Authors: Iain Banks
‘Currently empty, if memory serves. Thanks.’
‘Fuck off. You start whining when you don’t finish top of something at the end of the season. We’re just glad our teams still exist and some fucker hasn’t sold the ground out from under us for a new B&Q. The point is that you get totally conditioned to winning, to victory, so when
you
support Bonnie Scotland, as you’re genetically programmed and constitutionally bound to, you can’t cope with the fact we’re basically crap.’
‘We’re not
crap
,’ Craig said defensively.
‘Well, not
total
crap, but just not much better than a team from a country of only six million people ought to be. So suddenly you’re in a position of inferiority, of having to deal with—’
‘All right, all right,’ Craig said, kicking off his moccasins and putting his feet up on the farmhouse table. ‘I take the fucking point. You end up taking refuge in peripheral stuff, like having nice supporters.’
‘Nicer than those nasty, yobbish, xenophobic English supporters, certainly, which is the unspoken subtext of this aren’t-we-great Caledonian self-congratulation.’
‘Drunk but amiable.’
‘Harmless.’
‘Pretty much like the team.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Just going for the spectacle,’ Craig said with a trace of sadness, stretching to hand me back the spliff.
‘It’s the national equivalent of the straws you clutch at league level with teams like Clydebank: people around you applauding sportsman-like behaviour, the fleeting glimpse of skill when somebody on the park accidentally does what they meant to do, the combined pride and resentment when a player sold to the big boys three seasons ago scores a hat-trick in the English Premier.’
I pulled on the J until it was finished and then mashed it into the ashtray with the one we’d had before Craig’s homemade chilli. I reached for my wine.
‘Yeah, but when you do win …’ Craig said, leaning back in his seat and putting his hands behind his neck. ‘It’s worth it. Even as a supporter of the Bankies you must have at least heard of this, you know, from supporters of other teams.’
I ignored this too. ‘Is it? I’m starting to question that, frankly.’ Behind his Trotsky glasses, he blinked. ‘What? Winning isn’t fun?’
‘Na, I mean I’m getting fed up with football in general.’
Craig gave a stagy gasp and said, ‘Wash your mouth out with half-time Bovril, you blasphemous bastard.’
‘Do you not think so?’ I asked. ‘Seriously. I’m just getting super-saturated with the damn game, and that’s without having fucking Sky. There’s too much football.’
Craig put his hands over his ears. ‘Now you’re starting to scare me. I’m going to pretend you’re not here until you stop saying bad, scary things.’
‘I had this idea.’
‘Can’t hear you.’
‘World Cup.’
Craig started to hum. I raised my voice above this and Moby, still being moody somewhere inside the Sony system’s jewel-like mechanisms.
‘World Cup,’ I repeated. ‘Takes far too long,’ I shouted. ‘My idea would get the whole overblown rigmarole over with in one day. Same with any cup competition, actually.’
‘La, la, la-la-la.’
‘What’s the best, most exciting, most intense and nail-biting part of many a final?’ I yelled. I spread my arms. ‘The penalty shoot-out!’
Craig looked incensed. He took his hands down from his ears and said, ‘You’re not suggesting—’
‘Yes! Scrap the ninety minutes of the actual game, ditch the half-hour of extra time and go straight for the penalty shoot-out without all the running around and panting and diving beforehand. Total intensity from the first whistle of the first game through to the last fall-on-your-knees-with-your-face-in-your-hands, goalie-jumping-up-and-air-punching moment that sends the Jules Rimet trophy back to Luxembourg where it belongs!’
‘You are such a fucking heathen even to have thought of that.’
‘The Yanks would love it,’ I told him. ‘The networks would finally have a soccer format they could get ads into every three or four minutes. The attention span of your average Peorian would not be taxed.’
‘The penalty shoot-out is a disgraceful travesty of the world’s best game,’ Craig said solemnly. ‘Tossing a coin is more honourable; at least it’s admitting it’s just luck.’
‘Spoken like a member of the SFA. I’m talking about the future, you reactionary bluenose bastard. Get with the programme or start following shinty, Luddite.’
Craig did a very good impression of not listening. He was gazing, frowning at the mini system, where Moby’s
Play
was about to Stop.
‘Moby,’ he said, looking at me.
‘What about him?’
‘D’you not think he looks a bit like Fabien Barthes?’
Later in the lounge, sitting side by side on the couch, waiting for my taxi to arrive, sharing one last joint and a final couple of glasses of Bin 128: ‘Emma says we never talk about important stuff.’
‘Oh?’ I said.
‘Yeah. It’s about number three hundred and seven on her list of Reasons Why Craig’s Crap.’
‘Well, if she wants to talk to you about so-called important things—’
‘No no no, not her and me;
you
and me. You and I.’
I looked at him. ‘What’s she talking about?’
‘I think she means we don’t gossip.’
‘Oh, you mean we talk about things that we think are important, like football, sex and politics, not, like, relationships?’
‘Something like that,’ Craig said, scratching his head. ‘Whenever I’ve seen you she asks after your mum and dad and your brother and Jo, and I end up shrugging and saying, I don’t know.’
‘Ah, right.’
‘So, how are your mum and dad and your brother Iain and girlfriend Jo then, Ken?’
‘They are all fine, thank you, Craig.’
‘Thank you. I shall inform my currently estranged first wife when next I encounter her.’
‘How is Em, anyway? How are you two these days?’
Why did I feel so guilty whenever I asked after Emma? She was a friend, she’d always meant a lot to Craig and no doubt always would, and we’d only spent one drunken night together, which we both severely regretted and wished hadn’t happened, so why did I feel so like a traitor when I mentioned her to Craig?
‘Ah, we’re bumping along,’ Craig sighed. ‘The bottom, I think, but bumping along. Yourself? Still seeing Jo?’
‘Yup.’
‘Anybody else?’
‘Not really. Well …’ I grimaced.
‘So, still playing the field, then?’ Craig said, with an easy smile.
I squirmed a little, acknowledging awkwardness. ‘Not so much actually playing the field; more darting out from under the cover of the hedgerows every now and again, to—’
‘Retrieve your ball.’
‘I was thinking more of ploughing and seed-scattering analogies, but you could put it that way,’ I conceded.
Craig looked away, thoughtful. ‘I think I should have done more of that.’
‘Jeez, man, you’re thirty-five. You’re in your prime. You’re not at the baffies and pipe stage yet, for Christ’s sake.’
‘Yeah, but I have friends who’re mostly married. And I work from home; no flirting over the coffee point or the photocopier for me.’
‘How’s your work going?’ I asked him. ‘Designed any good webs recently?’
He groaned. ‘Don’t ask. Spent the whole day flushing out the PCs with Anti-Virus. Probably some little shit from Outer Khazaktavia with a fucking Sinclair Spectrum. What about you?’
‘You’re not supposed to ask a radio DJ how things are going,’ I told him tiredly. ‘You’re supposed to tell me how each successive show of mine that you listen to every day is even better than the one before.’ I looked at him. ‘You’re not really totally up to speed with this “friendship” thing yet, are you?’
‘What the hell do I want to listen to you for?’ Craig demanded. Ruby light from a second-generation, post-ironic lava lamp on a shelf behind him reflected off his glasses and his shaven head. ‘If I was desperate enough to listen to you tomorrow—’
‘What do you mean “if”, you disloyal ex-so-called best friend brackets Scottish close brackets?’
‘—all I’d hear,’ Craig went on, ‘would be what I just heard tonight.’
‘What?’ I screeched.
‘Look me in the eye, you devious, lying toe-rag, and tell me you won’t be regurgitating that drivel about supporting rubbish league teams being a better preparation for supporting rubbish national teams than supporting successful ones, or that gob-shite nonsense about the World Cup composed entirely of a series of penalty shoot-outs, you shocking, shocking man.’
I stared at him for a while. ‘It’s a fair cop,’ I said huskily.
‘I should demand royalties,’ Craig said. ‘A wage.’
‘Do you really never listen to me?’
Craig guffawed. ‘Course I do. Until the adverts drive me nuts. But you do recycle stuff we’ve been talking about.’
‘I know. Should I start mentioning you? Crediting you? Enrol you in the Crapital Live! BUPA scheme?’
‘I told you; a regular cheque would suffice.’
‘Fuck off.’
He sighed. ‘Anyway.’
‘Anyway, don’t fucking sit here feeling sorry for yourself; get—’
‘I’m not feeling sorry for myself.’
‘Neither you should. You’ve got a good, satisfying, successful career, you’ve helped raise a smart, beautiful daughter, and you’re the lucky friend of at least one really great dead famous person; me. I mean, what more can you ask for?’
‘More sex?’
‘Would have been nice. Look, get out there and start socialising. Meet some women. Come out with me. We’ll go clubbing. ’
‘Yeah, maybe.’
‘No, not maybe; definitely. Let’s do it.’
‘Call me. Persuade me when I’m sober and not morose.’
‘Are you morose now?’
‘A little. I do love my job, but sometimes I think it’s just electronic wallpaper and what’s the point in it all? And Nikki is totally brilliant but then I think she’s probably going to get hurt by some worthless bastard … I mean, I know it’s caveman stuff, but I don’t even like to think of her having sex.’
‘You don’t? Shit, I do.’
‘Oh, Ken,’ Craig said, shaking his head. ‘Even for you …’
‘Sorry, sorry,’ I said, sincerely.
The doorbell chimed.
‘Good,’ Craig said. ‘Now get tae fuck out of my house, you vemonous—’
‘Vemonous?’
‘—you venomous cake of shite that you are.’
‘Okey-dokey,’ I said, jumping up and slapping him on one knee. ‘Same time next week?’
‘Probably. Safe journey back to the gin palace.’
On the doorstep, I stopped, clicked my fingers and said, ‘Oh; I didn’t mention.’
‘What?’ Craig said warily.
‘About my torrid homosexual affair with Lachlan Murdoch.’
‘Uh-huh?’
‘Yeah, and funnily enough I’ve started writing for one of his dad’s tabloids, too.’
Craig closed his eyes. ‘Let’s just get it over with, okay?’ he sighed.
‘Just thought you should know; I’ve got a column in the Son.’
‘Oh, fuck.’
‘See ya!’
‘Yeah, try telling that on the fucking radio, Mr Funny.’
‘That was just for you, baby. Til next week.’
‘Yeah, yeah …’
When I first kissed Celia, on the night of the storm, that was as far as it went. It was a fabulous kiss, with her warm, taut body against mine and her soft mouth and hard little tongue flickering inside my mouth like a tiny flame of moist muscle, but that was all. She wouldn’t even give me her address or phone number or mobile or anything. At the time, of course, I still didn’t know who her husband was, just that he sounded somewhat on the psycho side (which, goodness knows, should have been enough). I worried that, despite all the solemnity a few moments earlier, she was kidding me on, that this was all just a bizarrely serious tease. But she would be in touch, she said. Now she had to get back to the party, for soon a car would be coming for her to take her away.
Another long, unbearably sexy kiss, when she let me run my hands all over her, then she slipped inside the bedroom. I stood there in the wind and rain, hard-on like a giant redwood, waiting for a decent interval and wishing, for once, that I smoked, because now felt like the right sort of time to do just that. Then - via the mega-bathroom again, to dry my face and comb my hair - I went back down to the party.
Celia had already left.
Nothing, for weeks. Life went on, all the usual nonsense happened (dental appointments, run-ins with management, a couple of boozy, flirtatious lunches with the lovely Amy, a gig in Brighton with Ed, which ended in some chilly dawn skinny dipping with a couple of girls from Argentina). Jo and I went out to parties and films, got loved up and went clubbing, had good, fun sex every now and again, and I decided that Celia was just one of those never-quite things; a little oasis of high-grade strangeness, charm and drama in an existence not normally all that short of them in the first place. Anyway, the woman was a gangster’s moll. Worse; his wife, for God’s sake. Edge work and risk-taking and all that crap was all very well, and I hadn’t been entirely lying when I’d told her I didn’t give a fuck, but I wasn’t actually suicidal. Life was too short not to seize the day but she’d been right about behaviour that might shorten that life, dramatically.
Then, one overcast Wednesday in mid-May, over a month later, a courier arrived with a slim, padded envelope, immediately after I’d finished the show. The envelope was light, so light it felt empty. There was a grey plastic hotel key card inside. I was in the corridor from the studio to our office at the time; I looked inside the envelope but there was nothing else in there; I tipped it up and tapped it but still nada. I looked back down the corridor as I walked, in case I’d missed something else inside falling out. Nothing there, either. The key card didn’t say what room it was for, or what hotel. They never do. I put it in my pocket and inspected the envelope, looking for a sender’s name, wondering if I could trace it back to whomever had sent it.
My mobile sounded as soon as I switched it back on. The phone’s display said Anonymous.
‘Hello?’ I answered.
‘Is that Kenneth?’ said a female voice.
‘Ken Nott, yes.’
‘May we talk?’