The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs (16 page)

So McKenzie and Skinner drank with their customary enthusiasm, until Danny Skinner felt the delicious liberation of entry into the ‘not-giving-a-fuck-zone’. Yes, work was only a few hours away now, but it could be light years. And what did it matter? He, Danny Skinner, could run rings round all of those second-rate wankers. Aye, he’d show that arse-licking, little bastard Kibby. His presentation was ready, well, as good as, and he’d blow them all away!

They commenced a pub crawl; a besotted voyage of drunken camaraderie with friends and sneering antagonisms with foes. Then after a muddled, timeless passage, a sweating foray through different lands and states of fevered being, he achieved the goal of nothingness, oblivion. It was this condition that often made Skinner retrospectively wonder, as he started to scramble out of its grip into lighter dozing: is that what death is like, our alcoholic sleep?

Auld Perce made the great proclamation:

Then the alarm clock thrashed, hammering on the outside and inside of his head as Danny Skinner woke up with both socks still on. As he gasped to fill air into his lungs via a blow-torched throat, Skinner felt a surge of relief to slowly realise, as his confused brain ordered all the objects around him, that at least he was in his own bed.

Then he saw his best deep blue Armani suit crumpled on the floor, the trousers, the jacket. Skinner launched himself up, too quickly, and started to retch and so urgently propelled himself towards the bathroom. The thin rug between his feet and the pinewood floor slid from under him but actually assisted his transit to the big white telephone as he crumpled to his knees. A series of convulsive, strength-sapping retches, that seemed to be trying to tear his soul from him, eventually ebbed into dry spasms.

Flushing away the cruel reminder of last night’s excess into the city’s drainage system, he attempted to compose himself. Facing the blue wall tiles, finding a newer, more intimate intricacy in their pattern, he tried to control his breathing. Then he stood up, wobbling like a newborn calf, and opened the small frosted window which led into the stairwell. What happened last night? he asked himself, in the shaving mirror, looking into his own red, tear-stained eyes.

NO.

The word resounded in his head, from which he almost expected to find an axe protruding, as he examined it.

NO NO NO.

Sometimes we said no when we
hoped
no.

McKenzie. A quick beer after work. Then the pub crawl. Then we’d run into Gary Traynor. Thanked him for the copy of the religious porn video,
The Second Coming of Christ.
Said he had another one for me, that he would drop it round. He was telling me about it and
we were laughing . . . what was it called again . . .
Moses and the Burning Bush
! Aye, that was the one. So far, so fair. Then the lassie. She seemed okay. Did ah make a cunt ay masel? Nup . . . well, yes, but so, fuck, I’ll never see her again. But no . . .

OH NO . . .

. . . then . . . NO, NO, NO, I’m not having it. I AMNAE FUCKIN WELL HUVIN IT . . .

NO.

NO.

Cooper.

He’d been in that pub on the Mile yesterday. After the full council meeting.

NO.

With two councillors. Baird and Fulton.

NO.

I went up to them, approached the cunts . . .

NO.

I sang in their ears.

NO.

I’d
 . . .

NO NO NO . . .

. . . I’d planted a kiss on Cooper’s face! On his lips! A contemptuous, mocking gesture which said: ‘I’m Danny Skinner and I’ve nae respect for a wanker like you or your status, or your shitey fucking council.’

Cooper. It couldn’t have been worse if I’d punched the cunt.

NO.

Oh fuck, please to God, no.

Now Cooper knew: in that instant of folly, every unflattering rumour that had ever been aired about Skinner was marvellously confirmed. Every piece of gossip whispered into the boss’s ear by the corrupt sweetie-wife Foy, it had all been spectacularly vindicated in those few moments of madness. Danny Skinner was now known at senior official and council member level to be a loose cannon, a drunkard; a weak,
frivolous young man, unable to be trusted in a position of authority without letting the side down. Yes, he had shown Cooper that all this snide conjecture was, in fact, based on reality. He’d sabotaged his career, his life. The studies, the college, the school. The deferred gratification (and nobody hated deferring gratification more than Danny Skinner), it was all for nothing.

NO.

Skinner clutched at straws. Maybe Cooper was pished as well, maybe he’d remember nothing.

NO.

Sometimes we said ‘no’ when we hoped ‘yes’.

But no.

Cooper seldom drank, and never, ever to excess.

Even more than Foy, he was that sooky wee bastard Kibby’s role model.

John Cooper would remember every single part of their meeting in forensic detail. It would be carefully recorded, in some diary, or even on Skinner’s personnel file. Because now they were going to snuff him out. Marginalise him, consign him to that limbo where, at best, he’d serve as a piteous example to departmental newcomers as how
not
to develop your career. He thought of Dougie Winchester and many others like him, the guys tagged the office alcoholic; how, when their youth had gone and the dashing bonhomie of their condition went with it, they were reduced to shambling, shameful figures of contempt and ridicule. Stuck in a dead-end low-paid job, working diligently, but without expectation of anything, except the ticking of the clock and the next drink.

I’ll be a fucking pariah.

Skinner’s raw nerve endings jangled and his overheated brain did somersaults in his head. The only shard of light was repentance.

They loved that. Why not go to Cooper, and play the game?

He ran it over in his mind, like a radio play:

SKINNER: I’m sorry, John . . . I know I have a problem. It’s actually been apparent for some time, but last night really brought it home. When you disrespect, no, when you abuse somebody that you look up to in working life . . . well, the upshot of it is I’ve decided to get help. I contacted the AA this morning and I’m going along to my first meeting on Tuesday.

COOPER: I’m sorry to hear that you think you’ve got a problem, Danny, but don’t make too much of last night. It was a joke, you were just a bit the worse for wear. Nothing wrong with that. Everybody has a blow-out sometime. It was quite funny, you gave us all a laugh. Aye, you’re some boy, Danny!

No.

He could assign his own part with certainty; after all, it was all a game, and trickery and subterfuge were now regarded as legitimate business tools, but the response was unconvincing. Would Cooper have the range or inclination to play the magnanimous, jocular role?

Unlikely.

Cooper maintained a cold detachment from the minions, and the truth was that although he didn’t know for sure how he’d react, Skinner couldn’t envisage that mask slipping.

More like:

COOPER: It was an embarrassment for everyone. I’m glad you admit you have a problem. I’ll contact personnel and we’ll give you all the help we can. Brave of you to come forward et cetera, et cetera.

No.

Sometimes you said no because you meant no.

Because whatever Cooper did say, Skinner knew that he could never assign himself such a servile part.

It would be a lie; it would be pandering to all the wishy-washy, nanny-state bollocks they paraded in this hypocritical shithouse of a country. It was all that vain, egotistical insincerity of self-reproach. By blaming ourselves we take away the right of others to do the same.

As an old Catholic boy, Skinner remembered that it was the confession, not the priest, that gave absolution. Remembered it more clearly than any of the priests he encountered, to their chagrin, ever could.

Skinner addressed himself in the bathroom mirror, gave an impassioned speech to a receptive audience of one. — The new fascism is coming. And it’s not skinheads marching through the inner cities Sieg Heiling, it’s being concocted in the café-bars and restaurants of Islington and Notting Hill.

No.

The idea that every tomato juice consumed on a night out would be met with smiles of kind approval while every pissed-up lurch to the bar elicited stares of baleful fake sorrow or I-told-you-so sneers is completely fucking unbearable to me.

In the bedroom, he examined the jacket of his suit. There was vomit on the lapels, insinuating itself into the fine weave of the Armani’s delicate fibres, warping it. This could not be sponged out. Nothing short of dry-cleaning (if he was lucky) would come close to restoring it to its former glory. He would need to wear another suit. But the only other one he owned was an ugly, cheap, coarse excuse. No, he’d stick to a jacket and trousers. In the mirror, he studied his face in detail. It was a mess: a series of dried, blooded spots tore down one side of it, like he’d been scraped against a wall.

The presentation, he had to look over the presentation.

NO NO NO.

His case. It was gone. Where had he left it? Which pub? Pivo, the Black Bull, the Abbotsford, the Guildford, the Café Royal, the Waterloo . . . then the premises blurring into the background, replaced by foreground faces: Rab McKenzie, Gary Traynor . . . Coop . . . fuck that, move on . . . the girl with the
straw-blonde hair and the huge squint teeth who grew more beautiful as the night wore on. In his pockets loads of change, loads of pound coins. Very few notes, but thirty-seven pounds in pound coins.

But his old leather briefcase . . . the presentation, it was gone. One of the boys in the pubs would have put it behind the bar for safe keeping. Surely. Most of them didn’t open until eleven, when he was due to be on. He’d have to phone in sick. Maybe he could be late, Skinner thought, mentally flipping through a wilted box-file of dog-ate-my-homework-style stays of execution.

Then he rang Rab McKenzie on his mobile, affecting a casual demeanour. — Roberto ma man, how goes?

McKenzie saw through the affected nonchalance so completely, he could have been sitting in the same room. — You were in some state last night, ya fuckin lightweight. Tryin tae match me on the absinthe. Leave it alaine, pal.

Of course, those mad, fevered, hallucinogenic dreams of absinthe.

Panic seized Skinner in its iron fist and shook him like a rag doll. — Rab, ma case. The briefy ah hud last night. Ye seen it?

— Ohhh, ah dunno aboot that, McKenzie pursed, his teasing tones simultaneously exposing Skinner to fear and elation.

— You goat it?

— Might have, McKenzie said coolly, evidently enjoying himself.

— So ah wis at yours last night?

— Aye.

— Geez it, ah need it, Rab.

— Well, ye ken whaire ah’ll be in half an ooir, McKenzie challenged.

— Right . . . Skinner said, putting the phone down.

And a perverse thought gripped him, the idea that, given certain conditions, he could actually come through here.

Skinner pulled off his socks and staggered into the shower. Yes, it could all still be salvaged, but it needed the exercise of
a supernatural will-power that only sheer desperation could engender.

As he scrubbed away last night’s shell of scum, he could feel his body kick into gear, working, processing, expelling new toxic trash that would drip from him, its stench wafting up Cooper’s nose. Aye, it would be a rare atmosphere for his boss to savour as he recalled last night’s humiliation while deliberating, with cold, systematic bitterness, how he’d take his revenge on Daniel Skinner.

McKenzie, a site electrician, was not on a job until the afternoon, so where he would be at eight thirty that morning was the Central Bar at the foot of Leith Walk. The presentation was at eleven and Skinner had to clock in by ten to meet the flexitime deadline. He reasoned that he’d make it in fine time. When he got to the Central, his first sight was of McKenzie, holding up the case by the handle and shaking it. Big Mac was already downing the Guinness.

Skinner looked, with a sickening envy, at the pint of black elixir, perched so temptingly in front of McKenzie on the newly polished, refurbished bar. How he craved its reassuring dimensions in his hand, the sour taste of the liquid in his mouth, its comforting volume in his guts. The Central Bar, with its welcoming booths, its homely atmosphere of tatty splendour evoking the area’s wealthy mercantile past and underscoring its present no-frills down-to-earth unpretentiousness. He loved it so much and to be torn from this comforting womb and shunted up the hill to Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, to that place of artifice, bullshit and deceit . . . surely he could have
one
. Just
one
pint, to take the edge off his pain. Hair of the dog. Aye, it would improve his performance, therefore it was responsible behaviour.

On the second pint of Guinness, Skinner felt all the drinks from the previous night come flooding back through his system. — Rab, he slurred in foggy concern (but only concern rather than panic, as the drink had restored perspective), — I’ve got this presentation and I’m fucked again . . .

As so often happened in the drunkard’s scene when the protagonist started not to care, it was the comrade, hitherto a marginal player in the drama, who took on the mantle of responsibility. Thus Big Rab McKenzie thrust a wrap of cocaine into Danny Skinner’s hand. — A straightener, he smiled.

— Thanks, Rab, Skinner said with genuine emotion, — a wee tickle’ll sort ays right oot.

IT WAS SHORTLY
after his death that she’d found them, when she’d been compulsively wandering around the house, like she was looking for Keith. She even went to the attic, climbing the creaking metal steps stiffly and tentatively, almost sick with fear as she had no head for heights.