Iain Banks - Dead Air

Oh my God, oh shit, oh fuck, part of me was thinking. I mean, another part was thinking, Well, Yesss!, but most of me was thinking bad things of one sort or another. I put my arms around her and kissed back, tasting and smelling her, sucking in her sweet breath as though desperate for some transfusion of youth. She squirmed in my arms, pressing herself against me and slipping her arms round my sides and back.

Something dropped to the floor; the lozenges.

Then she pushed back, blinking, and I had to let her go. The smile was gone for a moment. Then she shook her head and started laughing gently. She wiped her mouth delicately with the back of one hand.

‘What am I doing?’ she breathed, still shaking her head. I thought of the way her hair would have moved when she did that, if it had still been long.

‘Well,’ I said, swallowing. ‘Making an old man very happy, obviously, but, um, I don’t think…’

‘No, I don’t think either…’ she said softly, then laughed loudly, then started coughing. She shook her head and looked down at the floor. I stooped and handed her the packet of throat lozenges.

Nikki’s hoarse laugh echoed in the room. ‘Oh, Uncle Ken, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… I’m sorry.’

I held up one hand. ‘No problem. And please stop apologising. It was fine for me, believe me. But, ah…’

Nikki coughed. The harsh sound echoed in the bare-walled room. She made a visible effort to pull herself together. ‘Yes,’ she said, and cleared her throat noisily. ‘We probably better just pretend…’

‘… that none of this happened, yeah.’ I nodded.

She nodded too. ‘Just until, you know, we die,’ she suggested.

‘Agree completely,’ I said.

She shivered. ‘Sorry, Ken, but this is all just a bit…’

‘Weird?’ I suggested.

‘Yeah, weird.’

I’d opened the door again. ‘Oh. Hi, Emma.’

‘Mum! Hi!’ Nikki waved, her smile broad across her face.

‘What’s weird?’ Emma said, walking into the room and looking gloweringly suspicious. Little black number. Hair in pearled black Alice band like a soft tiara, black pearls round her throat. Already holding a dark coat over her arm.

I waved one hand dismissively and nodded at the pack of throat lozenges in Nikki’s hand. ‘I was trying to proposition your daughter by offering her drugs, but she wasn’t having it.’ I smiled sadly and let my shoulders sag while Emma glared into my eyes. ‘Just trying to get to bed, actually, Em; dog-tired. This you off too?’

Emma wavered, but then clearly decided I’d been just casual enough. Nothing going on. Nothing you’d want to think about, certainly. ‘Yes,’ she said, then looked at her daughter. ‘Nikki; you ready?’

Nikki popped a lozenge, flicked it into the air and stepped forward with her mouth open, teeth clacking shut. She stepped back again with the throat sweet displayed between her teeth. ‘Regy,’ she said. She turned and rummaged in the pile of coats until she found her jacket. ‘Night, Ken,’ she said, pulling on her jacket and kissing me lightly on the cheek.

‘Night, kid.’

‘I’ll be down in one minute,’ Emma told Nikki.

‘Okey-doke,’ Nikki said as the door started to swing closed again. ‘I’ll say bye to Dad…’

Emma looked at me.

Oh-oh, I thought. Now what?

‘Great kid,’ I said to Emma, nodding towards the closing door. ‘Love her to bits.’

‘You all right?’ Em said. She looked genuinely concerned. I relaxed.

‘Tired,’ I said, honestly.

‘I heard Jude gave you a hard time.’

‘It was mutual, but yes.’ I sighed, yawned. ‘Oh, dear. Sorry, sorry.’

‘It’s all right.’

‘Jude and I agreed to disagree,’ I said. ‘Although, come to think of it, I’m not sure we even agreed that.’

Emma nodded, looked down at my chest briefly. She put one hand out and touched my arm, patting it. ‘You get some sleep.’

‘Best idea I’ve heard all night.’ I held the door open for her.

‘Night, Ken. You take care.’ She kissed me lightly on the cheek, just like her daughter had. She turned at the top of the stairs as I was opening the door to my bedroom, and gave me a small, brave smile. She raised one hand hesitantly, then went quickly down the steps.

I stripped to my underpants and got into the bed. I went to sleep thinking about Celia, hoping she was well and safe with her family on Martinique. I did this quite often these days. Part of me hoped that by going to sleep thinking of her I’d see her in my dreams, but so far this hadn’t happened.

I slept well for about half an hour until some people piled into the room, turning on the light and looking for their coats. I told them where they were, then once they’d gone I got up, pulled on my trousers and went through to the official cloakroom and pulled all the coats and jackets off the bed and hung them over the banister rail outside. This didn’t stop another group of drunks coming into the room, turning on the light and looking for their coats.

I took the bulb out of the central light fixture and the next time somebody came in, muttering about coats and clicking the light switch about ten times, I snored very loudly until they went away.

When I wake up I’m dressed as an SS officer with my cock hanging out. I’m handcuffed to the bed and there’s gaffer tape over my mouth and Jo’s; they rape her, slit her throat and leave her lying on me. They’ve taken stuff to make it look like a robbery gone wrong and the boat’s been holed so when the tide rises I’ll drown.

‘Ah!’

‘Ken?’

‘Fuck! Shit! Fuck! Fucking hell!’

‘Ken! Come on! Just a dream. Whatever it was. Just a dream, a nightmare. Hey, come on…’

‘Dear fucking Jesus Christ almighty.’ I flopped back down onto the bed. My heart was hammering like an engine, I was breathing like I’d just run a marathon. ‘Oh, God.. ’

Jo took me in her arms and cradled me. ‘It’s okay. Everything’s all right. Calm down, calm down…’

‘Oh…’

‘That’s not like you.’

‘… Fuck…’

‘Okay now?’

‘Yeah. Okay. Okay now…’

Only I wasn’t okay at all.

Jo fell quickly asleep again but I spent a long, long time looking round the darkened, slightly tilted bedroom, swallowing hard, catching the occasional whiff of sewage and decay coming from the mud outside, listening for ominous gurgling noises from the bilges, searching for heavies hiding in the shadows and shivering as the sheen of sweat dried on my skin.

I lay waiting for the dawn to come up and the tide to come in, waiting for the waters to raise us again, bring the Temple Belle level once more, smother the faint smell of death and restore balance.

‘Hello?’

‘Hey, Mrs C.’

‘Ooh! Is that that man from the radio? Kennit, how are you doin, ma darlin?’

‘Got a bit of a cold, but apart from that, fine. And all the better for talking to you, Mrs C. And how are you? Beautiful and sexy as ever? Beautiful and sexy as the last time I saw you? On the big wheel, wasn’t it?’

‘Oh, hell, honey, I’m more so. More so! You a terrible man. I tell me son on you, you see if I don’t do juss that.’

‘Mrs C, you mustn’t. My unbridled passion for you has to stay a deep and terrible secret, otherwise Ed would be terribly hurt. I mean, suppose you seduced me and then fell pregnant?’

‘What? At my age? Oh, lissen to you, you rogue man! Ha!’

‘I’d have to marry you; I’d be Ed’s father. He’d never forgive me.’

‘Stop! I’ll bust meself. Where’s me hanky? Oh, you surely are a terrible man. I’d get the boy himself to give you a serious talkin to but he’s in France or Rome or some damn place like that, honey, so you’ll have to call his mobile.’