrong and the boat’s been holed so when the tide rises I’ll drown.
‘Ah!’
‘Ken?’
‘Fuck! Shit! Fuck! Fucking hell!’
‘Ken! Come on! Just a dream. Whatever it was. Just a dream, a nightmare. Hey, come on…’
‘Dear fucking Jesus Christ almighty.’ I flopped back down onto the bed. My heart was hammering like an engine, I was breathing like I’d just run a marathon. ‘Oh, God.. ’
Jo took me in her arms and cradled me. ‘It’s okay. Everything’s all right. Calm down, calm down…’
‘Oh…’
‘That’s not like you.’
‘… Fuck…’
‘Okay now?’
‘Yeah. Okay. Okay now…’
Only I wasn’t okay at all.
Jo fell quickly asleep again but I spent a long, long time looking round the darkened, slightly tilted bedroom, swallowing hard, catching the occasional whiff of sewage and decay coming from the mud outside, listening for ominous gurgling noises from the bilges, searching for heavies hiding in the shadows and shivering as the sheen of sweat dried on my skin.
I lay waiting for the dawn to come up and the tide to come in, waiting for the waters to raise us again, bring the Temple Belle level once more, smother the faint smell of death and restore balance.
‘Hello?’
‘Hey, Mrs C.’
‘Ooh! Is that that man from the radio? Kennit, how are you doin, ma darlin?’
‘Got a bit of a cold, but apart from that, fine. And all the better for talking to you, Mrs C. And how are you? Beautiful and sexy as ever? Beautiful and sexy as the last time I saw you? On the big wheel, wasn’t it?’
‘Oh, hell, honey, I’m more so. More so! You a terrible man. I tell me son on you, you see if I don’t do juss that.’
‘Mrs C, you mustn’t. My unbridled passion for you has to stay a deep and terrible secret, otherwise Ed would be terribly hurt. I mean, suppose you seduced me and then fell pregnant?’
‘What? At my age? Oh, lissen to you, you rogue man! Ha!’
‘I’d have to marry you; I’d be Ed’s father. He’d never forgive me.’
‘Stop! I’ll bust meself. Where’s me hanky? Oh, you surely are a terrible man. I’d get the boy himself to give you a serious talkin to but he’s in France or Rome or some damn place like that, honey, so you’ll have to call his mobile.’
‘No problem, Mrs C. Actually I knew he was away; I just wanted an excuse to hear your voice.’
‘There see now, you bein terrible again.’
‘I just can’t help myself. It’s the power you have over me.’
‘Terrible man, terrible, terrible rogue of a man.’
‘Okay, Mrs C. I’ll try Ed’s mobile. It was good talking to you. Oh… I did want to have a word with a friend of his, too. Ah… Robe? Yeah; Robe. Would you have his number there at all?’
‘Robe? What you want to talk to him for, hon?’
‘… Sorry, just blowing my nose there, Mrs C. Excuse me.’
‘You excused, hon. So, what’s this you wantin to talk to Robe for?’
‘Ah, yeah; I was talking to somebody. In a record company. Ice House? They’re pretty big. Apparently the company, the record label, it’s looking for security people; bodyguards, that sort of thing. For artists, rap artists, when they come over from the States. I just thought Robe could do that, maybe. I mean, these are often pretty serious people themselves, ex-gangsta, a lot of them; they wouldn’t have any respect for the average white kid with broad shoulders who’s used to turning people away from clubs because they’ve got the wrong footwear. Robe, however, they’d relate to. But it’s straight work, and well paid. I know he could do it. Could lead to, well, who knows?’
‘Be a lot more respectable than what he usually gets up to, what I hear. Robe is Yardie, Kennit. He dangerous. Too many guns. He’s not welcome in this house no more. Ed don’t see him that I know of.’
‘I realise that. Ed and I were talking about him, not long ago. That’s why I thought maybe this could be a way to get him out of that sort of life. I thought maybe if I could have a word with him…’
‘Well, I don’t tink I got his number here, but I can get it, I suppose.’
‘It’d be great if you could, Mrs C. Of course, I’d understand if you didn’t want to say anything to Ed. Nothing might come of this, we have to accept that. But, you know; nothing ventured, and all that.’
‘Well, you probably on a wild goose chase here, honey, but bless you for tinkin of it. I call you back, that okay?’
‘You are a saint and sexy. I adore you.’
‘Ah! Stop it now!’
I’d decided I might be developing a crush on my dentist. Of course I wasn’t and I knew I wasn’t, but the idea seemed nice; there was something oddly relaxing and carefree about it. Maybe it was some very mixed up Freudian thing, given that my dad was a dentist, maybe it was because Mary Fairley, BDS, was Scottish, from Nairn, and had the most wonderfully soft, burring accent I’d heard since I’d moved to London, maybe it was the whole thing about lying almost flat with my mouth open, entirely at this woman’s mercy while some gentle music played and she and her almost as attractive assistant spoke quietly, professionally to each other, but whatever it was, I had almost convinced myself I felt something for her. Mary was chunky of build but delicate of movement and touch; she had sandy hair, grey-green eyes, a sprinkling of freckles across her nose, and breasts that got ever so slightly in her way sometimes, necessitating a quick, twisting movement – the bodily equivalent of a hair-flick – while she was leaning over me.
I gazed up into her eyes, wishing we didn’t have to put these safety visor things on these days. Although, given that I seemed to have picked up Nikki’s cold, that was probably no bad thing; I had to raise my hand and stop the dental work a couple of times to have a good sneeze.
Amazing how safe I felt in a dentist’s surgery; always a little on edge, waiting for a twinge, but very safe. Mary was polite but not chatty, despite our Caledonian connection. Very professional. Having a crush on a disinterested dentist might appear frustrating and sad, but it also struck me as being innocent and pure, and even healthy. Certainly a lot healthier than falling hopelessly in love with a gangster’s wife and planning to go tooled up into a telly studio.
Mary drilled through an old filling into decay, and the air in my mouth filled with a smell like death.
‘Our client maintains strongly that he was not using his mobile at the time of the accident.’
‘Then your client is lying.’