Irvine Welsh - Skagboys

All Russell Birch could do was play out the craven, infantile role he’d been cast in. His arms extended, his head turned to the side, his shivering mouth pleading, — Craiiig …

One sharp blow to the stomach squeezed all the air out of his body. The pain was overwhelming; it couldn’t be fought down or thought away or negotiated. He doubled over, keeping a weak hand out in pathetic appeal. The immobilisation of his body didn’t surprise him, he’d no experience of violence in any form, but what got him was how feeble he was: his pulse urgent, like the keen heartbeat of a small, trapped animal.

The former brother-in-law looked down at him. — One thing has fuckin well happened. One thing only. You’ve cost me money, through yir fuckin stupidity.

He’d worked out an unsatisfying contingency plan for this moment. That the plant would eventually uncover their scam had been apparent to him for some time. But while this change in strategy would keep him in the game, it meant a decided demotion. Now he was no longer The Man. All the people he’d been supplying the quality stuff to, through in Glasgow, down in England, with their fucking useless Paki brown shite, stuff the junkies here wouldn’t look at or even know what the fuck it was, now he worked for them . And who was left working for him? Only the worthless wretch at his feet, the clown whose bitch of a sister he’d been poking a while back. He had a debt to pay off, and he needed reminding of this. — Ye still work for me. Ye fuckin drive. Anywhere ah say. London. Liverpool. Manchester. Hull. Ye pick up stuff. Ye bring it back. Goat that?

Russell Birch looked up at his former brother-in-law, into those impenetrable dark glasses. All he could say was, — Okay, Craig –

— If you ever fucking call me that again, I’ll tear yir stupid heid oaf. Ma name’s Seeker. Say it!

And it was. How could he have been so stupid? It was Seeker. Always Seeker. — Sorry … sorry, Seeker, he coughed, feeling like his stomach had been torn open.

— Right, now git the fuck ootay ma sight.

Russell Birch groped for the door handle in the swimming twilight. Fear was working through his pain and he was out of there. Out, out, out.

I DON’T MIND Mark dossing here, he’s a decent geezer, but I ain’t sure about the fella he’s brought with him. Swans around like he owns the place, and that’s when he’s here, which thankfully ain’t that often. Fack knows what he gets up ta.

It all makes things a little tense first thing in the mornings, specially as I ain’t been sleeping too soundly of late. The one big problem with this flat is that we’re next to the rubbish chute. Bottles and all sorts go crashing past me head inside that wall, hurtling down that farking chute into the big garbage bin, and at all hours.

This morning ain’t no exception to the uptight vibe; I get up to find that other cunt, Sick Boy by name and Sick Boy by nature, sitting at the window with a plate of toast. — Good morning, Nicksy, he snaps, then, surveying the manor, with that bleedin look on his boat, — Hackney: not exactly a great part of town, is it? he says, like he was expecting farking Buck House or something.

— You’re welcome ta find another, I tell the cunt.

And he just turns ta me, cocky as ya like, — Rest assured, I’m working on it.

Cheeky fucker. And I heard he’s ruffled a few feathers down the local n all. I ain’t got much time for blokes who think they’re better than anyone else, like they’re the only ones full of big ideas and dodgy scams. And it ain’t like he’s had me up stayin at his Jockland shithole, so a little bit of respect is called for.

And it ain’t so bad on this estate. There’s a lot worse tower blocks round here than Beatrice Webb House. Even up on the seventh floor we get a decent view; right across Queensbridge Road and over to London Fields. And the lifts usually work; well, they did yesterday. The gaff ain’t brilliant, but I’ve dossed in worse. I inherited a gigantic American-style fridge-freezer which takes up half the kitchen, not that there’s ever anything in it. I got my own room, and there’s mattresses in the spare bedroom for the lads to crash on.

At least this Sick Boy cunt actually gets up. Ain’t having a go at Mark, but he does a lot of farking kipping; he’s just surfaced now, squinting and rubbing sleep from his eyes, and it’s nearly one o’clock. He picks up a video box from on top of the telly and goes, — Ah prefer Chuck Norris tae Van Damme.

Sick Boy looks at the cunt like he’s farking tapped. — I’m sure you would, Renton. I’m absolutely certain you would, he says, now sitting in the kitchen at the table, writing on a series of cards, in a very neat, deliberate hand. He’s got his back turned, so we can’t cop a butcher’s. Not that we give a toss what the cunt’s up ta. Mark flops back on the couch and picks up the Orwell novel he’s been reading: A Clergyman’s Daughter . It was the first proper book I read at school, after the dyslexia got diagnosed and I started ta get help. Didn’t matter that it was about five times the size of everybody else’s text and I got the farking piss ripped outta me for being a div, I just loved it. Orwell was the bollocks. Way I see it, the cunt ain’t ever been equalled.

— Apparently there’s still a bit of a drought up the road, skag-wise,

Sick Boy says, absent-mindedly. — I called Matty the other day. He was rattling like a panda in a Chinese takeaway.

Matty: now there’s a top geezer. Wish it was him Rents brought down. Would’ve been like the old days back in Shepherd’s Bush. Good times, they was. Rents briefly turns to eyeball Sick Boy’s hawklike profile, then goes back to the book.

So I’ve been treading water: putting up with Scotch geezers, but thinking of Marsha upstairs.

I catch the bleedin awful pong coming from the kitchen. The flat smells like a farking bear pit, and that’s probably an insult to the ursine race, who seem quite a tidy bunch when all’s said and done. Mark puked in there, chasing too much brown, the cunt, and he ain’t cleaned it up, and him and Sick Boy are arguing about it. — I’ll sort it, he says, but without looking like he’s in any big hurry ta do it. Fucking well turned his nose up at the brown first n all, he did, said it couldn’t be proper skag; went on about how it was white back home. Can’t get enough now though, the cunt.

I’ve had it here; I leave my filthy Jock guests and exit into a cold, crisp, fresh day, filling my lungs with air and instantly feeling better. Heading towards the market, I scans Marsha’s sister, Yvette, a big fat gel, who looks nothing like her, outside the overland station on Kingsland Road. — Alright?

— Yeah, sound.

— How’s Marsha?

— She’s restin, innit. Ain’t been well. Yvette shifts her weight onto one leg and a heavy tit almost seems ready to spill out from her blouse like a slinky.

— Sorry to hear that …

Yvette’s got that Jamaican-London thing going on. — She naht told you, has she? she says, as she makes the reparations to her top, pullin her coat tight.

— Told me wot?

— Nothing … it’s nothing. Just women’s problems.

— She ain’t talkin ta me. I need ta see her. I just wanna know what I done wrong, that’s all.

Yvette shakes her head. — Leave it, Nicksy. If she don wanna know ya, she don wanna know ya. Ya won’t change her, she says, then gives a little chuckle to herself and repeats, — Nah, mon, ya won’t change her.

I shrugs and leaves the fat gel, thinkin that it ain’t as if I’m out for changin anybody, I’m a no-questions-asked sort of geezer normally. After all, I’m still a young man, and she’s a very young gel. Seventeen. Older in some ways, but younger in others. With a two-year-old son, little Leon. Lovely little kid.