by Irvine Welsh
— Quiet, bud. Franco now looks like he’s really enjoying this. — You’re embarrassing yourself.
I feel incredulity warp my face. — Now I’ve been told by you tae stop making a cunt ay masel in public: game, set and match! Now gies ays the name ay your favourite charity, Franco, for fuck sake!
— I dinnae believe in charity, Mark. And call me Jim, please.
— What do you believe in? So I have to gie fifteen and a bit grand tae Hibs?
— I believe in looking after my ain, mate. He nods at his postcard Californian blonde wife, as the speakers suddenly rumble and Martin the agent guy gets tae the front ay the house.
Vicky rejoins me. — All good? she asks. — What’s that? She points to the envelope in my hand.
I put it back in the bag and zip it up. — Trying to give Frank something I owe him, but he won’t take it.
— Well, I must say, it all looks very exciting cloak-and-dagger stuff. Does it come from an illicit drug deal?
Franco turns and I cannae look the cunt in the eye because I suspect neither ay us would be able tae keep a straight face. — We only deal in Provi cheques in Leith, I tell her.
As I glance back at Franco, there’s a sound ay fingers hitting the mike, causing a static crackle, hushing the crowd intae silence. Martin the agent clears his throat. — Thank you for coming along. Now I’d like to introduce the director of this gallery and great patron of the arts of the City of Los Angeles, Sebastian Villiers.
A white-heided, rid-couponed, country-club cunt, whae looks like every American politician I’ve ever seen, gets up and starts talking utter shite aboot Begbie. About how his ‘work’ is the best thing since sliced breid. I cannae listen tae this pish! All I can think ay is getting Vicky home. I thought I was saturated with sex after this afternoon. No fucking way. I look at her, and her raunchy smile tells me she’s thinking the same. As we slope away, a DJ starts playing funk, and Franco and Melanie are dancing smoothly tae that Peter Brown track ‘Do You Wanna Get Funky with Me’.
Fuck me. That cunt. Dancing. And the fucker has moves. Is that really fucking Francis Begbie? Maybe it’s me. Maybe my Begbie beliefs are inculcated from another era. Maybe I just need tae let go ay aw that shite, like Jim Francis evidently has.
6
SICK BOY – IN SEARCH OF EUAN MCCORKINDALE
Drink and drugs are a whippersnapper’s game: there is little worse than a hangover or an E comedown after you hit fifty. Even under the licence of Christmas, you just feel weak and stupid, as the facts have to be faced: the meagre, diminishing returns of fun to be squeezed out in no way justifiy the subsequent extended horror show.
So I’m half submerged in this comfy couch, in front of the big flat screen and blazing coal fire in the McCorkindale home, a pot of tea by my side. I’m channel hopping, trying tae keep in a positive frame of mind. I can see Ben, outside in the garden, talking into his mobile phone, all big smiles. I decide that I’ll hang around here a few days longer, once I get him packed off south, after the Hibs–Raith encounter. I was set against Scottish independence, believing that we’d totally fuck it up. Now I’m changing my mind: the vibe and confidence in the city suggests we’d cope better than the shit-show down south. I’m thinking of calling Jill, speculating about an Edinburgh Colleagues, maybe identifying some more raw recruits and licking them intae shape!
I’m distracted by Carlotta, man-marking her darling brother, literally looming right over me. Obviously on her agenda: a missing hubby, the disgraced man of this formerly esteemed household. Carlotta isn’t going to move, or speak, and I don’t know how long I can keep pretending she isn’t staring at the top of my head. It’s been her MO since she was a kid. Always knew how tae use the power of brooding, silent outrage to increase the air pressure. I elect tae cashie it oot. — Hi, sis. Just trying to decide on my viewing. There’s … I pick up the handset, hit the guide button and read the screen, — ‘an enchanting romantic comedy starring Audrey Tautou’ that isn’t Amélie –
— You find Euan! You find ma husband! I look up and she’s glaring at me. Her voice set in that controlled, precise way of hers.
I turn to her and spread my palms. — Sis, I really can’t take volume right now … which is the wrong thing tae say as her eyes burn with murderous Latin passion. — He’ll show up when he’s go —
— FIND HIM!
What could be worse than walking those cold streets in that dead zone between Christmas and New Year? Staying here and enduring that banshee wail. I cough out my agreement and she heads off, her feet thumping up the wooden stairs. I’m putting on my coat in the hallway, with scarf and hat, as Ross comes through with a silent stare that commands a response. That laddie is perhaps his mother’s son.
— How’s Pitch and Toss? And what’s cuz Benito up to outside? Lady shenanigans, no doubt.
Then I realise that this little fucker is only balling his fists at me as if he wants a square go! — Mum said that you set Dad up with that woman, his high voice bleats.
Saucy mare, her! And cheeky little cunt, too! Well, the smart wee fucker is going head-to-head with the big boys now. I fix him in an even gaze, and lower my voice. — Maybe the blame was yours though, buddy, and I watch his mouth flap open in disbelief. — Maybe you made Euan want to prove himself, with you going on about being too much ay a pussy virgin tae git yir hole.
— What … How did you … Who said –
— You may wish tae factor that into your calculations. I flick my scarf over my shoulder and start buttoning my coat up.
His eyes blink rapidly in concert with his trembling lips. – You shouldnae … You don’t … He tries to run away, but I reach out and grab his arm. — Get off me!
— Go on, run to Mamma, I sneer. That stops his struggle in its tracks. — That’ll work, if your quest in life is to stay a virgin forever. That’ll ensure you achieve your goal, awright.
Ross’s head is hung low. It’s as if he’s looking at the imaginary Minecraft world he’s set up on the floor.
— Lift your head up, I tell him. — Be a man, for fuck sake.
He physically struggles to do this. — But … but … but …
I assist him, wrenching his chin north. Forcing him to look into my eyes. — You can’t get your hole. Fine. I get it. I understand how important it is, and I release my grasp ay his face. I note his chin dips a bit but his eyes remain set on mine. — Your mother won’t help you get laid, Ross. Your father … well, come on, I tell him, feeling a little disloyal. But nobody asked Euan to fuck Marianne or for them to get fruity with the video camera. That horny hoor … her sluttish adventurism is suddenly exciting to me. I should have ridden her, not that prick … — But I will, I tell him, watching his eyes suddenly bulge. — If you want it.
Yes, even through his despondency, something in those lamps has ignited! — You … you’d do that for me?
— Of course I will. I punch his airm. — Blood is thicker than water. I want you to have a full sex life, tae be able to talk tae women and enjoy congress with them, and I pull him into the alcove by the front door, lowering my voice. — I don’t want to see you wasting your teen years on guilty masturbation, choking whenever a girl you fancy steps into the room, I explain, enjoying the shade of Jambo maroon his coupon is bursting out into. — I had a great friend, Danny Murphy, his name was; he never got any action, I wistfully recount. — So the boy grew up wrong. I don’t want any ay that nonsense for you, good buddy.
I feel my blandishments move him, but he’s still suspicious. — What’s it to you? Why do you want to help?
— Well, I have one considerable advantage over your mum and dad.
— What?
— I don’t see you as a daft wee bairn. To me you’re a normal young guy who is just trying tae make his way in life, and I realise that this is the most important thing in your world right now.
— It is! Ross squeals in gratitude. — I’m glad somebody understands!
I nod upstairs, urging
him to lower his voice by dropping mine. — Well, naturally I do. Have you any idea what I do for a living?
Ross swivels his head to check the coast is still clear. Then he faces me, sucking in his bottom lip. — I’ve heard Mum and Dad talk about it. It’s like an escort agency.
— Exactly. I’m in the business of hooking up lonely and frustrated people with desirable members of the opposite sex. It’s what I do.
— You could –
Again, I take my voice down a notch, and nod up the wooden staircase. — Shh … Yes I could, I hiss. I can hear Carlotta thrashing around in rage, slamming doors too hard, stamping across the sanded floors. I gaze out to the garden where Ben is ending his call, doubtless ready to come in and hit me for cash. The kid is a money-guzzling machine. I blame the Surreyites and their careless indulgence of him, or, perhaps more realistically, their planned humiliation of one Simon David Williamson; forcing me to compete in a game I can never win. — What you need is an experienced woman to guide you through this cherry loss.
Ross looks at me in horror. — But I fancy –
I cut him off. — I know who you fancy; some feisty, pixie-faced wee heartbreaker at school, who struts around well aware that she’s a playground supermodel. But to hunt that sort of game you need the tools, and I ain’t just talking about that cannon in your troosers, which I’m hoping is a Williamson 9.5 rather than a McCorkindale 5.5, if you get my drift.
The kid’s pained face tells me it’s closer to the latter.
— No, buddy, you need the confidence that experience gives you: social as well as sexual. That’s what Prof Unc Si from Shaggers University offers. Now think it through. And tell your mother fuck all. This is a bros’ thing. Promise?
— Right … Thanks, Uncle Simon, he squeaks in gratitude, bumping my proffered fist.
Just then, Ben appears at his shoulder, looking a little smug, but still shooting us a what-the-fuck stare.
— Benito the bandito! I’m trying to talk your piccolo cugino, Pitch and Toss here, and I place an arm around the shoodirs of the spotty boy, — into joining us at the ER hozzy.
— The ER hozzy … Ben says in his lazy, posh, suburban Home Counties accent … My God, he’s one of them. My son is one of them. — Is that something to do with Uncle Euan?
— No! ER as in Easter Road, hozzy as in hospitality. For the match of the season against the mighty Raith Rovers!
— Yeah, cool, Ben says, massively underwhelmed, but coming to some animation on noting that I’m attired in a coat and scarf. — Where are you going?
— A wee message for your auntie.
— Are you going to find Dad? Ross bleats. — I want tae come!
— Not possible, pal of mine, I contend as I hear thumping steps down the stairs.
— Ross! Carlotta barks from the doorway. — You’ll stay here with your cousin!
Ross has that what-the-fuck-have-I-done-wrong expression of hangdog bemusement.
I tip him a wee wink, which seems to console him a little. This is as opportune a time as any to make good my escape. Enough of all the family shite! This festive blight on the calendar is a headfuck, and thank Christ (literally) that it’s only once a year.
So I head out on my dispiriting search. The frosty bite of winter tingles my face, as the street lamps blink into an insipid glow. The daylight hours here are so fleeting it’s almost more of an insult inserting such meagre, murky grey slithers of shit into the total darkness. Funny, but in my younger days, I always wanted out of this city. London offered a bigger canvas. Now, unaccountably, I feel a perverse loyalty towards it. I even contemplate taking a stroll down Leith Walk, but that would only serve to invite crushing despondency. The one thing worse than hearing the words: SICK BOY YA CUNT, WHAIRE HUV YOU BEEN HIDIN YIRSEL? – delivered at maximum volume across a filthy pub – would be not hearing them at all. I set course away from town, towards the Royal Infirmary, Euan’s place of work. When I get to the reception desk, they phone personnel in response to my enquiry, before informing me, — Dr McCorkindale is on leave until the 6th of January.
So I get the bus back into town. It’s fuckin nippy alright; my coupon is stinging with the cold air and my lips are cracking over. I head into a Boots tae buy some lip balm and condoms.
As he’s not a lost waif, there’s no sense in trawling the bus or train stations, so I opt to hang around the hotel lobbies. At least they’re warm. Euan has dosh but is too much of a penny-pinching Calvinist wanker to splash out on the Balmoral or the Caledonian. It will be a functional, clean budget chain, so I hit a few and loiter; they’re full of sales and marketing cumsplats, but no sightings of disgraced Colinton podiatrists.
Applying the same logic, I doubt Euan would have gone to a high-class escort agency. I’m betting he’s been slumming it in the saunas, loving the thrill of the transaction, and part of him excited at the potential humiliation of being rumbled by a work colleague. Yes, I reckon he subconsciously craves all this drama. I hit a couple of the Mary Tyler Moore hooses, one at the top end of Leith and the other in the New Town, showing the Christmas photo I took of Euan on my phone, without exciting any signs of recognition.
I find those tacky premises and their grubby clientele dispiriting. This place in the East New Town is like a shabby government office of the eighties. With its bland reception area, you feel as if you are here to get your passport stamped rather than your pipes cleaned. I head outside, about to call it a day and return empty-handed to face Carlotta’s wrath, when I hear somebody emerging behind me. Then a voice urges, — Hi, mate, hud on a minute.
I turn to face what can only be described as a total fuckin radge. His eyes, slitty but burning with a focused intent, announce him as big trouble. He wears an expensive-looking suit, but it somehow seems scabby on him, as if it’s gotten damp from him actually wearing it in a sauna. I know who he is; he’s the psycho cunt that runs some of these establishments, and whom Terry once did some work for. This isn’t good. When a stranger refers to you as ‘mate’ in that tone of voice, it never is.
— You’ve been gaun roond the saunas, asking about a boy?
— Aye. I take the initiative and show him the picture on my phone.
— Well, if you’re playing detective and no going tae the bizzies, it cannae be kosher, this bastard says. God forged this cunt’s pus when He was sat constipated on the toilet seat and thinking of the word ‘snide’. Not the Creator’s best work, it must be said.
— The boy’s a bit ay a sex case, I explain. — His missus is ma sister, and she caught him playing away fae hame. Chucked him oot. Now she wants him back. I thought he might have been hooring, is all.
All the time this cunt’s slanty, malicious, sweetie-wife eyes are going from the screen to my coupon. Then he suddenly says, — Ah ken you! Sick Boy, they called ye!
They presumably being his fellow retarded idiots, ones also created from the grunting congress of mongol siblings. — Ha … no heard that one for a while.
— Ayyye … you punt aboot doon in London now. Wi Leo, and the Greek cunt, what’s-his-name …
My heart skips a wee beat. This product of retard kinshafting has a long reach, and with fellow insect-brained fuckers not programmed to compromise their mechanical goals. If he’s mobbed up with them, there is no hiding place and it means I’m duty-bound to assist. — Andreas … Yes, Leo, great lads. But that’s all in the past. These days I run a respectable dating agency. We have an application –
— You’re a Leith boy, he accuses, — used tae run wi Franco Begbie.
— Aye, I concede. I hate the way these cretins use the term ‘run’, their pathetic gangster pish vexes me, and I can’t believe I’m hearing Begbie’s name now; that violent psychopathic cunt who conned his way out of jail on some bullshit art ticket. This nightmare grows bleaker by the second. It’s dark and cold and I’m hung-over and I crave that couch. Even Carlotta’s verbal assault and iciness must beat being in the uncomfortable proximity ay this fucker. Now the wind i
s whipping freezing fucking rain into my face.
— Well, ah dinnae care who you are, ye dinnae come intae ma premises and poke yir neb in. Got that?
— Well, I wisnae really. As I explained, I was looking for my brother-in-law. He’s a surgeon and he –
The next thing I know is the wind is battered oot ay ays by a jackknifing blow tae ma guts … I can barely breathe, as I reach out and grab the railing. There are people walking by in the rain, some at a bus stop, others smoking outside a pub. Not one of the cunts has even noticed this prick’s assault on me!
I look up at his pitiless eyes. — Ah’ll take that phone, he gestures tae the mobby in my hand.
— Ma phone … what the fuck …?
— Dinnae make ays say it again.
I hand it over, hating myself, but trying to catch my breath. The options of running away or striking back are beyond me at this point in time, and probably any. This cunt is a killer.
He casually types his number into my phone, and calls up his own, letting it ring. He hands it back to me. — We have each other’s contact info now. So ah’ll let you ken if this boy shows up. Meantime, you keep the fuck oot ay my premises, unless invited by moi. Right?
— Right. I feel my breath coming back. — Thanks … appreciated. I’m thinking to myself: If this cunt has any hoors worth thieving, they will all be working for me at an Edinburgh Colleagues, while he’ll be wearing that famous maroon jersey as he’s getting rogered daily on the beasts’ wing at Saughton. I will make that happen.