69 Things to Do With a Dead Princess (7 page)

Farina, Alan informed me, was a complete bummer, the worst kind of hip writing you could imagine. Leonard Cohen on downers. The Ballard didn’t have a lot to recommend it either, a late work where every concession was made to outmoded literary motifs such as characterisation. Alan said he’d heard it argued that
Cocaine Nights
was Ballard’s attempt at camp, the author was simply sending himself up, parodying both his own work and that of more conventional novelists. Alan didn’t buy into this theory. A bad book was a bad book was a bad book.
Cocaine Nights
bristled with middle-brow clichés including an opening sequence that did little more than establish the narrator as a travel writer. Ironically, the hero swiftly abandons this pursuit and takes up the management of a leisure club. Described baldly, this sounds as if it must be parody but Alan assured me that the words simply fell dead from the page. No wonder the book had been shortlisted for the 1996 Whitbread Novel Award.

Alan was damning about
Head Injuries
too. He called it reactionary. Conrad Williams was a young writer specialising in what enthusiasts describe as spectral fiction. Basically this meant a horror novel with literary aspirations. Its protagonists were lonely and Williams explores their past and present lives in the kind of tedious detail that could only appeal to retards who appreciate ‘literary depth’ and ‘characterisation’. The book’s primary redeeming feature was the way Williams kept the explanation of what was happening open, so that the reader was forced to make their own choice between a psychological and a supernatural explanation.

Alan was considerably more enthusiastic about
Come
and
Perfumed Head.
Both dispensed with a linear plot, which was something Alan always appreciated in a contemporary novel. While experimental fiction had been popular in the 60s and 70s. with a temporary waning of revolutionary contestation and the ongoing conglomeration of the publishing industry, editors had become increasingly conservative and most of those based in the British Isles viewed non-linear fiction with complete disdain. Experimental writing was rarely published, and the few works of this type that did appear inevitably came out on independent presses.
Come
and
Perfumed Head
would find their readers over time precisely because they transcended the times at which they were produced.

A ring road looped us around the suburbs of Dundee, then suddenly we were parking on Union Street with the silvery waters of the Tay Estuary almost visible a few hundred yards to the south. Alan had the keys to a flat on the west side of the street. We climbed the stairs and found ourselves inside Pete Horobin’s Data Attic. Horobin was an artist who during the 80s documented every aspect of his life: what time he got up, went out, who he met. He even recorded when he had a shit. The records of this activity were stored in the flat in notebooks and on data sheets. Every day for ten years Horobin had stencilled the date on a sheet of paper and then attached a photograph or some other memento of the hour. Horobin claimed that he was breaking the creative process into its constituent parts but the results actually came across as a Kafkaesque bureaucracy gone mad.

Visiting the flat gave me an inkling of what those who’d discovered the
Marie Céleste
must have felt on boarding that deserted ship. Horobin had saved everything he’d used during the 80s. The flat was full of worn-out shoes and clothes, not to mention the packaging of all the food he’d consumed. Give it 50 years and this stuff would be a gold mine, museums would be bidding millions for it. But until it attained rarity it was just worthless junk. Horobin had disappeared, allegedly in the direction of the North Pole. Although he’d been unemployed for most of the ten years of the project, Horobin had somehow managed to buy the place. I never did discover why Alan had access to the flat or who covered the bills for its missing owner.

The aesthetic madness of the Data Attic contrasted sharply with the chaos of books that overflowed Alan’s flat in Aberdeen. Horobin’s detritus was ordered, everything was catalogued and put away in its place. Still it made little sense for someone to fill their pad with junk even if they wanted to create a time capsule. Alan, of course, considered this total environment to be far more sinister than an ascetic expression of taste. The Data Attic was Pete Horobin’s way of imposing his consciousness on others. It was the means by which he intended to inject his subjectivity into receptive young minds. I don’t know whether Alan was attempting to impress me or distract me. Behind the flat was a block of offices and I was keen to have sex in the back bedroom because I knew scores of white-collar workers would be able to watch me as I undressed.

Alan dropped his trousers quite unselfconsciously. He frigged himself and told me to get my kit off. I halfheartedly resisted these entreaties and found myself wrestling Alan on the bed. After much laughing, dragging and pushing, Alan succeeded in getting his hand on my chink of delight. I enjoyed watching his face beam with satisfaction as his eager fingers felt the swelling mound and soft, rounded lips which formed the outer portion of my sex. Alan praised and kissed me. Pressed hard against me. He pinched my clitoris and his fingers rubbed my slit, as he softly pulled up my frock and pulled down my M&S knickers until I was at last exposed in the way he desired. Alan positioned me on the bed so that any of the desk jockeys who cared to look could get a full view of my delights.

Alan’s eyes sparkled when he kissed the lips of my cunt and then thrust in his tongue. He was leaning over me on one side, so I let my hand stray up his thigh. Alan’s prick stiffened as my fingers closed around it. He seemed greatly pleased and lifting himself up, he pushed it forward towards my face. I began to frig the erection, all the while keeping my gaze fixed firmly on the prick. Alan asked me to give him a blow job. I took his manhood in my mouth and twined my tongue around it. Alan moaned and I sucked. As I pulled myself free and told Alan to shove his dick up my slit, I noticed that a number of office workers had abandoned their tasks and were gazing at us through the bedroom window. Knowing I had an audience got me excited and it wasn’t long before I’d come. I let Alan bang away for a few minutes, then pushed my grinding partner onto his back and jerked him off.

Adjusting my clothing I gazed out of the window. White-collar workers busied themselves at their computers, studiously avoiding my gaze. Alan smoothed the bed sheets, determined to leave the flat exactly as we’d found it despite the fact that its owner was unlikely to return. I was given a lightning tour of Dundee city centre. Bland pedestrianised streets giving access to some extremely ugly shopping malls. The Hilltown had more ambience but despite its position on rising ground and general aura of attractiveness, this area proved incapable of dominating the city’s psychogeography. From the Hilltown the visit to Dundee concluded with a sprint to the summit of Law Hill, then ten minutes at the top to take in the view. Returning to the car past the Nethergate Centre made me appreciate Aberdeen and its famous architect Archibald Simpson. My adopted home had succeeded in retaining some dignity in the face of ever-increasing commodification and a trend towards extremely tacky public art.

There was something Alan wouldn’t address, perhaps couldn’t address. Once we arrived at Edzell Castle I tried to get at it by asking him about his favourite books, a top ten or twenty. Alan was offended, he wasn’t interested in giving his opinion or compiling lists since this was precisely the kind of banal response sought by market researchers and utilised in the mass media. We wandered amongst the box hedges in Edzell’s formal garden, a renaissance masterpiece, disturbing pheasants who’d rush off into neighbouring fields. There were some really beautiful emblems carved into the remains of the castle. I recorded that we took in Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Venus, Mercury and Luna. Alan’s mood improved and I knew I’d hit on something when I asked him about the writer K. L. Callan. My companion considered Callan’s commercially published works to suffer from an excessive deference to literary aesthetics, but he rated the disgraced novelist’s more eccentric and often self-published productions very highly indeed. In particular, and as I already knew, Alan was obsessed with a non-fiction work entitled
69 Things to Do with a Dead Princess.
I was to hear a good deal more about this text over the following days. But for now I must try not to jump ahead of myself. At this point I still hadn’t read the copy of Callan’s book that Alan had presented to me several days before.

Looking at my notes, I find it difficult to put everything together exactly as it happened. If memory serves me we drove via Fettercairn to the Clatterin Brig Restaurant. George and Ina, who run the place, offer big meals at low prices and their vegetarian dishes have the surreal quality of pub grub. My spring rolls came with sweet and sour sauce and rested on a huge bed of rice. This substantial platter was fleshed out with a hint of salad and a massive portion of chips.
⁶
From the Clatterin Brig we drove to the Grassic Gibbon Centre at Arbuthnott. Our indifference bordered on disdain as we viewed pens, coins and a dressing gown that had once belonged to the long dead hack writer Lewis Grassic Gibbon.

Rather than heading directly home from Arbuthnott we took in the beach at Inverbervie. Our next stop was a Templar kirkyard at Maryculter. We weren’t banging about Deeside because Alan was interested in the royal connection. His obsession with Maryculter had developed after he’d read
The Temple and the Lodge
by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh. At least this is what Alan told me. However, when it came to discussing books Alan plainly enjoyed making ambiguous statements. One might have taken what Alan had to say about Baigent and Leigh as praise, but as I became increasingly familiar with his modus operandi I realised that his pronouncements on the more outlandish theories concerning Freemasons were a not-so-subtle brand of satire.

The kirkyard was walled and situated immediately behind a country hotel. There wasn’t another human being in sight when we arrived. Alan’s hand went around my waist and he pressed me in his arms. He kissed my cheek. He kissed my lips. My imagination was inflamed as Alan’s toyings became bolder. His hands went under my blouse and my breasts were brought to light. As Alan waxed warmer I grew increasingly languid and yielding. He lifted my skirt and exposed to view my fleshy thighs and the rich tuft of hair which nestled at a voluptuous angle at their junction. He pushed me onto my back and after whipping off my knickers, pulled my legs apart. Then Alan parted the soft, moist folds of my skin with his fingers. He pressed his middle finger into my love passage and I squirmed with delight. Before long, Alan’s finger had been replaced by his cock. He plunged in and a shiver of delight passed through my frame. We both came quickly. It took only a few moments to adjust our clothing and depart.

I remember that after leaving the graveyard we went into the Maryculter Hotel and had coffee. Alan paid, and if I recall correctly I was horrified by the price. In retrospect it is very difficult to place everything in order, my own memories have become confused with things Alan told me and incidents I read about later in his books and diaries. I’m sure we went into the kirkyard before going into the hotel but I’m not sure whether we hit Maryculter before Portlethen. Anyway, at some point before heading back to the Granite City, we visited four stone circles to the west of Portlethen. Craighead Badentoy was our first stop. This much-disturbed four-poster belonged to people running dog kennels. We knocked at the door and once all the dogs had been brought in from the field we were given a tour of the stones by a very friendly woman. The circle had a nice feel to it, the raised bank making it particularly enticing as a location for an outdoor shag – although there was little chance of having sex at the site given that most of the time it was overrun by dogs. After thanking our guide for sharing her knowledge of the site with us, we walked down the hill and through an industrial estate to Cairnwell. This is a Clava ring cairn that has been moved a few hundred yards to provide a feature on an otherwise featureless industrial estate. Alan carried Dudley on his back to both these circles.

Having retrieved the car, we backtracked to Auchquhorthies, only a mile and a half from Craighead Badentoy. At some point we made love under a waning moon at this monument. As far as I can recall our first visit to this recumbent stone circle was made while it was still light. We didn’t bother asking the farmer’s permission to go into the field since Alan generally preferred to trespass. The circle was comprised chiefly of red stones although the recumbent and the one remaining flanker were of quartz-streaked granite. A mere 300 yards away was Old Bourtreebush, and all we had to do to get to this badly damaged circle was cross a field. It was while traversing the field between these two ancient monuments that I began a series of ongoing conversations with Alan about horror and slasher films. Alan was fascinated by low-budget celluloid of the 70s and 80s, not simply because he’d grown up watching this trash, he was morbidly obsessed with the way their mainly male audiences identified with female victim-heroines.

I remember one time I went out to Old Bourtreebush with Alan’s ventriloquist’s dummy and it might have been the books I’d been reading, but I ended up dressing the dummy in garlands of grass and trying to get a cow to eat it. Alan always carried the dummy around in the car and I guess we had it with us that first time we headed out to Auchquhorthies. Anyway the cows wouldn’t eat the dummy despite the fact that it was dressed in a fine suit of grass. Alan said cryptically that I’d end up eating him. Or perhaps this was when I first declared my intention to make a meal from Alan’s mortal remains, or at least began planning to do just that. I’m jumping ahead of myself here but what Alan was doing to me with all his talk about books and subjectivity was like rape and in the end it more or less killed me. It wasn’t that I wanted to murder Alan, the script simply made his death inevitable, that’s the whole point of a rape-revenge narrative, the rapist has to die.