by Irvine Welsh
Still no takers: just a series of shifty sideways glances. With a bitter head-shaking sulk, Cream Shirt consults his clipboard, then scrutinises them again.
Renton now accepts he has the heebie-jeebies. He needs a little something.
Fortunately, Cream Shirt has arbitrarily designated a young man with constantly blinking eyes and lunar acne scars, and one of Sick Boy’s meaty-thighed, flirtatious barrow girls to the health and safety roles, mercifully ending the talk. A second supervisor minces alongside Cream Shirt and simpers in a high, fey sound, — Now if you’ll kindly adjourn to your cabins to get changed into your uniforms, we’ll assemble in twenty minutes in the canteen, where you’ll be designated to your workstations.
They head off, Renton stalling for a second or two, hoping to chat to the Girl With the Big Hair, but her attention is taken by the other supervisor, whom he’s dubbed Beige Blouse, so he heads down to the staff quarters in the bowels of the ship. When he reaches the cabin Nicksy’s already there, the Sealink bag at his feet, changing into his uniform. — Okay, bud?
— Farking not really, mate, and he pulls the cream shirt over his thin frame and buttons it up, adjusting the elastic on the bow tie for comfort, then the waistcoat, which is too big and hangs limply. — See ya up in the canteen.
— Righto … Renton elects to tough it out. He leaves the skag, the stash crushed into the toes of his trainers, and instead he takes some speed from a wrap in his jeans watch pocket. It’s the only way to get through this shift. Once the buzz kicks in, he heads up to the canteen to meet the others. He feels terrible, as if he’s papering over the cracks, the speed in some ways making the junk withdrawal pains keener, but the frenzied energy mentally distracting him.
Amphetamine pushiness gives him a wild swagger through several sets of swing doors into the staff area of the refectory. Fortune does indeed favour the brave, as it becomes clear that the roster’s designations have given Cream Shirt the impression that he’s in Beige Blouse’s team, while Beige Blouse seems to believe the opposite. Disinclined to disabuse either of them, or their rota, of this notion, Renton opts to stay non-assigned, deciding that he’ll walk the ship like a ghost.
A line has formed for the food. Renton’s not hungry but the lentil soup on offer looks edible and he feels that he should try to eat something. He rips the pish out of the chef, proud and military-stiff in his big hat and whites. — Awright, cookie boy? he barks, playing to the gallery, toxic speed energy notched up further by the gushing screams of queens, the appreciative chuckle of wideos, and a delectable smile from the Girl With the Big Hair.
Chef stands impassively: thick, black-rimmed glasses and red liver spots on his neck, a smouldering volcano in starched white linen. Renton suddenly feels, even through his drug arrogance, that this insolence just might be a mistake. This is confirmed when a veteran English homosexual cabin steward lisps, — Don’t fuck Chef out, mate, he’s a real bastard.
It’s a phrase Renton has never heard before; don’t fuck Chef out.
Nicksy’s gone and he can’t see Sick Boy, and the cute Fawcett-Plant lassie is chatting to one of the barrow girls, so Renton decides to forgo the soup and commence his wanderings, to get out of range of Chef’s cold, dangerous gaze. As he leaves, he hears him bellow at a kitchen hand, — Who is that cheeky little Scotch cunt?
As he climbs a staircase, Nicksy feels the weight of his breath in his lungs. At the top he looks outside the portholed swing doors to the sea. They are on the decks, the staff, waiting for the vehicles and foot passengers to embark. He spies Marriott leaning on the rail, smoking a cigarette, the burning eyes in his wrecked, cadaverous figure forever trained on them. Following the line of vision, Sick Boy is revealed chatting to that bird with the big blonde hair all over the place. Studying her small tits, tight curvy figure and all that hair flying in the wind, Nicksy’s thinking: tasty, but without a semblance of prurient lust.
— Got any hash? Sick Boy asks her.
— Yeah, a bit, she says, vainly trying to restrain her swishing locks, as the first cars roll over the ramp and eager foot passengers trudge up the bridge hoping in futility that the bar is already open.
Sick Boy overhears Cream Shirt saying to a languid sidekick, — It’s this bit that always gets me, as he grandly sweeps his arms, watching the passengers pile forward, — this is what makes me realise why I’m here.
Sick Boy stares at the passengers and decides that he already hates every last one of them. Then a chat of ‘Man-chis-tihr na, na, na …’ comes up as a gang of sallow, strutting youths around his age emerge onto the deck. He turns to the girl with the hair. — In that case, I’ll need to swing by your cabin later. I can’t sleep without a smoke.
— Okay, she says, her head whipping briefly to acknowledge the singing. — I’m Charlene.
— Simon, Sick Boy curtly nods.
Cream Shirt squeaks out instructions to the welcoming cabin staff, as the travelling British public stream onto the vessel. Nicksy sidles off, heading up another flight of metal steps onto the upper deck. After a spell, a farty-sounding siren blares, followed a little later by a rumble and shake as the ship’s engine starts up. The boat leaves the harbour slowly, picking up speed and being pursued by excited gulls as it reaches open water. Then he’s aware of footsteps behind him, followed by a shout: — Nicksy you cahnt!
He turns to see the floppy fringe of Billy Gilbert, an old West Ham mate, wearing a brown-and-cream Adidas top. He’s prominent in a squad of boys, who march along the deck towards him. They all share a coiled, alert look, like greyhounds in traps waiting for the doors to fly open and the mechanical bunny to bolt down the rail. Billy gives Nicksy’s uniform the once-over. — Nice threads, mate. High fashion is wot you might call it.
Cackles all round, as Nicksy sees another Ilford friend, Paul Smart, and a few more mob faces of his acquaintance. He doesn’t know what’s going on. — Fuck’s all this about?
— Gor blimey, you’re narky, Nicks. Ain’t they treatin you right on the Titanic here?
He sucks in some air and forces a smile. — Yeah, sorry, Bill, it ain’t so bad; a relatively honest crust.
— You off ta the game later?
— Thought I might, Nicksy lies. Although he’d read a piece in the Standard about it, he’d somehow thought the first leg of the forthcoming UEFA Cup tie was at Upton Park. — If I get finished in time after this bleedin shift.
— Great, see ya in the Bulldog then, Billy says, then rubbernecking, as if in anticipation of an ambush, — Heard there’s a load of Man U on this fucking boat.
— Ain’t heard nuffink. You planning on chasing them back to Surrey, then?
— Might just do that, Billy laughs.
A pasty-faced kid with a fringe, wearing a green Sergio Tacchini top, comes running towards them with urgency and squeaks, — There’s a load of Man U in the farking bar downstairs!
And the mob are off, stalking down the steps, surging past the ascending Sick Boy, Cream Shirt and some other members of staff, as Nicksy sharpishly heads in the other direction.
— That looks like trouble, Cream Shirt says. — Simon, could you and your friends … he looks at the sheet, — Mark and Brian, come with me? Where are they?
Sick Boy realises that both Rents and Nicksy, like Cream Shirt’s health and safety officer designates, have vanished. — I’m not exactly sure.
— The first sailing of the season and the place is crawling with hooligans, Cream Shirt hisses in distaste. — Let’s keep an eye on them and make sure they settle down.
— Eh, okay … Sick Boy says reluctantly. Cream Shirt has evidently taken some sort of a shine to him. He’s as yet unsure as how to work this in his favour, but highly intrigued at the prospect of being able to do so.
On deck Nicksy runs into a meaty-armed woman in a sleeveless quilted jacket. She seems in distress and tells him she’s lost her daughter. — Come with me, love, we’ll find her, he says, and he leads her away.
2. Reasonable Duties
/> I admit that ah’m a wee bitty too fond ay the Salisbury Crag for my ain good, but something’s flipped in Renton’s ginger dome. He’s an embarrassment, with his continually streaming beak, and that metallic nasal voice he seems tae have adopted; he’d suck the pish ootay a jakey’s crotch if he thought there was a buzz in it for him. He’s hiding; it’s so obvious tae see. From what? What else but his fears? His biggest fear? That the spazzy gene, which produced the fucked fratello, is apparent in him. Well realised, Rent Boy. Realised.
I wasn’t feeling too bad at first; ah’d sorted myself out wi a ride for the shifts. I miss Lucinda, and ah cannae abide sleeping withoot a bedwarmer. That Charlene seems like a feisty wee banger, a no-questions-asked-or-demands-made fuck-artist. We’re chewing the shit, watching the passengers, who really are the dregs ay this planet, tramping onto the boat like cattle. Happily, though, there are one or two filthy-looking lassies in the mix. Then we’re off. Basically, we cabin staff, or ‘operatives’, are simply a presence designed tae monitor the ‘customers’, as the passengers are now redesignated.
Then ah was aware that ah wis starting tae get edgy, wondering where that cunt Renton was. He’ll have found a darkened, enclosed space tae entomb himself in, ay that I’ve nae doots. The words holding out are resonating in ma brain, when ah’m torn away fae Charlene and compelled tae follow Cream Shirt in his pursuit ay a mob of London lads who rush past us towards the bar. Ah hear the fractious singing that has been coming from that direction suddenly stopped by a shattering sound ay what can only be breaking glass. Then there’s shouting and Cream Shirt runs through the bar doors waving his arms in the air, as passengers panic and stampede outside.
Ah follow him in, through the retreating travellers. A rammy has kicked off on the other side ay the bar area. I think it’s West Ham versus Manchester United, but I know not and care less. Violence is an occasionally useful tool, but the recreational stuff is the vice ay losers like Begbie, whom I heard got a year for wounding some Lochend prick. This is all getting a little heavy though; a few clowns ineffectively windmill on the peripheries, and still more indulge in hollow gesticulation, but the main brawl’s like a tornado, with about a dozen bodies at the centre of it, having a proper toe-to-toe. Passengers panic, charging outside, kids and women scream, and straight fuckers indulge in pained protest about ‘animals’. Crème de la Shirt shakes my shoulder, pleading, — We have to stop them! They’re wrecking the place!
— I think I might just opt to pass on that one, Martin, and leave it to security, I inform him, as a glass shatters against the bar behind us. — Or the police? You know, people who get paid decent money tae risk life and limb in such situations?
— It says in your job description ‘any other reasonable duties as determined appropriate by management’.
— Right! ah trumpet, turning sharply away from the ruckus. — Is there a shop steward on this poxy fucking rust bucket?
Creambo briefly looks at me with a betrayed pout, but fair play, he’s certainly going for the Queen’s Industry Award, as he marches right intae the heart ay the Reg Varney. Ah cautiously follow, and all hell’s breaking loose as the last absenting passengers, stag lads who were on the verge ay steaming in but have now decided it’s too rich for their blood, pile past us tae get away fae the fracas. More glass smashes and beseeching, gullet-wrenched invitations to join the row fill the air. Ah should get the fuck ootay here, but this ah huv tae see, cause Cream Shirt is lisping, pouting and farting his wey right intae the middle ay the swedge, screaming, — STOP! STOP IT!
To my astonishment, some ay the football lads briefly pause, each too embarrassed tae be seen tae be the yin banjoing this midget, Cuban-heeled fag. They are obviously all actual, or aspiring, top boys, quickly realising that any hands-on involvement in a skirmish wi a short-arse nancy can only diminish their standing. Eventually a young ragamuffin foot soldier in a rather smart top steps up and panels Creambo with a sweet right hook, knocking him on his arse and bursting his nose open. The northern mob take this as their cue to withdraw, shouting threats as they inch towards the exit. Everything has just miraculously stopped.
— You want some n all, you cahnt? the kid asks me.
With that ugly crack ay fist against bone still resonating in my ear, ah can dae without pursuing that particular option, thank you kindly. Ah gesture towards some older lads, who thankfully tell the impatient young Jedi tae calm doon, pointing him in the way ay the retreating northerners. The few remaining passengers sit paralysed with fear, but the West Ham boys, with the possible exception of young Skywalker, seem too disciplined a mob tae have any interest in bullying civilians.
— I’m sorry we interrupted you chaps from your business, ah say appreciatively, but they’re away in pursuit of the northerners. Ah help Cream Shirt tae his feet and out ay the bar, taking care tae avoid that doubtlessly infected claret shooshing fae his smashed nose aw ower the sacred company garment that gies him his nickname.
— It’sth not on … he protests, holding a hand tae his shattered beak as ah escort him through double doors, — they’re wrecking the boat …
— Worry ye not, shipmate, ah urge, sliding ma hand inside his jacket and removing a wallet which ah slip deftly intae ma trooser pocket. That yin will be put doon tae the melee. — These boys will punch themselves out soon. Let’s get you doon tae sick bay.
Ah take the stricken brown-hatter downstairs and deposit him in the medical room, where a fat Hattie Jacques-type nurse is bandaging a nutter’s head wound. His two mates stand around sheepishly, smirking at each other as the wounded lad moans in a Manc accent, — Didn’t coom ere t’fight West Ham, — came over ere t’ave it wi Anderlecht …
— Wait here, Martin, I’ll see if I can try and calm things down, and ah leave Creambo, planning on heading straight back tae ma cabin tae crash. Ah’m no getting peyed enough tae try and separate bams hell-bent on smashing each other up. Ah could never be paid enough.
En route, ah stroll along the deck, counting oot the loot; forty-two quid, a bank card, n a picture ay a ludicrously bright-eyed gay nephew wi a blond cooslick spiralling heavenwards, like the ice cream on a Mr Whippy cone. Ah pocket the cash and chuck the rest into the cruel sea. It’s a great feeling tae know that ah’ve executed the perfect crime. The wallet will never, ever be found and probably every West Ham and Man U lad will be given the full cavity search by the Dutch polis at the Hook, when the avenging queen phones this yin in.
Getting back doon intae the cabin, ah chase some brown and slump intae a contented semi-doze. Ah mind ay some cunt knocking at the door, but no way was ah answering for a single soul. Ah know that Renton’s holding out on me for the simple reason that if ah’ve kept some percy back then he’ll undoubtedly have followed suit.
Rising at my leisure, determined tae track doon ole Ginger Baws, ah was surprised tae note that the ship was already berthed in the Hook and the cars had started rolling off. Upstairs the bar had been wrecked; a couple of donkeys and a chunky barrow girl are sweeping the floor as Beige Blouse snaps pictures ay the damage, presumably for insurance purposes. I see a squad ay Dutch polis at the pier, but it seems like they can’t be bothered tae make a single arrest, as the cockney mob pile off, chanting, ‘We are the bastards in claret n blue.’ A shocked queeny staffer tells me that one lad was taken tae hospital wi his throat cut; the sea air must have got some bam carried away.
Yar, me hearties!
Ah head back up tae the office where ah see Cream Shirt wi a heavy bandage taped across his neb, talking on the radio, no doubt tae polis or port security. He puts the receiver down, and looks like he’s about to chastise me for vanishing.
— How are you? I get in first, full ay bogus concern.
— I’m fine … thanks for your help there … but where have you been?
— Looking for Mark and trying tae calm down some of our more irate passengers. An elderly lady was very distressed by the violence. I thought it prudent to sit with her for a bit.
> — Yes … good thinking … God, there will be hell to pay when Mr Benson hears of this. He cringes at the thought. — I’ll see you down in the bar.
— Righto, I say wi a crisp salute. Outside the doors, on the glass–strewn deck, an open-mouthed flycatcher pushes a brush along with the gusto of a crippled sloth on Mogadon. Fuck me, there are so many community-care types working on this boat that somebody even vaguely normal immediately becomes indispensable whether they like it or no.
So ah go back doon tae the wrecked boozer, and there’s Nicksy, without his bow tie and his waistcoat open, sat at the bar sipping a Scotch. The barman, who introduces himself as Wesley from Norwich, isnae giein a flying fuck, he’s happy to be in one piece, so I help myself to a malt ah dinnae intend tae drink and faux-toast Nicksy. — Slàinte.
There’s nae sign ay wee Charlene, and where is that cunt Renton?
3. Car Deck
Ah love this idea ay huvin what the fitba pundits call a ‘rovin commission’: sortay no being stuck in any one role. So ah’m taking it on masel tae walk roond the vessel, chattin tae people as ah go, making sure that everything is shipshape. Schopenhauer said that a man can only be himself so long as he’s on his Jack Jones, while Nietzsche reckoned all truly great thoughts are conceived by walking. Ah could see masel as a ship’s captain ay the people; huvin a wee stroll aroond checking cunts oot, perhaps inviting a pretty lady or two tae join us at the captain’s table, while ah entertained them wi racy tales ay nautical life in the port ay Leith.
Ah’m a seafarin man: it’s in ma blood. Ah’m thinkin that Sick Boy wid just love tae be in ma shoes right now, though he’s probably workin some scam ay his ain.
Raised voices comin fae above signal aggro, which means work, so ah head doon, away fae the action, descendin the metal staircase tae the bowels. Doon below us, there’s tons and tons ay parked motors n lorries. A gadgie in a boiler suit shouts fae the landin above that ah shouldnae be doon here. Story ay ma life. Always somewhere ah shouldnae be. Like Planet Earth. — Aye. Right. Catch ye later, ah wave, carryin on ma merry wey.