Stonemouth

by Iain Banks

  My first unambiguous memory of the girl was at the Lido, during one of those glorious, mist-discovered days: her, just out of the pool, taking off a bathing cap, her head tipped just so, releasing a long fawn fall of hair the colour of wet sand, swinging out.

  Her swimming costume was one-piece, black; her legs looked like they’d stretch into different time zones when she lay down, and her face was just this vision of blissed serenity. I remember the distant keening of the gulls, and the shush of waves breaking outside against the Lido walls, and the smell of swimming pool. I remember the radiance of those long, honey-coloured limbs, glowing in the late golden-red of the afternoon sun.

  Thinking back, she was as straight-up-and-down as a boy and had almost nothing up top apart from broad, swimmer’s shoulders, but there was enough there to hint at what was to come, to let you know this was a girl still about to become a young woman. She moved with the sort of grace that makes you think everybody else must be made out of Lego.

  She saw me looking at her. She smiled. It wasn’t a big smile, and it certainly wasn’t a come-on smile, but it was the easiest, most natural one I’d ever seen.

  I was fifteen. She was a year younger. She’d gone before I recovered the composure even to think of actually talking to her. I wouldn’t see her again for nearly a year, wouldn’t touch her or really talk to her for over another twelve months beyond that, and our first kiss was even further over the horizon, lost in the mists, but I knew then that we belonged together. I wanted her. More than that: I wanted to be wanted by her. More than that, too: I needed her to be part of my life, the major part. I was that certain, just with that look, that smile.

  It seems crazy now. It seemed crazy then – you can’t decide you’ve found your life’s desire, your sole soulmate on the strength of a glance, on the swing of some hair, whether you’re fifteen or fifty – but when something like that hits, you don’t have much choice. I was barely more than a kid and scarcely able to think straight enough to know something like that, but I felt it: the impulsive, cast-in-iron, decision-making part of my being presented this as a stone-cold unshakeable certainty, valid in perpetuity from this point on, before, it felt, my rational, conscious mind could get a chance to think on it or even comment; every part of me apart from my brain got together and told the grey-pink hemispherical bits that this was just the way it was.

  I didn’t even say anything to my friends, though some said they saw a change in me from then on. Hindsight, maybe. Maybe not.

  Hindsight. What we all wouldn’t give …

  Yeah, well.

  ‘Weird, isn’t it? All these years flying in and out of Dyce on family holidays and such, and I never made the connection with throwing dice, and dicing with death, and shit like that. It was always just where you flew from if you lived up here on the cold shoulder of Scotland. Wonder if the name gives nervous flyers the cold sweats?’

  ‘Well done, Stewart, you’ve discovered homonyms.’

  ‘Homonymphs?’

  Ferg looks at me, suspicious but uncertain. I flap one hand against his shoulder. ‘Ha ha, just kidding.’

  We’re in The Howf now, our other regular drinking hole from the old days, closer to the docks and the rough end of town. The Howf has kept the same name for nearly half a century, so it can be done. It had a garden – who knew? – or at least a sloped bit of yard at the back, which they started to use for anything other than barrel storage only when the smoking ban came in. Decking, garden furniture, an only slightly leaky perspex roof. The sit-ooterie, it’s called. High stone walls all round, not overlooked by any what-you-might-call inhabited windows. Became the favoured toking spot for Stonemouth’s stoners the evening it opened; busy tonight.

  Slaves to tradition, Ferg and I are in a corner, sitting on those wobbly, white-plastic, one-piece chairs you see in back gardens and downmarket resorts throughout the world. We’re passing a J back and forth, occasionally jostled from behind by the people swirling around us on the decking, all chatting and laughing and shouting. Our drinks – my barely begun bottle of Staropramen, his half-downed pint of snakebite and what remains of a large voddy – are perched on the wooden railing in front of us. On the ground on the far side of the railing, beneath orange floods caped with haar, ten or so people are bobbing around silently, earbudded up to the same remote source of music. Looks weird.

  One of the girls who’s bopping glances up at me and smiles. It’s lovely Haley, who I was talking to earlier, on the walk from the last pub to here. Wee sister of Tiger Eunson. With an even wee-er sister called Britney, not yet of an age. Tiger is really Drew and called Tiger not because of anything to do with golf but because of some bizarre, bowel-related experiment involving Guinness, years ago, when we all first started drinking. Never worked. The experiment, I mean. He’s in work, a butcher in one of the Toun’s besieging ring of Tescos.

  Anyway, I thought we were getting on really well, me and Haley. That smile from the girl confirms it. Typical. And me meaning to stay pure and devoted to Ellie this weekend, because I’m still hoping we’ll bump into each other, Ellie and me, and if and when that does happen, then who knows? Because it’s still unfinished between us, I don’t care what anybody else thinks or tries to enforce. Even she might think it’s all done, tied off, in the past, but how does she really know that? I’d just need to talk to her, to let her know how I still feel …

  No, I’m kidding myself, I know I am. Of course it’s over. Finally, for ever. Almost certainly. But still there’s this feeling, if nothing else, that it needs to be laid to rest properly, otherwise it’ll be like one of those Japanese ghost story things, dead but undead, wandering the earth and disturbing respectable folks until it gets the burial it’s always needed. Yeah, something like that. So, sweet though that smile from the young and delectable Haley is, I can’t really follow through (I’m probably too drunk anyway, or firmly set on the course of getting that way) because that’s where I made my mistake the last time, that’s how I got distracted and everything fell apart. I’m not letting that happen again. Still, I smile back; no harm in that. And you always need a Plan B. Or Plans B through Z. I start humming something from The Defamation of Strickland Banks.

  ‘So, how much does this floodlighting scam pay?’ Ferg asks.

  Fuck. Back to reality. I clear my throat. ‘A fair bit.’

  ‘Don’t be fucking coy with me. How much?’

  ‘I don’t know. I get more in expenses most months but, obviously, it’s all been spent already. And some of it’s in—’

  ‘What did you put down on your mortgage application?’

  ‘I lied.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Oh, I lied quite a lot.’

  He punches me on the shoulder, not hard. ‘How much money?’

  ‘Hundred grand a year,’ I tell him. This is a lie.

  His eyes narrow. ‘Was that a lie upwards or downwards?’

  ‘Why’s it fucking matter?’

  ‘I’m supposed to be the exiled prince,’ he tells me. ‘I’m the returning alpha star here, not you.’

  ‘The what?’ I say, laughing. ‘You’re not even exiled. You’re only in fucking Dundee and you’re back here all the time.’ I nod at the scrappy, much ducted rear wall of the pub. ‘That barman knew your order. He called you Ferg.’

  ‘It’s voluntary exile. And I like coming back to make sure nobody’s overtaken me.’

  ‘Overtaken you?’

  ‘In fame, coolness and financial reward.’

  I stare at him. I so want to tell the fucker I’ve just been made partner, but it actually feels cooler not to somehow. I can win this one without even using that semi-trump card (it’s only a semi-trump card – if there is such a thing – because it’s just junior partner, not equity, which is the kind of distinction Ferg is likely to know about and pounce on).

  I shake my head. ‘I’m sure even you used to be cooler than this, Ferg, I’ll give you that.’

  ‘So, what—’

&nb
sp; ‘And what about Zimba? He’s a DJ, isn’t he? He must be—’

  ‘That’s—’

  ‘And Craig Govie. He plays for QPR. Arsenal are interested. Coining it in, I—’

  ‘Not counting lumpen randoms who’ve risen without trace on the strength of making round things revolve.’

  ‘I bet they’ve both been back more often in the last five years—’

  ‘Never mind them, what do you make?’

  ‘I’m not telling you.’

  ‘Don’t be a cunt. Why not?’

  ‘Because it seems to matter to you so much. That’s unhealthy.’

  ‘Don’t be so naive. It’s not unhealthy to hate the very idea of one’s friends doing better than oneself—’

  ‘And when the fuck did you start referring to yourself—’

  ‘—in fact it’s only natural. Everybody feels the same way. They just don’t want to admit it.’

  I tap my chest. ‘Well, I don’t feel the same way.’

  Ferg snorts. ‘Bet you do.’

  ‘No I don’t. I want all my friends to do at least as well as me. That way I can stop worrying about them.’ I draw on the J, pass it back. ‘Makes it less likely the fuckers’ll ask for a loan, too.’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten!’

  ‘Eh?’ I’m having a little trouble focusing now. Ferg looks quite upset. ‘What?’

  ‘I’ll write you a cheque! They still have cheques, don’t they?’ He starts fishing inside his jacket, patting pockets.

  ‘That’s right,’ I say, remembering. ‘You owe me money. I’d forgotten. Where’s my fucking dosh, O exiled superstar?’

  ‘Give me a second!’

  ‘And, anyway, how much do you make?’

  ‘I can’t tell you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s commercially sensitive.’

  ‘You fucking hypocrite. Give me that.’

  I swipe the joint off him while he’s still digging into his inside jacket pockets, muttering. There’s not much drug left. I grind it out against the railing; it joins what by now must be a whole stratified carpet of roaches under the decking. One day, after an admittedly unlikely month or so of no rain, the wee, brown, screwed-up remains will all be ignited together by a stray match or unextinguished butt and half the town’ll get stoned.

  We’re so old-school, to be smoking at all. Young folks today, they have this bizarre idea that all smoking’s bad for you, not just tobacco. Prefer pills. Clean, chemically; no need to sit drawing all this greasy, heavy-looking smoke into your pristine little lungs. Lightweights, say I.

  I look round the people on the decking. I recognise most of them. So many people doing the same things they were when I left, hanging out in the same places, saying the same things, having the same arguments. It feels comfortable, reassuring, just being able to step back into our old shared life so easily, but at the same time a bit terrifying, and a touch sad.

  They’re happy. Are they happy? Let’s assume they’re fairly happy. So, that’s all right. Nothing wrong with that. Life is patterns. Old man Murston said that, I think, on one of our hill walks: Jo the Obi. Nothing wrong with people having patterns to their lives, some stability, some set of grooves they can settle into, if that’s what they want. Don’t get the existential horrors just because some people like staying where they were raised, marrying the bod next door and getting a job that means they’ll never win X Factor. Good luck to them having steady paid employment these days.

  Though these are the survivors, of course; you can’t see the ghosts who aren’t here, the casualties we’ve lost along the way. We don’t leave room for them as we dance and chatter and mingle. Four dead – two in car crashes – a handful scattered to the winds, fallen into distant lands, fucked up on drink or drugs or gone religious – or even hunkered down with a conspiracy-theorist gun-nut and a litter of wild kids up a dead-end track in South Carolina, in one case. Two in prison; one in Spain for drug smuggling, one in England for child abuse. Allegedly the bairn-botherer was got at inside; he lost part of an ear and was told that was just a taster – if he ever showed his face in the Toun again he’d get a free sex change.

  I look at Ferg as he pulls a scrap of paper out of a pocket and holds it up to the light, grimacing. He flaps one long-fingered hand out, finds his glass of vodka on the wooden railing, drains it and replaces it without pulling his attention away from the vaguely cheque-shaped bit of paper. Most dextrous. But worrying. He always did drink too much.

  Later. Somebody’s flat. Not sure where. Navigation back to the maw and the paw’s may be interesting. Taxi recommended, but that’ll be a wait. Loud, pounding music: Rihanna? Pink? People up dancing, though I’m a bit slumped. Ferg clutching my shoulder, shaking me, yelling in my ear: ‘You’re like me, Gilmour! It’s just something to get through. You realise they’re all fucking mad! All of them. Statistically the clever ones like you and me hardly count! We are surrounded by idiots. Trick is not to let them know, to keep your head down as proudly as possible, or raise it and let them do their worst, the fuckers. But we’re surrounded by idiots. Idiots! Fucking nutters!’

  I raise one index finger and point it at him. I can see this finger; it is waving from side to side like a strand of weed in a gentle current. ‘Do you,’ I ask him slowly, ‘still listen … to … System of a Down?’ It comes out more as ‘Sisim’ve Dow?’, but he knows what I mean.

  ‘Of course!’ he says, jerking upright, instantly defensive.

  I use the pointing finger to poke him in the chest, even though it turns out his chest is slightly further away than I’d initially estimated. ‘Then don’t … pontificate to me about being surrounded by idiots.’

  ‘Oh, fuck off !’ He inspects an empty-looking bottle of cider and gets to his feet. ‘Another drink?’

  I shake my head. He goes off. The beautiful Haley appears before me and seems to be trying to drag me to my feet, to dance, but I just sit there, slumped and smiling and shaking my head while she tugs at my arms.

  ‘My dear,’ I tell her, ‘I’d be no use to you. But, rest assured, you have made an old man very happy.’

  At least, that’s what I try to say, what I think I might have said. She shakes her head and scrunches her face up, turning to one side as though to indicate that she can’t hear what I’m saying. I extract one of my hands from her grip and use it to pat both of hers. I try to repeat what I think I may have just said, though the exact details are already a little hazy. This and the patting seem to do the trick, as she gives a big theatrical sigh and lets her shoulders slump expressively, then smiles and disappears. Lovely girl. I indulge in a fairly theatrical sigh myself. I need a cup of tea or a Red Bull or something.

  Ferg falls back into his seat, waving a half-bottle of supermarket vodka. ‘Listen, Stewart, we are surrounded by idiots!’ he yells, as though he’s only just thought of this. Oh fuck, here we go again. ‘They deserve all they fucking get: everything. Fucking global fucking warming if that’s really our fault and not fucking Icelandic fucking volcanos, and lying politicians and war and everything else. But we don’t deserve what they fucking bring us! And that’s the fucking trouble with democracy!’

  ‘It’s democratic,’ I say. I’m not sure about the value of this contribution myself, frankly, but it’s all I’ve got.

  Ferg was trapped in Miami when the Icelandic volcano with the unpronounceable name went off last year, and obviously took it personally. I want to tell him that it turned out the volcano was actually a green event, climatically; they worked it out: while it released north of a hundred and fifty thousand tonnes of CO into the atmosphere each day, the flights that it grounded would have released significantly more. Who’d have thought?

  But I’m being honest with myself, and my chances of getting this fascinating, instructive point across are fairly minimal in my present, pleasant state of advanced inebriation. I’ll just make a note to myself in my brain’s on-board Notes app to tell him this at some other juncture, when I’m sober. />
  Ha ha. Like that’s going to happen.

  ‘The smart are forced to pay for the stupidities of the fuckwits!’

  ‘Boo,’ I say, trying to be supportive.

  Ferg looks at me. ‘You’re completely fucking wasted, aren’t you?’

  I nod. ‘Pletely,’ I agree.

  But then I have had a lot to drink, and some blow, and I vaguely recall knocking back a pill of some sort earlier. So I have every right to be completely fucking wasted. I would have considerable cause for complaint were I in any other state than completely fucking wasted. Questions would need to be asked, heads metaphorically roll and possibly refunds offered for goods purchased in good faith, were I not.

  Ferg has probably had more than I have, and he still seems relatively together, but then that’s his problem. I should, at this point, probably remind him again that he drinks too much, and that not being completely fucking wasted by now, given what we’ve put away, is positively unhealthy, and a cause for some concern. But I’m not sure I’m entirely capable of articulating something so relatively complicated. And, to be fair, he may have heard this before.

  ‘… with these fair hands, Mr Gilmour,’ a girl with short black hair and laughing eyes is saying to me. I may have dozed off for a second there. She looks very young: late high-school age. But still: ‘Mr Gilmour’? Fair, bonny face, short hair a chap might want to ruffle his hand through. ‘But it wasn’t me. Not the ones that – the famous ones!’ I think that’s what she’s saying. ‘Just so’s you know.’ Music’s very loud. ‘Talk anybody into anything, that girl.’ Then she disappears.

  And she’s back again! No, my mistake; it’s the delightful Haley. Here she is before me. Holding what looks like my jacket. Well, that is forward. Still, what a persistent girl. You have to admire that.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I start to tell her, waving one hand in what I hope looks like a sad, regretful and yet still respectful manner, while remaining expressive of the hope that this is only No for now, and might not mean No for ever, depending on how things work out elsewhere.