Filth

by Irvine Welsh

  Someone produces an Evening Times. It contains an interview with Rodney:

  I grew up in a large Irish family in North London and all the folks back home in the old country were mad keen Celts. I would have dearly loved to have been able to pull the hooped jersey over my head.

  – I said striped jersey at first, he laughs. – I couldn’t remember that they played in hoops! Thank God the journalist was sympathetic! Bleedin Nora, he snorts, – I mean, one Jock team’s much the same as any other to me. All shit, ain’t they? Still, I’ll take their giros! Another ten thousand on the gate: can’t be sneezed at, can it?

  I saw Stronach go red at that point.

  Dolacre gives a witty speech, as does a Scottish First Division manager, but the rest are just fucking windbags who like to hear the sound of their own voices. Dolacre leaves early, before the auction takes place. The strip he wore in the England B international versus the Czech Republic a couple of years ago in his last representative game is auctioned and fetches a hundred and fifty quid for Tom’s testimonial fund. It was bought by Alan Beach, the plumber’s merchant, who’s on the testimonial committee.

  At the end of the night Lennox departs and I decide I’m too fucked up to drive the Volvo so I share Stronach’s taxi home. – That Rodney Dolacre is a laugh, eh, I smile, – It was great hearing his fitba tales.

  – Arrogant English cunt, Stronach spits.

  I go into my home and Shirley calls. I let the machine get it. – Broosss . . . I need to talk to you Brooooss, her distressed mechanised tone whines. – It’s very important . . . phone me Broossss . . . please . . .

  I put on a Private video, one of Hector’s, which features some good arse-fucking shots. It never fails to amaze me, the purchase those male actors get on the old arse-fucking. Poles must be well-greased. Mind you, these birds but, their arseholes must be stretched like a mother-of-ten’s fanny.

  Shirley. Don’t mistake me for somebody who cares my love.

  I go to do a shite. I’ve taken some of Rossi’s laxatives but I can’t see any of the worm. It’s no good just getting its body out anyway, you need to get the whole head, otherwise it just keeps growing. I try to turn in, but I feel uneasy and sleep with the light on. These cunts with their OT cutbacks’ll kill me.

  the fucking head of those things and I can’t get the bastard out.

  I decide that there’s going to be no work done today, so I fill out an OTA 1–7 for the overtime, and sit back watching videos until I drowse. When I wake up, I note that it’s the evening. This is when I come to life. That was a great kip. It’s got me going.

  I’ve snorted my last half G and I’m on the mooch for mair posh. I call cold round at Ray Lennox’s gaff. Always the best way tae call anyone. The polis way. One heavy-knuckled rap on the door and I hear that characteristic sound of the occupants scuttling like disturbed rats, their pathetic lives swamped in criminality. Lennox is daein something eh shouldnae be. Then the door opens. He has a bird round, she’s just on her way out.

  – Eh, Bruce, Lennox says, – this is Trudi.

  – Pleased to meet you my darling, I lift her hand to my mouth and kiss it, an extravagant gesture. Worth forty wanks as well. Mmm hmm. – Pleased to meet you Trudi. Ray’s not mentioned you to me. That’s remiss of him, I smile. I turn to Lennox, who now looks a bit off-white, – I can see why you’d like to keep a treasure like her well away from an old prospector like Bruce Robertson!

  She smiles and departs, Ray instantly recovering his cool.

  – Tidy piece Mister Lennox, I say approvingly.

  – A lovely girl, Lennox replies in fake pomposity. He’s already gone to his stash and started cutting oot the lines. I’ll say one thing for Ray Lennox, he doesnae let the grass grow under his feet as far as the posh goes. Fuck work today, even the backshift.

  I snort back one of the lines, – I believe in law and I believe in order. This is a treat, a perk for enforcing . . . Jesus fuck . . . good shit . . . where was I, aye, a perk for enforcing law and order. I mean, we know that there are shite laws, so there’s no point in obeying them ourselves, even if it’s our job to enforce them for others. The problem is, most people are weak, so if you don’t have laws, even shite ones, then you certainly don’t have any order matey. Same rules.

  – Agreed, Ray points at me, then bends down to the mirror to fill his hooter full of gear, – Phoah . . . Aye, sometimes I think that the best solution to the whole fuckin mess would be if we could just go around and shoot any cunt we felt like at any time. Most of the time, simply through experience and professionalism, you’d get it right. Then wide bastards wouldnae go around with such an attitude. Imagine, all the fuckin scumbags with big, apologetic stares on their faces . . .

  – Niggers doon in London and Abos over in Sydney aw smiling and going ‘Yez baz’ like they did in the fuckin fields . . .

  – . . . Birds comin up n giein ye a blow-job in the street for the privilege ay no gittin thir fuckin heids blown oaf . . .

  – . . . but maist of all, just fucking well shooting spastics stone dead, I smile, forming a gun out of my hand, putting it to my head and making a loud exploding noise as I violently jerk the hand and head away from each other.

  – Good coke, eh Bruce?

  – Too good for spastics Ray. Too good for spastics. I kid you not, my sweet, sweet friend.

  Ray Lennox. A sound guy and a fuckin good polisman. I don’t care what anybody says.

  After another blitz on the posh we hit a few bars, then it’s back to his with a cairry-oot and mair posh. The cunt makes me listen to his shite records aw night. Starts trying tae tell me that The Verve or whatever they’re called are better than U2 and Simply Red! Get a life Lennox! It gets too much and I leave and head downtown. Fucked if I’m paying for a taxi. I think I might have missed the last corpie bus. It’ll have to be a night bus. It’s fucking freezing out there. I head into St Andrew’s Square station to see if there’s a bus for any of the outlying scum towns that can drop me off in Colinton.

  My luck might be in as there’s still one or two people hanging around. I see a jakey out of the corner of my eye. He scrapes along the wall, coming to rest against a bus shelter. The jakey seems to have a kind of fear in his eyes, as if it’s just dawned on him that whatever he’s drank it’s just not been quite enough to blank out the hideous reality of his miserable life.

  And I know him.

  Alan. Alan Loughton. Used to be a member of the strike committee, back in the day. How’s it goin A1 buddy? How’s it going now that the pits been shut down for over ten years? How is it going now that you’re no longer seen as a socialist hero back in the village, but as a boring auld pissheid and

  – Awright! Alan isn’t it! What’s this? I nod at his gold tin of Carlsberg Special. – Nae old purple tin? Going bourgeois on us? Cleaning up our act are we?

  He’s looking at me now, trying to get me into focus.

  – Bruce! Bruce Robertson, I tell him. – Mind ay me? I joined the polis just before the strike! If you cannae beat them, join them, I always did say. What aboot yourself? What are you up to these days? Politics no doubt. Always did have a way with public speaking!

  Loughton groans an incomprehensible recognition.

  – Seem tae have lost it but mate, eh? That silver-tongued oratory. Anyway, I must fly, see you, I turn and stroll across the concourse. Behind me I can hear a pained growl of sheer anguish.

  There’s two words though, that I, we, I, we can make out.

  Filth.

  The other one is bea

  No fuckin way a jakey, a purple-tinned cunt is fucking with my head. It’s me, Bruce. There are no others. I’m not the one he’s on about. Loughton. A nothing. A nobody. A set of fucking dormant social problems waiting to be cleaned up. That’s the real filth, that’s the real garbage.

  At the other end of the bus park, two uniformed spastics are talking to an Eastern Scottish Transport inspector. I approach them.

  – Alright officers, I flas
h my ID.

  – Aye, one says nervously.

  – How auld’s yir granny? I ask.

  – Three hundred and sixty-two, he replies.

  – Good lodge. Dougie Millar still grand-master?

  – Aye . . .

  – Well, officer . . .?

  – Cameron sir.

  – Well P.C. Cameron, I suggest you and your colleague here get your fingers out of your arseholes. Are you aware of the policy of zero tolerance of crimes and misdemeanours in public areas?

  – Yes . . . we . . . he stutters. A fledgling spazwit.

  – I’m assuming that you are beat officers here?

  – Yes sir.

  – Glad to hear it. There’s a fuckin jakey over the concourse, I point in Loughton’s direction. – He’s been abusing passengers, including me. You get that cunt or you’re getting it baith weys, through the service and through the craft. Savvy?

  – Right, one says nervously, turning to the other one, – Let’s go.

  The two uniformed spastics race across the tarmac and grab a hold of the bemused Loughton.

  I always liked Loughton but it seems to me that he’s been going nowhere since his salad days of the miners’ strike. The best I could do is to help the cunt relive old memories and it was almost like auld times watching the poor fucker get huckled away into the back of a police vehicle by the boys in blue.

  Come In Charlie

  The new area office in the South Side looks tatty already: those sticky-fingerprinted glass doors and that fag-burned public desk with the badly printed and faded posters on the noticeboard above it. There’s a smell of disinfectant, that strong institutional kind that looks like it’s been put down to conceal the smell of pish, even when it husnae. An old cow is giving the desk sergeant a hard time. It’s Sammy Bryce though, and Sammy’s too professional to let her faze him. – . . . I understand that, he’s saying, – but if it doesn’t have a crime number then there’s nothing we can do.

  – How dae ah get a crime number? she asks.

  – You have to report to the nearest local station to where the offence took place.

  – But they said any police office . . . she’s almost in tears with frustration.

  – Any police office if you have a crime number.

  I wink at Sammy, not a bad guy for a uniformed spastic, and then I head upstairs to meet Davie McLaughlin.

  D.S. McLaughlin from the South Side is heading up the investigation of Bladesey, who has returned from the bosom of his spastic family in Newmarket to find himself minus a wife and in our custody helping us with our enquiries. McLaughlin is a good choice on this one: a dirty carrot-topped bastard with a filthy fuckin pape name, not in the craft, an odious piece of racial vomit. It’s quite fortuitous as it’s an excuse for not pulling strings for Brother Blades. The pervert Brother Blades.

  – So you know Cliff and Bunty Blades well? he asks.

  Of course, we find it distasteful talking to a freckle-faced left-footer, but it’s serving our purposes. I slip on my concerned face. – Aye Davie, we’re friends of the both of them. I’ve kent Bladesey, eh Cliff Blades, for a couple of years, but I’ve only got to know Bunty recently. She was going through a pretty hard time with this sicko hassling her, so Bladesey wanted me to come around and give them a bit of support.

  – Did you ever get the idea that he was the one making all those calls?

  I give a slow, deliberate swallow. – Davie, I’ve been polis longer than I care to remember, and I’ve investigated loads of cases like this. At the time, I have to admit it, it was the last fucking thing on my mind, I shake my head. – Now I can see that this was how he was getting his kicks, enjoying the element of risk. He was wanking all over me! I smash my fist on to the table.

  – Don’t give yourself a hard time mate, honestly, says the concerned Romanist. Seems not a bad guy, for a pape. – We all have to switch off and have our own lives. Sometimes we get blind spots about people.

  – But I feel like a fuckin monkey Davie . . .

  – Bruce, ye cannae go around in your private life thinking that every single pal you’ve got can or cannae be Jackie Trent in some way or another. If the truth be told, when we walk out that door, we all put the job on hold to an extent.

  Maybe you do, but you’re a pape. As your family are probably all criminals, you have tae pit the job oan hold.

  – I want to see him . . .

  – I don’t think that’s a good idea Bruce . . ., the bead-twirler tells me.

  – Just give me two minutes with him, I won’t fucking touch him, I swear.

  – Okay, he says, raising those ginger brows. McLaughlin may be a Romanistic, anti-abortionist cunt, but he’s polis through and through.

  I head down to the detention room where Bladesey is being held. A uniformed spastic stands over him, but departs as I come in.

  Bladesey says nothing, but his eyes are burning and eager. He’s pleased to see me.This pathetic little bastard’s genuinely pleased to see me!

  He really thinks that I’d be friends with a sad pervert. Best put him right. – You fuckin little cunt! I snap. – Fuckin piss-taking little fart . . . you fuckin strung me along from the start! All that fuckin shit about Frank Sidebottom! You were wanking off in my face ya fuckin cunt!

  Bladesey’s now a picture of wretchedness. – No . . . he protests. He looks so bad, that it’s hard for me to keep looking at his eyes. I turn away briefly, but then the need for sport takes over, as it always does, and I glare at him.

  – Bruce, you have to believe me, it wasn’t me!

  – Don’t make me fuckin punch your heid doon through your fuckin shoodirs – right oot yir fuckin erse ya wee cunt! I move towards him, and he cowers away. I stop and turn, then do a full circle back towards him. I think of all the injustices I’ve suffered, more injustices than that wee cunt could ever know. Spreading my palms I plead, – Why mate? Why the fuck did you do this Cliff? Why did you Drag me intae it? I thought we were mates!

  – I didn’t, I didn’t, we are! Bladesey begs, and then breaks down. – I digh-hi-dent . . . I digh-hi-dent . . . he chokes, biting into the sleeve of that checked jacket to stifle his sobs.

  It’s pathetic watching a grown man cry in that manner. No fuckin pride. Do you see me break down like a fuckin wee tart, and all the shite I’ve had to contend with as well? Do you fuck! We cope. He deserves to die, to be forced into committing suicide and dying. Like Clell. Aye, if I had my way that would happen with the fucked up: a sort of psychic natural selection. I’d take over the fuckin do-gooding helplines and if one of those sad cases phoned up I’d say: I think you’re absolutely correct to feel such despair. Gie the world a brek and take your own miserable life. If you need any help I’ll be round in a few minutes. Bladesey. He’s fuckin rubbish. Me, hanging aboot wi that nae-mates trash? Huh! I think not. I’m starting to hyperventilate as I look down on him. – I wish I could believe you . . . I wish I could fuckin believe you . . . I’m fuckin oot ay here! I storm out the room knocking over a chair and I hear Bladesey crying, – Brooosss . . . as I depart.

  Outside, I regain my composure. I thumb back towards the interview room. – Damaged. In the fuckin nut. Don’t give that spastic any fucking coffee, I hiss at the poor uniformed spastic who’s a little shaken.

  – Right gaffer, he says meekly.

  I like this officer. I like being called ‘gaffer’. It’s a term some spastics around this nick are going to have to get used to when that promo comes through! I kid you not! I say tatty-bye-byes to the tatty-muncher McLaughlin, thanking the Romanist for his assistance and confirming that, yes, retrospectively, I should have seen that we were dealing with damaged goods in the form of Brother Blades. I drive back to HQ. I’m soon at my desk studying Monica from Sheffield’s full paps, each little goose-pimple on them clearly defined. The photographer’s done the business with this one. A keen student of the game.

  The phone goes. External. I skip a heartbeat and then feel a long tense drawing i
n my chest. I pick it up.

  – Hello?

  It’s Bunty.

  – Bunty, I state.

  – Have they got him?

  – Yes. I’ve just been down there to see him.

  – Still denying everything, I’ll bet.

  – Yeah . . . to be expected. They all do it. Not a particularly pleasant experience, it has to be said.

  – Yes . . . it must have been . . . Bruce, when can I see you?

  – I’ve been giving that a bit of thought Bunty, and I think it’s for the best that we keep a low profile with our relationship, at least until this mess is cleared up.

  – What . . .

  – Bunty, this could cost me dearly. I’m a detective. I should have picked up that Cliff was suspect. I knew what he was like through the craft, with the videos and stuff. We . . . I could be a laughing stock on the job! There’s a promotion coming up. You get my drift?

  – Bruce, I’ll be discreet about us until the time is right. I promise I won’t say anything. But you must come and see me Bruce . . .

  – Of course I will, I say softly down the phone. – We’ve got something special, haven’t we?

  I’ll be round to fuck you soon you big fat hoor.

  – I think so, she says, her voice breaking, – but I’d never get in the way of your career, I’d never do anything to foul that up.

  – Bunty, you don’t know how much it means to hear you say that to me. All my life I felt that I was meant for greater things but there was always something holding me back, some missing piece in the jigsaw. That missing piece, I can see now, is the love and understanding of a wonderful woman. That’s what you are Bunty, a wonderful woman. And you’ve suffered so much . . . I want to put that right . . .

  – Oh Bruce . . .

  – Just keep mum my darling, and I’ll be round to see you soon. That’s a promise.

  – Okay Bruce.

  – I’ll see you soon.

  – Bruce . . . I love you . . .

  Fuck off fatso. The moment Bladesey was banged up, that was you and me in the death throes of our relationship. Mind you, I might string this cow along for a bit longer; asks no awkward questions and keeps a good, clean hoose. She’d get a formidable crease oan a collar, that yin! – I love you too Bunty.