Iain Banks - Dead Air

‘Really?’

‘Possibly.’ Ed shrugged. ‘I don’t know an I don’t want to neevir. Just a bastard when these geezers can’t get their fuckin acts togevver. Leaves a onist jobbin DJ out of pocket, dunnit?’

‘Wait here; I’ll organise a whip-round.’

‘Fack orfft.’

I have no idea where this happened.

‘Ere.’

‘What?’

‘D’you unnerstand everyfin your mate’s sayin?’

‘What? Craig?’

‘Yeah, oo else, ya nutter.’

‘Course I do.’

‘Bit of a accent though, asn’t he? Dontya fink?’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘I mean, I can just about cope wif your Highlan brogue, but I almost need a interpreter wif im.’

‘Are you trying to be funny?’

‘Na, I’m serious, mate. Hee hee hee.’

‘You’re talking nonsense. Craig hasn’t got a Scottish accent any more. Well, virtually none; he goes back to Glasgow and they think he’s a Londoner.’

‘Na, but really.’

‘And what the hell’s this about my accent too, ya bastard?’

‘What? D’you really fink you speak BBC English or somefing, do you?’

‘Better than that!’ I roared. I think people looked round again. ‘I don’t have an accent!’

‘Ha! You got an accent, man! I’m telling you!’

‘Naw ah dinny!’ I said. I meant it to be ironic.

‘Hee hee hee. All right, then; what nationality am I?’

‘You’re British.’

Ed rolled his eyes. ‘All right, which bit of Britain?’

‘Brixton.’

‘You is just being deliberately obtuse here, man.’

‘All right! You’re English!’

‘See? I’m not; I’m Inglish.’

‘“Inglish”? What d’you mean “Inglish”? There’s a fucking “E” at the start there!’

‘Yeah, but it’s pronounced “Inglish”, innit?’

‘I beg to differ.’

‘Say “film”.’

‘Fim.’

‘Na! Come on; say it like you always say it.’

‘That is how I always say it.’

‘Fuck off! You say “fillum”! You always do.’

‘I do not. Film. There.’

‘See?’

‘See what?’

‘You said “fillum”!’

‘I did not!’

‘Yes you did. Here’s your mate; let’s see how he pronounces it. Ere, Craig, mate; say “film”.’

Craig sat down, put the drinks on the table and, smirking, said, ‘Movie.’

Oh how we laughed.

‘Na, it’s just, like, realising there’s the powerful and the powerless, the strong and the weak, the rich and the poor, the winners and the losers, and which lot do you identify with? If it’s with the winners, then you’re basically saying, Right, fuck the poor or the dispossessed or the oppressed or the whatever; I’m just out for me; I want to be one of them winners and I don’t care who I hurt or what I do getting there and staying there. If you identify with the losers-’

‘You’re a loser,’ Ed said.

‘No, no; no, you’re not.’

‘Anyway, you got money.’

‘I’m not saying having money at all is immoral. Though I’m not so sure about having shares…’

‘Lissen to you, man! Wot’s wrong wif havin shares?’

‘The legal precedence you’re automatically accorded over workers and consumers, that’s what,’ I said. At this point, even I was aware I was sounding a bit pompous.

‘Yeah, right. I bet you got shares anyway, man, wevvir you know it or not.’

‘No I don’t!’ I protested.

‘No?’ Ed said. ‘You got a pension?’

‘No!’ I exclaimed triumphantly.

Ed looked amazed. ‘Wot? No pension plan?’

‘Nope. Opted out of the company’s and never opted into another.’

‘You’re mad.’

‘I’m not! I’m principled, you bastard.’

‘Self-righteousness is easily worth a few percentage points to a man like Ken,’ Craig told Ed. At the time, I thought in support.

‘Still fink you’ve got shares somewhere. Where do you keep your dosh, then?’

‘Building society. Nationwide; the last big mutual. All my money goes to provide loans to people buying houses, not into the rest of the capital market and certainly not into lining the pockets of fucking fat cat directors.’

‘Yeah,’ Ed snorted. ‘An wot you gettin? Four per cent?’

‘A clear conscience,’ I said. Oops; skirting the perimeter of the pomposity precipice again. ‘Anyway, my point is that you can still have ambition and want to do well and want your friends and family to do well, but you’re keeping your, keeping your… what am I trying to say here, Craig?’

‘You’re tryin to say “I am drunk.”’ Ed laughed. ‘Loud and clear.’

‘I think,’ Craig said, ‘you’re trying to explain what determines whether you’re right- or left-wing. Or liberal or not. Something like that.’ He waved one long arm. ‘I don’t know.’

Craig sat looking gangly and overhanging his seat, limbs on a very low state of readiness, light reflecting from his shaven head. We had moved on to the Soho House after the bar had shut. There might have been somewhere in between (see above). Whatever; we had all been very sorry to leave the bar because all these stunningly beautiful women had kept walking by us, going up and down the pavement and the street, and we’d all observed that they’d got more and more beautiful as the evening had gone on, remarkably.

Anyway, now we were here in the House and it was crowded and hot and when I thought about it I couldn’t remember what floor we were on or which room we were in or where the loo would be from here. At least we’d got a table somehow, but sitting down in the midst of all these standing bodies meant you were situated kind of low to spot any natural landmarks and so get the old bearings. I had no idea how we’d got onto this stuff about belief but if I’d stopped to think about it, it would probably have been me who’d brought the subject up.

‘Something like that,’ I said, feeling I was agreeing with an important point, though not quite able to recall exactly what it might be. ‘It’s a fucking mission statement, man. One that actually has some point. It’s about where your sympathies lie; with yourself or with your fellow man. Women. Human beings. This is what it’s all about; this.’

‘What?’

‘This, what I’m going to explain, right here, right now.’

‘Well?’

‘Go on then.’

‘It’s about, do you see somebody having a really tough time of things and think, Tough shit, loser? Or do you see somebody having a really tough time and think, Hmm, too bad, or, Oh, that’s a shame, or, Oh, poor person, I wonder how I can help? That’s the choice. Choices. Choice. It’s all about how nasty or nice you are.’

‘Wow, you really must be nice,’ Craig said. ‘You missed out the one that’s worse than, Tough shit, loser.’

‘I did? There is one?’

‘Yes; it’s, Hmm, how can I exploit this already down-and-out and therefore usefully vulnerable person for my own ends?’

‘Fuck,’ I breathed, abashed by my own lack of sufficient cynicism. ‘So I did.’ I shook my head. ‘God, there are some real bastards around.’

‘Never more than ten feet from a rat,’ Ed said. He raised his eyebrows. ‘Specially round ere.’

‘Ten feet?’ I said. ‘I thought it was ten metres.’

‘Twenty feet,’ Craig offered, possibly as a compromise.

‘Wotever.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Soho. I suppose there just might be the odd tad of exploitation going on here.’

Ed made a show of spluttering into his drink. ‘Fuckin Exploitation City here, mate.’

‘The girls are all slaves,’ Craig said, nodding wisely.

‘Who? What girls?’

‘The prossies,’ Craig said.

‘The girls wif their cards in the phone boxes,’ Ed said.