The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs (44 page)

Yes, this thing opposite me is surely a different fuckin species to the youth in the photo. It’s a Frankenstein monster, and one created purely by my own indulgence! Sometimes, though, I can feel the presence of this other Kibby, the young cunt I’d been workmates with, gone to college with, eaten in the refectory with. The guy who’d blushed and coughed as I chatted up the hairdressing and secretarial studies lassies. The sap that looked mortified as I casually mentioned the explicit details of some sexual encounter, which I’d never been prone to doing in most company, but couldn’t resist due to the effect it had on poor Kibby. Yet afterwards this made me feel so crass, which, in turn, only made me detest Kibby even more. I remember what I once told Big Rab McKenzie about the young Kibby: that I hate him because he brings out the bully in me, brings out a side of me that disgusts and repulses me.

Rab, God rest his inherently minimalist soul, had an immediate suggestion: ‘Well, burst the cunt’s mooth then.’

If only I had taken the big man’s advice. I did much worse: I burst his soul.

Skinner made a pointed decision to ignore that haunting picture and go back to the real thing. For all the short-term
jolts of discomfort Kibby’s barbed comments and looks induced in him, they were passing irritations, failing to draw real blood. Instead, Joyce’s gratitude at his simple appreciation of the food and Caroline’s indulgent smile, to say nothing of the wine, were having an intoxicating effect.

Indeed, he clicked back into that sickeningly wonderful false mode, which, he knew with a bitter-sweet sadness, he was just too weak to resist. — Tell you what, Bri, I hear you’re sorely missed in the office.

Brian Kibby moved his big, bulging-eyed head up slowly. His mouth hung open, framed by his slack, rubber lips. Yet there was something incongruent in the eyes: a resigned, brutalised pain, way beyond anger. Skinner saw it as a last leak of outraged defiance coming from Kibby’s beaten psyche, drip-feeding into the fetid atmosphere of the room around him.

Aye, Caroline was well out of here, Skinner thought, glancing at her and feeling like a knight in shining armour.

Kibby panted softly. The faintest of light tortured his eyes. The most routine burst of sound from outside caused him to start like a dog that had been disturbed by a high-pitched whistle. The sweet odour of the fresh-cut flowers Skinner had brought for Joyce sickened him, while his own bodily smells induced nausea. In the morbid acuteness of his senses only the most bland and insipid food was tolerable to him. And here was Danny Skinner, at his table, torturing him like a matador does a lumbering, wounded bull. And his own mother and sister were screaming ‘
Olé
’ with every flourish, cheering this arrogant poseur on. It was too much for Brian Kibby. — Aw aye, ah thought ye might have found somebody else tae be the butt of your jokes by now, he spat.

— Brian! Joyce pursed, looking apologetically at Skinner.

Danny Skinner, though, threw his head back and laughed off the intervention. — Pay no heed, Joyce, it’s just that old Brian Kibby sense of humour we all know and love so well. We’re all used to it by now. He can be such a grump!

There was a wave of cloying laughter from Joyce as Brian quivered again, in that uncomfortable hard chair, feeling it digging in treacherously as his monstrous buttocks spilled across its hard edges.

Skinner is in
my
home, fucking
my
sister, eating at
my
mother’s table and the bastard has the audacity to invent a fictitious camaraderie which is at best spurious nonsense, and at worst the most blatant attempt to deny a systematic campaign of bullying and abuse . . . and . . .

—
Well, I think it’s inappropriate, cantankerous and obnoxious, Caroline sniffed fractiously.

Kibby looked her with a heavy heart. She was a woman; mature, bright, alive, cool and he . . . well, he had never been able, had never been allowed to become a man.

But maybe I can.

After dinner Brian Kibby made his excuse of fatigue and headed up to his room. From under the bed he fished out a whisky bottle. He took a slug at it. The golden elixir burned: thick, strong and nasty in his blood. Hardening him. Making him harsh, squalid, arrogant and, for all he knew, as immortal and timeless as those qualities.

THE SUCCESSFUL, THE
semi-successful and the shameless blaggers of the city had gathered in their habitual uneasy federation on the opening night at Muso, Alan De Fretais’s newest bar-restaurant venture. De Fretais himself had arrived in a foul mood, which was only now being assuaged by some excellent Chablis. The builders had promised him that the enterprise would have been ready for a grand opening during the Edinburgh Festival, and a host of visiting celebrities and the national press had been lined up. Now it was considerably later, in the autumnal dead zone, and he was stuck with the local Z-listers and burning with spiteful reproach in the knowledge that it would take that elusive third Michelin star to give him anything like the coverage he craved.— My own little Holyrood, he remarked acidly to a
Daily Record
entertainment correspondent, who looked as disappointed as he did.

But the fruity grape, given its distinctive character by the localised Kimmeridge clay soil, was working its considerable charms on De Fretais. Soon he was soothingly reflecting that it was a good turnout for the time of year, when many of the city’s cognoscenti were still recovering from festival burn-out or anticipating the Christmas headache.

Skinner entered with Bob Foy, who had told him the welcome news: the Master Chef had returned from his German excursion. They had enjoyed a cocktail at Rick’s Bar, and so arrived a respectable twenty minutes late, though not late enough to miss out on the supplies of free booze. His fragile nervous system told him that Brian Kibby had obviously put a few
sneaky nips away last night, and he had needed a decent drink to take the edge of his hangover. Skinner had almost forgotten how polluting and weakening alcohol could be. At least it was quite dark in here, he considered, regarding the suitably subdued lighting with gratitude.

That wee fucker must have a peeve stash in that fucking midden of a bedroom of his. I’ll get Caroline to search for it . . . or Joyce even. I’ll stop that fucking dingul in his tracks! Daft wee shite doesnae ken what he’s doing, how dangerous this is!

The bar area was imposing enough in a minimalist sort of way. Although the walls were an uninspired light blue, the old bar had a nice slab of marble on it and the gantry was oak-panelled. An impressive stripped and gloss-effect wooden floor and a series of sunken lights completed the look.

Skinner glanced around at the company thinking: so far, so dull. He was habitually checking out women, trying not to think of Dorothy in San Francisco or Caroline closer to home. Without success.

It’s fucking peculiar with Caroline and me. We just can’t seem to get it on. Probably cause she reminds me of Kibby. Once I get him back in his sickbed where he can’t hurt me, it’ll be full steam ahead; his sister will get legged for Scotland. If it turns out to be just a sex thing, then I’m right back over to California. First I need to get steamboats, and this shithouse is as good a place as any to load up in.

Could go a ride though. No sign of Graeme or any of that crowd. Maybe a full-on ungreased erse-tanning might slow Kibby down a bit!

In the rhythmic sips of the confirmed dipso, he quickly disposed of his first proffered glass of champagne. Disturbed by a digging elbow in his side, he turned to see Foy draw his attention to the high ceiling, where a series of musical instruments hung suspended from the roof. There was an electric guitar (which Skinner fancied as a Gibson Les Paul of some vintage), a large harp, a saxophone, a double bass and a set of drums, all at measured heights, as if a troop of gravity-defying musicians could just float up there and strike up a tune. But
most impressively and implausibly, there was a white grand piano, hanging about fifteen feet above the bar, joined to the roof by four cables going into a single large hook which he thought must be bolted through one of the ceiling joists.

In spite of himself, Skinner felt some sense of awe.

Suddenly a voice came into his ear, so close he could feel the heat of its originator’s breath. — You’re thinking: how did we get that up there?

— I certainly am, he admitted to his host, the Master Chef Alan De Fretais.

De Fretais moulded his face into a languid, obsequious grin. — The answer is: with great difficulty, he mused, shaking his head at his own wit before heading off into the crowd.

Wanker, thought Skinner, but without any real hostility, tracking the chef’s meanderings. Only a tube, and a coked-up one to boot, could find that shite funny. Which, in essence, was exactly what he thought De Fretais was. There was surely no way that such a twat could be his old man. He reflected that it was how they talked to semi-strangers in such scenes, effecting an intimate profundity while saying nothing, but doing it in the manner of high gravitas perfected by Connery’s Bond. Above all, keeping a tight reign on all information, however trivial. Keeping secrets. Like all those fucking chefs, he thought, as he moved to circulate and chat casually to some vaguely known faces.

He’d quickly ascertained that this was the sort of do where looking over people’s shoulders was not considered rude but obligatory. It was almost prestigious to show how bored you were in the company of your casual acquaintance. Your mouth spraffed away from a stock of responses based in one sparkling region of the mind, while your eyes wilfully scoured the other guests to see if you could upgrade your company.

It’s an ugly, status-conscious survival of the shitest.

Now he was doing the same, as he was still engaged in tracing De Fretais’s movements. He saw the fat chef talking to Roger
and Clarissa and seized his chance, bounding across to them. — Excuse us a second . . . he nodded to the others. — Alan, can I have a quick word?

— It’s our young Unionist friend, Clarissa purred, her eyes and lips scrunching into a couple of gashes in her face. — Did you enjoy your little . . .
union
at our last meeting?

— I’m incredibly busy right now, Mr Skinner, afraid it’ll have to wait, De Fretais said, suddenly bounding over towards the bar area.

— It’s important, it’s about my moth– Skinner began.

De Fretais wasn’t hearing him, though, and Skinner was about to set off in angry pursuit, when in an instant he was rooted to the spot and his heart nearly bounded out his mouth as he saw the familiar black sheen of a young woman’s hair. She was dressed in a traditional white-and-black waitress’s uniform, but with a short skirt, wrapped tightly around an arse he knew well, the look completed by black tights or stockings. Serving up some savouries from a tray, she turned in profile and Skinner caught a beaming toothsome smile.

Roger made some comment, which he couldn’t hear through the pounding of the blood in his head, but he could tell it was a sarcastic one by Clarissa’s mocking laugh.

Skinner turned distractedly to her. — Bet you were a looker in your day, he said, her imploding face telling him he’d got the requisite amount of sadness in his expression. — Long time ago now but, eh, he added. He moved away from them, behind the waitress, watching the curves of her buttocks in the tight skirt as he felt something stir inside him.

Kay . . . what the fuck is she . . .?

And worse still, he saw that De Fretais was approaching her, with a big smile on his face. The chef put his hands around her waist. She gave a reluctant smile and tried to wriggle away, but she was unsuccessful, as she couldn’t let go of the tray she was holding.

He’s got his fuckin greasy mitts all over her!

No . . .

She’s fucking well just standing there . . . just letting that fat cunt paw at her!

The bilious acid rose up in his guts as he felt the glass in his hand. He envisioned plunging it into the neck of the fat chef, like a dagger, watching him bleed on the floor; his vacant uncomprehending livestock eyes as he kicked out in his death throes. Skinner could feel his own blood bubbling warmly in his veins, but his thoughts were still composed and abstract. Fortunately, one of those notions was to wonder how many previously socially functioning men had killed in such circumstances, and this was enough to make him abruptly exit the bar.

Outside, the street was full of small groups of people between hostelries. As he filled his lungs with the cool, night air, he realised the champagne glass was still in his hand. He hurled it to the ground, his loud curse drowning out the sound of the glass shattering, and he flagged down a passing taxi, oblivious to the nervous stolen looks of passers-by.

That boy is a typical alkie
, Mark Pryce, the sales assistant at Victoria Wine, thought, as Brian Kibby shuffled into the shop, now so desperate as to be devoid of his normal furtiveness. He asked for two bottles of whisky: one Johnnie Walker Red Label, one The Famous Grouse.

Mark was a second-year psychology student at the university. He thought deeply about some of the regular customers he served in the shop. In a sane society he would have referred many of them to the local health and social services rather than sold them alcohol.

That boy doesnae have much time left
, Mark considered in a sombre evaluation, as he bagged the bottles and handed them over to a wilting, trembling Kibby. He felt so strangely moved by the subdued but intense disconsolateness of this particular customer, he almost felt like saying something. But when he
made eye contact with Kibby, he could see nothing, just a dark void once inhabited by a human soul.

Pryce took the money and rang up the sale and made a mental note to get another part-time job.
Somewhere more socially rewarding, like McDonald’s or Philip Morris.

Arriving home, Brian Kibby entered in clandestine silence, anxious to avoid his mother and a potential scene about his drinking. Fortunately, nobody was in. He tried to pull his frame up the aluminium stepladder to his old hiding place, but after a few steps he felt giddy, the blood throbbing in his head, and he knew that he wouldn’t make it. Descending slowly, he went to his room where he abjectly drank one bottle of the whisky, and made a respectable dent in the second before passing out.