by Irvine Welsh
— Listen. Are you talking to me as employer to employee, or as man to man? Cause if it's employer to employee I consider your behaviour insulting and harassing and I want my union representative in here to witness this victimisation. If you're talking to me man to man, then it's more straightforward. We can go outside and settle it. Ah'm no taking this shite, I said, rising. — If there's nothing else, I'd like to go and get some work done.
I left the shitein cunt red-faced behind his desk. He muttered something about last warnings. How many last warnings can you have? I swaggered back to my work station and plugged away for a bit at the NME crossword. I was entitled tae a brek, for fuck's sake.
At finishing time, May took me home to her and Des's. They were a lovely couple from Chester-Le-Street, Co. Durham, who had sort of adopted me. May would cook up a big scran, lamenting my thinness, while Des and I talked football over cans of Tetley Bitter. He was a great Newcastle United fan and he'd wax on about Jackie Milburn, Bobby Mitchell, Malcolm McDonald, Bobby Moncur and the like.
A normally very relaxed and laid-back couple, they used to fret a great deal over what I took to be their son. — Nae sign o the lad, Des would frown at the clock, — he's never normally as leet as this.
I knew they had four daughters between the ages of sixteen and twenty-two. The girls were always out, taking drugs, going to clubs, shagging guys, the things girls that age with any sense did. One of them went to the Ministry of Sound, which was sound. That was the one I fancied, the sort of New Age lassie, the youngest, I think. I fancied all of them really. However, Des and May didn't seem to bother about them, their chief concern was the welfare of the lad.
— There he is! Des exclaimed, as a noise came from the back door of the kitchen and a grumpy-looking selfish black cat meandered in through the flap. — C'mere lad, owah heah by the fyah! You moost be freezin! Tell us what you've been oop to then? Eeeh, you leetal boogah!
It is a good scoff and I get back to the flat a little bevvied. It's good to have a stomach full of stodgy food again. Best of all, Monday was cracked. Granted Tuesday was a cunt, but it got better on Wednesday. We all went down the local pub on Wednesday nights, me, Cliff, Darren, Gerard, Avril and Sandra. It was good living in the same flat as lassies; they kept standards high, well, higher than they would have been otherwise. It was a barry flat and everyone got on or got on most of the time. I thought of Simmy languishing in the Scrubs for housebreaking and felt pretty good about it. I tried not to think of her, of Blind Cunt, of my mum, of Scotland. We all did drugs here, but it seemed less desperate, more of a recreational thing rattier than a lifestyle. We'd sit in the pub on Wednesday and Thursday nights talking about what clubs, gigs and drugs we'd be into at the weekend.
After getting home from Des and May's, I went straight to my room. I put on a KLF tape and lay back on the bed feeling pretty pleased with myself. I thought of Des and May's daughters, then of Gleaves, and resolved to borrow a pair of strides from Cliff, to keep the tie-wearing penile-challenged toss-bag oaf ma case.
There was a knock on the door and Avril came in. I didn't really know her that well to talk to; she was far more self-contained than Sandra, though pleasant enough.
— Can I talk to you for a bit? she asked.
— Sure, sit down, I smiled. There was a basket-chair in the room. My spirits rose. It was fairly obvious that she nursed a passion for me and wanted to shag me. I should have picked up the vibes before. I expanded my smile and let a bit of soul seep into my watery eyes. This poor lassie's been besotted and I haven't even noticed.
— This is really difficult, she began, — but I just have to say it.
I felt for her. — Listen, Avril, you don't have to say anything.
— Darren ... Gerald ... they've told you? I told them not to tell you! I wanted to say this myself!
— No, no, they haven't.. . it's just. ..
—What? It's not you, is it?
This was confusing. — It's not me what?
She took a deep breath. — Listen, I think we're talking at cross-purposes here. This is very hard for me to say.
— Eh,but. . .
— Just listen. I want you to know I'm not accusing you of anything. Please understand that. I've spoken to Darren and Gerald. I've not had a chance to speak to Cliff yet, but I will. This is pretty embarrassing. It's just that some of my underwear's been taken from my drawer. I'm not accusing you, though. I want to talk to everyone. It's just that I don't like the idea of living with a pervert.
— I see, I said; hurt, disappointed but intrigued. — Well, I smiled, I'm certainly a pervert, but not that type.
That got a mild, brief laugh. — I'm only asking.
— Yeah, well it has to be somebody, I suppose. To you, it's as likely tae be me as anybody. I can't see Cliff or Darren, or even Gerard behaving in that sortay way. Well, Gerard would, but he widnae be sneaky aboot it. That's no his style. He'd go intae the pub wi yir knickers aroond his heid.
That thought didn't amuse her. — As I said, I only asked.
— You don't think it's me, do you?
— I don't know what to think, she said sourly.
— Well, that's fuckin' great. My boss thinks I'm a smelly tramp and someone I live with drinks I'm a pervert.
— We don't live together, she frostily corrected me, — we share a house.
— Well, I said, as she got up to leave, — if I see anyone behaving suspiciously, like not taking drugs, paying the rent on time, that sortay thing, I'll let you know.
She left, obviously unable to see the funny side. It made me wonder who was the pervert. I thought it had to be Sandra.
On Thursday I was back at May's for tea again. I stayed late because Lisanne, her youngest but one daughter was in. She was good to talk to and look at. Moreover, she didn't think I was a pervert, although, I suppose, she didn't really know me that well. Des was out, and May insisted on giving me a lift home.
This was unusual, but it was late. I thought nothing of it as I piled into the car. She was chatty, but nervously so, as we drove along the Uxbridge Road. Then she pulled off at a turning and stopped in a carpark at the back of some shops.
— Eh, what's up May? I asked. I thought something must be wrong with the car.
— Do you like Lisanne, then? she asked.
I felt a bit coy. — Eh, aye, she's a really nice lassie.
— Surprised you haven't got yourself a girlfriend.
— Well, ah'm no really intae getting too involved.
— The love em n leave em type are you?
— Well, ah widnae really say that. ..
I was more the love em and they leave me type.
She put her finger in one of the rips on my jeans and started stroking my bare thigh. Her hands were doughy, her fingers like stumps. — Mister Gleaves was right about you. You're going to have to invest in a new pair of jeans.
— Eh, ay, I replied. I was feeling uneasy. Not aroused, far from it, but gripped with a morbid curiosity as to what she was about.
I looked at her face and all I could see were teeth. She started making circles in my flesh with her fingers. — You've got baby-soft skin, haven't you?
There isn't really much you can say to that. I just laughed.
— You think I've got a good body? I'll bet you reckon I'm past it, don't you?
— Naw, naw, ah widnae say that, May.
I thought: by light years.
— Des is on these pills you see. He had a heart-attack a while back. It stops the blood coagulating by keeping it thin. Trouble is, he don't get hard. I love Des, see, but I'm still a young woman, love. I need a little bit of fun, a little bit of harmless fun, don't I? That's not so unreasonable, is it, love?
I looked harshly at her. — Do these seats fold down?
They did.
I went down on her and gave head; flicking my tongue deftly onto her clit, then lolling it around teasingly. I started thinking about Graeme Souness, because he had heart trouble. I
wonder if he has a problem getting it up due to the pills? I started to think about his career, focusing on the 1982 World Cup in Spain which I remember watching with my dad. My mum had only been gone three years, and we'd come back from my Auntie Shirley's. She'd looked after us all that time, until Dad felt able to cope. He'd had some sort of breakdown. Never talks about it. Thing was, we had liked it at Shirley's in Moredun, and we didn't really want to go back to Muirhouse, or have 'the family all together' as he described it. As a sweetener, he let us watch all the 1982 World Cup games. A huge wallchart was stuck up in the front room above the fireplace. The tapemarks still show where the four corners were, although it's been painted over at least once to my knowledge. Cheap paint, I suppose. Anyway, the praise that was heaped on Souness men, but I thought that he just posed and preened his way through mat tournament. I mean, the two-each draw with the Soviet Union, for fuck sake.
— Ohh, you're a naughty one and no mistake ... ooh... ooh, she hissed excitedly, crushing my face against her cunt. I was going nowhere, struggling to take in air through nostrils which were filled with a pungent scent. There was no taste, only the smell which suggested it.
I have an image of Souness strutting arrogantly like a peacock in the middle of the park, but he's doing nothing with the ball, just holding it, and we need a win as the seconds tick by. Still, that was in the days when people actually gave a toss about the Scottish national football team.
— Give it to me ... she whispered, — you've got me all juiced up, lovey, now give it to me . . .
I was too soft to go in, but she took it in her mouth for a bit and I firmed up. I got in and she was moaning so loud I got really self-conscious. I jutted out my jaw Souness-style and pumped away. After about half a dozen strokes she came powerfully, kneading my buttocks in her hands. — YOU DORTY LITTLE BOOGAH! EEH, YOU DORTY LITTLE SHITE! LOOVLEY... she screamed.
The old tongue-job never fails. The only fuckin real use for the guid Scotch tongue. I thought about her daughter and blew my muck inside her.
I wondered if I'd get asked back for tea again.
13
MARRIAGE
May carried on as if nothing had happened, except that she gave me an occasional saucy smile and she'd also taken up goosing my arse by the photocopier. I was a bit bemused by the whole thing. How mad was that.
It was the next week after my liaison with May that the invitation came through the door. It read:
TOMMY AND SHEILA DEVENNEY
Invite you to join them at the wedding
of their daughter
Martina
to Mr Ronald Dickson
on Saturday, 11 March 1994 at 3.00 p.m.
at Drum Brae Parish Church, Drum Brae,
Edinburgh and afterwards at the Capital
Hotel, Fox Covert Road.
I stuck it on my bedside table. It was next month. In one month's time Ronnie would be a married man, although the potential hurdles that stood in the way of that actually happening didn't bear examination.
A couple of days later I got a phone-call from Tina. I was tempted to offer congratulations, but I hedged my bets in case the gig was off. The whole thing wasn't really constructed on a very firm basis.
— Brian?
— Aye.
— It's Tina, ken?
— Tina! Barry! How's tricks? Ah goat the invite. Brilliant! How's Ron? There was a silence from the other end of the line. Then: — Ye mean he's no thair wi you now?
— Eh .. . naw. Ah huvnae heard fae him. The pause was even longer this time around.
— Tina? I wondered whether she'd hung up.
— Sais he wis gaun doon tae see ye. Tae ask ye tae be best man. Wanted tae ask ye tae yir face, he sais.
— Fuck... dinnae worry aboot Ronnie though, Tina. Must've goat waylaid. Probably jist a bit emotional, wi the weddin n that, ken? He'll show.
— He fuckin well better, she snapped.
Three days later I had just got home from work and was eating a bacon sanny and watching the six o'clock news with Darren. We were ranting bitterly everytime someone we hated appeared on the box, which was every other feature. Avril was reading a magazine. She got up to answer the door.
— There's someone here for you, Brian, she said. — A Scots guy ... he seems a bit out of it.
Ronnie slouched into the room behind her, obviously jellied. I didn't even attempt to ask him where he'd been. I took him upstairs and let him crash on my floor. Then I phoned Tina to tell her he'd shown up. After this I went downstairs and sat on the couch.
— A friend of yours? Avril asked.
— Yeah, it's this mate who's getting married. Wants me tae go best man. I think he's had a tiring journey.
— Look at that slimy cunt Lilley, Darren hissed at the image of this politician on the box, — I'd like to get that rucking arsehole and cut his bollocks off. Then I'd like to stuff them down his throat and sew his mouth up so he has to swallow them .. . fucking child-killing cunt!
— That's terrible, Darren, Avril tutted, — you're no better than he is if you think like that. She looked at me for support.
— No, Darren's perfectly correct. Sick, exploitative vermin ay mat sort need tae be destroyed, I said and, recalling Malcom X, added, — by any means possible.
I had been reading the biographies of radical black Americans. X's was an interesting read but Bobby Seale's Seize The Time was far more enjoyable, as was Eldridge Cleaver's Soul On Ice. My favourite was Soledad Brother but I can't remember which of the Jackson brothers, Jonathan or George, actually wrote it. Perhaps it was Michael.
Darren shook a clenched fist at me. — That's the difference between me and those fucking wimpy arsehole socialists, I don't want the Tories out, I want them fucking dead. Just because I've got a bus-pass doesn't mean I'm part of the system. An anarchist with a bus-pass is still a fucking anarchist. All hate to the state!
— You're sick, Darren. Avril shook her head. — Violence achieves nothing.
— It is satisfying when you see a polisman with his heid burst open though, you have to admit it, I ventured.
— No it's not. There's nothing satisfying about it at all, she replied.
— Naw, c'moan Avril. You're no tryin tae tell me that you didnae feel good when you saw the pictures of those slimy dead-souls looking shit-scared in that pile of rubble after the Brighton bomb? Tebbit n that?
I remember that well. When it came on the telly, my old man said, — Aboot time somebody had a go at those fuckers. I remember being full of pride and admiration for him.
— I don't like to see any human being suffer.
— That's all very well as an abstract moral principle, Avril, a coffee-table theoretical construct, but there's no denying the sheer gratuitous pleasure to be derived from seeing members of the ruling class in pain and torment.
— I really hope that you two are winding me up, she said pityingly, — I really hope so for your sake. If not, you're sick, brutalised people.
— Too right, said Darren, — but at least we're not brutalising anybody else in turn. We don't mug, rape, serial-kill or starve the innocent. We just fantasise about destroying the vermin that have been fucking us over for years. And another thing we don't do, he added snidely, — is steal people's underwear.
Avril told him to fuck off, and left us. It was at that point I strongly began to suspect that Darren was the guilty man, the undergarment thief.
Ronnie didnae really get to know anyone. He slept for two days, and on the odd occasion he joined us was almost comatose. Then it was time for him to return as his ticket had been booked. He took some downers before getting on the bus at Victoria Station. I didn't bother waving at him as the bus pulled away; he had fallen asleep as soon as he'd taken his seat. The only things I remember him saying during the time he was down were: Darren ... I thought, naturally, that he was talking about Darren in the flat, but I realised he wasn't. — Darren Jackson, followed by an appreciative nod, and, — Best man ... sound,
with a wink and cock of his head. When Ronnie winked, the act involved the opening, rather than the closing, of one eye.
The month dragged. I was looking forward to getting back to Edinburgh but no so much tae the wedding. I got into town the night before the stag and took a taxi tae the auld man's.
When I got in, Norma Culbertson and her wee lassie were there. There was something different about the house.
— Hello, son, my dad said awkwardly, — Eh, sit doon. I suppose I should have told you this before, but eh, well, wi you bein in London n that. You know how things are ...
— Aye, I replied, totally fuckin clueless as to how things were.
— Has Derek, eh, mentioned anything?
— Naw .. .
— Well, Derek's moved out. He's in a flat now, in Gorgie. Stewart Terrace. No bad flat as well. Wi him getting that Civil Service promotion, he had to go for it. You know?
—Jeff... Norma urged.
— Oh, eh, aye. The thing is, son, Norma and I have decided to get married, he smiled weakly, apologetically.
Norma simpered and exposed an engagement ring for my examination. I felt a dull thud in my chest. Surely this was a wind-up. Norma was a young woman; not bad looking either. Deek once admitted to me he used to wank about her, though that was a while ago. She was too young for Dad; he was old enough to be her father. Mind you, Dino Zoff was still playing European club football at my auld man's age. But that was Dino Zoff. This was real life.
My Ma and him
My Ma this was too young for him anyway my Ma gone for years him getting married again his business, what's it to me?
— Many happy returns, I stammered, — eh, I mean, con gratulations ...
Norma started talking about how she wanted us to be friends and my auld man ranted on about my mother ...
— I'm saying nothing against her, but she abandoned yous laddies. Abandoned yous and never wanted tae see yis. Surely a real mother would want tae see her sons ... bit no her, no sae much as a letter . . .
I started to feel a bit sick and thankfully the door went, saving us all further embarrassment. It was Crazy Col Cassidy, an animal from the scheme with a fearsome reputation for violence against the person. — Yir auld man in? he growled.