Authors: Iain Banks
‘I’ve told you.’
‘Yeah, you have told me, and you’ve told me that what you told me is the truth. But it isn’t what you’ve told other people, it isn’t what you’re putting in your sworn statement, is it?’
I turned on the couch to face him, ignoring Sigourney and her doomed chums. ‘What the hell has that got to do with anything?’
‘Ken, you’re always banging on about truth and just sticking to the facts, but here you are telling lies in public.’
‘But there’s a
point
to all this! Haven’t you understood
anything
?’
‘I understand exactly what you’re doing, Ken,’ Craig said reasonably. ‘I even applaud it. I think.’ He stretched back in the couch, hands behind his neck. ‘I mean, it’s resorting to violence, which is more your bad person’s stock-in-trade reaction, but I see what you’re doing. All I’m saying is that in trying to make this point you’re having to compromise this thing about telling the truth even when it hurts.’
‘Craig, shit, come on; I’m no better than anybody else; I tell lies all the time. Mostly in the context of relationships. God, I’d love to be a dear, sweet, faithful, one-woman man, but I’m not. I’ve lied to … most of the women I’ve known. I’ve lied to my employers, to the press, to—’
‘And me?’
That drew me up short. I sat back, thinking. ‘Well, there are … well, they used to be called white lies, didn’t they? Relatively unimportant untruths necessary to … spare people’s feelings, or to prevent people becoming complicit in … well, either complicit or—’
‘I do kind of know what a white lie is, thanks, Ken.’
‘Yeah; stuff that you need to tell people, even friends, if you’re being untruthful to somebody else.’ The on-board, on-line, on-message censor that was usually employed looking a few words or phrases ahead to make sure I didn’t swear on air was here doing something similar so that I didn’t actively lie to Craig, even as I was carefully not telling him the whole truth, which would have involved admitting I’d lied to him a lot about the night I’d spent with his wife. ‘I wouldn’t tell you the truth when I was off fucking somebody else if I thought that Jo might ask you if you knew where I was. Come on, man. You do it too; you’re doing it now. Where are you going later? Who are you meeting?’
‘That’s not the same. I’m just not telling you. You can’t compare refusing to tell at all with deliberately telling a lie.’
‘Yeah, but it’s still not being open, is it?’
‘So fucking what? You don’t have a right to know everything about my private life.’
‘But I’m your best friend!’ I looked at him. ‘Amn’t I?’
‘Best male friend, definitely.’
‘Who’s your best female friend?’
‘Well, what about Nikki?’
‘
Nikki
?’
‘Yeah; hey, I’ve known her all her life, for one thing.’
‘Yeah, but—’
‘We’ve had too many great times together to count, been through tough things too, plus she’s great fun to be with, she’s caring, funny, a great listener, understanding … What?’
I was shaking my head. ‘You have to let the girl go, Craig. Okay, she’s a great pal and all that, but—’
‘I’ve
let
her go!’ Craig protested. ‘She’s at Oxford. She’s loving it; she hardly comes home any more, she’s got more friends than she knows what to do with. For all I know she’s already had more sexual partners than I’ve had in my fucking life. Ken, believe me, I’m pleased for her about all this and I don’t want to smother her in affection or anything. But she’ll always be a best friend.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Okay. But you have to be a bit funny about the sex thing.’
‘Ken, I had umpteen years to prepare myself for the fact my child would have an independent sexual existence. Credit me with some forethought. And some … understanding. We’ve talked about this stuff, Ken; the three of us. Nikki takes precautions. We didn’t raise her to be an idiot.’ He prodded me on the knee with one finger. ‘Anyway. That’s all beside the point. The point being that I’m being truthful in telling you I’m not going to tell you something, I’m not—’
‘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.)