The Quarry by Banks Iain M

Author:Banks, Iain M. [Banks, Iain M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9780316281867
Publisher: Redhook
Published: 2013-01-01T07:00:00+00:00

5

‘Oh, Kit,’ Paul says as I go back into the sitting room. ‘Thought you’d gone to bed.’ Paul is kneeling at the table between the two couches. The mirror has been taken off the wall above the mantelpiece and laid on the table; Paul is chopping up lines of white powder from a small pile near the centre.

‘Should have gone to somebody’s room,’ Haze says. ‘Told you.’

‘Too bloody cold,’ Ali says. ‘Knew we should have brought our own heater.’

‘Blow the fuses,’ Paul says, brow furrowed as he taps at the mirror.

‘That’s all right,’ I’m saying, as Hol sits back in her couch, rolling her eyes, and Pris says,

‘Hope you don’t mind, Kit,’ and Rob is saying,

‘He’s a grown-up …’

‘You won’t tell Guy, will you?’ Ali says to me. ‘He’ll be upset.’

‘Yeah,’ Hol says. ‘Though upset as in jealous, not disapproving. That’d be the rankest hypocrisy.’

‘No, it’s okay,’ I tell them. ‘Doesn’t bother me.’

‘This is definitely the time to do this,’ Paul says, chopping away with a black credit card. ‘When we have all day tomorrow to recover.’

‘Never used to need time to recover,’ Rob says.

Paul pushes a line carefully to one side, making it parallel with half a dozen others. ‘Also, we’ve all been getting a bit drunk there; this’ll sharpen us back up again.’

‘Yeah, align our excuses,’ Hol says quietly, watching Paul.

‘I think,’ Haze says, ‘the least we can do is include Kit in. Don’t you think?’

‘What, rather than exclude him out?’ Hol says.

‘Yeah,’ Haze says, looking at me. ‘Only if he wants. Not trying to force anybody or anything. Just polite. You use somebody’s space, you offer them a share. Etiquette. Guy being indisposed, asleep, whatever; falls to our Kit, doesn’t it? That’s right, isn’t it, Paul?’

‘Sure is,’ Paul says. He glances up at me. ‘Cut you in here, chief?’

‘Play your own game, Kit,’ Hol says quietly.

‘Yeah, sure,’ I say, squatting on my pouffe. ‘I assume that’s coke?’

‘Yup,’ Paul says.

‘Oh, I’ve done that before,’ I tell them. They all look surprised. Hol most of all.

‘My last birthday,’ I tell them. ‘Guy got us some. We both did it. Said in the old days he’d have been expected to take me to a brothel but this would have to do.’

‘Wow,’ Pris says.

‘That’s our Guyster!’ Haze says, shaking his head and grinning.

‘I think in the old days the brothel visit would probably have happened earlier than your eighteenth,’ Hol says, looking at me oddly.

‘Modern parenting,’ Rob says.

‘Still a lot of lines there,’ Ali observes, as Paul chops another couple.

‘Guy took some of this just a couple of months ago?’ Hol is saying, frowning. ‘How did that go down?’

‘Not great,’ I tell her. ‘I think he nearly had a heart attack. I was going to phone for an ambulance but he wouldn’t let me. He said afterwards he thought he might have found a good way to off himself when the time came; a couple of Belushi-size lines and his heart would just thrash itself to a pulp.’

‘You’re not actually intending to take any, are you?’ Ali is saying to Rob.

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