The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs (29 page)

— It’s served its purpose, certainly for me, and I suspect for you as well, she says. — It’s time to move on.

A flood of emotion almost overwhelms me. She’s right, but I just need . . . somebody. Why is it girls always look at their most beautiful, most desirable, just as they’re telling you to fuck off? I feel my eyes moisten. — You’re right, I say, sliding my hand on top of hers and gripping it lightly. — You’re a brilliant lassie, one of the best people I’ve ever met, I tell her in utter sincerity, — it just came at the wrong time for both of us, I concede. — I know it’s the fashionable kind of thing people say in these circumstances without really meaning, but I really would like it if we could stay friends, and by that I mean proper friends.

— Goes without saying, she says, now a wee bit teary herself through a look of mild disappointment. You can see why; the chucker psyche is that they build themselves up to give you the elbow, going through all the lines in their head. So the very presence of the other party is by its nature disappointing, even before the other person speaks. She brushes her eyes and rises, kissing me on the cheek.

— Not staying for a drink? I ask, it coming out a bit desperate, but I need to talk to someone about this Yank chef.

— I can’t, Danny, she says sadly, but with an emphatic shake
of the head. — I’ll see you at work tomorrow. Goodbye.

She heads across the bar, her shoes clicking on the marble-tiled floor.

Before I have another drink I’m going to go and see my mother. I’m going to ask her about chefs she worked with, mention some names, see how she responds. I doss back my pint and head down the Walk, catching a 16 bus when I get to the point that I don’t trust myself to pass another boozer.

I stop off at my place and look again at De Fretais’s book.

Fuck me, that cunt is so up himself. No self-obsessed, he says!

When I get round to my mother’s the front door’s open. I walk inside, down the narrow hall, over the Indian rug I’ve always admired. She’s in the front room at the kitchen area and Busby’s here. He’s sitting at the breakfast bar, his bulbous nose and cheeks glowing with a whisky hue. The cat glares at me from his lap. His at-home arrogance crumbles with my appearance and he folds up some documents and sticks them into a
battered suitcase. — Hello, son, he says anxiously, obsequiously.

I stare at my Old Girl in accusation and she leans back against the kitchen worktops and stares back at me: mocking and sluttish as she blows some smoke from a cigarette. There’s a glass of whisky by her side. The song ‘Rag Doll’ plays on the radio.

What the fuck is going on here? When was the last time that old cunt ever sold insurance?

— Why, hu-low, stranger, my mother says to me, in a totally snidey way. It’s like she knows that she’s won cause I’ve come down here to see her, and she’s delighting in it.

Something in her behaviour gives the old insurance man confidence. A gleam comes into his eye and his lips twist wickedly as his cigarette rises to meet them. The cat continues to stare at me in solemn, unwavering judgement. The three of them seem like conspirators.

— I can see that you’re busy. I’ll see ye when yir better dressed, I say, and I can’t stop it coming out scornfully.

As I depart I hear my mother say, — Well, goodbye, stranger . . . and their laughter; hers raucous and his wheezily melodious, like an old accordion; it follows me out the house and down the stairs.

I emerge into the street and head across the cobblestones, cutting down to the Water of Leith. I seem to walk for a while without knowing where I’m going till I’m consciously aware that I’m heading down the brae of Restalrig Road towards Canton’s Bar in Duke Street. Darkness is beginning to fall and the cold air scours my face.

That fucking cow, that great big fucking horrible sow, I only went round tae talk wi her and she’s got that little sleaze-bucket there . . .

Hello, son.

But everybody said that. Busby’s always said that to me.

In the pub I order a pint before I realise that for some reason the bar hasnae been fuckin well cleaned since yesterday. The barman tells me that somebody was stabbed in here last night,
with the polis treating it as attempted murder. — We just got the all-clear tae open, he says. — Didnae huv time tae clean things up. Forensics n that.

I’m oppressed by the rancid residue of the alehouse’s recent drunken, violent past. The nauseous odour of vomit sticks in my nose, along with that stench of stale cigarette smoke and the alcohol, how it permeates into everything. It was obviously shut earlier today: ashtrays remain full and last night’s glasses still pile up on the tables. An old girl takes a mop and some Shake n’ Vac to the tartan carpet, which is black with blood underneath the jukebox. I think I should go but the barman is serving me drink, so I find a corner and sit, cursing my lot.

Rejection.

Kay, Shannon, my Old Girl, Kinghorn, McKenzie even. Looks like the absentee father set the fucking trend. And wouldn’t that be the ultimate fucking slap in the chops, if he wasn’t the athletic Californian, but nasty wee Busby.

Hello, son.

If I can do it to Kibby, I can do it to that wee slimeball. I’ve always hated him. Now I’m focusing my hate on Busby.

BUSBY.

I HATE THAT SNIVELLING, MANIPULATIVE LITTLE CUNT.

I HAVE THE POWER TO DESTROY THAT WEE FUCKER.

HATE BUSBY

HATE BUSBY

HATE HATE HATE . . .

HATE BUSBY

HATE BUSBY

HATE HATE HATE . . .

This spiteful mantra continues until I become drained, and my head throbs. A couple of old boys come into the bar, register my intense stare into space and nod at each other, tossing me an over-the-shoulder glance. — Spot the loony, one laughs.

But in spite of my efforts, there’s nothing; no strange alchemy takes place. There is absolutely fucking zero to resemble the immense shattered, dizzying sensation, followed by the surge of energy when I put the hex on Kibby. Now I just feel stupid and self-conscious; aware of the looks I’m getting from the bar.

In spite of it all I just can’t muster the same hatred for Busby. Is this because it’s him, that thing, that’s my dad? Is it that I can’t kill my own?

So what is it about Kibby, this obsession? Just who is he to me?

THE DARKNESS WAS
illuminated by the pearly smiles that Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen flashed across the screen of the multiplex. The experience was, for Brian Kibby, entrancing and uplifting.
A New York Minute
was one of the best movies he’d seen in a long time. It was the way to go for the twins, he considered. Nonetheless, he worried about the images of them being burned into his brain. Tonight would be a big test. It had been twelve days since he’d last chalked up a black mark. He was doing so well.

On the way home he stopped at a newsagent and had browsed through a magazine, which featured the Olsen girls on the cover. He was horrified to read that one of them was involved in a battle with an eating disorder. On his return home, he was moved to write a letter of support to her mother.

Dear Mrs Olsen,

I was upset to hear about your daughter’s illness and I sincerely hope that Mary-Kate recovers from her health problems. My name is Brian Kibby. I am a twenty-one-year-old Edinburgh man who has recently contracted a terrible rare disease, and one that the doctors and medical specialists are at a loss to explain.

I very much enjoyed the movie
A New York Minute
, which I saw earlier today, and please pass on my wishes to the girls for continued success. I hope that we are able to see Ashley and Mary-Kate together again on the big screen soon.

I don’t have any motive for writing this note; this is

definitely not a begging letter. I just find your daughters very inspiring figures and want you to know that.

Yours sincerely,

Brian Kibby

He sent it care of the magazine, hoping they would forward it.

Due to the progressively debilitating nature of his illness, Kibby had stopped going out with the Hyp Hykers. The summer party, though, was a big event on their annual social calendar. Aware of how he was coming to be perceived, and in spite of his mounting frailty, he resolved to attend.

It had been Ken Radden’s idea to book the function rooms in the Zoological Gardens at Corstorphine. — Get two bunches of animals together, he had joked. The proximity of the venue was appealing to Kibby, who walked slowly down the main road, feeling the pain of dragging his aching, worn body with him. And then there were his nerves, those tattered, shredded nerves. They registered everyone who crossed his path as a hostile force, the most innocuous persons coming over to him like a McGrillen or a Skinner.

When he got to the do, he could feel the unease around him. Paranoia tore out of him; he wondered what they thought of him and he tried to make a big show of not drinking alcohol.

Despite his ostentatious efforts with the Pepsi and the orange juices, for the most part he was either resolutely ignored or met with stares of pity. Those who did engage with him only felt comfortable in conversation for a short while, then would quickly head off when somebody more suitable to talk to crossed their line of vision. He was an embarrassment, and felt it acutely.

I thought they were my friends. The Hyp Hykers. The crazy gang . . .

Then he saw Lucy. She was wearing a green dress.

She’s better than Mary-Kate or Ashley . . . or as good as . . .

She looked so beautiful, but he couldn’t approach her: not as the tubby, suspiring, red-eyed wreck that he now seemed to be. But she caught his eye and looked at him quizzically, the recognition slowly dawning in her expression and she cautiously approached him, tentatively asking, — How are you keeping?

It was a question . . . she’s no sure it’s me. She doesnae even ken for certain that it’s me!

Brian Kibby forced a sad smile of affirmation. — I . . . eh . . . I think I’m getting better but it’s slow, he said, finding himself almost moaning at his own lies. He then hopefully added, — Mibbe get a game of badminton again, when I feel up tae it . . .

— Yes, Lucy grinned forcibly, wanting the ground to swallow her up. To think she’d actually liked him, found him a bit fanciable, even. Rescue came in the form of Angus Heatherhill, who skipped across the floor and pushing his fringe out of his eyes said to her, — Hey, Luce, fancy a wee dance?

— Okay, Angus. Excuse us, Brian, she said, and left Kibby with a fresh orange juice which tasted like poison to him.

He watched them for a bit, first on the dance floor, then in the corner of the room.

His hands are all over her. She loves it as well. It’s like she’s mocking me!

She’s just like the rest of them!

Kibby sloped miserably away from the function, wandering into the night. As he headed down a cobbled path, towards the zoo exit and the main road, a screeching noise lacerated his bedraggled nerves. He felt his heart was going to explode in his chest. Then there followed a cacophony of squawks. Huge, murderous grunts heaved from somewhere behind him. The smells were overpowering as he hurried down the path and through the zoo gates. He got home as fast as his weary frame and a slow taxi could take him.

The next morning Kibby struggled through his agony, rose and boarded the train to Birmingham for the convention. He’d booked the ticket in advance and he was determined to confront Ian, who was certain to be there, and explain things to him. But on his arrival he felt too sick to visit the centre; apart from a tired, breathless canalside walk, he stayed in his hotel room, watching television. It was useless. There was no way he could face Ian or anyone else in this state. He had to go straight home next day. And that evening as he groaned in his bed back in Edinburgh, Brian Kibby noticed something else. He had come out in strange spots, which were like nothing he’d ever seen before.

Dr Craigmyre, called in by Joyce Kibby, could not believe what he was seeing. — Birmingham, did you say? he shakily enquired of the supine Kibby, who groaned in weak affirmation. — It’s only that . . . these look like mosquito bites to me!

Mosquito bites?

And Dr Craigmyre saw a strange thing as he looked at Brian Kibby. He saw a small blood vessel in his patient’s cheek rise and burst before his very eyes. Kibby felt it as an itch, and his face twitched.

The champagne cork popped as Danny Skinner stuck its frothing neck to his lips, washing down the two ecstasy pills, which were drying out his mouth and throat. The crowd around him on the dance floor let out a cheer as he passed the bottle round.

Skinner had enjoyed a good Ibiza, at least to outside eyes. There he was, just having it every night, and on the beaches during the day also. He never seemed to sleep. But in a club called Space as the morning broke, Danny Skinner himself couldn’t understand something. Why was it, in spite of Fatboy Slim hammering, pounding and tweaking the crowd of demented revellers into a frenzied liberation of the senses, he himself was thinking of nerds in anoraks? And how did it come about with the MDMA pulsing through him and with him
swamped in a sea of hugs and smiles in a force of goodwill, party hedonism and, yes, pure love that he was mentally scouring the canals and backstreets of Birmingham? And there was just no way that he could envisage why it was that, when he had his hand inside the silk knickers and on the tight buttock of a breathtakingly beautiful girl from Surrey called Melanie, her lithe body bending around him, rubbing in slow rhythmic thrusts against his groin, her burning hungry lips pressing against his, that he was thinking of . . .