by Irvine Welsh
— What … that’s a phone dating application?
— What a shite name for an escort agency, Terry contends, as the taxi rumbles towards the city centre.
— Is it fuck a shite name, Simon protests to Terry, ignoring Euan. — It’s not a hoors’ agency, Terry, it’s designed for the business professional. Anybody can get sex now. This is about surface, image: businesspersons wanting to make the right impression. Nothing says success like having bright and gorgeous associates. Thirty-two per cent of our girls are MBAs.
— Mooth Before Erse? Ah should hope so!
— Masters in business administration. At Colleagues we like them to be able to talk business as well as get down to it. It’s all about sophistication.
— Aye, but they still ride them. That’s hoorin tae me, ay.
— That’s for the girls to negotiate, Simon says impatiently, looking at his app. — We take our fee as an agency and get client feedback to ensure the girls maintain the standards we expect. Enough of this, though, he gruffly declares, — on to affairs festive. His eyes scan the screen. — Three prospects in the Counting House: two young things and a seasoned pro that looks good value. Simon sticks the headshot of a pouty brunette in front of Euan. — Would you? Assuming, of course, you were single?
— I don’t – well, I suppose –
— You’d fuckin ride it raw, mate, Terry sings from the front seat. — It’s the wey wir hard-wired. Guaranteed. Ah’m only gaun by Richard Attenborough. That cunt’s been aw ower this fuckin planet, watched everything that moves n analysed its cowpin behaviour. Scientific. He taps his head. — Trust in Dickie.
Simon is looking at another incoming text message. — Hunting the women you want, avoiding the ones you don’t, it’s such a drag … He glances up at the back of Terry’s head as they roll over the North Bridge into Princes Street. — And it’s David Attenborough, ya fucking docile mutation. Richard was the cunt that died. The actor. Humped Judy Geeson after strangling her in 10 Rillington Place. Mind, kenning you, ye probably did mean Richard, Simon asserts, setting off a round of laughing and bickering with Terry, which to Euan’s ears is both pointless and obscene.
They fight their way to the bar of a George Street pub packed with festive revellers. Christmas songs of the seventies and eighties blast out. As Euan gets the drinks in, Terry immediately hooks up with a woman whom, Simon explains, he arranged to meet on Slider. In truculent entitlement he manoeuvres elbow room at the bar, Euan deploying polite diligence to attain the same result, as Terry vanishes with his consort. — And that’s it? He’s off with her? Euan asks.
— Yes, done deal. He’ll probably bang her in the back of the taxi. Simon holds up his glass. — Happy birthday!
Sure enough, Terry returns fifteen minutes later, a smile etched on his face. His companions are only halfway through their beers. — Mission accomplished, he winks. — Slide it in, slide it oot, git thum frothin at the mooth.
With their hard-won advantageous position at the bar, Euan anticipates another round, but Simon, checking his phone, suggests they move to an establishment down the street.
Outside, the cold is starting to bite. Euan is relieved that they don’t wander too far down Hanover Street before Simon leads their descent into a basement space. As his brother-in-law hits the bar, Euan turns to a yawning Terry. — Are you and Simon old friends?
— Kent Sick Boy for years. He’s Leith, ah’m Stenhoose, but we eywis goat on. Baith shaggers, baith Hibbies, ah suppose.
— Yes, he’s taking Ben to Easter Road at New Year.
— You follow the fitba, bud?
— I do, but I don’t really support any team. On my island, passions weren’t highly aroused.
— Keep aw that for the cowpin, mate, right? Country birds ur meant tae be game as fuck. Suppose thaire’s nowt else tae dae but, ay-no, mate?
Euan can only force an awkward nod, but his blushes are saved as Simon returns from the bar, carrying incongruously summery-looking drinks. He steers them over to a relatively quiet spot close to the toilets. — Time for a sneaky wee guzzle of the most vile cocktail ever. If you can knock this back in a oner, you are fucking men, he declares, thrusting beverages that look like pina coladas at Terry and Euan.
— Fuck … it’s Christmas but, ay, Terry says, holding his nose and knocking his back. Simon shadows him.
Euan sips at his drink. Despite the pineapple, coconut and lemonade, it has a rank but metallic bite to it; there is something bitter and evil at its centre. — What is this?
— My own special recipe. Designed for your birthday! Drink, drink, drain your glass; raise your glass high! Simon commands in song.
Euan gives a well-it-is-my-birthday-and-it-is-Christmas-Eve shrug and swallows it back. Whatever abominable concoction lies in the fabric of the cocktail, it’s easier to down it in one.
Simon eyes are diverted from the phone’s screen to look over to a woman wearing a green top, who is scanning the bar. — That one’s probably been on the prowl in the same spot since I rogered her last Christmas!
Terry swiftly looks across. He puts on a David Attenborough voice: — If the beast is at its watering hole, it’s about to get its hole watered … and he sweeps back his corkscrew mane, winks at the woman and heads over to her.
Euan and Simon watch him in action. When the woman starts giggling at some comment, her hand reaching to her hair, they know the deal has been sealed. To Euan, Simon’s rapacious eyes scrutinise Terry as much as his new companion. — Terry is phenomenally effective. With a certain type of woman, he spits out bitterly.
His reaction makes Euan uncomfortable, and inclined to change the subject. — You were up last Christmas to see your mum?
— Yes … Ah ha, he says, his busy index finger flicking through an on-screen catalogue of girls’ faces, most of whom seem to be in their twenties, — a Ghost of Christmas Tinder Present!
— I can see why it would be a powerful dating tool, Euan says nervously. He is suddenly aware of nausea in the pit of his stomach, followed by a tingling in his arms and chest. He feels warm and he is sweating. After a brief panic clashes with this excitement, he succumbs to a strange glow coming over him, like a golden cloak of levity has been lowered onto his shoulders.
— Euan, you can download this app in seconds, Simon urges. — Seriously. Or I’m happy to shop around on your behalf, and he casts his eye over a group of women, compelling Euan to follow.
— I can’t! I’m married … he says wistfully, thinking of Carlotta, — to your sister!
— Jesus fuck, am I in the wrong century, or what? Simon snaps. — Let’s enjoy the benefits of neoliberalism before it goes tits-up, finally detonating this wretched planet from under our feet. We have a perfect synthesis of the very best of the free market and socialism, right here on our phones! It’s the answer to the greatest problem of all time – the loneliness and misery caused by not getting your hole at Christmas – and it’s free!
— But I love Carlotta! Euan shouts in triumph.
His brother-in-law rolls his eyes in exasperation. — What’s love got to do, got to do with it, he sings, then explains in a forced patience: — In today’s marketplace, sex is a commodity like any other.
— I’m not in today’s marketplace, and I don’t want to be, Euan says, feeling his jaw starting to grind. His mouth is dry. He needs water.
— How quaintly Protestant. Johnny Knox would be proud. I am fortunate to be blessed with the papist’s slate-wiping gift of confession, which I cheerfully deploy once every few years.
Euan dabs his sweaty forehead with a hanky, sucks in some air. The Christmas tree lights and the glow of tinsel are particularly vivid. — I feel pretty buzzed after the champers and that vile-tasting short … What was it …? That lambswool jumper of yours, he touches Simon’s forearm, — it feels so soft.
— Of course. I spiked the cocktail with MDMA powder.
— You what … I don’t do drugs, I’ve never done drugs …
— Well, you’re doing them now. So kick back, relax and enjoy.
As Euan sucks in air and pushes his melting bones into a seat at a suddenly vacated table, Terry, who has been chatting to the woman in the green top, storms over to Simon, all lit up. — Did you pit E in that drink? Turnin ays intae a fuckin lesbo, ya sabotaging cunt! Ah’m away tae the bogs tae hit the ching n take the love oot ay this mix n git the fuckin shaggin back in. Fuckin clart! And he shakes his curls and heads to the toilets.
WHOOSH!
Euan is rising up through himself in an unabating ascent. It is good. He thinks of his father and that rapturous high the old man seemed to get from prayer and song on Sundays. He considers Carlotta and how much he loves her. He doesn’t tell her often enough. He shows it, but doesn’t say the words. Not nearly enough. He has to phone her now.
He moots this to Simon. — Bad idea. Tell her straight or not at all. She’ll just think it’s the drug talking. Which it is.
— No it’s not!
— Tell her tomorrow then: at the Christmas dinner table. In front of us all.
— I will, Euan states emphatically, then he starts to tell Simon about Ross, and then his own sexual experiences. Or lack of.
— Ecstasy is a truth drug, Simon says. — I thought it was time we got to know each other. All these years we’ve been in the same family, yet we’ve barely spoken.
— Yes, we’ve certainly never had a time like this …
Simon prods his brother-in-law’s chest. The action isn’t aggressive or intrusive to Euan, it feels quite bromantic. — You need to experience different women, Simon’s head swivels across the bar, iPhone finally sliding into his pocket, — or the resentment will eventually destroy your marriage.
— No it won’t.
— Yes it will. We are nothing but consumers now: of sex, drugs, war, guns, clothes, TV shows. He waves his hand in grandiose derision. — Look at this crowd of miserable cretins, pretending to have fun.
Euan checks out the revellers. There is a kind of desperation about it all. A bunch of young lads in Christmas jumpers are swaggering in superficial bonhomie, but waiting for the one drink that will pit them violently against some strangers, or, failing that, each other. A group of office girls are comforting a morbidly obese colleague, who is bubbling in tears. Sitting a little apart, two others chuckle in a vicious, conspiratorial glee at her distress. A barman, lower lip hanging and eyes dulled in clinical depression, sets about the joyless task of collecting the glasses that appear on the tables like baby rabbits in a spring meadow. All this to an unceasing medley of Christmas pop hits from the seventies and eighties which have become such staple fare every Yuletide that they have people mumbling the words under their breath, like discharged military combat victims of post-traumatic stress.
It is in such an environment that Simon David Williamson increasingly warms to his theme. — We have to keep on going till the train hits the buffers; then we shelve the insanity and neurosis and build a better world. But we can’t do that until this paradigm comes to a natural end. So for now we simply go with neoliberalism as an economic and social system, and pursue those addictions relentlessly. We have no choice in the matter. Marx was wrong about capitalism being replaced by a wealthy, educated, workers’ democracy; it’s being replaced by an impoverished, tech-savvy, shaggers’ republic.
Enthralled and horrified by Simon’s bleak dystopia, Euan shakes his head in agitation. — But there has to be choice, he protests, as Roy Wood once again reiterates his wish that it could be Christmas every day, — there has to be doing the right thing.
— Increasingly not. Simon Williamson tosses his head back, running his hand through black and silver locks. — Doing the right thing is now for the loser, the mug, the victim. That is how the world has changed. He takes a pen and small notebook out of his pocket and draws a diagram on a blank page.
Before 35 Years of Neoliberalism:
CUNT | HUMAN BEING | MUG
After 35 years of Neoliberalism:
CUNT | HUMAN BEING | MUG
— The only real choices are proscribed, slightly different versions of the wrong thing, basically picking an alternative route to the same overriding hell. Jesus, these poodirs are total fucking old-school … Simon says, wiping some sweat from his brow. — Still, he lets his saucer eyes swivel to Euan, — it’s not all bad, then he turns and stares at a girl, who is standing a few feet away with a friend. He holds up his phone. She stares back and laughs before coming over, introducing herself as Jill, and presenting her cheek for, and receiving, a dignified peck from the rising Simon. As she converses with his brother-in-law, Euan is enchanted to find his misgivings peeling away. Jill is nothing like the desperate online daters of his imagination. She is young, confident, good-looking and obviously smart. Her friend, roughly the same age, but a little bit plumper, looks at him. — I’m Katy.
— Hi, Katy, I’m Euan. Are you, em, a Tinder person too?
Katy seems to evaluate him for a second, before responding. ‘My Girl’ by Madness comes on the jukebox. Euan thinks of Carlotta. — I use it occasionally, but it can get dispiriting. Most people are just looking for sex. Fair enough. We all have our needs. But it’s sometimes too much. Do you use the app?
— No. I’m married.
Katy raises her brows. She touches his arm, looking at him in enervated leniency. — Good for you, she sings, but in a detached manner. Then she spots somebody and flutters across the bar. Euan is staggered to experience a deep sense of loss at her departure, which is assuaged by the notion that everything is okay.
A slender blonde woman, probably in her thirties, Euan fancies, has entered the bar and is staring at Simon. She is striking, with almost translucent skin and haunting, luminous blue eyes. On meeting her stare, his brother-in-law sighs loudly. A Ghost of Christmas Tinder Past, and he apologises to Jill, and heads over to address the incomer. Jill and Euan watch in silence as they exchange some words, which Euan senses are heated, before Simon heads back to them. He jostles Jill and Euan over to an empty table.
To Euan’s surprise, the blonde woman joins them, a glass of white wine in her hand, never taking her eyes off Simon. He is preoccupied, canoodling with Jill. It’s at that point Euan thinks that the woman might be older than he first thought; her skin is flawless, but her eyes carry a weight of experience.
She turns to Euan, still looking at Simon. — Well, he obviously isn’t going to introduce us. I’m Marianne.
Euan extends his hand, glancing over at his brother-in-law whose fingers now caress Jill’s dark-stockinged thigh, as her tongue goes into his ear.
And Euan is looking at Marianne, who watches the scene in sheer loathing. Yes, he considers, she might even be close to his age, but there is something majestic about her. All the flaws of ageing, the lines, the bags, the crow’s feet, seem to have been airbrushed from her. He wonders if it could be the drug. All he sees is the essence of this strikingly beautiful woman. — Euan, he introduces himself. — Have you known Simon long?
— For years. Since I was in my teens. I’d say twenty per cent a blessing, eighty per cent a curse, she informs him in a monotone voice. To his ear, it straddles scheme and suburb.
— Wow. In what sense? he asks, moving closer to her, and looking at Simon.
— He’s a menace to lassies, Marianne says matter-of-factly. — He makes them fall for him, and then he just uses them.
— But … you’re still here, in his company.
— Then I’m still in his control, she laughs joylessly, then bitterly lashes out and kicks Simon’s shin. — Bastard.
— What? Simon breaks his grip on Jill to glare at her. — Are you fucking mental? Calm doon!
— Fucking bastard. Marianne kicks out again, then, looking at the younger woman, acidly scoffs, — You poor wee fucking cow. He’s an old cunt now. I least I was conned by a young, exciting guy, and she rises and throws the contents of her wine glass over him.
Simon Williamson sits immob
ile, wine dripping from his face, as the oohs and aahs of the nearby drinkers reverberate. Euan fishes out his hanky and passes it to his brother-in-law. — Go after her, Simon urges him, nodding at the departing Marianne. — Talk to her. Been stalking me for weeks, knowing I’d be up from London for Christmas. She resents that she’s no longer young, but it happens to us all. I mean, get the fuck over yourself, he intones in a rising plea to the bar, before turning to Jill. — Repeat after me: I will never turn into my mother!
— I will never turn into my mother, Jill says emphatically.
— Attagirl. Simon appreciatively grapples her knee. — It’s all a state of mind. You obviously have the big-match temperament.
— I’m ticklish, Jill chuckles and pushes his hand away, before asking, — Do you think I could work for Colleagues? I’ve no got an MBA but I’ve an HND in Management Studies fae Napier and I just need another four credits to get it made up tae a BA.
— If BA stands for beautiful arse — and I think in your case it does — then it seems to me that you have all the essential attributes! Though all potential partners, as we call them, are subject to the most rigorous and searching interview procedures, he purrs.
Euan is done with Simon’s company. Perversely, his brother-in-law probably meant well in his own twisted way, but he has filled him full of drugs, and attempted to get him to cheat on his wife, the man’s own sister! He hesitates for a second, before rising to follow Marianne. In the event, she has only got as far as the bar, where she stands, holding her bag as if waiting on somebody. — Are you okay?
— I’m fine, Marianne says, the second word hissing out.
— Are you …?
— I’m waiting on a cab. She waves her phone, the motion seeming to precipitate its ringing. — Here we go.