— We may feel more sorry for the sad, self-loathing alcoholic than the bombastic one who thinks the whole world is out of step bar him, but by and large they’re the same creature.
Skinner nodded thoughtfully, then regaining his composure contended, — I’ve got to say that with the book, it was the shagging bits that interested me most.
He watched De Fretais laugh heartily and then regard him with more interest, raising his eyebrows to encourage Skinner to continue.
— You know, I liked all that stuff about the Archangel Tavern. That must have been some scene back then. Anthony Bourdain wrote about how punk attitudes influenced the development of cuisine in America, but this is the first time I’d heard it about the UK. Do you mind of Bev Skinner? She worked waitressing there at that time. My mother, he added.
De Fretais smiled and nodded, but he wasn’t giving anything away. Skinner considered that if there was any emotional connection with his mother, it had long since dissipated. There was evidence of neither animosity nor fondness. —That’s one name I do remember. She used to hang around with that local band, the Old Boys. Not a bad band as I recall, but they never got the profile they deserved.
— Aye . . . Wes Pilton, the singer, he’s no got a bad voice, Skinner lied. The Old Boys were a band his mother used to inflict on him from time to time.
— So how is your mother?
— Oh, she’s fine. Still goes on about punk like music just died after it.
— I soon got sick of punk myself. That sort of thing was an education for six months, but if you didn’t tire of it after that, you were a bit of a numpty, he said, then looked hesitant, as if realising that Bev Skinner might still be a hard-core punk. — But give your mum my regards. These were good times.
— She didn’t, eh; she and you were never . . . you know? Skinner smiled, trying to appear as non-threatening as possible, although kernels of anxiety were now burning slowly in his chest.
— What are you implying, Mr Skinner? De Fretais asked, rolling his eyes playfully.
— Well, you do have a reputation . . . from the book, and I was just wondering . . . Skinner smirked complicitly.
— Hand on heart, no, De Fretais said, and he seemed sincere, adding, — It probably wasn’t for want of trying. Even under all the unflattering make-up and dodgy gear, your mum was a looker as I recall. But she only had eyes for this other guy. For some reason it was all very clandestine stuff as I remember, but I think it was another chef, I don’t know which one. It was probably that Yankee pal of mine, Greg Tomlin. Overpaid, oversexed and over here, De Fretais laughed, regarding Skinner and venturing, — But your mother was a one-man gal, she was besotted with this guy. Yes, definitely a one-man woman, but you seem to be a wee bit more adventurous by nature.
— I’ll try anything once, and if it’s good, more than once, Skinner quipped.
— A man after my own heart, De Fretais said, looking around and dropping his voice. — Some of us are going on to a little private club later. A party in extremis situ, no holds barred. Interested?
— Too right, gie’s a shout when you’re ready, Skinner said eagerly.
Fuck knows where the fuck this is gaun, but I’ve got Kibby tae take the negative shit.
The locusts of the city ligging circuit had soon done their work, devouring everything behind the complimentary bar. It was apparent that very few would be staying on to buy rounds. Although the champagne wasn’t of great quality, it was free and Skinner had got a taste for it.
A middle-aged woman in fake fur appeared and threw her hands ceilingwards. — Alan! Darling, that book of yours is amazing. Tried the asparagus recipe on old Conrad and it was better than Viagra! I was planning to thank you from the bottom of my heart, but I’m thinking a little further down might be more appropriate.
— Delighted to be of service, Eilidh, De Fretais smiled, kissing the woman on both cheeks.
Skinner was finding the exchanges wearisome. This was obvious to De Fretais’s company, and they responded by keeping him at arm’s length. However, they seemed as irked as he did that the free drink was gone. Soon De Fretais caught his eye and they headed for the exit. Climbing the steps to street level, two taxis were waiting. Skinner followed De Fretais, two other men and a woman, into one of them. One of the men was Asian. He was small, but attired in an expensive-looking suede jacket. The woman, who seemed to Skinner to be in her mid-thirties, was well dressed, wearing a tailored suit that he took to be Prada.
The make-up is a wee bit heavy but she looks in no bad nick for her age.
Dinnae fancy the odds but: four guys and only one bird. Dinnae say we’re all on a line-up with this old boiler!
The other man had been looking intently at Skinner. He had dark hair and gaunt features with incongruously bulging eyes. With his taut, stingy lips, this gave him a permanently scandalised air. He and De Fretais were discussing food, as the car cruised the cobbled New Town streets.
— I’m prepared to bow to your expertise on this subject, Alan, but one would have thought that the French –
— All derived from the Greeks and Romans, De Fretais intervened. — Keep cutting back to the three main culinary traditions: Chinese, Roman and Greek. The Greeks and the Romans invented our Western way of eating, the ritual and the feast, the games. The idea that every sensual pleasure had to be explored, he said, turning again to Skinner who was now feeling a little unsettled.
They entered a basement building, after De Fretais had rung the bell, barking his name into the intercom. A tall, tanned man greeted them. He had hard brown eyes and short, curling brown hair, greying at the temples. — Alan, Roger . . . you’ve brought some friends along . . . he purred, looking Skinner up and down.
— Graeme . . . good to see you, De Fretais beamed. — You’ve met Anwar.
The Asian man extended his hand and the man called Graeme shook it.
— This is Clarissa, and this is Danny.
Graeme then took the woman’s hand and kissed her on both cheeks, before shaking hands firmly with Skinner. There was something harsh and predatory in his stare and Skinner felt the power in his grip. Though middle-aged, he looked in good physical condition. Skinner felt uneasy and for some reason kept thinking about Kibby.
De Fretais and Graeme led them into a large room. It was painted white and sparsely decorated, with huge ceilings, impressive cornices, a marble fireplace and an ornate brass and crystal chandelier. There was a long oak table adorned with some plates of food; smoked salmon, diced chicken, rice, various salads and antipasti and the like. Intriguingly for Skinner, he noted oysters, which he had yet to try, lying on beds of crushed ice in several large silver platters. Even more interesting were the copious quantities of champagne, some of it already bubbling in flutes. Beyond the table, the only other contents of the room were a big mattress with a dark purple drape across it, several cushions and a chaise longue. — We have to serve ourselves, unfortunately, Graeme boomed, and nobody was shy in coming forward. Skinner took an oyster for the first time and was instructed in how to eat it by De Fretais, letting it slide slowly down his gullet. — It’s . . . I think I like it, he said hesitantly.
— Remind you of something? De Fretais purred.
Skinner smiled wanly, before considering the other chef De Fretais had mentioned in the context of his mother. — That American boy who contributes one of the recipes, I think it’s the chocolate dessert one, is he doing alright?
— Greg. Yes, he’s Exec Chef and part owner of a highly-rated San Francisco eatery. Alas, he’s another one of us who has sold his soul to television and publishing.
Skinner was emboldened now by the drink and ready to ask more about Greg Tomlin, but Graeme came forward holding a plate, which he thrust in front of him. — Escargots?
— I’m not so sure about snails. Skinner screwed his face up doubtfully.
— Maybe it’s time you tried, Graeme said coldly.
Skinner shrugged and speared one, immersing it furthe
r into its garlic sauce before eating it. It looked like a mushroom and didn’t taste that different, he thought. The second taxi arrived; in it were two guys and three young women who weren’t at the do and whom Skinner reckoned were prostitutes.
— How do you feel about the national question, Mr Skinner? Roger asked him, in an accent Skinner could detect little Scots in.
— I think we Scots have done okay out of the union, he said, thinking that he was in safe territory in a New Town drawing room, a bastion of Unionist sentiment surely. — We give everybody the sob story about how we’re the last colony of the British Empire, but we played a big part in it with the development of slavery, racism and the Ku Klux Klan.
— I think it’s a little bit more complicated than that, Clarissa sneered, turning away from him.
Graeme, still hovering close, smiled tightly at him, — Yes, not views that will find much favour in this company.
Skinner suddenly felt like addressing one of the girls, to see if they had any positions on the issue, and tried to catch the eye of one who wore a tight blue blouse and whose bare arm was being stroked by one of the men, but Roger shuffled closer to him. — How old are you, Mr Skinner?
— Twenty-five, Skinner said, anticipating that he was about to be patronised and reasoning that an added couple of years might cushion the blow somewhat.
— Hmm, Roger doubtfully mused.
Clarissa turned to them both, addressing Roger, — Have you read Gregor’s paper in the latest Modern Edina Bulletin? I think it thoroughly debunks some of the crass generalisations, and she glanced at Skinner, briefly flickering her eyes at him, — that have been somewhat blithely made.
— Well, that’s me telt, Skinner smiled cheerfully, waltzing over to the table where he refilled his glass with more champagne. Who pays the piper calls the tune, he thought with satisfaction.
At De Fretais’s instigation, they relaxed on to the cushions, where Graeme began carefully measuring some clear, slightly bluish-tinted liquid from a bottle into Skinner’s champagne. — As you haven’t been here before, I’d suggest a little something to relax you, he smiled, but Skinner still felt the glacier in his stare.
Hesitating only for a second, he recommenced sipping the champagne. There was no discoloration, altered odour or taste arising from the addition of the liquid, and the bubbles continued to sparkle.
Thank fuck for Kibby.
And it did relax him. Feeling his muscles growing heavy, Skinner was happy to be helped out of his jacket, by Graeme and Roger. A mild nausea followed by a fleeting sensation of hunger hit him, before he seemed to lose all connection between reality and thought and he felt himself falling, tumbling off the cushions on to the floor, only partially aware that he had been pulled to it by Roger.
This sensation in my chest is oppressive, like my respiratory system is freezing up. I remember somebody once told me that their grandad was on an iron lung. I feel like my lungs are iron. I should be scared, panicky, but there’s something tranquil about it all, my head telling me that fear would simply be pointless: what will be will be . . . I’m thinking that it would be a good way to die, to pass over . . .
He didn’t resist, although at times he had the illusion that he could, as his belt was unbuckled and his trousers and underpants were slid down to his ankles then yanked from him. He felt his legs being pulled apart like slabs of dead meat. The thick, shag-pile carpet was in his face, making it even harder to breathe.
From a blurred view along the floor he saw shafts of light sweep in from under the door. Then he felt a heavy weight on him, followed by some movement and a stabbing sensation in his anus. Someone was on him, in him even. He fancied it was Graeme, but it might just as easily have been Roger. He could hear the man’s teeth grinding together in his ear; it was as if the man was in pain from being entered himself, maybe he was for all Skinner knew. Then he felt the man really breaching him, even through the drug, with an eye-watering force that seemed ready to split him in two. He heard curses that ought to have been sickening, —You dirty fucking North Brit whore, I’m fucking your stinking English-loving hole, you demented little ignoramus rent boy . . . but through the drug they were somehow rendered as tender as a mother’s lullaby.
After he was finished, another man took his place. He could vaguely discern that Anwar was giving another of the group the same treatment, was it Roger or Graeme or had somebody else come into the room? De Fretais had raised the woman Clarissa’s skirts and the back of his head was going up and down between her legs as she regarded Skinner in an intense, but contemptuous way. Two of the girls he assumed were prostitutes were caressing each other, egged on by male voices that seemed to tune in and out of his consciousness like radio stations on a long car journey.
Then he was asleep, and when he came to he found himself alone in the room. He pulled up his pants and trousers, slipped on his shoes and crept out the door. Every step was agony as a searing, scorching pain burned up his arsehole into his guts. Skinner cried in rage and tears of agony as he hobbled home, and when he got there and put his finger to his anus, it returned bloodied.
He felt foolish, violated and used, until he thought about that strange sleep. What could it do to heal him? He lay in bed, shaking in woeful, twitching paroxysms until it eventually came for him and took him away.
When he woke up he was refreshed. He touched his anus with his finger. There was no sign of any blood, wet or dried. It was like it had never happened.
It was like it had happened to somebody else.
Her own health had never been particularly good. A nervous woman, with a tendency towards viral infections, her almost translucent skin often had a greenish hue to it. She was prone to gagging at certain smells, and public toilets made her particularly squeamish. Indeed, such was her fatalistic demeanour, it was as if Joyce Kibby developed such illnesses as a show of solidarity, first with her husband, then her son. No matter how often she washed her hair it only seemed to alternate between scrawny and oily, or dry and brittle.
She knew that Keith had been a drinker before he met her. Through the AA he’d found the church and, through the church, her. When his illness became rampant Joyce had assumed that it had been his previous heavy drinking that had weakened his internal organs, but with what was now going on with Brian, it made her reassess her husband’s decline.
Joyce loved her children fiercely, but was aware that in Keith’s absence they would not so patiently indulge her tendency to fuss. She knew that she was often guilty of putting her fears into them and fought hard against her own natural instinct to do this. Joyce saw her late husband Keith’s strength in Caroline in particular, and she was reluctant to sap it or to sour the girl through her own weakness. Yet Caroline had come in tired, bleary and smelling of drink on a few occasions lately and while Joyce had noticed this she could not quite understand it. She had made a mental note to address the issue, but like so many of her cerebral self-postings, it got lost in a fog of despair.
Fear had defined her life. Brought up in Lewis in the Free Church of Scotland, she was taught to be God-fearing in the real sense of the term. Her Maker was essentially wrathful by nature, and if bad fate befell you, you spent your time trying to work out what you had done to displease him. As there was nobody else to blame for Brian’s condition, Joyce took the burden of guilt upon herself. She worried that she had spoiled him, that her mollycoddling was somehow responsible for lowering his immune system. Apart from this self-reproach, her only other strategies were to listen to the advice of the medical specialists, and pray.
The doctors, though still no wiser as to the causes and possible cure for Brian Kibby’s ailment, nonetheless found some unanimity through the observation of his condition. Bluntly, it seemed that Brian was rotting away from the inside. Brain, throat, chest, lungs, heart, kidneys, liver, pancreas, bladder and bowels were all corroding, under a sustained and ferocious attack, but what exactly from remained so phantom and abstruse.
Her relation
ship with Elder Allen and Elder Clinton (it seemed so strange referring to young men in that way) had cooled slightly, and they didn’t visit quite so often, in spite of the formidable meals she prepared for them, which they greatly appreciated. They became disconcerted when she tried to foist Free Church literature on them, which claimed that the Book of the Modern Testament was evil heresy, propagated by false prophets. Her zeal was disconcerting to the young missionaries, who reasoned that they had come to convert, not be reconditioned themselves.
Upstairs in his bedroom, Brian Kibby was trying to follow the advice of the pamphlet on masturbation. But while attempting to engineer distraction from thoughts of Lucy by playing Harvest Moon, he met Muffy in the village and his mouth went dry.
She’s only an icon . . . she’s only a graphic . . . it’s just a game . . .
Joyce had been unable to sleep and so had gone down into the kitchen to prepare food. As she ruminated on matters spiritual while making her Scotch broth, upstairs Brian had a searing attack. Sleeplessly sitting at his computer, he had resisted Muffy’s charms and was halfway through a game, repairing rain-damaged fences and reaping wheat, when a weird, dopey sensation came over him. Then suddenly, his insides seemed to buckle and twist and he fell off the chair and hit the floor, screaming helplessly in the face of a burning ache in his very core.
19
Dukes of Hazzard
IT WAS A bright, warm morning, although the wind coming off the North Sea was fresh and brisk. Skinner skipped up Leith Walk, nodding jovially if he made eye contact with anyone, whether acquaintances or strangers. His euphoria amplified when he got to the office and saw Kibby standing against the wall, looking in some distress.
His chorus and verse is totally Donald Ducked!
— Brian, Skinner smiled, — we should go through these inspection reports of yours, he said breezily, pulling up two hard plastic chairs which lay by the side of Kibby’s desk. — Take a pew.