Dead Air

by Iain Banks

  ‘All right already!’ I said. ‘Distinction taken.’ And conversational direction subtly changed, you lying hypocritical dissembling louse, I told myself.

  ‘Anyway, it’s not just stuff like that,’ I said, wanting to move swiftly on and away from all this lying and relationship stuff. ‘Or stuff like using a parsec as a unit of time like they did in the original Star Wars and didn’t even take it out in the new edition. It’s the whole way movies, Hollywood movies, are put together. I’ve been thinking about this; imagine if paintings were produced the way Hollywood films are.’

  Craig sighed, and I suspected he suspected there was a proto-rant coming up, which was true.

  ‘The Mona Lisa as we know it would be just the first draft; in the second she’d be blond, in the third smiling happily and showing some cleavage, by the fourth there’d be her and her equally attractive and feisty sisters and the landscape behind would be a jolly seaside scene; the fifth draft would get rid of her and keep the sisters, lose the seaside for a misty mountain and make the girls both red-headed and a bit more, like, ethnic looking, and by the sixth or seventh the mountain would be replaced by a dark and mysterious jungle and there’d just be the one girl again, but she’d be a dusky maiden wearing a low-cut wrap and with a smouldering, alluring look and an exotic bloom in her long black tresses… Bingo – La Giaconda would look like something you were embarrassed your elderly uncle bought in Woolworths in the early seventies and never had the wit to get rid of in subsequent redecorations.’

  ‘So what?’ Craig asked. ‘If films were all made the way paintings are every one would look like an Andy Warhol movie.’ He gave a sort of stage shiver. ‘Which, whatever it does for you, surely scares the hell out of me.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Anyway. I’d better get ready.’ He stood up.

  ‘You’ve nearly an hour,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, but I need a shower and everything.’ He headed for the door. ‘Help yourself to stuff, okay?’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. I tipped my head to one side in a way that I knew looked cute – and hard to resist – when Ceel did it. ‘Who is she, Craig? Anyone I know?’

  ‘Not telling you.’

  ‘It is somebody I know. It’s not Emma, is it?’

  He just laughed.

  ‘So it’s somebody new?’

  ‘Ken, this isn’t any of your business.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. But it is somebody new, isn’t it?’

  ‘Could be,’ he said, the (in retrospect) bastard, with a small smile.

  ‘Is she our age? Younger? Older? Children? How’d you meet?’

  He shook his head as he opened the door. ‘You’re like a fucking journalist yourself, so you are.’

  ‘Hope she’s worth it!’ I called as he left the living-room and headed upstairs.

  I will freely confess that what I helped myself to while he was out – after a lonesome J and a bottle of Rioja – were the 1471 and last-number redial functions on his phone, but all I got was fucking Pronto Pizza.

  Come on, now; I could have started rifling through his itemised telephone bill or something. The 1471/last-number thing was small beer… even if I did feel just the tiniest bit of guilt at abusing my host and Official Best Friend (Scottish)’s trust.

  Like he was going to care; he still hadn’t reappeared next morning when I left for work.

  ‘Ms Boysert is working from home today.’

  ‘Fine. Can you give me her home number?’

  ‘I’m sorry. She doesn’t want to be disturbed.’

  ‘Not really work, then, is it?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Look, can I have her home number or not?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Nott. May I take a message?’

  ‘Yes; tell her she’s a bitch.’

  ‘I see. Do you really want me to pass that on, Mr Nott? I shall if you insist, but…’

  ‘Ah, forget it.’

  Noon on the Friday of the week Celia was due back in town came and went, but there was no package and no phone call. I’d never felt so crushed at knowing I would have to wait longer to see her. I started to wish I’d done something a bit sad during one of our earlier afternoons, and asked her for a pair of her knickers or something. At least then I’d have something. I wondered if there was some Internet newsgroup or some website that would steer me to the old magazines and catalogues she’d appeared in as a model. There probably were, of course (I had long since hit the realisation, which comes to most users sometime, that there was almost nothing you could imagine that was not on the Internet, somewhere), but almost as soon as I thought of this I decided that, on second and third thoughts, I really didn’t want to know.

  Craig spent the weekend away with his mystery woman. Ed was away, Emma was engaged all the time, Amy I’d given up on and Phil was busy decorating. I watched a lot of DVDs.

  ‘Ken! What’s your side of the story? Are you really claiming that none of it happened?’

  ‘Ken! Ken! Did you send those death threats to yourself?’

  ‘Would you say Lawson Brierley got what he deserved, Ken?’

  ‘Ken, is it true them def frets were from someone wif a Muslim accent?’

  ‘Ken, is this all about publicity? Is it true the show’s being cancelled?’

  ‘Ken! Straight to the point, straight to the point; we’ll pay you for an exclusive. And you get approval. Pictures too!’

  ‘Ken, is it true you punched and kicked two security guards and a girl production assistant as well?’

  ‘Ken; they might get you for contempt of court; any thoughts?’

  ‘Kenneth, would you say your actions last Monday and your position since constitute more of a context-challenging, metagenristic art work rather than a simple act of political media violence?’

  ‘Oy! Ken; didya biff the cant or not?’

  ‘Hi, chaps! Chapesses! Fine morning, isn’t it?’

  (That was me.)

  ‘Ken. Is your stance on this anything to do with your renowned antipathy towards Israel? Could you be said to be over-compensating?’

  ‘Ken! Come on, Ken. You’re one of us. Play ball for fuck’s sake. Answer a fucking question, can’t you? You know what’ll happen if you don’t. Did you thump this bloke or not?’

  ‘Ken; is it true you have a conviction for assault already? In Scotland.’

  ‘Mr Nott, you’ve frequently criticised politicians for refusing to answer straight questions from the media; don’t you feel in any way or sense hypocritical here?’

  ‘Love to answer all your questions, really would; just flippin well dying to, as a matter of fact, and you can quote me on that. But I can’t. Ain’t life a pain sometimes?’

  (That would be me again.)

  ‘Ken! Ken! Ere, Ken! Over ere! Come on, mate; give us a smoile.’

  ‘Na, mate,’ I said. ‘That’s not my best side.’

  ‘Then wot the fuck is?’

  ‘Whatever it was, I’ve put it behind me. See you, guys.’

  Kenneth has entered the building.

  I waved my pass at reception and the security guard and had the lift to myself to the second floor. In the lift, I let out a whoop, then relaxed, slumping briefly against the wall.

  I’d decided to brave the press on the one-week anniversary of my now near-mythical tussle with the beastly fascist Holocaust denier and all-round rotten egg, Lawson Brierley. I’d walked, tubed and walked from Craig’s to the Capital Live! offices and seen the waiting press pack ahead, on the broad pavement outside the main Soho Square entrance. I’d squared my shoulders, reviewed one or two pre-prepared responses I’d thought might come in handy, and gone sailing in amongst the fuckers.

  If they knew they weren’t going to get anything out of you even when they could confront you face-to-face, they might give up a bit earlier than they would if you just plain avoided them, because if you just plain avoided them they could still hope that if they ever did get you alone you’d crumble and blab and basically come up with the goods they wanted
. Not, of course, that that would stop them just making stuff up, including supposedly direct quotes – what the guy meant who’d said, You know what’ll happen if you don’t – but at least your own conscience would be clear.

  The trick had nothing to do with not answering the sensible, reasonable questions; the trick was all about not responding to the ridiculous ones, the over-the-top ones: had I sent death threats to myself? Had I hit some girl assistant? Had I a conviction for assault already? (If I had, they’d have known all about it; they’d have had a photocopy of the fucking charge sheet.) These probably weren’t even rumours the press had heard from anybody else; these would be questions the journos had made up themselves hoping that I’d react to at least one of them, saying, Of course not!… But the trouble was that answering one question would be like opening a vein while treading water in a pool full of sharks; it’d be a fucking feeding frenzy after that. Start answering – start denying – and it was very hard to stop.

  But it had been very hard.

  A Muslim accent, indeed. And, Was the show being cancelled? The devious, unprincipled fucks. (What the bampot who thought it was a work of art was on about, I had no fucking idea. Did the Philosophical Review have door-stepping rat-packers in these post-post-modern days? I had to suppose that there was every chance they did.)

  Still, in a bizarre, leaving-morality-aside-for-a-moment sort of way, you couldn’t help but be impressed by their ingenuity and dedication. I felt privileged to have been verbally roughed-up by such consummate experts. And I was doing well; those had to be the premier league newshounds out there, not cub reporters cutting their teeth.

  Life and the show went on. Craig announced he would be out on the Monday night as well, so I thought I might as well move back to the Temple Belle. I did, and nothing bad happened. The Landy came back from the garage and spent a night outside in the car park without being attacked or set on fire or kidnapped or anything.

  Having braved the journos once, it became easier and easier to keep on doing so. The trick was to respond to nothing at all. ‘Ken; your dad says he’s ashamed of you; what’s your response?’ (My response was to phone my mum and dad, who’d been door-stepped by the fucking Mail on Sunday. Of course they hadn’t said they were ashamed of me at all; they’d responded to some hypothetical question the journalist had put to them about people hitting defenceless other people and this had somehow – spookily – been extrapolated into a direct quote.)

  On the other hand, the Guardian had done some digging on Lawson Brierley and found that he did have convictions for assault; two, in fact, one with a racial element. Not to mention having done time for fraud and embezzlement. Some of the other papers were sounding just a little more sympathetic to me, though the Telegraph and the Mail still thought I ought to be hung up by the thumbs, and the Mail made a big thing about withdrawing its advertising from Capital Live!. Meanwhile I turned down a couple of TV appearances and several exclusive interviews; I think the offers topped out at eleven grand, which was mildly flattering without amounting to so much that I’d ever entertain actually succumbing.

  ‘I suppose it must be a bit weird having to defend somebody you know is guilty,’ I said to my lawyer.

  Maggie Sefton looked at me with what looked like an, Are you serious? expression. I looked back at her and she obviously decided I was just as naïve as I appeared. ‘Ken,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Ask any defence lawyer; most of our clients are guilty.’ She gave a soundless laugh. ‘Civilians always seem to think it must be really hard defending somebody you know is guilty. It isn’t; that’s what you do practically all the time. Defending somebody you know is innocent; that is weird.’ She hoisted one eyebrow and opened an already fairly stuffed box file. ‘That can cause you sleepless nights.’

  ‘So, tell me straight, Maggie,’ I said. ‘Am I being really stupid here?’

  She looked up sharply. ‘You want my professional or personal opinion?’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘Professionally, you’re entering a minefield. Riverdancing.’

  I had to smile at that. She smiled too, then the smile went.

  ‘Ken, you’re risking charges of perjury and being in contempt of court. Happily – if it comes to it – your employers are able to afford a good brief, but I suspect he or she is going to spend a lot of their preparation time impressing upon you the fact that you’ll have to be very, very controlled and careful in what you say. If you go shooting your mouth off – in court or out of it – you could be in serious trouble. The judge can send you down for contempt right there and then, without any extra procedure, and perjury is, rightly, regarded by judges as being a lot more serious an offence than simple unaggravated assault.’

  ‘What about your personal opinion?’

  Maggie smiled. ‘Personally, Ken, I’d say, Bully for you. But then what I think personally doesn’t matter a damn.’

  ‘And the good news?’

  She looked away for a while.

  ‘… In your own time,’ I said.

  She clapped her hands. ‘Let’s crack on, shall we?’

  Fending off journalists and ordinary callers interested in the matter during the phone-ins became a game for that week. The crowd of journos shrank rapidly until by the Thursday I got to work completely unmolested. I got it into my head that Ceel would be listening that day, and that there would be a package and a phone call from her when I finished the show, but – again – nothing.

  That left Friday; there had to be something from Ceel on the Friday. Otherwise it would just be too long an interval. She’d forget what I looked like. She’d fall in love with her husband again. She’d find somebody else – Jeez, suppose she already had? Oh my God; suppose she was some sort of series-serial sexual adventurer and I was just one of a dozen or so guys she met up with for sex every couple of weeks? What if she was fucking a whole male harem of guys, one a day, even two a day! One in the morning, before me! Maybe she was never out of those five star hotels, maybe she practically lived in them, serviced by a steady stream of sadly deluded lovers. Maybe…

  Shit, I was going crazy. I had to see her again, I had to talk to her.

  ‘Hey; that’s your old girlfriend, isn’t it?’

  We were in the office after the Thursday show. Kayla had grabbed our copy of the February edition of Q as soon as it had arrived. She was holding it up across the desk from me. Phil looked up from his computer screen.

  I frowned. ‘What? Who?’

  ‘Jo,’ Kayla said. ‘Look.’ She passed the magazine over.

  It was in the News section. A small colour photograph and a couple of paragraphs. Brad Baker of Addicta pictured post-gig in Montreux with current squeeze Jo LePage. La LePage, part of Addicta’s management team, has been spotted on stage helping to provide backing vocals for the band; definitely a better voice than Yoko Ono or Linda McCartney. Comparisons to Courtney Love not invited. Hate mail from female teenage Brad Baker fans probably in post already.

  ‘She’s fucking that bastard?’ I said. ‘She told me she hated him!’

  ‘That old trick,’ Kayla muttered. She was holding her hand out towards me. She clicked her fingers. ‘Back, please.’

  ‘And she was doing PR for Ice House,’ I said. ‘Not helping manage Addicta. Fucking useless fucking journalists. Bastards.’

  ‘Ahem.’ Kayla clicked her fingers again.

  ‘Have it,’ I said, shoving it into her hand.

  ‘You’re blushing!’ Kayla said.

  ‘Who’s blushing?’ Andi said, coming through the door with a tray of coffee and cakes.

  ‘Ken is; look,’ said Kayla. ‘His old girlfriend’s shagging Brad Baker.’

  ‘What? The Addicta guy?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Lucky cow!’

  ‘Yeah. It’s in Q; see?’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’ Andi tutted, looking at the magazine as she put the tray down. She glanced at me. ‘That’s a shame.’

  I looked at Phil. ‘Am I really blushing?
’ I felt that I could have been. I certainly felt embarrassed. To still be so affected just because Jo was pictured with somebody else; pathetic.

  Phil looked at me carefully. ‘Ta,’ he said absently as Andi handed him his cup and a doughnut. His eyes narrowed behind his glasses and he nodded. ‘Maybe a little.’

  ‘I think that’s sweet,’ Andi said, looking at me with a rueful, sympathetic smile. In return I managed a mouth-twitch that might, from a distance with the light behind it, have been interpretable as a smile by somebody partially sighted.

  ‘Reminds me,’ Phil said, clattering at his keyboard. ‘Bit of gossip on the office e-mail.’ He clattered some more. ‘Yeah,’ he said, nodding at the screen. ‘Mouth Corp might be buying Ice House.’

  ‘Ice Mouth!’ Kayla said.

  ‘Mouth House,’ Andi suggested.

  ‘Oh, fuck,’ I said, eloquently.

  The Friday show ended. No package. I felt utterly depressed. I was walking along the corridor to the office when my newly switched-on phone vibrated. Yes! I pulled the Motorola from its holster.

  Shit; my lawyer, again.

  ‘Maggie,’ I said, sighing.

  ‘Good news.’

  I perked instantly; lawyers don’t go bandying about phrases like that without very good reason. ‘What? Lawson’s been found in a child abuse ring?’

  ‘Better. He’s dropped the charges.’

  ‘You’re kidding!’ I stopped in the corridor.

  ‘No. He had some backers who were going to bankroll him in any resulting civil action and I think they decided if they saw it through they’d just give you a platform and let you make the point you’re so obviously trying to make. So, they’ve pulled the plug. Mr Brierley has come to the same conclusion.’