Irvine Welsh - Skagboys

Nicksy springs to his feet, standing in the doorway of the kitchen and the front room. He points at the spoon and its contents, nerves jangling, bottom puppet-jaw in spasm, lank hair plastered to his skull. — Give it a rest, Mark. You said you was through banging up that shit.

Renton looks up, face a picture of surly, recalcitrant entitlement. — Geez a fuckin brek, Nicksy. Ah’ve just been chucked, eh.

— Oh … right. Sorry ta hear it, Nicksy says, stepping back into the kitchen. Doesn’t know why. Pirouettes on the tiled floor and hops back into the front room. — Have to be dynamic, he muses to himself.

— You’ve been thaire, buddy, Renton observes, clamping the flex from the table lamp round his thin biceps, then gripping the cord in his teeth. — No very nice, is it? he whines, disconcerted that his voice sounds the very same. Fuck. Ah really do speak through ma beak now .

— Nah. It ain’t.

— Aye, Charlene’s fucked off. She’s goat this boyfriend. He’s just gittin back oot the jail. Renton taps up a vein in his wrist.

— Well, that ain’t gonna help.

— It isnae aboot helping, it’s aboot being . If being Scottish is about one thing, it’s aboot gittin fucked up, Renton explains, working the needle slowly into his flesh. — Tae us intoxication isnae just a huge laugh, or even a basic human right. It’s a way ay life, a political philosophy. Rabbie Burns said it: whisky and freedom gang thegither. Whatever happens in the future tae the economy, whatever fucking government’s in power, rest assured we’ll still be pissin it up and shootin shit intae ourselves, he announces, pulsing with glorious anticipation as he sucks his dark blood back into the barrel, then lets his ravenous veins drink the concoction.

Home, boy …

Whoa … ya fuckin beauty …

Renton topples back onto the sagging couch and its pinging coils that hold up his shifting weight like pall-bearers, and laughs in a fathomless yawn, — Smokin shit … it just isnae cost-effective …

Nicksy has no time for the television or his friend’s junky observations. He can’t settle, the speed has kicked in and he’s vibrating in the armchair. Catching a sharp whiff from his own trainers, he leaps to a standing position. Looks up at the dull cream ceiling.

Marsha .

He charges out the door as if the flat was on fire.

NICKSY DIDNAE HALF tear oot the door. Cunt’s way too uptight these days. Whatever happened tae the cheeky wee cockney sparrer, the ducker and diver whae let nothing get under his skin?

Probably that Marsha bird upstairs. Women. What a fuckin minefield. The student you hump and dump. The shoplifter steals your heart and –

SHARP THROB …

Fuck sake …

SHARP FUCKIN THROB …

Whoops … ah’m on ma feet n through tae the bog. A long pish which seems tae last months. The dug’s up, balancing against the bowl wi his front paws, watchin ma pish stream. He pits his nose tae it, gits a splash fi the jet, yelps and dances off, lookin up at me like ah’m a cunt. — Giro … sorry, compadre …

Ah’m bored wi this pish … end … end … end …

END …

END …

BANG BANG DOOF DOOF –

A knock on the door. Shake it oot. Pit it back. Move. Open the front door .

It’s this wee black lassie, that Marsha bird, n she’s screamin a loaday shite at me. Aboot Nicksy, oan a ledge … rantin about dead bairns …

Fuckin nut job … but then the polis … my God, it’s the fuckin polis … a blobby WPC n a jug-eared copper, n thir tellin us baith tae git doonstairs in the lift …

The lift goes doon n she’s still screamin aboot Nicksy bein sick and twisted and what does he fuckin well want fae her n ah’m thinkin …

FUCK ME …

Thi’ll no lit us back in fir the gear …

IT’S MA FUCKIN GEAR!

LUCINDA IS MY ticket to the good life. It’s time tae stop fannying about and strike; get the ring on her finger, myself moved intae her Notting Hill pad on a permanent basis, then her right up the duff as an insurance policy. At which point her posh Ingloid old boy will have tae come round and acknowledge that Young Williamson is not going away. Then it’s all about sitting tight for a few years before stepping intae the family fortune. In ma pocket is the key that spells commitment with a capital K, the ring ah bought fae that semi-decent jeweller’s in Oxford Street.

She’s defo the sort ay girl you could take home to Mama, and ah might do just that, as Rents and I are feeling the pull ay Caledonia. The giro syndicate means one fortnightly National Express coach trip south tae sign on, and Nicksy is talking about leaving the flat and heading back tae his ma’s for a bit. Ah also want tae check in on poor Spud. He’s meant tae be in a bad way.

And Lucinda wants to slum it. It astonishes me that so many ay her friends have that thing going on. Tae the untrained eye, they perhaps look, act, smell and even talk poor, but somewhere along the yellow brick road, stuffed in a hidey-hole up ahead of them, a big stack ay unearned loot awaits. A pile that changes everything. A heap of dosh that says tae me: fuck off, you empty fake , whenever they drone on in their artificial cockney whines. She’s trying this shit on now, wi irony at the moment, but we both know that if ah gie her any encouragement at all, it’ll be shamelessly adopted as a stylistic device. She’s telling me that ah sound like Sean Connery, while displaying a worrying curiosity about Leith and the Bannanay flats. But if she wants scheme, ah can certainly dae scheme, and I have tae admit that the prospect ay pumping her on a mattress saturated wi the spunk stains and fanny juices of a hundred transients in a Hackney tower block does have a certain trash aesthetic. Then, in that post-coital moment, I shall bring out the ring, and we’ll head north tae meet Mama. There are faces (tae say nothing of fannies) ah miss back hame, and most of all, ah want tae make sure that the scumbag whose rancid cock dribbled me intae existence is not messing my mother about.

We get off the tacky North London Line at Dalston Kingsland, which has the one advantage that it’s effectively free, and head down tae the Holy Street Estate. Lucinda, for all her swagger, tightens her grip on my arm, confirming she’s just that wee bitty too soft for this terrain. Fear not, fair damsel, Simon’s here .

That thieving wee Charlene Fawcett-Majors-Plant chicky that Rents has been canoodling with is coming across the road. Our heads mutually swivel away; we pretend no tae notice each other. Ah’ve better goods on my airm than that wee hing-oot, thank you very much, although Lucinda’s daein ma crust in, slavering on about how it’s so ‘real’ around here. If ah wanted ‘real’ ah’d’ve steyed in Leith, but ah let her cling tae her rich bird’s delusions. But she’s caught Charlene and me pointedly ignoring each other: more suspicion-framing than any gushing acknowledgement. — Who was that girl?

— Oh, just this hostile bint Mark’s been shagging.

— What about that Penny? she says darkly.

— Exactly, I snap. — He has the morals of a sewer rat, that one. I think –

What in the name of fuck …

— What’s going on? Lucinda’s grip tightens on mine again, as a crowd has gathered below Beatrice Webb House. Following the line ay vision ah can see that someone is standing on a ledge ay the tower block, having climbed right oot the fucking windae! It looks like one arm is fastened inside, securing them to this world. And fuck me, it’s Nicksy . — Fuck sakes! That’s my flatmate! Nicksy!