It would be a lie; it would be pandering to all the wishy-washy, nanny-state bollocks they paraded in this hypocritical shithouse of a country. It was all that vain, egotistical insincerity of self-reproach. By blaming ourselves we take away the right of others to do the same.
As an old Catholic boy, Skinner remembered that it was the confession, not the priest, that gave absolution. Remembered it more clearly than any of the priests he encountered, to their chagrin, ever could.
Skinner addressed himself in the bathroom mirror, gave an impassioned speech to a receptive audience of one. — The new fascism is coming. And it’s not skinheads marching through the inner cities Sieg Heiling, it’s being concocted in the café-bars and restaurants of Islington and Notting Hill.
No.
The idea that every tomato juice consumed on a night out would be met with smiles of kind approval while every pissed-up lurch to the bar elicited stares of baleful fake sorrow or I-told-you-so sneers is completely fucking unbearable to me.
In the bedroom, he examined the jacket of his suit. There was vomit on the lapels, insinuating itself into the fine weave of the Armani’s delicate fibres, warping it. This could not be sponged out. Nothing short of dry-cleaning (if he was lucky) would come close to restoring it to its former glory. He would need to wear another suit. But the only other one he owned was an ugly, cheap, coarse excuse. No, he’d stick to a jacket and trousers. In the mirror, he studied his face in detail. It was a mess: a series of dried, blooded spots tore down one side of it, like he’d been scraped against a wall.
The presentation, he had to look over the presentation.
NO NO NO.
His case. It was gone. Where had he left it? Which pub? Pivo, the Black Bull, the Abbotsford, the Guildford, the Café Royal, the Waterloo . . . then the premises blurring into the background, replaced by foreground faces: Rab McKenzie, Gary Traynor . . . Coop . . . fuck that, move on . . . the girl with the straw-blonde hair and the huge squint teeth who grew more beautiful as the night wore on. In his pockets loads of change, loads of pound coins. Very few notes, but thirty-seven pounds in pound coins.
But his old leather briefcase . . . the presentation, it was gone. One of the boys in the pubs would have put it behind the bar for safe keeping. Surely. Most of them didn’t open until eleven, when he was due to be on. He’d have to phone in sick. Maybe he could be late, Skinner thought, mentally flipping through a wilted box-file of dog-ate-my-homework-style stays of execution.
Then he rang Rab McKenzie on his mobile, affecting a casual demeanour. — Roberto ma man, how goes?
McKenzie saw through the affected nonchalance so completely, he could have been sitting in the same room. — You were in some state last night, ya fuckin lightweight. Tryin tae match me on the absinthe. Leave it alaine, pal.
Of course, those mad, fevered, hallucinogenic dreams of absinthe.
Panic seized Skinner in its iron fist and shook him like a rag doll. — Rab, ma case. The briefy ah hud last night. Ye seen it?
— Ohhh, ah dunno aboot that, McKenzie pursed, his teasing tones simultaneously exposing Skinner to fear and elation.
— You goat it?
— Might have, McKenzie said coolly, evidently enjoying himself.
— So ah wis at yours last night?
— Aye.
— Geez it, ah need it, Rab.
— Well, ye ken whaire ah’ll be in half an ooir, McKenzie challenged.
— Right . . . Skinner said, putting the phone down.
And a perverse thought gripped him, the idea that, given certain conditions, he could actually come through here.
Skinner pulled off his socks and staggered into the shower. Yes, it could all still be salvaged, but it needed the exercise of a supernatural will-power that only sheer desperation could engender.
As he scrubbed away last night’s shell of scum, he could feel his body kick into gear, working, processing, expelling new toxic trash that would drip from him, its stench wafting up Cooper’s nose. Aye, it would be a rare atmosphere for his boss to savour as he recalled last night’s humiliation while deliberating, with cold, systematic bitterness, how he’d take his revenge on Daniel Skinner.
McKenzie, a site electrician, was not on a job until the afternoon, so where he would be at eight thirty that morning was the Central Bar at the foot of Leith Walk. The presentation was at eleven and Skinner had to clock in by ten to meet the flexitime deadline. He reasoned that he’d make it in fine time. When he got to the Central, his first sight was of McKenzie, holding up the case by the handle and shaking it. Big Mac was already downing the Guinness.
Skinner looked, with a sickening envy, at the pint of black elixir, perched so temptingly in front of McKenzie on the newly polished, refurbished bar. How he craved its reassuring dimensions in his hand, the sour taste of the liquid in his mouth, its comforting volume in his guts. The Central Bar, with its welcoming booths, its homely atmosphere of tatty splendour evoking the area’s wealthy mercantile past and underscoring its present no-frills down-to-earth unpretentiousness. He loved it so much and to be torn from this comforting womb and shunted up the hill to Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, to that place of artifice, bullshit and deceit . . . surely he could have one. Just one pint, to take the edge off his pain. Hair of the dog. Aye, it would improve his performance, therefore it was responsible behaviour.
On the second pint of Guinness, Skinner felt all the drinks from the previous night come flooding back through his system. — Rab, he slurred in foggy concern (but only concern rather than panic, as the drink had restored perspective), — I’ve got this presentation and I’m fucked again . . .
As so often happened in the drunkard’s scene when the protagonist started not to care, it was the comrade, hitherto a marginal player in the drama, who took on the mantle of responsibility. Thus Big Rab McKenzie thrust a wrap of cocaine into Danny Skinner’s hand. — A straightener, he smiled.
— Thanks, Rab, Skinner said with genuine emotion, — a wee tickle’ll sort ays right oot.
14
Presentation
IT WAS SHORTLY after his death that she’d found them, when she’d been compulsively wandering around the house, like she was looking for Keith. She even went to the attic, climbing the creaking metal steps stiffly and tentatively, almost sick with fear as she had no head for heights.
This factor, and her sense that she was intruding on her son’s space, made her more inclined to visit the garden shed. She liked it there, enjoying the paraffin and creosote smells she associated with her husband. She tackled the spiders and their webs and the slugs and their slimy trails, for though those creatures made her squeamish, they couldn’t be allowed to desecrate Keith’s special place. Growing appreciative of the tranquillity, Joyce quickly came to see what he had liked about sitting in there with a book. She would sometimes take a pot of tea in with her, switching on the oil heater, which gave the place a cosy, intimate warmth the dry central heating indoors couldn’t match.
It was in the shed that she came across the diaries, a big pile of notebooks in an old drawer under a workbench that was covered in ringed coffee stains from the edge of his mug. They were a guilty pleasure; she kept them to herself, feeling like a greedy hoarder of a treasure that should be shared.
Joyce had read them many times since finding them, but was still intoxicated with anticipation whenever she picked them up. And she always froze a little on reading his words; pondering and re-interpreting the most innocuous until her head spun and the narrative became meaningless. The journals, which started in 1981 and ended in 1998, were written in a peculiar spidery script that hardly seemed to be his. She found it difficult to make them out and even bought a magnifying glass to help her, despite feeling bad about her intrusiveness. Yet even in the mundane day-to-day observations, a fierce love burned through their pages, vindicating her stance and ultimately never failing to give her anything other than great comfort.
She often whiled away hours poring through th
em. On this occasion she tutted in self-reproach when she looked at the shed’s rusty old alarm clock, putting the diaries back and heading indoors. Upstairs, she loaded the dirty laundry into the washing basket, catching a scent in her nostrils and holding a pair of underpants up to the light. Puckering in sour disgust, she put them back into the basket and didn’t look as she squashed them into the washing machine.
It had been a good weekend for Brian Kibby. Working with devoted industry on his offering for Tuesday, he was pleased to see what he considered to be a slick, well-argued presentation come together. Additionally, he’d been able to get up to Nethy Bridge for a Hyp Hykers weekend ramble where he sat beside Lucy Moore on the bus back to the city. Into the bargain, three of his Harvest Moon chickens had lain eggs. But when he arrived home from the trip he found his mother crying, with a set of John Menzies notebooks on her lap.
Kibby swallowed hard. Somehow those black-bound desk diaries had a coldly portentous aspect to them. — What’s is it, Mum?
His mother gazed up at him, an evangelical stain in her brown eyes. Since her husband’s death she’d dug herself deep into the foxhole of her religious belief, rediscovering the literalist Free Church faith of her girlhood, to the concern of Mr Godfrey, her local Church of Scotland minister. Her obsession with spiritual matters, while reducing down to the base ingredients of her beliefs, simultaneously became more eclectic. In town shopping recently, she’d engaged in an intense debate with some Buddhists, and had even started regularly seeing some visiting young Texan missionaries. Those suited, crew-cutted, bespectacled young men from the New Church of the Apostles of Christ came round to the house with pamphlets, which Joyce studied with enthusiasm. They often gave her succour, though not as much as the notebooks she was reading. — Read this, Brian. It’s your dad’s diaries. I found them in his cupboard in the garden shed. I’d never gone in there . . . I didn’t like to . . . it was always his place. I just heard this voice, like he’d be there, and I know it’s daft, but I went . . .
Although at that point he saw that his mother’s tears were bitter-sweet, Brian Kibby was highly resistant to this idea. — Mum, I don’t want to, it’s Dad’s private stuff . . . he said, feeling as if they were prising the lid off his father’s coffin.
Joyce, though, was insistent, infused as she was with an energy and enthusiasm he hadn’t seen in her for a long time. — Read it, son, it’s okay, you’ll see. Just from there, she pointed at an entry, compelling his widening eyes to follow.
I used to fret about Brian, worrying that his hobbies, all this model-railway stuff, was isolating him from the other lads at school, setting him apart. But I’d rather see him running a model railway than running with some of the tickets I did back when I was a lad. It’s great to see him in this hiking club with good kids, getting out and enjoying himself.
Our Brian’s a grafter. He’ll get what he wants through hard work, that one.
Caroline takes after me but she’s got more brains than I ever had. I just hope she uses them and does well at the university. I hope she can curb that wanton, arrogant streak that almost did me in, because she’s my pride and joy, that lassie.
Brian Kibby read with tears welling up in his eyes.
— See, son, see how much he loved you! Joyce jaggedly shrieked, desperate that her son interpret her late husband’s words as she herself had done.
But they were unambiguous enough. It was true; it was there in black and white. –Aye . . . aye . . . it’s great to read it, he gasped in affirmation.
— We should show them to Caroline . . . Joyce ventured.
A ball of unease rattled in Brian Kibby’s chest. — Naw, Mum, she’s going through a tough time.
— But they might give her comfort . . .
— She needs tae stay focused on her studies though, Mum, not wasting time reading old journals. Let’s leave it till she’s stronger and got the course out the way. That’s what Dad would want!
Joyce Kibby saw the fervour in her son’s eyes and was happy to defer. —Yes . . . that was so important for him, she conceded.
Kibby ground his teeth, savouring his assertiveness. He was going to show them all, especially that bully Skinner, what he was made of.
Danny Skinner’s heart thudded in crazed rhythm like a child’s stick dragged against a long set of railings as he ascended in the lift towards the departmental conference room. The cocaine had been the best idea though; it had given his mind some clarity, and restored his confidence.
What had happened with Cooper was outside of work hours and fuck all to do with anything.
He’d look Cooper straight in the eye when he walked into that conference suite, and if he wanted to say something, then let him.
Either we sort it out through official channels, Cooper ya cunt, or we sort it out outside, man to man. What’s it to be, Cooper? Eh? Sorry, what was that? Didnae quite fuckin well catch ye thaire, ya radge, what is it you’re fuckin well sayin then, cunt? Eh? Nowt? Aw, so it’s ‘nowt’ wir gittin now, is it? Aye, thought so.
The doors of the lift flew open and Danny Skinner marched stiff-backed down the corridor and into the conference room. On entry he was almost taken aback as the white light from the neon strips bounced off the cream walls and into his wired head, evoking the white room before death, he considered, but without apprehension, as he had the white powder on his side.
Fuck them.
Most of the staff stood around the coffee trolley, waiting to fill their beakers from the urn. He could do with a coffee, but he was late and the fact that many hadn’t taken their seats handed him back the initiative. So Danny Skinner flashed a cokehead’s grin at Cooper, who gave a slow, expressionless nod in return. Skinner thought that you could hang Tolstoy’s complete works into a heartbeat of Cooper’s silence.
— Hi, folks, Danny Skinner said breezily, making his way to the overhead projector. A click of his thumb switched it on, as he snapped open his briefcase. His stuff was only half ready, but he’d wing it okay.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Foy looking at his watch.
Cooper stood up. — Please be seated, folks, he said gregariously, then gruffly added, — Danny, are you ready?
— Willing and able, Skinner smiled, continuing to stand as the last of his colleagues sat down. He heard a wheeze of laughter and watched Kibby dance into his chair like a puppet on a string, twitching inanely at a remark of Foy’s.
They’re fuckin talking about me.
Skinner felt his pores open up and bleed like a victim’s skin under a psychopath’s blade. Despite his nagging suspicion that everyone present saw him as a Victorian freak show, he began authoritatively. — So much of our city’s reputation as a major tourist centre rests on the quality of its restaurants and cafés. This, in turn, is dependent on the rigour and vigilance of this department, and, specifically, the quality of its inspection and supervisory teams . . .
He took out his first slide and let the static tear it on to the projector’s surface. He looked at the shock on the assorted faces as he turned to see
CCS RULE
in big green letters on the screen behind him. McKenzie, he cursed, then smiled, quickly putting the slide down and picking up the correct one, which showed a flow chart of the current reporting procedure. — We have saboteurs in our midst, he smiled, to largely reciprocated grins. Pleased that his friend’s casual subversion couldn’t faze him, he continued: — As we know, the quality of our staff is of the highest level. The same, however, cannot be said of some of the anachronistic working procedures we are currently adopting. The reporting procedures, particularly, are in serious need of an overhaul. There’s no question about that in my mind. They don’t meet my own section’s requirements, let alone the broader needs of the department as a whole, he said earnestly, sweeping his hands around the room to magnanimously include colleagues from the other two sections.
Time to kick up a gear.
— Far less do they meet the exigencies of the service,
Skinner barked, almost threateningly, watching Foy’s face turn the colour of the Forth Bridge. It was common knowledge that Foy had designed these procedures years ago, and had steadfastly resisted their overhaul. — The present system of inspector responsibility for designated units, without rotation, for years, and under the same supervision, leaves far too much room to develop the kind of relationships with restaurateurs that encourages the turning of blind eyes and petty corruption.
As Foy tried to control his shaking and Kibby pouted in hostility, Skinner flicked on another slide and started to outline his alternative procedure, involving cross-checking and the rotation of duties. However, towards the end of his spiel, he started to feel unwell, becoming tired and faltering. His voice had dropped to the extent that they could hardly hear him at the back.
— Can you speak up a wee bit please, Danny? Shannon asked him.
A sharp bolt of betrayal thumped like an arrow into Skinner’s chest. He tried to compose himself, but was overwhelmed by the thought that Shannon had also applied for this job.
Surely she’s no trying tae set me up, she wouldnae be such a cunt, surely . . .
— Sorry . . . eh . . . a bit of a cold, he said, looking icily at her before addressing the table again. — Eh . . . I think I’ve run out of steam here. Anyway, that’s the suggested procedure. It’s in the briefing notes . . . any questions? he slurred, slumping into the seat.
A few quizzical faces flashed looks across the table, but the silence was short-lived. — How much is the new procedure likely to cost? Kibby squeaked loudly, sitting forward in the chair, his big eyes trained on Skinner.
One fucking clean shot at that cunt’s face . . . that’s all it would take . . .
— I haven’t come up with specific figures, Skinner said, so repulsed he couldn’t even look at Kibby, — but I’d envisage no significant cost increases.
Skinner felt the limpness of his response in the semi-incredulous faces of those around him.