Irvine Welsh - Skagboys

And crumbling back into her seat, Janey can’t believe her eyes when she sees him , standing behind Maria, with a sense of prerogative that revolts her to the core. Now Coke’s gone, she’s locked up in here, and this usurper has his arm around the fragile shoulders of her daughter, her Maria, who was meant to be safe at Murray and Elaine’s in Nottingham! The letter he had sent her! — What’re you daein here? She looks at her former neighbour, the friend of her deceased husband, and briefly, shamefully, her lover.

— You’ll be in here a few months, Janey, he says, pulling up a chair, his glance at Maria giving her permission to do the same. — Somebody has tae keep an eye on Maria, he sniffs, in put-upon tones.

— Ah ken what you mean by keepin an eye! Janey gasps incredulously. — She’s jist a young lassie!

Simon, Sick Boy, she’d heard his nickname was, lowers himself onto the hard seat, grimacing in discomfort then adjusting his weight. He looks around the rows of visitors in their chairs in what Janey feels is nervous distaste, but this sensation soon diminishes as she watches him fill the room with his presence, as he sits up straight and stretches out. In the event it’s Maria who protests, — Ah’m nearly sixteen but, Ma.

A bolt of shame skewers Janey. Simon had been a wee boy when Coke and her moved next door to the Williamsons all those years ago. As a young mum, she’d openly flirted with his father. One time, at New Year …

Oh my God …

Then she slept with the son. And now he has her daughter, her wee lassie. — Look at ye but, look at the state ay ye! Ye should be back in Nottingham wi oor Murray n Elaine!

Maria suddenly focuses in loathing, the look on her daughter’s face chilling Janey. — Ah’m gaun naewhaire till ah git him! That Dickson! It’s him that’s ruined everything! It wis probably him that grassed ye up aboot ma dad’s money!

— She has a point, Janey, Simon Williamson agrees.

— You shut the fuck up, Janey snaps. Bulldyke Screw briefly stirs from her Ken Follett novel, looks out with pale blue eyes, deeply set into bulbous pink flesh. Janey lowers her voice and sits forward, scowling at him. — You … wi ma wee lassie! What kind ay a person are you?!

— I’m trying to take care of Maria, Sick Boy bites back, outrage in his big eyes. — You want her tae be on her ain, while you’re hanging out in this cosy little sorority? Cause she’s told you and me that she ain’t going back tae Nottingham, despite me telling her till I’m blue in the face that it’s the best place for her. So fine. I’ll just leave her, and he throws his hands in the air Italian-style, prompting Bulldyke Screw to lower Follett to her meaty thigh in warning.

— Dinnae, Simon … Maria pleads.

— I couldnae walk away now, babe, don’t you worry. He shakes his head, putting his arm around Maria and kissing her on the side of her face, all the time never taking his accusing eyes from Janey. — You need somebody to be here for ye!

Deflated, Janey can only bleat across the table, — But … but she’s just a bairn …

— She’s almost sixteen. I’m just twenty-one, Simon Williamson declares pompously, though he seems to sink slightly in realisation that Janey knows he’d recently celebrated his twenty-second. — I know how it looks, and I’m by no means proud of the fact that we’ve embarked on a relationship, but it’s happened. So deal with it, he commands, sitting forward towards her, then wincing on the hard seat.

Janey feels her essence crumble further under his unwavering gaze. She lowers her head, before whipping it up and looking into her daughter’s confused, tired eyes. The dread thought settles: the eyes of an old woman .

— I’m not a cradle-snatcher, Janey. Sick Boy keeps the cold stare trained on her. — As I think you know, ah prefer more mature women as a rule, and she feels herself drowning in her abashed silence.

The target of Janey’s silent wrath slowly shifts: in uncompromising clarity she sees again that Coke’s drinking had inflicted this misery on them all. Destroyed him, incarcerated her, sent her son to England, to relatives he barely knew, and delivered her daughter into the arms of this shady neighbour. Every glass his stupid, befuddled eyes had looked into and raised to those big, rubbery lips, had inched them all closer to this horrible destiny. Her feelings for her late husband, once shrouded in all sorts of ambivalence, crystalise into a searing hate.

Then Sick Boy gives her daughter another squeeze, this time on Maria’s thigh, evidence to Janey of a proprietary intimacy. — As awkward as this is, I love this lassie, and I’m going to do the right thing by her while you’re in here, he declares.

Janey glares at him again, then whiplashes to her daughter. — But look at ye! Ye look terrible!

Through her blouse, Maria claws at the skin on her arms. — We’ve picked up the flu –

— There’s been a few sleepless nights, aye, Sick Boy cuts in. — But we’re okay, aren’t we, babe?

— Aye. Honest, Ma, Maria contends.

Though far from convinced, Janey sees no gain in stoking her daughter’s alienation, or scuppering what gallingly seems to be her sole source of protection. And then there was Bulldyke Screw. Her nemesis had lowered Follett’s Eye of the Needle and was now slowly waddling down the lines of tables, lowering the volume like a hi-fi slide control, before settling at the doors, folding her meaty arms over a suitcase-like protrusion of bosom and gut.

The final phase of the excruciating visit is a stilted dance around banalities, as Janey aches for phone access to speak to her Nottingham-based brother, as much as Sick Boy and Maria do for gear. All parties are relieved when visiting hours are over.

— We need tae get busy-busy, chop-chop, Sick Boy tells Maria, as they prowl through the prison gates and the drizzle towards Stirling town centre, to the railway station and onto a Waverley-bound train.

A bus takes them to the foot of Easter Road, where they cut across the Links, shivering against a strong wind, which whips stinging layers of rain into them. Despite their discomfort, Maria looks around in a wonderment that stuns him, as if this sodden, manky walk is evoking the end of the school year, bringing with it the memory of a girlhood’s innocent summers; tumbling onto grass, head throbbing with the heat, the dazed, empty streets of breezeless afternoons, the gossip of radios from passing cars, the rich smell of diesel, the melancholy intoxication of her father, the husky voice of her mum, carrying over the balcony through a powdery dusk that would fall so slowly that you felt cheated by the light’s departure. All that gone with the onset of breasts and hips, which heralded newer, more dangerous games and the deployment of disdainful sneers and aloof postures, those paltry defences against the unremitting attentions of feral boys. He regrets his role in her recent string of tragedies, but shrugs it off by rationalising that if it wasn’t him, then some other, less caring predator would be keen to take up the assignment.

È la via del mondo .

Sabotaged by an emotion between euphoria and panic, Sick Boy fingers the pocket of his jeans. It wasn’t a dream! Those tenner notes he’d gotten from Marianne the other day were still there, sharp to his touch. She had opened the door, wide-eyed, and he’d stepped right into her, silencing her with a kiss. As she responded, his eyes picked out the boudoir, where her bag sat on the bed. He’d eased her onto it and slid his hand up her skirt, his fingers caressing her thighs, working inside her panties. He’d almost cheered out loud on discovering she was wet, gasping as his forefinger pressed against her angry clit. As he’d pushed her lips apart, his other arm, round the back of her neck, was reaching towards her bag. His hand had meandered into it, fingers deftly tracing the brass lips of her purse, moving north till he found that tight knot. Slowly pulling the sleek lips apart, he’d picked his fingers inside: it was fresh with crisp banknotes. He picked a couple from her tight, folded stack, mindful to keep slowly working her other lips with his right hand, his mouth on hers, pinning her to the bed. The two hands working two sets of lips, the right easing off, stopping her climax until the left had clipped the brass edges back together and exited from the bag, tugging, so slowly, the zip home. Then he pulled his arm back from behind her neck, and increasing the pressure on her vaginal lips he’d looked in her eyes, and declared harshly, — After this we will fuck, and waited for her to scream out, — Oh Simon, oh my Godddd … knowing he’d have to make good that promise when all he was thinking about was the notes he was slipping into his back pocket, and how he’d spend them.