Authors: Irvine Welsh
– Fucked, ah sais.
– You should try some ay that crystal meth ah’ve got back at the hoose. Didnae even fuckin well blink eftir ah’d snorted that. Ah hud a fuckin hard-on man for three days, eh. Ah wis gaunnae abandon this quest fir love n brek ma vows and bell Amber tae come roond n sit oan ma face. Didnae want tae fuck wi her heid even mair man though, eh.
– She in the night?
– Aye, she’s upstairs. Her and that Hazel and Jasco. Jasco’s been knobbin that Hazel, he observed with rueful bitterness, blowing air out through his teeth and pushing his hair back, – Ah might have tae move in thair masel, man.
Amber didnae take long to locate me. She relieved Ally, letting him have a spell upstairs on the floor. – Ye dinnae huv tae sit wi ays, ah slurred. – ah’m awright. Jist a bit cunted …
– Sawright, she snapped, holding my hand in hers, before thoughtfully adding, – aw aye, that Veronica wis lookin for you.
As usual, it took ays a second or two to work out who she meant, then it hit me. Veronica was the tasteless nickname some people occasionally gave tae The Poisonous Cunt.
– Is she in here the night? ah asked with some apprehension, checking Amber’s watch tae see if we could make the curfew at Sublime or Sativa if it was a yes.
– Naw, this wis earlier at the City Cafe, eh.
Thank fuck. Ah took another pill and Ally, Amber and this young guy called Colin came back tae mine. Ah tried a shift oan the decks but ah was too fucked tae dae anything. This gig would be comin up soon n aw. We hud tae turn it doon cause the yuppie scum acroas the landin whae shouldnae be in Leith in the first place complained aboot the noise and ah didnae want the polis roond eftir what was gaun oan wi Nukes. It was a bit embarrassing as Amber was trying tae get intae Ally and this young Colin cunt was trying tae get intae her. If ah had a wee bit mair sexual ambivalence and energy, ah’d have tried to get intae the young guy just tae wind every cunt up even mair. Eventually, he went, then Ally did too and ah wanted Amber tae but she sat up all night playing music. Ah was cunted, ah telt her that ah was fir crashin. When ah woke up in the morning she was at the other end ay the bed, her feet in my face.
– How you doin, Lloyd? Amber asked.
She was pulling her trousers on, looking dead young with her make-up faded and ah was feeling a bit like some paedophile cunt, aye right ye are ya dirty wee fuckin stoat-the-baw cunt that ye are.
– Fine, ah goes.
– Dinnae look fine tae me. Your feet are boggin, by the way.
– It’s good ay ye tae say so. That’s real mates for ye. Ye want a coffee?
– Aye … sound. Dinnae go aw huffy but, eh, Lloyd. Everybody’s feet smell eftir a night ay kickin it in trainers.
– Ah ken that. Take yours for instance. Fuckin mingin, they wir, ah say, rising to make the coffee, as she gies ays a long, contemptuous scowl.
Ah was feeling pretty ropey. The coffee wisnae daein it for me. Ah had tae see The Poisonous Cunt. Ah hud no tae see The Poisonous Cunt. This was getting oot ay hand. Ally had left some ay that crystal meth and ah was intae giein it a go. Ah needed a hit ay something before gaun tae that place. – Ye want a snort ay this? ah asked Amber.
– Nup, widnae touch it.
– That’s sensible, ah said, chopping up a couple of lines.
– You’re mental, Lloyd. What dae ye dae that fir?
– Dinnae ken. There’s something missing in ma life. Ah’m an auld cunt now, compared tae you at any rate, and I’ve never really been in love. That’s fuckin sad, ah telt her, snortin the lines. They are rough and fiery as fuck on my nasal lining.
Amber said, – Aw Lloyd … and gave me a hug and ah wished that ah could be in love with her but I’m no, so nae sense in kiddin oan aye cause that’s shite fir every cunt and aw yi’ll get is a ride oot ay it and a ride is never worth a good friendship.
She left just as my head blew apart.
15 Heather
The doctor has given me Prozac. Hugh agrees that I should take the Prozac.
– You’ve been a bit down in the dumps and this will help to tide you over, the doctor told me. Or was it Hugh who said that? I can’t remember. It was them both.
Tide me over what?
– I’ll see, I tell Hugh, – I don’t like the idea of taking drugs in that way, becoming dependent on them. You hear so much about it.
I’m late. Late again for my work. I can’t get out of bed.
– Hu-neh-eh … the doctors are professionals. They know what they’re doing, he tells me, as he swings his bag full of golf clubs over his shoulder. He’s on a day off on flexi-time today. – God, I’d better go. Billy-boy’ll be wondering where I’ve got to. We’re on tee at Pitreavie today, just cause I slaughtered him last week at Canmore. That’s Bill, Hugh shrugs. – Maybe we’ll nip round to his and Moll’s later, eh? Hugh kisses me and departs, – Bye, Honey.
I phone my pal Marie. She tells me to take the day off work sick and get the train over to Haymarket Station in Edinburgh. She’s going to take the day off as well. It seems the easiest thing in the world to just agree.
At Dunfermline station I wonder why there’s only one train an hour into Edinburgh, when Inverkeithing down the road has three or four. Thankfully I’ve only fifteen minutes until it’s due and then it’s only ten minutes late which is pretty good going.
Marie and I go around the shops and then back to her place and sit and drink tea and blether all afternoon. She skins up a few joints and I feel giggly. I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to but I have to make a move to Haymarket Station.
– Stay here tonight. Let’s go out. There’s a club on in town. Let’s get E’d up and go out, you and me, Marie says.
– I can’t … I have to get back … Hugh … I hear myself bleat.
– He’s old enough to look after himself for one night. C’mon. Let’s do it. You’ve got Prozac, that’s brilliant. We can take them after the Es. They prolong the effects of the Ecstasy while destroying the toxins in the MDMA which may or may not cause brain damage in later life. Therefore Prozac makes E completely safe.
– I don’t know … I’ve never taken drugs in years. I’ve heard a lot about Ecstasy …
– Ninety per cent of it’ll be bullshit. It kills you, but so does everything, every piece of food you ingest, every breath of air you take. It does you a lot less damage than the drink.
– Okay … but I don’t want to hallucinate …
It’s no like acid, Heather. You’ll just feel good about yourself and the rest of the world for a while. There’s nothing wrong with that.
– Okay, I agreed tentatively.
Like a coward, I left a message for Hugh on the answer-phone at home. Then we went out to a pre-club bar and then onto the club. I felt a bit foolish dressed in the clothes Marie had looked out for me. She was the same size as I was and she and I used to swap clothes when we were students. When we dressed the same. When I looked at myself in the mirror, I felt like a clown in the clothes, the short skirt, the tight T-shirt. But they suited Marie, and we were the same age. At the club, I thought everybody would be staring at me, but nobody bothered. I was a bit bored at first. Marie hadn’t let us drink in the pubs. It’ll spoil the E, she told us. I craved a gin for my nerves.
I took the pill in the club. It came on strong at first and I felt a bit sick in the stomach. I felt a bit bad, though not as bad as I was making out to Marie. – You’re making yourself feel bad by fighting it, Marie whispered, smiling at me. Then I felt it in my arms, through my body, up my back: a tingling, rushy sensation. I looked at Marie and she was beautiful. I’d always known that she was beautiful, but I had come, over the years, to look at her in terms of decline. I looked for signs of crow’s feet, extra pounds, signs of greying. If I found or
didn
’t find these it didn’t matter. The point was that I had been looking for them in Marie, and by implication, in myself, and blinding myself as to how she, and I, really were in totality.
I went to go to the toilet to see myself in the mirror. I didn’t seem to walk, but to float through within my own mystical aura. It was like I’d died and was moving through heaven. All those beautiful people were smiling and looking like I was feeling. The thing was, they didn’t look any different, you just saw the joy in them. I looked at myself in the mirror. What I did not see was the stupid fucking wife of Hugh Thomson. She was gone.
– Hiya, this girl said to me, – havin a good one?
– Aye … it’s absolutely unbelievable! Ah’ve never been so happy! It’s ma first time eckied … I gasped.
She gave me a big hug. – That’s really nice. There’s nothing like the first time. It’s always brilliant, but see the first time …
We talked for ages, and I remembered I had to get back to Marie. It was like I knew everybody though, all those strangers. We shared an insight and an intimacy that nobody who hadn’t done this in this environment could ever know about. It was like we were all together in our own world, a world far away from hate and fear. I had let go of fear, that was all that had happened. I danced and the music was wonderful. People, strangers, were hugging me. Guys too, but not in a creepy way. When I thought of Hugh, I felt sorry for him. Sorry that he would never know this, sorry that he had effectively wasted his life. Sorry that he had lost me, which he certainly had now. We were finished. That stage of my life was over and done with.
I was taking the next day off work as well.
16 Lloyd
Ally was right about this stuff. It was true: ye dinnae even blink for days. Ah was soon surging with energy and thoughts. Ah couldnae blink. Ah tried, tried tae force a blink as ah sat oan the lavvy daein a shite. Then something happened: ah couldnae stop blinking. Ah felt sick and thought ah was gaunnae pass out. Ah hit the cold lino on the bathroom floor and felt better with my red throbbing face against it. The blinking stopped and ah was alert again.
The door went and it was a guy called Seeker. He stepped past me into the hallway. He held up a bag and then hooked it onto a small, metal set of scales he’d produced. – Ten grams, he said, – take a dab.
Ah did, though ah couldnae really tell the purity ay the coke from it, cause I’m no a big coke-heid, although it seemed better than Abdab’s. Ah asked Seeker if ah could snort a line. He rolled his eyes impatiently, then he chopped out one each for us on the worktop in my kitchen. Ah felt that satisfying numbness but ah was so up on the meth that a poofy line ay toot would make nae real difference. That whole fuckin bag would make nae difference. Anyway, ah gave Seeker his dosh and he fucked off. He’s a weird cunt that, no intae any scene, but every cunt kens him.
Ah hive aboot a fifth ay the gear and stick in an equivalent ay non-perfumed talc and mix it. Thir isnae much ay a difference.
In the hoose ah couldnae settle. Ah wis phonin every cunt up and spraffin shite. Ah hud a red phone bill n nae dosh tae pey it, so ah always just go for it at times like that. Ah kept thinking about how ah got involved with The Poisonous Cunt. It was a while back, basically for reasons of finance. I’d do deliveries for her and Solo, who was like her boyfriend or husband or something like that. Solo was a radge, but since he’d received that bad kicking from this other firm he had
never
been such a potent force. He seemed slow, like sort of brain-damaged, after he was blootered unconscious. As Jasco once put it: – They ambulance radges that scraped Solo oaf the pavement seem tae huv left a wee bit ay the perr cunt behind.
Ah must admit that ah wasnae particularly heart-broken, but while he was a bad bastard, ye eywis kent where ye stood wi Solo. The Poisonous Cunt was a different matter. Ah should have suspected the worst when ah belled her and she wouldnae come to the phone. The Victim telt me that ah ‘wis tae come round’.
When ah got there the front room was mobbed out. In a corner The Victim sat quietly, looking out the window, her large black eyes tense and furtive, as if trying to anticipate fae where the next shattering blow was going to come into her life. Bobby was there, displaying a smile that dripped sinister contempt. Monts was there, totally wasted, too wasted to even speak to me, while ah picked out Paul Somerville, Spud Murphy and some other cunt ah vaguely recognised. Solo sat in his wheelchair in the corner. It was a fuckin hammer house ay horrors right enough.
– The Poisonous Cunt got off her tits last night, Bobby informed me. – Freebasing coke. She’s oan a brutal bastard of a comedown. Ah dinnae envy ye, Lloyd.
Ah didnae need this shite. Ah was just here tae dae a bit ay delivering. Ah went through to the Poisonous Cunt’s bedroom, tapping on the door first, and hearing a throaty rasp which might have been come or fuck off, but ah entered anyway.
The Poisonous Cunt was lying on her bed wearing a garish red tracksuit. The telly was on a table at the bottom of the bed. She was smoking hash. Her face was drained of colour, but her black hair looked well washed, had a kind of sheen to it. Her face, though, looked rough, scabby and dehydrated and its contrast with the health of her hair made her look like an old hag wearing a wig. She still had her most startling feature ah had long admired, her thick black eyebrows which joined in the middle, making her look like one of those type of Celtic fans who always look like Paul McStay. Under these brows she had narrow green eyes which were permanently in shadow and usually half-shut. Ah remember once when ah was
eckied
ah got an erection when ah saw her unshaved armpits visible in a white, sleeveless cotton top. Ah once had a wank about fucking her armpits, ah don’t know why this should be, but sexuality’s a weird cunt tae try and fathom oot. It caused me some angst for a while, well aboot two or three minutes. There was one particular time when ah was tripping in the chip shop at the fit ay the walk, unable to speak, unable to indicate what ah wanted, unable to think about anything but The Poisonous Cunt’s armpits. It was Ally who had started me off about them. He was on acid at Glastonbury and he said in a posh voice: – That lashie Veronica: an awfay abundance ay hair that lashie … After that we couldn’t keep our eyes off The Poisonous Cunt’s armpits.
Her face twisted at me in ugly recognition, then into a cartoon of disapproval, and ah understood just then why it should really be totally impossible to fancy her.