If You Liked School, You'll Love Work

by Irvine Welsh

  Kravy’s ma is smiling through her tears and the place is now a furnace ay emotion. — Ah want yis now tae pray fir the soul ay Ally Kravitz, especially if ye urnae given tae prayer. Cause ma God might jist listen tae ye! Ma God will be seek tae fuck ay hearin the same voices; askin um fir a new car or hoose or speedboat, or tae endorse another fuckin barbaric war fir eyl!

  Thir’s a huge cheer echoes round the chapel ay rest. Even the Iron Duke’s goat a tear n ehs eye, ah swear tae fuck. Ah cannae see Call-Centre Comorton, but it’s ma belief thit the revisionist wee Tory cunt is hudin ehs dippit heid lower thin a snake’s erse right now. Jakey’s still daein ehs nut n aw. — Ma God wants a bit ay a fuckin change, n eh wants tae hear fae somebody whae wants nowt in return except they wee things wi cry liberty, justice n equality! eh roars, then wheezes a bit, takin a swig ay Buckie tae calm um doon. — Jesus fuck almighty, eh smiles, — ah’d forgotten how guid it wis tae be up oan this pulpit wi a fuzzy heid fae the night afore n bolstered by a few drams ay the Deevil’s elixir. It’s in this state – jist a baw hair fae demonic possession – that ah feel closest tae Oor Saviour, n ah’m talking aboot God, no that wanker Jesus fuckinerse Christ. N as a last broadside against they snooty cunts doon in George Street, ah’d like tae thank Jason here, fir giein ays the opportunity tae stand n dae this at a Fife pulpit in honour ay yin ay its finest sons, Allister Graham Kravitz. Ay-fuckin-men, ya hoor, sor.

  N eh steps doon tae a massive applause and a standin ovation that goes oan till eh left the chapel, as the coffin went doon.

  Ootside, it’s me n Kravy’s ma sayin thanks tae the mourners. — It wis Jason, ah hear her say tae muh auld man, — he wis the one that made the whole thing special.

  It’s back tae the Miners’Welfare fir the do eftir; sausage rolls, egg n cress, fancy cakes, tea, whisky, the fuckin loat, wi pit oan a guid spread. The wee collections in the toon’s boozers peyed fir it aw. Jakey is in ehs element; people ur plyin um wi drink, telling um tae stert ehs ain church; a real Church ay Scotland. N it hus tae be said, eh’s scrubbed up well fir the do. Thir’s nae whiff oaf ay um but wino n eftirshave. Ah wrap an airm roond ehs auld shoodir. — Ye took the words oot ay muh mouth, ah telt him. How dae ye follay thon?

  Jakey winks at ehs. — The laddie might huv been a fickle, drug-dealin hoormaister, but, n here’s whaire it gits crucial …

  Ah join in chorus: — Eh wis oor fickle, drug-dealin hoormaister!

  Jakey laughs n ah pat um oan the back again. — Whit ye gaunny dae, Jack? Ye canny sit oan that bench the rest ay yir days.

  Eh gies a wee shrug. — No that bad a place tae be, Jason. Still goat the C of S pension. Huv tae confess thit since ay loast yon tenure ay the Manse things huv been a bit slack.

  — That wis ower ten years ago, ya hoor.

  — Eleven n three months, son, and it’s flown like a hoor’s bloomers off a washin line in March. But what can ye dae against the Calvinist repression ay the Kirk?

  — It wid huv helped if ye believed in Jesus Christ, though, Jack. They wir bound tae git upset wi that.

  — Nonsense! Very few ministers, when ye get them on thir ain, will admit tae believing aw that Christ-wis-the-son-ay-God garbage, eh snaps in scorn. — Wi aw huv tae go along wi this Hans Christian Andersen-Lewis Carroll shite world view tae appease the brainless elements, but maist ay us are educated enough tae ken that’s jist wee bairns’ nonsense. Besides, it wis the hoorin thit finished wi me n the Church, no a disbelief in some moanin-faced auld hippy!

  Ya hoor, ah wis nearly compelled tae rise tae Cat Stevens’ defence thair, till ah realised eh wis talking aboot that other cunt. Ah wis intrigued tae ken a bit mair, but eh wis gittin loud n thir wis duties tae attend tae, so ah made ma excuses n mingled.

  Mrs F, as wis her due, goat a wee bit drunk n emotional, n the auld boy wis gallant or opportunistic enough tae take her hame (delete tae taste, ya hoor), nae doot keeping a guid tight hud ay her gaun doon they steps ay the Welfare.

  So later ah hud thum back upstairs at mine; me, wee Jenni, the Duke n Neebour Watson, wi the remains ay Kravy in the urn, well, maist ay um. Aye, the open casket wis nivir gaunny play. Snooty wee Lara nivir showed up fir some reason, Jenni reckons she wis oot wi thon Big Monty cunt.

  — This is sick, Neebour Watson goes, as ah mix up some ay the boy’s ashes wi the coke n speed n rack up the lines oan ma copy ay Tea for the Tillerman.

  — Sick yir minging furry hole, ah retaliates, savourin the delicious feedback ay a sexy wee giggle fae Jenni. — Kravy wis a free spirit; he wid huv goat aw the New Age significance ay wir ceremony, ya hoor, ah explain tae thum.

  — I think it’s so beautiful, Jenni says, squeezin ma thigh, n thir’s a wee bit ay blood rushin tae the auld hee-haws here. — I wish I could have done something similar for poor Midnight.

  — Ye cannae compare a hoarse wi a human being, the Duke goes.

  Wee Jenni shakes her heid emphatically. — We all love beautiful souls, primal souls, whichever vessel they’re housed in, she says. Sweet wee chick, but mibbe a wee bit oan the doolally side. Kent ay should huv gone the fill hog n pit thon new Marilyn Manson CD ah boat oan display.

  — The boy will live oan in us aw, ah sais, gaun doon oan the first line.

  Well, it wis no a bad hit but ah huv tae say thit it might huv been a bit better without Kravy bein in the mix. Awfay rough oan the beak n the lungs. No thit ah wis grudgin the boy, likes.

  Ah gies Jenni the second snort, n she fair hoovers it aw up. Eftir, she throws back her heid, wrinkles her beak fir a bit n her eyes water up, but she fights it back.

  — Awright? ah asks.

  — Yeah … it’s quite nice, she grins, taking a big breath. — I just find the idea of him being inside us all really exciting! She sneezes, then squeezes ma leg again.

  The Neebour n the Duke take thir shoat. Eftir a decent passage ay time, ah say tae thum, — Right, folks, ah’m gaunny huv tae chase yis oot. Aw except you, Jenni, we’ve goat a wee bit ay private business tae discuss, ah explain, as the lads file despondently oot, nae doot Goth-bound fir last orders.

  Once thir oot the road, ah git tae the wardrobe. Ah take oot the styrofoam beer-carrying box. Openin it up, wi look at wir boy again, liberated fae the middle ay some shoodir-high jaggy nettles. Ghostly white, but blue aboot the eyes n lips, like a plasticine model ay ehsel, n startin tae seriously ming now.

  — What are we going to do wi him? she gasps.

  — Ah’ve goat an idea. N it’s goat tae be done soon. Eh’s in bad shape n ah’m sure thir’s still some ay they maggot hoors in the neck. Bit first wi hae another line, in tribute.

  As she goes doon oan it and gits the buzz, she says, — I haven’t done coke for ages; not since Lara and I went up to St Andrews and tried to gatecrash Prince William’s graduation ceremony. She had a friend who graduated at the same time. We didn’t get near the Prince, though.

  — A sensitive laddie, ay that ah’ve nae doots, ah tell her, but muh eyes nivir leave perr Kravy’s deid lamps in that rid-helmeted heid.

  20.

  FLOORED

  I WAKE UP on Jason’s floor. I think it’s the next morning. He’s lying next to me and we’re both fully clothed. So nothing went on. My sinus stings with the speed, cocaine and ash mix, and my throat feels like sandpaper.

  I stand up and crouch down over him, kissing his forehead, but he’s dead to the world. I go downstairs and head out into the street, just as his dad is coming round the corner, and he looks as sheepish as I feel as we give each other a thin grin of acknowledgement.

  I’m suffering badly with this hangover and I know that it’s going to get much worse once the cocaine and alcohol still in my system start to wear off. I recall Jason playing some interesting music, the likes of which I’ve never heard before. I climb into the car, which has been parked outside all night.

  As my backside makes contact with the seat I feel wetness on my arse. I’ve probably been sitting in something. My armpits whiff a little. I should go home,
shower and sleep, but I’m restless and excited and I go up to see Lara. When I get to the house, Dr Grant answers, his face lined, lean and tubercular. It’s as if the respiratory diseases he diagnoses in the district’s former mineworkers have somehow, by a strange osmosis, filtered into his own lungs. You can see why Lara loves to go out and fuck cavemen. How else would she get a reaction from this repressed, stoical figure? Despite the fact that she’s ‘grown out’, as she puts it, of Marilyn Manson, there’s still an anger in her that runs deep. Her habits are still the same and they’re worse than mine. She’s just good at the civilised veneers. Fuck that, I’ve seen what that shit does. My mother being a case in point.

  — Is Lara in? I ask him.

  Dr Grant looks through me. This man loathes himself and the world in equal measures. He just nods at the stairs and I go up. I wonder if he can see the sticky wet patch on my bum.

  I knock and go right in to her bedroom. Lara’s sitting up on the bed reading her magazine and a purple-and-black eye looks out from over the top as she lowers it. — I can’t go into Dunfermline today, she says.

  — What happened?

  — What do you think? she challenges, and then adds cheerfully, — My bastard went psycho on me. I told him it was over. We argued. He wanted, you know, one last time.

  I think about that scumbag Klepto, and how far evil trash like that would actually go. — Oh my God! Did he, you know –

  — It wasn’t rape, far from it, she says, now smirking. — I was quite turned on at the idea. More than him when it came down to it. She shakes her head contemptuously. — He couldn’t perform. I was a little too scathing, and well, he didn’t take it so good. She now stifles a sniffle, seeming flooded by a rush of angry despair.

  — Oh love, I cry and I open my arms and take her in them.

  — You’re sweet, she says as she breaks off our hug and looks miserably at me. — It’s my own fault. I should have known better. He’s bad news. So is his friend. You just think, I don’t know …

  I’m almost going to tell her about that horrible Klepto, and I can’t help but finish the sentence: — That you can change them?

  Lara laughs loudly at me. — Fuck, no. I’m not that stupid, Ms Cahill, she snorts, as I realise that I’ll never confide anything of importance to her, ever again. — You just think that they might be a little grateful to spend time with somebody who has an IQ and who doesn’t want to be pregnant. I was wrong. Now this fucking bruise won’t go down for Hawick. I’ll look like some schemie crack whore from Glenrothes!

  — It isn’t so bad, I tell her, getting out my make-up bag. — Let’s see what we can do.

  21.

  JASON’S MUM

  THE AULD GIRL’S gittin gey meaty: especially roond the airms. She’s still goat that stiff blonde hair piled up and lacquered in place n thon foundation thickly caked in layers oan her coupon. She’s an awfay short-erse though; ah take thon vertically challenged gene offay her n it’s a persistent but disturbin thought that ah wis ripped oot ay her gash ower a quarter ay a century ago. — What the hell huv ye done tae yir airm?

  — It’s jist bruising, ah explain, n tell her the story about perr Kravy.

  She listens in open-moothed silence, eyes bulging oot like she’s done a strong line ay coke. — Are ye happy, son? she keeps askin ays. — N ah’m no meanin just aboot perr Allister; ah mean apart fae that. Are ye happy in general?

  — Aye, too right, Ma, ah tell hur. Then she gies ays that look and goes, — But ur ye really happy?

  When ah say nowt, she does as she eywis does n blames ma faither. — That man spreads misery like ah spread butter on toast when ah dae the breakfasts here. Wanted a Marxist state which wis bad enough, but eh wanted everybody else tae bring it intae being. He wouldnae git oaf his erse though, no Alan King. It was aw ah could dae tae get him up in time for the bus for the picket line.

  — How’s this new yin treatin ye then? ah ask hur, even though eh’s no that new now; its been fifteen year, longer thin she wis wi the auld boy. But ah still cannae even bear tae say the wee cunt’s name. Ah like the fact that even though eh’s bigger than me, every hoor prefixes his name wi the term ‘wee’. Ah mean, ah git called ‘wee man’ sometimes, but naebody gies ays that ‘Wee Jason’ treatment. Ah call it r-e-s-p-e-c-t, ya hoor.

  Muh ma looks balefully at ays. Ah suppose yon Bambi moment wis the high-water mark ay wur relationship n yin that wir eywis baith subconsciously strivin but failin tae recreate oan oor very occasional meetings. — Look, Jason, ah’m no sayin that Wee Arnie’s perfect; ah mean, whae is, n what relationship is? But he’s been here fir me when ah needed um, n she sortay looks doon at her missin tit, no thit ah kin mind ay which yin they loped oaf, n they baith look the same wi that big rid jumper ower thum. Suckled oan they hoors ah wis; in a bizarre wey it makes ays gled thit ah goat ma share before they surgeons did thir deed.

  — Listen, Ma, ah need a wee favour.

  — Thoat that’s how ye might be here, she says tartly, gaun tae her handbag.

  The alarm bells tell ays it’s time fir Alan Wells meets Davie Hulme in Fife Centrale, as a wee sprint tae yon moral high groond is called fir. — Naw, it’s no that, ah goes. — Ah need tae borrow yin ay they big pots fae yir kitchen.

  She looks a bit relieved, then guilty, then perplexed. — Yir no plannin oan cookin soup, ur ye? Mind the last disaster whin ye tried tae cook soup? Still, ye wir jist a wee thing then, she goes wistfully. Then she looks up at ays wi interest. — No nestin ur ye? Nae sign ay a girlfriend?

  Thinkin ay thon wee Jenni, whae left early this morning eftir ‘steyin the night’, ah goes, — Well, thir is a wee romance, fledglin ah stress, but, fledglin.

  — When dae ah git tae meet her?

  — Soon, if ye lend ays a pot, ah tell her. Aye, wee Jenni went right oot fir the coont last night. Apart fae thon wank wi the cum splatterin across the tight buttocks ay thon stretch black troosers, ah wis the perfect gentleman. Went back oot like a light masel eftir that yin. Heaven through a haze that smoky rid thit it might huv been the other place, ya hoor sor.

  So wir doon in yon big kitchen n ah gits a hud ay this big cracker ay a pot thit’s hinging up oan the waw, ideal fir ma needs. Ah pits it ower ma heid n it fair rattles.

  — Git yir heid oot ay thair, laddie, it’s fir food!

  — Sorry, jist messin aboot, ah tells her in echo, then pills it oaf.

  — What ye wantin wi a big stockpot like that? You openin a soup kitchen fir aw the deadbeats back in Cooden?

  How soon they forget. A wee bit ay the sophisticated life in Dunfermline, n thir soon throwin thir loat in wi the bourgeoisie. This toon got airs n graces whin they opened that Costa Coffee. Ah kin jist hear her and the Wee Shite now – thon Wee Spermin Rhino – wi thir M&S cairryer bags under thir airms, makin a pit stoap before loadin up yon hatchback. Aye, thon stage whisper, ‘Make mine a large mocca!’ Ah’m no risin tae nae fuckin bait here, but. — Ask nae questions n ah’ll tell ye nae porkies.

  She rolls her eyes and lights up a fag and takes a big drag oan it. — What ur you up tae, laddie?

  — Nowt dodgy, n you shouldnae be smokin thaim, no eftir yir cancer.

  She shivers at ma use ay the word. — It wis tit Big C, no lung Big C.

  — But it’s no gaunny help.

  She shakes her heid. — Ah reckon ah’ve hud aw the Big C ah’m gaunny git. The breast thing wis ma ain fault, gaun oan aboot gittin they implants aw the time.

  — But ye nivir actually goat nae implants, did ye?

  — Naw, but ah thoat aboot it, she looks skywards, — n it wis His wey ah mindin ays thit ah’d been thinkin aboot frivolous empty things. For that ah gie thanks.

  The Wee Shite got her intae God-botherin years ago. — Mair likely it’s his wey ay mindin ye that ye bide in Fife, ah tells her, grabbin the pot.

  She gies ays a sour pout at that yin, n nods tae the pot. — Well, jist you mind n bring it back!

  — Course ah will, Ma.

&nbs
p; — N in the same nick that ye took it away in. N if ye want a hat ah’ll buy ye a baseball cap, right?

  — Aye.

  — Mind then. Wee Arnie’s a stocktaking demon and Chef’s a stickler for cleanliness.

  — Nae bother.

  She sticks a bin liner roond it fir ays. — How ye fixed for money, son?

  — Brassick, ah instinctively goes, although ah’m flush right now wi Cahill’s pey-oaf fir special services rendered and the auld ‘Egyptian fae Cairo’ hittin the mat yisterday. Even sorted masel oot wi a second-hand computer for a hundred quid fae Ideal Computers, next tae the toon hall. An investment awright: new(ish) technology, ya hoor.

  She fishes oot her purse, lookin sharply at ays, thon flinty gaze fair mindin me ay the times back in the hoose whin its contents wid miraculously vanish. At the same time ah’d be aw emotional as ah stockpiled loads ay model-aircraft perts nivir tae be assembled. — Take this, son, and she hands ays two twenties.

  — Ma, ah goes in gratitude, — ah dinnae ken what tae say, so ah’ll keep it short n sweet: awright.

  N wi that ah snaffle the auld hoor’s guilty pey-oaf n pick up the pot n head back tae the Beath.

  22.

  NEW HORSE

  LARA HAS TAKEN my advice and come out with me to the leisure centre. At first she was reluctant, and she refused to remove her dark glasses till we got there. I half expected her to emerge from the changing room into the gym with them still on, but they’ve been replaced by blobs of foundation. We do a full session; weights, step class, Stairmaster and the exasperatingly boring treadmill. It takes ages as she vanishes to apply fresh makeup before every new activity. Thankfully, she’s knackered and has to stop long before I run out of steam, something we’re both silently aware of! Afterwards, we go to the tanning studio. I’ve been telling her about my dad going on about this new fucking horse, and Indigo’s moaning about it all the time as well.