Irvine Welsh - Crime

He sits in a restaurant, awaiting Tianna’s arrival as he talks to Dolores’s granddaughter, Nadia, a teacher. She is spending time with her grandmother, who has not taken well to Braveheart’s demise. Dolores hadn’t been the same at the ballroom-dancing tournament the previous night, where Bill and Jessica Riordan had easily defeated her and Ginger, who is still rankled by this. — Have you ever heard of a Paddy who could dance? he asks the assembled company of Lennox, Nadia, Dolores, Bill and Jessica over pre-lunch drinks in his favourite Mexican Cantina.

— Michael Flatley? Jessica retorts.

— Poofs, faggots; they can always dance, Ginger scoffs, — I’m talking about normal heterosexual Paddies like Bill here.

— Flatley’s not gay. He’s married, Jessica says, lifting a margarita to her lips.

— He dances like that and he’s straight? Ginger laughs in derision.

El Hombre de el Cantina de Fettes , Lennox considers. Then, thinking of Tianna, who is on her way following an impromptu shopping detour with Trudi, he asks Nadia about the way the girls at her school dress.

— It’s my biggest headache, she says, crunching a dipped salsa chip. — I gotta send kids home all the time. Ten, eleven, they wear short skirts; you can see their panties. I tell em, ‘You gotta go cover yourself up, girl.’ In most cases they don’t think anything of it, it’s just the fashion. They look at me like I’m some evil old spinster hag, she says, sweeping her long, curly hair out of her face. — But what happens if you let it go? Young guys and not so young guys start giving them attention. And they like it, so they start all the sexy prancing around, without really knowin what it is they’re doin.

Lennox has found himself paying attention to young girls’ consumer habits over the last week: how they dressed, what they read, the records they bought, how they spoke to each other. He’d read that they were hitting puberty and getting their periods earlier. It seemed that growing up was more stressful than ever. He considers his own childhood. It had seemed fine until the dark curtain abruptly came down on it that summer’s day in the tunnel. But perhaps even the happy memories were rose-tinted.

Les Brodie. He could tell him what it had been like before then. Because Les hadn’t been fucked up by what happened. Yes, he’d gone off the rails in his teens, been a bit of a tearaway, but now he’s the family man, with a successful plumbing business. Ray Lennox is the disturbed one. Les has just absorbed it, and got on with things. What would have happened if it had been him those nonce jailbird guys had buggered? All he did was suck some cock. He finds his shoulders shaking in nasty mirth, the idea now briefly seeming as slapstick and benign as pantomime at the King’s Theatre; certainly not worth a crusade over. How would he have reacted, have turned out, had the roles been reversed? Probably even worse, he grimly considers, as he sips on his orange juice, while craving the margarita he can’t trust himself with. He was the real nutter, so consumed with his own fear, he hadn’t realised how badly he’d spooked Dearing and the nonce gang from the off.

One thing he is sure of; America is a far more complicated place than he’s allowed on his previous visits. It is more than a country of big cars and strange sports. Or a place where even feted novelists can’t write a book without mentioning Jell-O and where animals excel athletically in the movies. He’s learned a little about himself as well. He’d often hid behind the curtain of Calvinistic gloom his tribe could wear like plaid, knowing that the heart would be taught bitter lessons in spite of all our conceits. But he’s seen how behaviour shapes outcomes. He would now find it hard to shrug the years away as a passive stoic.

— Thank God for that, I’m famished, says Ginger, picking up a menu, as Trudi and Tianna skip excitedly into the restaurant together, clutching bags containing the sort of stories Lennox loathes. They’d spent a lot of time together in the last week, enough for them to assume the corporate appellation, ‘the girls’. Tianna has her hair tied back, with big shades resting on her head. She wears a knee-length claret dress with white polka dots, white silky scarf tied round her neck, cream pop socks and black shoes. She looks like somebody’s cool ten-year-old. — These shades are SFA, Lennox tells her.

— Skarrish Football Association, she smiles, giving him a niece’s peck, then Trudi follows up with a smack on the lips, a slice of tongue slyly left in. She pulls out some moisturiser she’s gotten him, applying some to his dried, baked face. — You need to take care of your skin, Ray, she says. The contention makes sense to his playfully speculative mind: it has been trying to run away from him for so long, maybe he should be treating it a little better. He is being babied, even minorly humiliated, but he dosen’t care. Sex has come back into their lives so emphatically, it’s already impossible to conceive of it as ever having gone. Another wall has tumbled down; they’d soon be fucking with a grateful lack of inhibition. And like any drug, it numbs concern over other issues. Life was slowly returning to what he thought might be normality. — So how are the landlords? Still treating you well? Ray Lennox asks Tianna Hinton, as he winks at Eddie and Dolores Rogers.

— They’re pretty cool, she giggles.

— Good stuff. So where would you like to go this affie?

— Skatlin.

A cloak of sadness falls over Lennox’s shoulders. They are heading home tomorrow and he’ll miss the kid. Trudi has gotten attached to her too. He’s begun to enjoy their playful collusion against him, usually regarding the forthcoming wedding plans. But there’s something he wants to do with her before leaving. And for that they need to be alone.

The food comes and Trudi regards her fiancé, how he looks sweetly dumb when he eats something, as if lost in it. He’s finally wearing shorts, which she approves of, his legs losing their milk-bottle whiteness. Tianna delves into a bag to show off something to the table.

Lennox turns to Ginger. — How’s it worked out, Eddie?

— An awfay sweet wee lassie, and she’s been nae bother at aw, Ginger says. — In fact, her being here’s really helped Dolores, cause she doted on that fuckin dug.

After a spell Trudi raises a downy wrist to check her watch. Lennox takes the hint, and he, Trudi and Tianna say their good-byes and head outside, getting into Trudi’s rented car and driving down to Miami Beach. As they leave the Julia Tuttle Causeway and drive down palm-lined streets with handsome stucco homes and lush tropical gardens cutting into the bay, Lennox thinks this is a spot a newcomer could take his Colombian, Haitian, Cuban or Scots family and they’d proudly say: this cunt’s done awright. And how the American dream is never the property of Americans, but belongs to aspirational citizens of the globe, and how it will fade and die when the US seals its borders up, as it will inevitably do.

Trudi parks at a garage on Alton, then they head down to Lincoln, the upmarket strip of restaurants, bars, galleries and designer stores that is Miami Beach’s glitzy beating heart. Lennox, an orange-and-black backpack hanging from one shoulder, wants to stop and look at the Britto Central Gallery as an appeasement to Trudi, just to go through it quickly, believing that if you see something that moves you, it’s best not to linger too long and dwell on it, and ruin some of your capacity for wonderment. But Trudi isn’t keen, instead taking Tianna into a nearby fashion store. Afterwards, they call in at an Internet café on Washington, where they have a coffee and do some Netsurfing. Tianna and Trudi check out Scottish Wedding websites, while Lennox goes on to Jambos’ Kickback. He sees Maroon Mayhem’s last entry into the Craig Gordon thread, which had little to do with the Scotland goal-keeper.