Iain Banks - Dead Air

Oh my God, I was going to shit my pants. I could feel my bowels loosening, a muscle down there starting to spasm as I tried to hold things in. No loo here that I could see. Upstairs; I knew there was a toilet up there; that was where Celia’s bedroom was with its en suite bathroom. I did a weird, knee-knocking sort of walk to the stairs leading up to the next storey, then minced up the steps, sucking in my belly as though this would stop the disaster I was expecting any second. Even as I got to the next floor I was thinking, What was I doing? Running up here had been stupid; there must be a loo downstairs, on the ground floor, where the kitchen and dining-room would be.

Too late now. I ran along to a door whose room probably looked to the rear of the house, overlooking the Japanese garden. I was sucking my cheeks in – I mean my cheeks on my face as well as the cheeks of my bum – as though in sympathy. My whole body was trembling now; I nearly fell as I stumbled through the door and into the room. Bedroom. Big. Dark behind dark-grey vertical blinds shielding two tall windows.

There was a door to each side of the wide, black and white bed. I pulled the left one open; a fucking dressing-room. Jesus fucking Christ, what was it with these rich fuckers? Couldn’t they just have fucking wardrobes like fucking normal people, the self-indulgent sons of bitches? I hobbled round the bed, trying to keep my legs together and yet still walk, and actually putting my right hand to my backside, trying to press upwards, help keep things in. Oh Christ, oh Christ; if this door didn’t lead to a loo, I was going to shit my fucking pants.

The door swung open and I was looking straight at a beautiful white china loo with a rich dark wooden seat and lid. I quickly pulled both gloves off.

My whimper of relief turned to a terrible keening of frustrated rage and despair as I had to waste a few seconds I hadn’t been accounting for – and which I might not have to spare – as I had to tear at my stupid fucking under-size overalls before I could even get to my jeans and pants. I only just remembered to lift the lid of the loo before I turned round.

I started shitting even before my backside hit the wooden rim of the toilet. It was a ghastly, splattery and appallingly malodorous experience, but I believed I’d – just – succeeded in keeping within the bounds of social shitting behaviour.

Sitting back, I closed my eyes, breathing through my mouth to escape the putrid smell of what was going on down below, and – for a few, brief, fleeting moments – just let myself surf along the wave of animal relief surging through my body.

‘Fucking hell,’ I breathed.

Cleaning up took a while. I’d nearly finished when I realised that I’d just taken a seriously fucking rancid dump in what looked like John Merrial’s own bathroom, not Ceel’s. The toiletries spread about the shelves were all masculine and there was a shaving mirror and an electric razor on a shelf above one of the two big wash-handbasins. When I thought about it, I realised that the clothes in the dressing-room I’d looked in earlier had indeed been male clothes; in the wide-eyed terror of the moment, I hadn’t even noticed.

Flushing a couple of times extra and using a loo brush to make sure there were no marks left seemed like a good idea.

I left the place as I’d found it, apart from the smell. I used an air-freshener, more in deference to my mother’s early bathroom training than because it would make any difference; Alpine Glade would be every bit as suspicious as Fetid Faeces if Merrial happened to come home in the next hour or so and decided the first thing he needed was a nice shower to freshen up after a hard day’s caving.

The perfectly folded towels in the bathroom intimidated me, so after I’d washed my hands I just wiped them dry on my overalls rather than sully those snowy white expanses. I did some more wiping down of touched surfaces with the paper hanky.

A few more deep breaths and a drink of water from the cold tap and I was just about steady and calm enough to continue. I found another large bedroom across the hall, also with a view to the rear. This bedroom was all pale greens and blues, from ceiling and walls and carpets to the furniture and fittings. Bursts of tropical colour on the walls were provided by paintings of riotous jungle scenes, all profuse abstractions of flowers, leaves, sky and rocks, shot through with what looked like squadrons of parrots or cockatiels racing across the scenes, caught in blurs of chromatic chaos.

Thick black Venetian blinds covered windows of a similar size to those in the room across the hall. Maybe everybody hereabouts kept their blinds closed all the time, I thought, allowing hope to blossom again. Maybe nobody would have seen me make the leap over the garden wall.

Pale furniture. A large dressing table with combs and bottles and a small ring tree with a few rings on it, all tidy, neatly arranged. It was very warm.

Definitely Ceel’s room, I thought. The bathroom was on the opposite side to the room across the hall. I had to take the damn stupid big gloves off again. Why hadn’t I thought of this? If I’d only taken a minute to look ahead I’d have realised back on the fucking Temple Belle that I’d need a good thin pair of gloves for this. Oh well. The Yale key was secured to the floor of the little box of tampons by a piece of double-sided tape. I confess I held a few of the tampons, looking at them, then, still holding them, looked round the bathroom; at her bath and, alongside it, a big steam-cabinet shower, with a seat. I found myself smiling as I looked at the loo.

Oh, God, what sort of poor pathetic loon was I, caressing the woman’s tampons and staring fondly, love-struck, at her toilet seat, for fuck’s sake? Get fucking real, Kenneth. And get fucking moving, fuckwit. I put the tampons back and replaced the box, then did the wiping-finger-touched-surfaces bit again.

I went down to the locked door on the first floor. I had a little more time to look around. The house was furnished in a slightly dated respectable style that was probably about right for the building. Actually it looked a lot like some of the slightly more modern hotel suites Ceel and I had been in. She must have felt at home. Not as stiflingly hot, though.

The study door opened with the key and I let it close behind me. The study was more old-fashioned than what I’d seen of the rest of the house. The big desk was un-ironic retro, with a gold-tooled burgundy leather top and a brass lamp with a green glass shade. The computer was a Hewlett Packard with a big plasma screen. Ha! I’d just known Merrial wouldn’t be a Mac guy. I couldn’t see any sign of a gun safe, but I guessed it might be hidden.

The answering machine was on its own little table near the door. I looked at it accusingly, as though this was all its fault. You see the trouble you’ve put me to, you nasty little piece of office-beige shite? I moved towards it.

That was when I heard the siren.

It must have been on the fringes of my hearing for a couple of seconds. I’d been feeling a general unease, which seemed at odds with the fact I was now within sight of the thing I’d spent so much effort, angst and sweat getting to. Then I realised: a siren. The Emergency Services. You stop hearing the sound in a big city after a while.

If you’re driving – and providing you’re not the sort of cack-brained bozo who can have a fucking twenty-tonne fire engine right behind him with its lights flaring and its siren screaming and still not realise it’s time to Get The Fuck Out Of The Way – then you do still take notice when you hear a siren; you start looking at side streets, checking the rear-view every few seconds, watching for people pulling out of the way or bumping up onto kerbs or swerving into bus stops to clear a path for the vehicle with the blue lights. Otherwise, you hear it but you pay no attention unless it signifies something you’re waiting for, or it keeps getting louder all the time until it gets very loud and then stops.