Iain Banks - The Crow Road

It was still totally dark. He tried to remember where he'd been last.

The party; Hamish and Antonia McHoan's. Of course. He must still be there, as this wasn't his own bed. Put to bed. Bit bad, that; probably in the dog-house as far as the lady wife was concerned, too, but then what was new?

He put one hand out, feeling for a table; he found what felt like one, and then a long cold metal stem. Reaching up, he felt a switch.

The light clicked on and suddenly everything was white and horribly bright. He shielded his eyes. God, his head felt fuzzy, and sore. He needed a drink very badly; water would do.

He looked round the white-painted room, thinking that it looked somehow familiar. Perhaps he had slept here before. Or maybe he'd given the McHoans some bits and pieces of furniture.

He listened but couldn't hear anything. The door of the room looked familiar, too. Odd to find a door so comforting, somehow.

He got up, wobbled across to the door. He was quite cold. He opened the door; a dark hall. Funny; the place didn't smell like the McHoans" house did. It smelled of wood and a sort of quite pleasant mustiness. This place smelled of stone and polish. Bit like the castle.

He went out into the hallway, felt along the wall for a light switch; he found one, switched it on. Stairs led up; the wood-panelled hall led to another set of stairs going down. There were old paintings on the walls. He felt very dizzy, and sat down on the bottom step of the stairs. He was home. This was the castle.

He got up, walked up the stairs. The door to the short flight of stairs that led to the two topmost floors was locked. He didn't understand. He searched his pockets but could find no key.

He pushed at the door again. He gathered a chestful of air to shout at Fiona — dozy bitch had locked him out of his own fucking castle, his own bedroom — but then thought of the children. Might wake the little beggars up. Didn't want that.

He went down through the lower hall to the kitchen, drank some water. His watch said it was two o'clock; so did the kitchen clock. There ought to have been keys hanging by the door to the utility room, but they weren't there. Bloody fishy. Had Fiona hidden them? Did she think he was dangerous, was that it?

Maybe she thought he would get up in some drunken stupor and ravish her. "Huh, that'll be right," he said to himself. His voice sounded rough in the quiet kitchen; he cleared his throat, coughed, and felt the dull pounding of his headache suddenly sharpen.

Damn it all. Perhaps he was being punished. Maybe she was punishing him for getting drunk. Had he done anything disgraceful? He couldn't remember, but he doubted it. He usually held his drink well, and behaved like a gentleman even when he did have one too many.

He looked at his reflection in the window over the sink. He pulled one splayed hand through his hair. Maybe he ought to have a shower or something. There was always the bathroom on the first floor…

He felt bloody annoyed, Fi locking him out of their apartments like that.

Then he remembered the observatory.

You could get up to it by the stairs to the roof. He'd been up there, in the roof space when the men had been installing the dome. For that matter, he'd seen that loft being put together, knew it almost as well as that self-opinionated young architect had. He'd crawled around in there, him and the builder, with a torch, discussing where the observatory could be built; what joists and supports would have to go, what extra bracing would be needed.

He chuckled to himself, put down the cup he'd been drinking the water from, wiped his lips.

He padded through the hall, up the four flights of stairs to the little landing where you either went straight ahead and out onto the battlements, or ducked through the wee door into the observatory.

It was bitterly cold inside the aluminium hemisphere. He wished he'd thought to put shoes on before he'd started on this piece of nonsense; feet felt like blocks of ice. Still.

He opened the door that gave into the extended cupboard under the roof. Dark. Damn; should have thought to bring a torch, too.

"Sloppy, Urvill, bloody sloppy," he breathed to himself.

He squeezed inside the little cupboard. Really must lose some weight. Well, festive period well and truly over now; time to go on a diet, or do a bit more exercise. He wriggled to the rear of the cupboard; felt for the wooden battens on the panel at the end of the dark space. The panel came away after a little while; he put it on the floor in front of him, and wriggled through on his elbows and knees into the darkness beyond.

"Getting too old for this sort of thing," he told himself. It was very nearly totally dark in the roof space; only a little light came from behind him, through the cupboard from the dome of the observatory. He felt his way across the joists in front of him, got his legs free from the cupboard and was able to get up into a crouch, balancing on a joist, hands just above his head, holding on to rough, undressed wood.

He swung one foot out, to the next joist, then put out one hand and felt for the next rafter; he transferred his weight carefully. There; did it. He was aware of the lath and plaster clinging to the bottom of the joists; put a foot through that and you'd be right through the ceiling below; chap could fall slap into the bath from here, probably; or into the twins" room, maybe; perish the thought; daddy coming crashing through the ceiling, give the little perishers nightmares for the rest of their lives.

He swivelled from joist to joist, rafter to rafter, feeling horribly like a monkey and getting very cold feet in the process even though he was breaking out in a sweat at the same time. His knees and his neck were making ghastly creaking noises and protesting like hell.

He looked back at the light coming from the observatory cupboard, now a good twenty feet away, and thought about going back; this whole prank was becoming a bit much, really. But he'd started, so he'd finish.

He saw the faintest of glows ahead, from between two of the joists. He smiled. "That's the ticket," he breathed to himself. With the next joist it came closer; then he could see one edge of the little hatch; then he was over it. A soft light gave away the outline of the door. He heard voices. God, the silly woman had probably left the radio on.

He got down on his knees again, feet supported on the joist behind; his knees gave sharp twinges of pain, taking almost all his weight.

He felt for the edges of the square door, found them and lifted it gently. What a locked-room mystery this would present the old girl with, if he could get in without her hearing him, and get undressed and slide in beside her! She'd never be able to work it out. Of course, he thought, as he levered the hatch door open slowly, letting more soft light spill out from underneath, he'd have to cover his tracks in the morning; damn silly to have left the cupboard back there open, and the light on in the dome. But never mind. Fi hardly ever went up there anyway.

He'd lifted the near edge of the door up about three inches above the top of the joist in front of him. He held it there, lowered his head, peeped into the room, smiling, wondering if he could see Fi from this angle. Voices. Warm air and voices.

"Oh… God, God, God, God; yes, yes, yes, yes…»

It took him a moment to work out what was going on.

But then he realised.

That was Fiona, in the bed, on the bed, covers half off, the only light in the room coming from a little candle by the bedside, her hair spilled on the pillow (the other pillow was on the floor)… and that was Lachlan Watt, wrapped round her, body bucking like some horse, his hands at her neck, at one breast, in her hair, cupping her neck; the covers sliding off, Fiona putting her arms wide, clutching at the bottom sheet of the bed at one side, clutching the edge of the bedside table with the other. Her head beat from side to side and she said, "Yes, yes, yes, yes," again, then Lachlan — wiry, athletic-looking, skinny shanks ramming back and forth like some skinny bull — reached under her, pulled her up, his legs spreading, kneeling; she hung onto him, arms round his neck, then after a few vertical stabs he threw her down, back onto the bed; she grunted, arms still tight round his back, then she brought her legs up, right up over his thin, plunging, globe-buttocked behind, until her ankles were in the small of his back, rocking to and fro, feet crossed one over the other, locked there; with one splayed hand she held onto his back, pressing him to her, and with the other hand she felt down the length of his body, over ribs and waist and hips, and with another grunt reached round and under, taking his balls in her hand, pressing them and kneading them and squeezing them.