Irvine Welsh - Skagboys

Alison felt her eyes go down the newspaper to the readers’ letters. There was something from a general practitioner in one of Edinburgh’s big schemes. It warned that random testing had uncovered an inordinately high instance of infection by the Aids virus. She studied a sore track mark on her thin wrist.

A notion gnawed at her consciousness; trees rotting away on one side of West Granton Road, and people, inside the varicose-vein flats, so called because of their patched-up cladding, similarly decomposing. All that death. All that plague. Where did it come from? What did it mean?

What’s gaunny happen?

She left the bar, pondering this on the way home. A strong wind had started up, swirling through nooks and crannies, seeming to shake the city like it was a film set. Strange that a place built around a castle rock could seem so rickety, but that rock was now covered in scaffolding, as they tried to treat it and prevent it from crumbling. Cutting down Lothian Road, she walked to the east end through Princes Street Gardens. Heading down Leith Street, then Leith Walk and reaching her Pilrig flat, she hung up her jacket. Then she looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. Thought about her mum, how she loved to meet her for a coffee, to show her a top or shoes she’d bought, to gossip about neighbours or relatives, or talk about what they’d watched on the telly. Soaping and rinsing her hands, she recalled that she’d put the towels in the wash basket. She went to the press to get some fresh ones. Then it caught her eye, stuffed forlonly at the back of the cupboard; the shaving bag Alexander had left. She, unzipped it open and regarded the contents of brush, razor and block of shave stick. Picking up the brush, she held it against her chin, to see what she would look like with a goatee. Then she put it back in the bag and pulled out the bone-handled razor. Opened the blade. How light and lethal it felt in her hand. Alison rolled her sleeve up over her biceps and cut across the vein and artery. Warm blood splashed onto the tiled floor.

Mum …

It felt good, like the pain in her was leaking out with the blood, like a terrible pressure was being removed. It was soothing. She slid down the wall.

Mum …

But as she sat there, things quickly changed; there was too much blood. First she was gripped by a creeping nausea, then a desperate fear rose up inside her. Her thoughts faded, and she felt she was going to black out.

Dad Mhairi Calum …

Tearing the towel from the rail, she wrapped it tightly around the wound, applying as much pressure as she could manage. She pushed herself up, staggered into the front room, lurching towards the phone. Her pulse battered in her skull as she dialled 999, and grunted for an ambulance. — I made a mistake, she heard herself gasp over and over again. — Please get here soon.

And that’s putting it mildly …

The towel was already saturated in the blood. Crawling on her knees, she forced herself to the front door and opened it. Sat waiting by the door, feeling her eyes grow heavy.

… mildly …

Emerging into some kind of consciousness in the hospital, she was assailed by a procession of solemn faces who explained that they’d got to her in time, told her how close it had been, and stressed the luck she’d enjoyed on this occasion. — Please don’t tell my dad, she repeatedly begged, when they’d sternly asked about contact details and a next of kin.

— We need to inform somebody, a short, middle-aged nurse explained.

All she could think to do was give them Alexander’s number.

They stitched her up and gave her a pint and a half of blood. Alexander came round later, and took her home to the Pilrig flat the next day. He brought her Chinese food and spent the night on her couch. She was asleep in the morning when he checked on her before he went to work. As he left, he looked at the picture in his wallet of his two children. He and Tanya, they had to be there for them. But he came by to check on Alison that evening, telling her he’d signed her off on two weeks’ leave, informing her with a grim smile that he’d ignored her resignation request. — I didn’t get a formal letter.

They’d sat up, her on the couch, him in the armchair, and started talking about their own bereavement experiences. Alexander was conscious that his had been more limited than hers. — Tanya’s father died three years ago. Massive coronary. She’s been really angry since; principally, it seems, with me. But what can I do? I didn’t kill him. It’s not my fault.

— It’s no hers either.

Alexander thought about this. — No, it isn’t, he conceded, — and neither is it your fault that your mum died. So you shouldn’t be punishing yourself as if it was.

It was then she looked at him, in mounting anxiety, letting him see her cry for the first time ever. It didn’t make him feel the way he’d envisaged it would; big, manly and protective. Her face was horribly distorted, and he shared her wretched pain, and powerlessness at being unable to make it go away. — I never wanted to die, Alison said, looking really scared, then tightly shutting her eyes, as if confronting the possibility. — No for one second … The doctor telt us if the arterial cut had been a millimetre deeper, I’d probably have bled tae death in a few minutes. I just wanted tae take the pressure off …

— You can’t get rid of the pressure. Nobody can. It’s horrible, but all we can do is try and learn to carry its burden.

She glanced miserably at him when he said that. She was thankful he’d been there for her, but was relieved when he was getting ready to go. Hoping he wouldn’t come back. He seemed to understand. — I really wish you well, Alison, he said to her.

When he left, she was content to lie on the couch in the dark, still able to smell his aftershave in the room, to feel the soft burn on the back of her hand where he’d gently touched her. Then Alison fell into a bruising sleep, ignoring the calls racking up on her answer machine. At some point she rose, eventually pulling herself through to the bedroom, and slipping under the duvet. She slumbered in some kind of peace till midday, rising and feeling stronger. Then she heated up a tin of soup, ate, put on a long-sleeved cardigan and headed down Leith Walk to visit her father.

Day 1

Stoned like a slug after Johnny’s hit. I knew it would be my last for a while and it started to leave my system almost as soon as I’d gained an awareness of how good I was feeling. Within a few hours I was writhing in discomfort. Lay most of the day on the wee bed, trying to catch my breath, sweating like a backshift hooker, as the vigour boiled out of my blood .

The narrow windows, which you can’t open, are surrounded by big, forbidding trees that overhang the walled back garden, shutting out most of the light. The building seems airless; the only sound the disturbing moans of some poor fucker from an adjacent room. I’m evidently not the only cunt in detox .

As the leaden dusk takes hold, bats dance outside in a small illuminated patch the trees can’t get at. I go from bed to window to bed, pacing like a madman but too scared to leave this room .

Day 2

FUCK THEM ALL .

Day 5

They’ve left this big, ring-bound, loose-leaf diary on the desk, but I’ve been too fucked to write anything the last couple of days. There have been times when I’ve really wanted to die, the pain and misery of withdrawal so fucking intense and incessant. They’ve given me some painkillers, which are probably useless placebo shite. You sense they want you to experience the torment of it all .