Espedair Street by Iain M. Banks

Author:Iain M. Banks [Banks, Iain M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Fiction
ISBN: 0333449169
Google: 7vD0hHiLKCEC
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 1987-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

NINE

I sniffed my fingers; they still smelled of rubber, or lubricant, or whatever the hell it is makes condoms smell the way they do. Betty hadn’t always been so doubly cautious; it was only during the last year- as stories about AIDS multiplied faster than even the disease - that she’d started using the damned things. I’d washed my hands at least once since last night, but they still smelled. I wondered if anybody else would be able to smell it.

I lay in bed. It was raining; another rainy Saturday in Glasgow. Hail and snow mixed in with the rain, and a ragged-clouded sky between the showers. Rick Tumber was due to arrive tomorrow. I thought about getting out of the city again, but couldn’t think where to go.

Edinburgh? I hadn’t been there for a year or so and I’d always liked the place. Or maybe I could get a booking at one of the hotels in Aviemore and have a terribly festive and maybe even snowy Christmas there. But I didn’t feel like it. I have a very old-fashioned attitude to Christmas; I try to ignore it. This is an old-fashioned Scottish attitude, of course, not an English one.

It’s changed here too now, largely thanks to TV and a combination of very expensive toys, saturation advertising and the tyranny of a child’s tears, but even I can remember when most people would work Christmas day to get an extra day at Hogmanay. All changed. But I still hate Christmas. Bah and humbug and all that.

I didn’t want to stay and see Rick Tumber, but I couldn’t be bothered getting up and going. Even the fact it was raining was enough to put me off. Anyway; McCann and I usually investigated a few pubs on a Saturday night, and I hadn’t said I was thinking about going away. It would be bad manners to pullout now.

I sniffed my fingers again, thinking about Betty and wondering whether I felt like heading down to the crypt to guddle about in the studio. There were a few jingles and potential themes I could work on, but I didn’t really feel very enthusiastic. Rain beat against the windows of the tower bedroom. I turned on the TV monitor and looked at the dull grey views of the various doors and walls. God, it looked depressing.

Wes did eventually rig his house for vision as well as sound. People stopped coming to see him after a while; maybe that was what he had in mind all the time. I did screw Jasmine, and we both found it a thoroughly disappointing experience. We tried a few more times but we just didn’t match. She took the chauffeuse uniform with her when she went off to front a punk band; I counted myself lucky she hadn’t taken the car as well. Last I heard she was married to a car dealer, had two kids and lived in Ilford.

I peered closely at the monitor when I switched to the Elmbank Street camera.

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