by Iain Banks
Language saved me again. The men speak the same tongue as I do; they took me to the Field Marshal. He was in a small train just up the line.
The Field Marshal is very tall and heavy, with long, disproportionate legs and a huge backside. He has a broad, round face and lank hair, dyed black. He favours garish uniforms with a very high albedo. He was sitting at a desk in his carriage, listening to music on the radio and eating crystallised quinces from a small plate when I was ushered before him, still half unconscious. He asked me where I came from; I vaguely recall telling him the truth, which he found extremely funny. You'll be my valet, he told me. I like a good story at dinner. I was locked in a small cell in one of the carriages while the Field Marshal's men completed their looting and killing. When I was searched, my handkerchief was taken from me. I saw the Field Marshal blowing his nose on it, some days later.
I watched the blood-splashed irregulars of the Field Marshal's force come back from my old train, carrying weapons and valuables; a wind came up and stirred the steam in the valley's cauldron. The lake was almost dry; lava flow and glacier finally met in a series of tremendous explosions which sent chunks of ice and rock hundreds of feet into the air. Our small train escaped, clanking and clattering, away from the wreck on the track behind us, and the elemental cataclysm beyond.
The Field Marshal's train was shorter and less well equipped than the one his men had ambushed. We moved only at night unless there was heavy cloud cover, hiding in tunnels during the day or covering the train with camouflage netting. For the first few days there was an air of tension in the train, but despite a narrow escape from a strafing fighter-bomber, and a hair-raising traverse of a great curved viaduct which was already damaged and under continuing heavy-artillery attack, the atmosphere amongst the motley-uniformed rabble perceptively lightened as we moved away from the scene of the ambush.
The volcanic activity also decreased; now there were only fumeroles and geysers and small lakes of boiling mud to betray the depths of fire beneath these freezing lands.
It was the Field Marshal's conceit to house the dozen or so pigs he possessed in fine state carriages, while quartering his human captives in a couple of muck-filled cattle trucks at the rear of the train. The pigs were bathed every week in the Field Marshal's own whirlpool bath, which took up a large part of his own carriage. Two soldiers were on permanent pig-husbanding detail, employed to keep clean the nest of sheets and blankets which the animals made of their beds, bring them their meals - they ate the same food as the rest of us - and generally look after their welfare.
Throwing captured soldiers into pools of boiling mud was a comparatively common occurrence, and done just for sport. The Field Marshal could tell I found these practices distressing. 'Ore,' he would say (tjiis was how he pronounced my name), 'Ore, don't you like our little games?' I would smile, dissemble.
The days grew lighter, dormant volcanoes gave way to low hills and savannah. Deprived of his boiling mud, the Field Marshal devised a new sport; he tied a short rope to a man's neck and made him run in front of the train. The Field Marshal took the controls, giggling as he opened the throttle and chased his quarry. They usually lasted a half mile or so before they tripped and fell across the sleepers, or tried to jump to one side, in which case the Field Marshal just opened the throttle and dragged them along the edge of the track.
At the last pool of boiling mud, he had a rope put round the victim, and once he was cooked, dragged him out, covered in a baked layer of mud; he had his men shovel more mud over the twisted figure, then when it had dried left the resulting gnarled statue standing on the ash shore of a salty, foul-smelling inland sea.
We were crossing the floor of a drained sea, towards a city set on a great circular cliff, when the bombers appeared. The train increased speed, heading for a tunnel set underneath the ruined city; the train's few anti-aircraft guns were manned.
Three medium bombers flew straight up the track towards us, not a hundred feet above the rails. They started dropping their bombs, trailing plane first, when they were quarter of a mile away. I was watching from the protruding perspex roof of the Field Marshal's observation car, where I'd been opening a bottle of eiswein. The driver braked, throwing us forward. The Field Marshal pushed past me, kicked open an emergency exit and threw himself out. I followed him, thudding into the side of a dusty embankment as the line of bombs stamped down the carriages like a soldier's boots on a train set. The embankment bounced like a trampoline; stones and fragments of train showered from the sky. I lay curled up, fingers in my ears.
We are in the abandoned city now, the Field Marshal, myself and another ten men; all that survived. Some weapons we have, and one pig. The ruined city is full of echoing, flag hung halls and tall stone spires; we camp in a library because it is the only place we can find anything which will burn. The city is built of stone, or a dark, heavy wood which refuses to do more than glow dull red, even if ignited with powder extracted from rifle cartridges. We get our water from a rusty cistern on the roof of the library, and catch and eat some of the city's pale-skinned nocturnal animals, who flit like ghosts through the ruins, looking for something they never seem to find. The men complain that these shy but gullible creatures make for poor hunting. We finish our meal. The men pick at their teeth with bayonets; one of them goes to a book-lined wall and knocks down some ancient tomes from this productive face. He brings them back to the fire, twisting their spines and ruffling their pages so that they'll burn better.
I tell the Field Marshal about the barbarian and the enchanted tower, the familiar and the wizard and the witch queen and the mutilated women; he likes that one.
Later, the Field Marshal retires with two of his men and his last pig to his private room. I clean the dishes and listen to the men complain about the monotonous diet and dull sport. They might mutiny soon; the Field Marshal has had no good ideas about what to do next.
I am called in to the Field Marshal's quarters; an old study, I believe. It contains many tables, and one bed. The two men leave, grinning at me. They close the door. Put this on, the Field Marshal says, smiling.
It is a dress; a black dress. He shakes it at me, wiping his nose on the handkerchief he took from me when I was first captured. Put it on, he says.
The pig is lying belly-down on his bed, snorting and squealing, its legs tied with rope to each of the bed's four posts. There is perfume in the air. Put this on, the Field Marshal tells me. I watch him put my handkerchief away. I put the dress on. The pig grunts.
The Field Marshal undresses; he throws his uniform into an old chest. He takes a large machine-gun from a book-covered table and shoves it into my hands. He holds up the long chain of cartridges as though it is a thick gold necklace to go with my long black dress. Look at these bullets (I look at the bullets); they are not blanks, see? See how much I trust you, Ore. Do just as I say, the Field Marshal tells me. His broad face is slicked in sweat; his breath is fetid.
I am to poke the machine-gun between the cheeks of his bum while he mounts the pig; this is what he wants. He is already excited, just at the thought. He covers one hand in gun oil and climbs onto the bed over the squealing pig, which he slaps between the legs with his oily hand. I stand at the foot of the bed, gun ready.
I detest this man. But neither of us is stupid. There were faint, regular score-marks round the shoulders of the brass cartridges; they have been held in the jaws of a wrench; opened and emptied of their powder. Probably the caps have been fired off too. There is a pillow by the pig's head. The Field Marshal lowers himself over the animal; they grunt together. One of his hands rests near the side of the pillow. There is another gun under there I think.
'Now,' he says, grunting. I grasp the gun barrel with both hands, lift it overhead and in the same movement bring it down like a sledgehammer on the Field Marshal's head. My hands, my arms and my ears tell me he is dead even before my eyes do. I have never felt or heard a skull smash before, but the signal came quite distinctly through the met
al of the gun and the perfumed air of the room.
The Field Marshal's body still moves, but only because the pig is jerking about. I look under the pillow where human blood and pig spittle combine and find a long, very sharp knife there. I take it and open the chest the Field Marshal put his uniform in; I take the pearl-handle revolver and some ammunition, check the door is locked, then change back into my waiter's uniform. I take one of the Field Marshal's great coats as well, then head for the window.
The window's rusty frame squeaks, but not as loudly as the pig. I have both feet on the window-sill when I remember the handkerchief. I take that from the dead man's uniform, too.
The city is dark, and the confused, wandering men who inhabit it bolt for cover as I run softly through the ruins.
Pliocene
She came back. So did Mrs Cramond, looking smaller and older. He had expected Mrs Cramond to sell the house, but she didn't; instead Andrea moved in with her, selling the flat in Comely Bank which had been let out to students in the intervening years. Mother and daughter got on remarkably well. Certainly the house was big enough for them both. They sold off the large basement as a self-contained flat.
It was a good time, after she came back. He'd stopped worrying about his bald patch, work was going well - he was still thinking about joining the other two in a partnership - and his father seemed quite happy on the west coast, spending most of his time at a club for pensioners where he apparently attracted the attentions of several widows (it was only with the greatest reluctance he could be tempted to Edinburgh for even a weekend, and once there would sit looking at his watch and complaining that now he was missing his card game with the lads, and now his bingo, or the old-time dancing. He would look down his nose at the best food Edinburgh's top chefs could provide, and pine volubly for the mince and tatties the others would he having).
And Edinburgh might start to be a capital, albeit in a limited way, once again. Devolution was in the air.
He noticed a little excess weight; just a slight jiggling at waist and upper chest whenever he ran upstairs, but something that had to be dealt with; he started playing squash. He didn't like it though; he preferred to have his own territory in a game, he told people. Besides Andrea kept beating him. He took up badminton, and went swimming at the Commonwealth Pool two or three times a week. He refused to go jogging though; there were limits. He went to concerts. Andrea had returned from Paris with catholic tastes. She would drag him to the Usher Hall to listen to Bach and Mozart, play Jaque Brel records when he stayed at the house in Moray Place, buy him Bessie Smith albums as presents. He preferred the Motels and the Pretenders, Martha Davis singing Total Control and Chrissie Hynde saying 'fffUCKoff!' He thought the classical stuff was having no effect until one day he found himself trying to whistle the overture to The Marriage of Figaro. He developed a taste for complicated harpsichord pieces; they made good driving music, providing you played them loud enough. He heard Warren Zevon for the first time, and wished he'd heard the man's album when it first came out. And he found himself jumping and pogoing like a teenager to the Rezillos at parties.
'You what?' Andrea said.
'I'm going to get a hang-glider.'
'You'll break your neck.'
'The hell with it; it looks like fun.'
'What, being in an iron lung?'
He didn't buy a hang-glider; he decided they weren't safe enough yet. He went parachuting instead.
Andrea spent a couple of months refurbishing the house at Moray Place, overseeing decorators and carpenters and doing a lot of the painting herself. He enjoyed helping her, working late into the night in old clothes covered in paint, listening to her whistling in another room, or talking to her while they both painted. There was one night of panic when he felt a tiny lump in her breast, but it proved to be harmless. His eyes got tired sometimes at work, looking at plans and drawings, and he was putting off going to the optician because he suspected he'd be told he needed glasses.
Stewart had a brief affair with a student at the university which Shona found out about. She talked about leaving Stewart, virtually threw him out. Stewart came to stay at his place, worried, regretful. He went to see Shona, driving to Dunfermline to try to smooth things over, describe Stewart's distress and the way he himself had always admired them and even envied the air of calm, steady affection they gave off when together. It felt strange, sitting there trying to persuade Shona not to leave her husband because he'd slept with another woman, almost unreal, almost comical at times. It seemed ridiculous to him; Andrea was in Paris that weekend, doubtless shacked up with Gustave, and he'd be seeing a tall, blonde parachutist in Edinburgh that night. Was it the slip of paper that made the difference, the living together, the children, or just the belief in the vows, the institution, in a religion?
Probably no thanks to him, they patched it up. Shona would only mention it occasionally, when she was drunk, and with less and less bitterness over the years. Still, it proved to him how fragile even the most secure-seeming relationship would be, if you went against whatever rules you'd agreed.
Oh, what the hell? he thought, and went into partnership with the other two. They found offices in Pilrig, and he had to find an accountant. He joined the Labour party; he took part in letter-writing campaigns for Amnesty International. He sold the Saab and bought a year-old Gold GTi; he mortgaged the flat.
When he was cleaning out the Saab before taking it to the dealer he found the white silk scarf they had used that day at the tower. He hadn't wanted to leave it lying around for somebody to find, so he'd rinsed it in a burn when they got back down but then lost it; he thought it must have fallen out of the car.
It turned up, crumpled and grubby, beneath the passenger seat. He washed it and managed to get all the footprints off, but the blood stain, dried in a rough circle like some incompetent piece of tie-dying, wouldn't shift. He offered it to her anyway. She told him to keep it, then changed her mind, took it away and returned it a week later, spotless, nearly as good as new, and monogrammed with his initials. He was impressed. She wouldn't tell him how she and her mother had cleaned it. Family secret, she said. He kept the scarf carefully, and never wore it when he knew he'd be getting really drunk, in case he left it lying in some bar.
'Fetishist,' she told him.
The Fabulous Make-Your-Mind-Up Referendum was, effectively, pochled - rigged, in English. A lot of carpentry work in the old High School went to waste.
Andrea was translating Russian texts and writing articles about Russian literature for magazines. He knew nothing about this until he read something of hers in the Edinburgh Review; a long piece on both Sofia Tolstoy and Nadezhda Mandelstam. He was confused, almost dizzy, when he read it; it must be the same Andrea Cramond; she wrote as she talked and he could hear the rhythm of her speech as he read the printed words. 'Why didn't you ever tell me?' he asked her, feeling hurt. She smiled, shrugged, said she didn't like to boast. She'd written a few pieces for magazines in Paris, too. Just a sideline. She was taking piano lessons again, after giving them up in high school, and going to night classes to study drawing and painting.
She was also in a partnership, of sorts; she'd put some money into a feminist bookshop a couple of her old friends had started; other women had come in on the project and now there were seven of them in a collective. Financial madness, her brother called it. She helped out in the shop sometimes; he would go there first when he wanted to buy a particular book, but he always felt vaguely uncomfortable in the place, and rarely browsed. One of the women denounced Andrea at a meeting for kissing him goodbye once, after he'd bought some books; Andrea just laughed at her, then felt very unsisterly. She apologised for the laugh but not the kiss. After she'd told him this, he was careful not to kiss or touch her when he visited the shop.
'Oooohh, shit,' he said, as they sat up in bed in the small hours watching the election results come in. Andrea shook her head, reached for the Black Label on the bedside cabinet.
'Never mind k
id; have a whisky and try not to think about it. Think about your top rate of tax.'
'Fuck that; I'd rather have a clear conscience than a healthy bank balance.'
'Tut; you'll have your accountant turning in his filing cabinet.'
Another returning officer announced another Tory win; the Ya-hoos ya-hooed. He shook his head. 'The country really is going to the dogs,' he breathed.
'Certainly gone to the bitch,' Andrea said, swirling her whisky round in her glass and looking at the television through it, brows creased.
'Well... at least she's a woman.' he said glumly.
'She may be a woman,' Andrea said, 'but she ain't no fuckin' sister.' Scotland voted for Labour, with the SNP a close third. What it actually got was the right honourable Margaret Thatcher, M.P.
He shook his head again. 'Oooohh, shit.'
The business did well: they had to turn contracts away. Within a year his accountant was telling him to buy a bigger house and another car. But I like my little flat, he complained to Andrea. So keep it, but buy another house, she told him. But I can only live in one at a time! Anyway I've always thought it was immoral to have two houses when there's folk going homeless. Andrea was exasperated with him: 'So let somebody live in the flat, or in this house you're going to buy, but remember who'll get all those extra taxes you'll be paying if you don't do what your accountant says.'
'Oh,' he said.
He sold the flat and bought a house in Leith, near the Links and with a view of the Forth from the top storey. It had five bedrooms and a big double garage: he bought a new GTi and a Range Rover, to keep his accountant happy and fill up the garage: the four-wheel drive was useful on business trips when they had to visit sites. They were doing a lot of work with firms in Aberdeen that year, and he dropped in on Stewart's people. On a later trip, he ended up in bed with Stewart's sister, a divorced teacher. He didn't ever tell Stewart, not absolutely certain whether he might mind or not. He did tell Andrea. 'A school teacher,' she grinned. 'An educational experience?' He told her about not wanting to say anything to Stewart. 'Kid,' she said, taking his chin in her hand and looking at him very seriously, 'You're an idiot.'