Iain Banks - Whit

He laughed.

'You can't interfere with a… with a months -old tradition like that just because you need to do this research shit! Fuck, if we wanted to do that sort of stuff we'd be writing our essays ! I mean, do we look like sad students? Come on; we're trying to resurrect a fine student tradition here. We have to party !'

' Party !' the others chorused.

I looked at Topee. 'You told me students were all very boring and exam-oriented these days.'

'They are, mostly!' Topee said, gesticulating. 'We party-'

' Party !' the other three chorused again.

'-animals are practically an endangered species!'

'I can't imagine why,' I sighed. 'Well, just-'

'Oh, come, Is; let your… I mean, get your party-'

' Party !'

'-hat on. We can do all that stuff on Monday.'

'Topee,' I said, smiling faintly. 'Just point me in the right direction. I'll do it myself.'

'You won't come out with us?' he asked, looking deflated.

'Thank you, but no. I'd like to get this done today. It's all right; I'll do it myself.'

'Not at all! If you won't come out with us, I'll come out with you; we'll do all this stuff. We'll all help! Except you have to come out for a drink with us tonight, right?' He looked round the others.

They looked at him and then at me.

'Na.'

'No, don't think so, Tope.'

'Nut; I wannae to go to the jazz.'

Topee looked crestfallen for a moment. 'Oh. Oh well,' he said, with an expansive shrug, waving with his arms. 'Just me, then.' He laughed. 'Fuck. Talked myself into that one, didn't I?'

The others murmured assent to this.

Topee slapped his forehead, staring at me. 'I suppose I have to wash your feet, too, don't I? I forgot!'

The others looked up, surprised.

I took a guess at the state of cleanliness of any basin, bowl or container suitable for feet-washing the flat might possess. 'That won't be necessary just now, thank you, Topee.'

'Currency,' Topee said, a little later in the kitchen as we tidied away the breakfast things.

'A bank-note,' I told him.

'Yeah. Cool. My Director of Studies collects stamps and stuff. I wonder if he knows anybody collects notes? I'll give him a call.' He grinned. 'Got his home number; I'm always calling in for extensions. Just chuck the stuff in there,' he said, pointing at one of three black polythene bags by the side of an overflowing bin. He strode out into the hall. I opened the black bag, averting my nose from the smell that emanated from it, and dumped the crushed, empty take-away containers into it. I tied up the sack and did the same with the other two, breathing through my mouth to combat the stench.

I started cleaning dishes. Anything to be busy. I'd been right about the washing-up basin. Topee was back a few minutes later. He stared at the washing-up suds as though he had never seen such a phenomenon before, a thesis the state of the kitchen did nothing to contradict. 'Oh, yeah! Like, well done, Is!'

'What did your Director of Studies say?' I asked him.

'We need a notaphilist,' he said, grinning.

'A what?'

'A notaphilist,' he repeated. 'Apparently there's one in Wellington Street.' He glanced at his watch. 'Open till noon on Saturdays. Reckon we can make it.'

I found it quite easy to drag myself away from the washing-up. We caught a bus into the city centre and found the address in Wellington Street, a little basement shop under a grand, tall Victorian office building of recently cleaned fawn sandstone.

H. Womersledge, Numismatist and Notaphilist, said the peeling painted sign. The place was pokey and dark and smelled of old books and something metallic. A bell jangled as we entered. I tried to convince myself that these were not really retail premises. There were glass cases, counters and tall display cabinets everywhere, all full of coins, medals and bank-notes, the latter held in little transparent plastic stands or folders like photographic albums.

A middle-aged man appeared from the back of the shop. I'd expected some little old bent-over octogenarian sporting a patina of dandruff and dust, but this fellow was my side of fifty, smoothly plump, and dressed in a white polo-neck top and cream slacks.

'Morning,' he said.

'Yo,' said Topee, bouncing from one foot to the other. The man looked unimpressed.

I tipped my hat. 'Good morning, sir.' I brought out the bank-note and placed it on the glass counter between us, over dully gleaming silver coins and colourfully ribboned medals. 'I wondered what you could tell me about this…' I said.

He picked up the note delicately, held it up to the dim light from the one small window, then switched on a tiny but powerful table lamp and studied the note briefly.

'Well, it's pretty self-explanatory, really,' he said. 'Ten-pound note, Royal Scot Linen, July 'forty-eight.' He shrugged. 'They were produced in this form from May 'thirty-five to January 'fifty-three, when the RSL was taken over by the Royal Bank.' He turned the note over a couple of times, handling it the way I imagined a card-sharp did a card. 'Quite an ornate note, for the time. It was actually designed by a man called Mallory who was later hanged for murdering his wife, in nineteen forty-two.' He gave us a suitably wintry smile. 'I suppose you want to know how much it's worth.'

'I imagined it was worth ten pounds,' I said. 'If it was still legal tender.'

'Not legal tender,' the man said, grinning and shaking his head. 'Worth about forty quid, mint, which this isn't. If you were selling I could give you fifteen, but even that's only because I like round numbers.'

'Hmm,' I said. 'Well, perhaps not, then.'

I stood, looking down at the note, just letting the time pass. The man turned the note over on the counter one more time.

'Well, then,' I said, after Topee had started to get agitated at my side. 'Thank you, sir.'

'You're welcome,' the man said, after a moment's hesitation.

I picked up the note and folded it back inside my pocket. 'Good day,' I said, tipping my hat.

'Yeah,' the man said, frowning, as I turned and walked to the door, followed by Topee. I opened the door, jangling the bell again. 'Ah, wait a minute,' the man said. I turned and looked back.

He waved one hand, as though rubbing out something on an invisible screen between us. 'No, no, I'm not going to offer you more or anything; that's all it's worth, really, but… could I have another look at it?'

'Of course.' I went back to the counter and handed him the note again. He frowned at it. 'Mind if I take a copy of this?' he asked.

'Will it be harmed?' I asked.

He smiled tolerantly. 'No, it won't.'

'All right.'

'Won't be a minute.' He disappeared into the back of the shop. There were a series of quiet, mechanical noises. He was back a moment later, with the note and a copy of both its sides on a large sheet of paper. He handed me the note again. 'You got a phone number I can reach you at?'

'Yes,' I said. 'Topee, do you mind… ? '

'Eh? What? Oh! Like, hey, no; no, on you go. Pas de probleme.'

I gave the man Topee's phone number.

'Now what?' Topee asked on the street outside.

'Army records, and old newspapers.'

There are occasions when I find pieces of technology I can't help liking. The fiche reader and built-in copying machine that I was directed to at the Mitchell Library proved to be one such device. It was like a large vertically oriented television set screen, but was really just a sort of projector, throwing onto the screen the highly magnified images of old newspapers, documents, journals, ledgers and other papers which had been photographed and placed -hundreds at a time - on pieces of thin, laminated plastic. In this manner, many years' worth of broadsheet newspapers that might have filled a room could be condensed into a small filing box that one could carry comfortably with one hand.