Authors: Iain Banks
She shrugged, looked almost embarrassed.
‘You’re absolutely certain you don’t want to celebrate your ascension to the dreaming spires with some slap-up nosh?’
She just looked at me.
I laughed, turning for the exit ramp. ‘Oh well. Come on then; let’s get you home.’ I swung the Land Rover out of the Mouth Corp car park; we went bouncing and rattling and squeaking into Dean Street. I looked over at her. ‘What’s so funny?’
Nikki laughed to herself for a moment, then glanced over at me through her long red hair. ‘I wasn’t expecting a Land Rover,’ she said. ‘I thought you’d have a Harley Davidson, or a limo, or maybe a Smart or one of those Audis that looks like a bar of soap or something.’
‘I was never into Harleys,’ I said. ‘Suzis and Kwaks were my kind of bikes, back in my courier days. But this old thing -’ I slapped the dark grey plastic fascia under the narrow slab of the Landy’s windscreen ‘- despite, I’ll grant, looking like the sort of transport that would be infinitely more at home hauling a brace of sodden sheep from one field to another on a failing hill farm in darkest Wales, is almost the ideal car for London.’
‘You reckon?’ Nikki sounded like she was humouring me.
‘Think about it,’ I said. ‘It’s old, slow and a bit battered, so nobody’s going to want to nick it. Even the wheels don’t fit anything else. Look; comedy wipers.’ I turned on the windscreen wipers. On a Land Rover of this vintage they’re about seven inches long and just sort of flop about in a disheartened kind of way, looking more like they’re waving at the rain to welcome it onto the glass than undertaking to do anything so strenuous as actually clear the drops off the windscreen. ‘Look at that; pathetic. No self-respecting vandal’s even going to bother bending those. Wouldn’t be sporting.’
‘They are a bit pathetic,’ Nikki agreed as I turned them off and let them slump with what looked like exhausted gratitude to the base of the screen again.
‘You’re high up - as you may have noticed clambering awkwardly in here with your gammy leg - so you can see over most other traffic, the better to take advantage of what overtaking opportunities do arise in the hurly-burly of metropolitan motoring. Then there is the fact this is a Series Three of the diesel persuasion, so when people hear you coming they think you’re a taxi and often mistakenly treat you with the respect due to your standard Hackney Carriage. The ancient design means that the vehicle is narrow as well as having a short wheel-base for squeezing through gaps and into restricted parking spaces, and, lastly, driving one of these, no kerb in London holds any terror for you whatsoever. If a brief expedition onto the pavement or over a minor traffic island is required to facilitate progress, you just happily bump onto and over it without a second thought. Now, thanks to the appalling noise levels and seats patently constructed from low-grade friable concrete it would, certainly, be utterly hellish on long journeys or at any speed above a brisk jog, but then when the hell do you get to do either of those in London?’ I glanced over at her. ‘So, for an agricultural device only one automotive chromosome removed from a tractor, this is a surprisingly suitable urban runabout. And I commend the vehicle to the house.’
I waggled my eyebrows at her as we inched along Old Compton Street. I’d been developing this Why-a-Landy’s-great-for-London speech, and variations thereof, for nearly a year and this was, IMHO, a particularly fine and well-delivered example of the breed, which I thought might have elicited a pained grin if nothing else from the lovely Nikki, but it drew only a woundingly blank Oh-yeah, ho-hum look across her glowing features.
‘Could do with power steering, couldn’t it?’ she suggested.
‘And a better turning circle. But glad you spotted that,’ I said. ‘The chance to maintain upper body strength through in-car exercise is a truly valuable no-cost option.’
‘Yeah, right,’ she said. She was silent for a few moments, then nodded at the radio. ‘That’s not your station playing, is it?’
‘Ah, no; that’ll be Mark and Lard on Radio One.’
‘Isn’t that disloyal?’
‘Deeply. Can I let you in on a terrible secret?’
‘What?’
‘I’m only half joking about it being secret,’ I said first. ‘The press haven’t heard this yet and on a quiet news day with a following wind it could just make it into print and conceivably cause me problems in a straw-that-breaks-the-camel’s-back kinda stylee.’
‘Guide’s honour,’ she said, saluting ironically.
‘Thanks. Okay; here it is … hold on …’ I’d been gradually nudging the Land Rover’s much-dented front further and further into the traffic stream for the past few vehicle-gaps, and somebody in a nice car had finally got the message. I waved cheerfully at the silver Merc that let us out of Old Compton Street, as we swung onto Wardour Street to start heading north in a vaguely Highgate-ish direction. I looked at Nikki. ‘Yeah. It’s this: I cannot fucking
stand
commercial radio.’ I nodded. ‘There; it’s out now and I feel better for it.’
‘Including the station you work for, obviously.’
‘Obviously.’
‘So you listen to Radio One.’
‘It’ll get turned off promptly at three, but for large parts of the day, yes. And I have a definite weakness for Mark and Lard. There; listen.’ In fact, all we were listening to was the Landy’s rattling engine and ambient outside traffic noises until the Boy Lard squeaked, ‘Carry on,’ and the programme resumed. ‘See?’ I said. ‘Dead air, there; silence. Used to be anathema for DJs and radio people in general. Nowdays, well, nobody’s much bothered about leaving pauses any more, but these guys have made it into a feature. Repeat until funny, as they’d say themselves. Genius.’ I glanced at Nikki, who was looking sceptically at me from beneath her mass of red hair. ‘But the point,’ I insisted, ‘is that the Beeb has minimal advertising. I mean, they carry trailers for their own shows and those can get wearing enough, but what they
don’t
have is relentless high-rotation drivel every fifteen minutes from fucking loan companies, ambulance-chasing shyster legal firms and Chipboard Warehouse’s owner shouting at you from too near the mike to come on down and feel the cut of his special offers. I hate adverts. I prefer the licence fee. That’s how I want to pay; up front, efficiently, then get to listen to what I want to listen to and nothing else, whether it’s pop-clones or Beethoven or the sort of crap all-day talk shows that taxi drivers listen to.’
‘I suppose that guy Phil points out that the adverts are what pay your wages.’
‘Phil?’ I laughed. ‘He’s a Radio Three and Four man. Hates adverts even more than I do.’ I glanced at her again as we troubled the usually little-used upper regions of the Landy’s gearbox in a miraculous void in the traffic, which gave us an almost clear run to the lights at Oxford Street. ‘Don’t get me wrong; he’s a good producer and he’s a real muso - goes to see a band practically every night, whether it’s at Wembley Arena or a pub in Hackney - but he can’t stand Capital Live! either. No, it’s our friendly local Station Manager to whom it falls to bring the realities of commercial radio regularly to our attention.’
We crossed Oxford Street and started to head up Cleveland Street, following a motorcycle courier on a Honda VFR. Perhaps, I thought, a little reminiscing about my days as a fearless gonzo courier - only a few years ago, after all - would impress Nikki. It started raining and I turned on the wipers, to hilarious effect. I looked at Nikki. ‘Well, do
you
listen to Capital Live!?’
‘Mmm … sometimes,’ she said, not looking at me.
‘Yeah, well, exactly. You’re eighteen; you should be part of our target audience. What
do
you listen to, anyway?’
‘Umm, well, they sort of come and go? But I think they’re all illegal black stations from south of the river.’
‘What? K-BLAK? X-Men? Chillharbour Lane?’
‘Yeah, and Rough House, Precinct 17.’
‘Radio Free Peckham … is that still going?’
‘No, it was closed down.’
‘Well, frankly, good for you for ignoring the usual commercial tat.’ I was snatching glances at Nikki to see if she was impressed that I knew all these cool illegal stations, but she didn’t seem to be. ‘Not,’ I added, ‘that many of them play much Radiohead, as I recall.’
‘Sadly, no.’
‘Never mind. Radiohead are local where you’re going; bound to get loads of air time in Oxford.’
‘Hmm.’ She sounded distracted and when I glanced over she was looking at a clothes shop window. I looked ahead again.
‘Shit!’
‘Oh—!’
A blue car swept out of a side street right into the path of the courier in front of us. I caught a brief glimpse of the car driver, looking the wrong way and talking on his mobile. The bike rider didn’t have time to bail or brake, just went
whump
into the BMW Compact’s wing; the bike stood on its front wheel then clattered back to the rain-greased street just in front of us, files spilling from one pannier and skidding papers over the street and into the gutter. The rider went sailing over the Beemer’s bonnet as it braked and skidded to a stop. He landed heavily on the road ahead, sliding on his back a metre to hit the kerb hard with his helmet.
‘Oh! Oh!’ Nikki was saying.
I’d pulled up. ‘He’ll probably be okay,’ I told her quickly. ‘You just stay here.’
She nodded. She cleared some hair from her face with a trembling hand and pulled a mobile from her jacket as I opened the door. ‘Should I phone for an ambulance?’ she asked.
‘Good idea.’ I jumped out and ran past the white-faced car driver, just getting out, still holding his mobile. It crossed my mind to tell him what a fuckwit he was, but I didn’t. A couple of people were already standing looking down at the black figure lying in the road. He wasn’t moving. Some kid in a puffa jacket was squatting by him, doing something to his helmet.
‘Just leave the helmet on, yeah?’ I said to the kid, kneeling on the courier’s other side and carefully lifting up his visor.
Behind me, somebody had the sense to turn off the fallen bike’s engine, which was more than I’d thought to do.
The courier was older than me; grey beard, glasses, face pinched by the helmet’s foam padding. He blinked. ‘Fuck,’ he said weakly.
‘How you doing there, pal?’ I asked him.
‘Bit sore,’ he croaked. The rain was making little spots on his glasses. He put his gloved hand up towards the helmet’s fastening. I held on to it.
‘Hold on, hold on,’ I said. ‘Can you feel everything? Waggle your toes and stuff?’
‘Ah … yeah, yeah, I think … yeah. I’m all right. I think I’m all right. Breathing’s a bit … What about the bike?’
‘Think you’re going to need new forks.’
‘Shit. Fuck. Ah, rats. You a biker too, eh?’
‘Yeah. Used to be.’
He looked away to one side, where I sensed more people standing, and somebody approaching. I turned round and saw the car driver. The biker coughed and said wheezily, ‘If this cunt says, “Sorry, mate, I didn’t see you,” deck him for me, will you?’
Nikki was beautifully bedraggled by the rain.
‘You didn’t need to get out, kid,’ I told her. She was trying to dry her hair with a small chamois leather. The Landy’s interior was trying to mist up.
‘The operator was asking me where the incident had taken place, and I couldn’t see the street names,’ she explained. ‘Then I thought I’d better stop the bike’s engine.’
‘Well, I think the guy’s going to be all right. We did good. We make a fine emergency team; triples all round.’
I’d left our details with the cops, and the biker had been persuaded to take the ambulance; he was still dazed and might have some broken ribs. Nikki had handed him the VFR’s keys, though the cops had taken them away again because they wanted them left with the machine.
She gave me back the chamois leather. ‘Thanks.’
‘You’re welcome.’ I used it on the windscreen. ‘Blimey. Welcome to London, eh? Oh; do just say if you need a stiff drink or anything.’
She shook her head. ‘No, thanks.’
‘Yeah, just straight home, I think.’ We continued north, through the rain, for Highgate.
‘This is about what I think it’s about, isn’t it?’
‘Think so.’
‘So, what do you think?’
‘That we’re going to get carpeted, old son.’
‘Cripes, Biffo. A rocket from the WingCo, eh what?’
‘Severe dressing down. After you.’
‘Tally-fucking-ho.’
‘“… Well here is an alternative fatwa: women of Islam, judge your men, and if they are bad, kill them. They oppress you and scorn you and yet they are frightened of you; why else would they keep you from power and the sight of other men? But you have power. You have the power to judge whether your man is good or not. Ask yourself this: would your husband kill another person just because they are Jewish or American or something else people are simply born to be? Allah has let people be born these things; would your man kill them for no other reason than the faith or the country they were born into, by the will of Allah? If he would then he is a bad person and deserves death, for he brings shame upon your faith and the name of Allah. When next he comes to you, have a kitchen knife concealed beneath your bedclothes, or a pair of scissors, or even a penknife or a carton-cutter, and slit his unworthy throat. If you have no knife, bite out his throat. If you wish only to mutilate him, use a knife or your teeth on his manhood.” But
do
we actually say—’
Debbie Cottee, our Station Manager, used the remote to click off the DAT machine on the other side of her light, airy office. She slid her glasses down her nose and looked at me with weary, bleary blue eyes. ‘Well?’
‘Hmm, I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Do you think we’re using too much compression on my voice?’
‘Ken …’
‘But nobody,’ Phil said, ‘was actually saying that. I mean, there was a bit just before that where Ken was saying that we didn’t force Muslim women in this country to wear mini-skirts or bikinis, whereas a Western woman going to Saudi has no choice but to conform to their dress-code. The whole point is about toleration and intolerance, and about public figures like religious leaders being allowed to pass what is in effect a death sentence, without any sort of trial or defence, on nationals of another country. That was the whole point of putting the bit at the start pointing out that nobody in a position of responsibility in the West
would
say something like that—’