by Irvine Welsh
I leave the bar and find the motor. I swirl some mouthwash around my gob and spit it out on to the frozen snow, watching the clean blue solution indent the white. I rev up the motor and the end slides all over the place as I turn the corner. One spastic beeps me but I’m too pished to bother.
Work however has lost its appeal, not that it ever had any in the first place. I leave the car in the car park for appearances’ sake and I knock off early, trudging homewards through the snow before flagging a taxi. Back at the ranch, I watch the scores on the teletext, noting that Hearts have lost three– nil at Rugby Park. I make an effort to clean up, and I manage to throw out some old plates of food and tin foil cartons of curry and chinky. Chrissie arrives early, which annoys me, as the place is still a shithouse. I’m chuffed though, to see that cock-stirring mix of need and devotion in the hoor’s eyes. Chrissie’s about five-four. I doubt she’s above the six-stone mark. She’s not so much heroin chic as hospice chic, and looks somewhat less than resplendent in a gaudy yellow blouse and an above-the-knee black skirt which looks like it’s made from the same material as my flannels.
She expects me to say something. Wrong! It doesnae work that wey. Silence is golden and sometimes you have to struggle to control it. Any schemie convict’ll tell you the same.
– Bruce . . . did you really mean what you said to me earlier, about how you could fall in love with me? she asks.
I’m looking closely at her, at the burst blood vessels around her nose. Fuckin Wurzel Gummidge here. I’m thinking: No chance. – Of course I could, and you know it as well as I do. Don’t play the innocent with me. Sit down.
She takes off her coat, sits down on the couch and lights up a cigarette. She’s just like one of them, the ghouls that stood by and watched as I tried to bring that boy back. The sickening, passive, idle, grateful ghouls. How does it feel?
– I’m so confused Bruce. It’s not been an easy time, she says. I move on to the couch beside her. She’s going to see how it feels to have her breath taken away.
– Listen, there’s something you should know about me, about how I am . . . I open a button on the hoor’s blouse and stick my hand down it. She’s like a Belsen horror, all skin and bone. Her eyes have huge, black shadows under them. I look into the pupils and watch them widen in concert with the twinge in my troosers. I take the cigarette from her hand and stub it out in the ashtray. She twitches nervously and looks at me with a strange smile.
– Bruce . . . she says, looking at the smouldering fag.
– Ye ken the thing aboot fags? I ask, pointing to the ashtray with my free hand, sliding my other mitt under her bra and harshly tweaking her nipple. I watch her shut her eyes and gasp a wee bit. – What ye get from fags is an asphyxiation hit. It shuts oaf the oxygen tae the brain. That’s the high, I say, tapping her head. Pushing the life in, squeezing the life out. I take my hand out and start undoing her blouse, button by button, and then I take the top button from her skirt and unzip it and I stand up hauling her to her feet with me and the skirt slides off her to the floor, like a piece of doner kebab lamb from the greasy hunk of meat on the skewer. I pull her towards me and stick my hand inside her pants, cupping her arse cheeks, pulling her up against me. I push my mouth to her ear, getting a scent of cat’s-pish perfume. – Tell ye something, it’s as wild as fuck when ye make love, that oxygen starvation thing. You and Bob ever dae that?
– I don’t know . . . we never . . .
– Yis ever turn oaf the gas for each other? Sssssssssss, I say softly, in her ear.
– We . . . no . . . we never . . .
– You want tae play at turning oaf the gas? You daein it for me and me daein it for you?
I’m looking at the black roots at the bottom of her sick yellow hair, which looks like greased straw, the condition totally fucked by cheap dyes. A coffee, fags and vallies tart. There’s a factory somewhere that churns them out. Turn left on the outskirts of the Boulevard of Broken Dreams.
– I don’t know what it involves . . . she whinges. She’s looking at a precipice which she can’t really see over, blinded as she is by her despair and her medication.
– It’s a wee adventure. In all adventures to different places you need an experienced guide. Let me be yir guide. Put yirself in ma hands. I’d never hurt you, I tell her, and I’m taking down her pants, exposing that dirty big black bush which contrasts starkly with that sick blonde hair. My skin tingles wondrously and the colours of the walls and furnishings seem heightened as I ease her back on to the couch. I loosen my flannels, ignoring a fairly noxious waft and let them fall to my knees. I’m losing weight alright.
I’ve got the two belts ready, which I retrieve from under the settee. One goes round her neck, the other round mine. I’m idly finger-fucking her and she’s getting juiced up. She’s a randy hoor awright: her clit’s soon as prominent as Ray Lennox’s cock. I spread her thighs with my hands and push my cock into her. No sense in wearing a condom because she tells me that she’s only been with Hurley for years which is as good as being a virgin. My knob’s not feeling too raw. As it inches home I tighten the belt round her scrawny neck. I find my stroke and start giving her it good-style. She’s bucking away, getting right into it.
– Ma fuckin belt, I shout, increasing my pace, – turn oaf ma fuckin gas!
She tightens it a bit but her face is going red and twisting into a strange pout as I throttle her and she starts trying to scream: – You’re . . . cack . . . cack . . . cack choking . . . cack . . . me . . . cack . . . cack . . . cack . . . It sounds like an old banger trying to start up, which, I suppose, is exactly what it is.
How far do you have to go to be like that guy at the South Side? Is there a time during the struggle, the struggle for life and breath, when you finally consciously realise that it’s all fucked and that you’re going for good? How does it feel?
– YOU FUCKIN CHOKE ME THEN! I scream, choking and poking at it, and in the end I have to grab my ain belt and turn off my ain gas soas that I get there, but she does too and I’m so close to just keeping going, increasing the pressure and she sees it in my eyes for a second and I see the panic in hers and I come hard with an accompanying series of muffled heaves.
I let go and she’s pulling the belt from round her neck, I can see the mark it’s left and the blood vessels on her eyelids have haemorrhaged. She’s trying to fill her dry, stiff lungs with air, but she’s crying and laughing and she loves every fuckin minute of it the cow. She was never that far out, not as far out as the boy. He was way out of range. I couldn’t bring him back, I did all I could.
How did it make you feel?
We sleep for a bit, as our breathing comes back to normal in unison. When I wake up I’m consumed by an overwhelming urge to be cruel, which I know that if I don’t satisfy verbally will end up with me brekking the sow’s jaw and as she’s polisman’s meat, rather than a common-or-garden Roger Moore, that could get a little bit messy administratively and legally speaking. – You’re a cow, I state coldly as I sit up on the couch and light up one of her fags, – because I’ve been fucking you, we’ve been turning oaf the fuckin gas fir each other and you’re my mate’s wife. Ken what that makes you in my book? A cow. C. O. W.
I spell it out for the slag.
She looks at me like a wounded deer pleading with me no tae let it have baith fuckin barrels. – Don’t say that . . . why are you being like this . . . why . . .
Why? Cause it’s games time. – Ken how you’re a cow? Ken how? Cause you let ays in here, I point at her minge, – but you’ll no let ays in here, I point to her head, – or in here, I point to her chest, – cause that’s love. That the now, that was nothing. That was just sad case games, and tae me that is what I’d call a cow, I shake my head. – That was a wee test, and you failed miserably. Failed wi faded colours . . . I take a bunch of her greasy straw hair between my forefinger and thumb to illustrate my point.
Her face seems to bubble and swell as her mouth opens wide. – What are you s
aying, she cries, – where does that leave us?
– I’m saying that you have to go away and have a good think to yourself about what your feelings really are. Otherwise . . . I’ll be quite frank, this is fuckin useless. The same rules apply. Will you do that Chrissie? Will you do that for me? Because I can’t sort out your head. Only you getting in touch with your heart can do that. If you just want fucked, I explain, flipping up a palm, – no problem, come roond, ah’ll do the business. But I find it all a wee bit sordid, especially as I feel we could have a lot more.
– I just feel so confused . . . you’re confusing me . . . she bleats.
– I shake my head slowly and sadly, – We’re aw fuckin confused. Right now, I think you’d better go.
– I want to stay with you Bruce. We need to talk!
I move my head in a dismissive manner. I had planned to go up the club at Shrubhill tonight. A couple of civilised beers to relax. Socialising within a perfectly legal framework and long may it so remain. – Chrissie, I’m working tonight. Backshift. I’m investigating a murder. That’s as in M-U-R-D-E-R. In my line of work that spells: S-E-R-I-O-U-S. I watch her incomprehending look. I do not think that the penny has dropped yet. – Serious. Which means I have to get my A-R-S-E into G-E-A-R. That’s the situ.
though not that quack Rossi with his aversion to deep fries, ordered. Time to wash it doon with a few bevvies. I go into the Royal Scot and order a pint then call a cab to take me down to the club. When there’s a law against that, we’ll know that civilisation is truly fucked.
Carole Again
I like to go out. I don’t really mind being here at Mum’s but she can be very demanding. Still, we all have our crosses to bear. The big problem is that Mum’s never really accepted Bruce. She’s a bit strange at times. It’s a funny thing to say about your own mum but it’s true. I hate being up here but it’ll just make it all the more exciting when Bruce and I finally get back together.
Stacey’s getting me down as well. She’s at a funny age.
I remember when I first met Bruce. My sister Shirley was seeing this guy who was on the force. Don, I think he was called. We met him at a pub at the West End and he introduced Bruce as this guy who was up from London where he was in the Met. Bruce and I had both just come out of pretty bad relationships so the pair of us were a little guarded, even though when I first saw him I thought, mmm hmmm. Well, we had a few too many and we ended up back at Don’s. It was strange the way Bruce was looking at me in the taxi, I could just feel something happening, I could feel that we would become lovers. When he spoke to me, his dark eyes blazing . . . I could feel myself going . . . god, I just want to touch myself all over when I think about it.
But no. I restrain myself and I decide to go out.
The street is cold and grey, like so many streets in so many towns in this country. This wind surges through you, lowering your temperature until you’re too numbed to realise how sick and uncomfortable it’s made you. And the people: nosey, predatory, always ready to revel in the misfortune of others. One man is looking at me. I know the type. A sleazy middle-aged guy who doesn’t do it with his wife any more.
Repressed people; you have to pity them more than anything else. I know, because I was like that before I met Bruce. I still am in lots of ways, although he’s brought me out of myself. Bruce realised that I had to come out of myself, needed, even in spite of myself, to come out of myself. That was what our sex club was about.
Bruce knows that our wee games and flirtations only serve to strengthen a true love, by making it confront its true nature, making it feel the depths and heights of itself.
He did it for me, and it worked.
I’m a different person now.
A better person.
Infected Areas
A lazy weekend. I did get semi-drunk on Saturday night with Lennox who booted a jakey’s styrofoam cup into the gutter, spilling his coins doon the Walk. It was such good sport watching the cunt groping around for them. After this I gave him a couple of quid, solely to try and make Lennox feel bad. It didn’t work and I regretted the wasted outlay. I laid off the whisky though, which made me feel not too bad Sunday morning, and Sunday was a quiet day.
I thought of Carole a lot. I know what she’s up to. She’s playing a very, very dangerous game and she doesn’t even know it.
Let’s hope she comes to her senses soon.
For everyone’s sake.
I’m scanning the Sunday Mail and I jump as I see a picture of somebody familiar. Black and whi
Fuckin
A panic attack grabs me and shakes me. I feel like a psychic band in my body has been knotted to its tensile limit and twanged and my life-force is shooting for the stars. It reaches a pitch and then stabilises as I gasp and look again, trying to find clarity in the greyness of the newsprint.
I calm down as it’s no who I think it is.
It’s me.
An old picture.
An old picture and a new caption:
HERO COP IN RESCUE BID
by BRIAN SCULLION
A Christmas shopper tragically died in the arms of his wife yesterday, despite valiant efforts to save him by a hero off-duty policeman who came to his aid.
STUNNED
Shoppers in Edinburgh’s busy South Bridge were stunned when retail manager Colin Sim (41) – who has a history of heart trouble – collapsed on the city street. ‘We were shocked. He just keeled over’, said Mrs Jessie Newbigging (67). ‘I was just looking for something for my granddaughter’s Christmas. I couldn’t believe it. He was just a young man as well.’ Her daughter, June Paton (39) of Hawes Road, Armadale, added: ‘It’s terrible something like that has to happen, especially at Christmas. It makes you think.’
HERO
While Heather Sim comforted her dying husband, a man in the crowd mounted a dramatic rescue bid trying both mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and external heart compression in a vain effort to revive the stricken man, who is the father of an eight-year-old son. ‘The boy was a real hero, he tried everything in the book to bring the guy back,’ said Billy Gibson (21). He added: ‘I was feeling a bit sorry for myself as I have just been made homeless and have been sleeping rough, but something like this makes you realise just how lucky you are. Now I’m determined to enjoy my Christmas.’
SHOCK
Mr Sim was dead on arrival at the Infirmary. The hospital spokesman said: ‘It was a severe attack. There was nothing anybody could do.’ The police hero, Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson of Lothian’s Constabulary said: ‘I tried my best to save him, but he just went.’ Student Janet Onslow (19) added: ‘I think we’re all a bit shocked. One minute you’re here, the next you’re gone. It just goes to show.’
How did that make me feel?
It made me feel like watching one of Hector The Farmer’s videos, then going out for a pint and a bar lunch at the Royal Scot, and reading the rest of the papers.
In the Royal Scot they have a wonderful fire going, giving off a roasting heat. After a filling roast beef, mashed potato, carrots, sprouts and gravy, the oxygen leaves my brain and the heat and the flame and the clicking sounds of cutlery on crockery become mesmerising. I can see them in the fire, the demons; their flickering, mocking dances as I recline into the chair. I lift the pint glass of stout to my lips and break the spell. I down the pint.
When I get home I take some sleeping pills and within what seemed like half an hour of unconsciousness it was Monday morning again.
Monday again. The phone drags me out of a stupefying sleep. It’s Gus. He wants to make an early start. Yes, he likes to keep the credits rolling during the winter so that he’s flush when the weather breaks and the gowf becomes a possibility.
There’s a few messages on the machine, from people who read the piece in the Mail. – It’s Chrissie. Congratulations Bruce, if you know what I mean. Phone me. Chrissie. – Well done Bruce . . . it must have been harrowing. Bladesey. – Bruce. Bob Toal. I’m sorry, but well done anyway. Toal
. – I’m proud of you. Call me. Shirley. – Whatever happened to, all of the heroes, all the Shakespearoes . . . a coked-up Lennox sings.
I go to the toilet and give my hands another good wash and scrub in the sink. It’s hard to get all the shit off them. I give the black flannels a chance to air, and put on a fawn pair. There’s an old curry stain on them, but I manage to get most of it off, using Stacey’s facecloth.
Then I head outside, taking the ice-scraper to the Volvo’s windscreen. Julie Stronach’s visible in her front window, straining to put a bauble on the Christmas tree she’s just erected. Just erected? She can come next door and see if she can get mines up! I’m getting a good decko of those full tits in that tight, white t-shirt. She catches me staring so I give a neighbourly wave, and hold up the can of windscreen defroster in one hand and the scraper in the other and let my shoulders rise. Julie smiles with cautious empathy. I get in the motor, sticking on Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy, and head for HQ to rendezvous with Gus who’s just getting out of his own motor in the car park. I wave and he gets into my passenger seat. His nose is red with the cauld. – Well done Bruce. That must have been pretty terrible, Saturday likes, he says.
– Worse for the boy, I say.
We’re off down to Leith, sitting in the motor outside yon wee Estelle’s flower shop and who should come in but Gorman. It gets us off the subject of the boy that died. – I spy strangers, I smile at Gus.
Gus decides to nick into Crawford’s while I keep shoatie. – Two sausage rolls Gus, one buttered roll, a portion ay chips and a vanilla slice plus coffee.
I start thinking about that graffiti in the bogs last week.
He returns with the goodies and we sit waiting for Gorman to depart. – Thing is Gus, that Karen Fulton, she wis a game cow at the start. The force bike she wis called, doon at the South Side. These fuckin hoors are ey on aboot equality. How the fuck did she git oot ay uniform? Ah’ll tell ye how: shaggin fuckin Toal. Now she’s above aw that, in wi that lesbo crew in Personnel. Every time they drop thir drawers they git a promotion, every time we do, it’s a disciplinary. What fuckin equality is thir in that?