Irvine Welsh - Skagboys

It’s a phrase Renton has never heard before; don’t fuck Chef out.

Nicksy’s gone and he can’t see Sick Boy, and the cute Fawcett-Plant lassie is chatting to one of the barrow girls, so Renton decides to forgo the soup and commence his wanderings, to get out of range of Chef’s cold, dangerous gaze. As he leaves, he hears him bellow at a kitchen hand, — Who is that cheeky little Scotch cunt?

As he climbs a staircase, Nicksy feels the weight of his breath in his lungs. At the top he looks outside the portholed swing doors to the sea. They are on the decks, the staff, waiting for the vehicles and foot passengers to embark. He spies Marriott leaning on the rail, smoking a cigarette, the burning eyes in his wrecked, cadaverous figure forever trained on them. Following the line of vision, Sick Boy is revealed chatting to that bird with the big blonde hair all over the place. Studying her small tits, tight curvy figure and all that hair flying in the wind, Nicksy’s thinking: tasty, but without a semblance of prurient lust.

— Got any hash? Sick Boy asks her.

— Yeah, a bit, she says, vainly trying to restrain her swishing locks, as the first cars roll over the ramp and eager foot passengers trudge up the bridge hoping in futility that the bar is already open.

Sick Boy overhears Cream Shirt saying to a languid sidekick, — It’s this bit that always gets me, as he grandly sweeps his arms, watching the passengers pile forward, — this is what makes me realise why I’m here.

Sick Boy stares at the passengers and decides that he already hates every last one of them. Then a chat of ‘Man-chis-tihr na, na, na …’ comes up as a gang of sallow, strutting youths around his age emerge onto the deck. He turns to the girl with the hair. — In that case, I’ll need to swing by your cabin later. I can’t sleep without a smoke.

— Okay, she says, her head whipping briefly to acknowledge the singing. — I’m Charlene.

— Simon, Sick Boy curtly nods.

Cream Shirt squeaks out instructions to the welcoming cabin staff, as the travelling British public stream onto the vessel. Nicksy sidles off, heading up another flight of metal steps onto the upper deck. After a spell, a farty-sounding siren blares, followed a little later by a rumble and shake as the ship’s engine starts up. The boat leaves the harbour slowly, picking up speed and being pursued by excited gulls as it reaches open water. Then he’s aware of footsteps behind him, followed by a shout: — Nicksy you cahnt!

He turns to see the floppy fringe of Billy Gilbert, an old West Ham mate, wearing a brown-and-cream Adidas top. He’s prominent in a squad of boys, who march along the deck towards him. They all share a coiled, alert look, like greyhounds in traps waiting for the doors to fly open and the mechanical bunny to bolt down the rail. Billy gives Nicksy’s uniform the once-over. — Nice threads, mate. High fashion is wot you might call it.

Cackles all round, as Nicksy sees another Ilford friend, Paul Smart, and a few more mob faces of his acquaintance. He doesn’t know what’s going on. — Fuck’s all this about?

— Gor blimey, you’re narky, Nicks. Ain’t they treatin you right on the Titanic here?

He sucks in some air and forces a smile. — Yeah, sorry, Bill, it ain’t so bad; a relatively honest crust.

— You off ta the game later?

— Thought I might, Nicksy lies. Although he’d read a piece in the Standard about it, he’d somehow thought the first leg of the forthcoming UEFA Cup tie was at Upton Park. — If I get finished in time after this bleedin shift.

— Great, see ya in the Bulldog then, Billy says, then rubbernecking, as if in anticipation of an ambush, — Heard there’s a load of Man U on this fucking boat.

— Ain’t heard nuffink. You planning on chasing them back to Surrey, then?

— Might just do that, Billy laughs.

A pasty-faced kid with a fringe, wearing a green Sergio Tacchini top, comes running towards them with urgency and squeaks, — There’s a load of Man U in the farking bar downstairs!

And the mob are off, stalking down the steps, surging past the ascending Sick Boy, Cream Shirt and some other members of staff, as Nicksy sharpishly heads in the other direction.

— That looks like trouble, Cream Shirt says. — Simon, could you and your friends … he looks at the sheet, — Mark and Brian, come with me? Where are they?

Sick Boy realises that both Rents and Nicksy, like Cream Shirt’s health and safety officer designates, have vanished. — I’m not exactly sure.

— The first sailing of the season and the place is crawling with hooligans, Cream Shirt hisses in distaste. — Let’s keep an eye on them and make sure they settle down.

— Eh, okay … Sick Boy says reluctantly. Cream Shirt has evidently taken some sort of a shine to him. He’s as yet unsure as how to work this in his favour, but highly intrigued at the prospect of being able to do so.

On deck Nicksy runs into a meaty-armed woman in a sleeveless quilted jacket. She seems in distress and tells him she’s lost her daughter. — Come with me, love, we’ll find her, he says, and he leads her away.

2. Reasonable Duties

I admit that ah’m a wee bitty too fond ay the Salisbury Crag for my ain good, but something’s flipped in Renton’s ginger dome. He’s an embarrassment, with his continually streaming beak, and that metallic nasal voice he seems tae have adopted; he’d suck the pish ootay a jakey’s crotch if he thought there was a buzz in it for him. He’s hiding; it’s so obvious tae see. From what? What else but his fears? His biggest fear? That the spazzy gene, which produced the fucked fratello , is apparent in him. Well realised, Rent Boy. Realised.

I wasn’t feeling too bad at first; ah’d sorted myself out wi a ride for the shifts. I miss Lucinda, and ah cannae abide sleeping withoot a bedwarmer. That Charlene seems like a feisty wee banger, a no-questions-asked-or-demands-made fuck-artist. We’re chewing the shit, watching the passengers, who really are the dregs ay this planet, tramping onto the boat like cattle. Happily, though, there are one or two filthy-looking lassies in the mix. Then we’re off. Basically, we cabin staff, or ‘operatives’, are simply a presence designed tae monitor the ‘customers’, as the passengers are now redesignated.

Then ah was aware that ah wis starting tae get edgy, wondering where that cunt Renton was. He’ll have found a darkened, enclosed space tae entomb himself in, ay that I’ve nae doots. The words holding out are resonating in ma brain, when ah’m torn away fae Charlene and compelled tae follow Cream Shirt in his pursuit ay a mob of London lads who rush past us towards the bar. Ah hear the fractious singing that has been coming from that direction suddenly stopped by a shattering sound ay what can only be breaking glass. Then there’s shouting and Cream Shirt runs through the bar doors waving his arms in the air, as passengers panic and stampede outside.

Ah follow him in, through the retreating travellers. A rammy has kicked off on the other side ay the bar area. I think it’s West Ham versus Manchester United, but I know not and care less. Violence is an occasionally useful tool, but the recreational stuff is the vice ay losers like Begbie, whom I heard got a year for wounding some Lochend prick. This is all getting a little heavy though; a few clowns ineffectively windmill on the peripheries, and still more indulge in hollow gesticulation, but the main brawl’s like a tornado, with about a dozen bodies at the centre of it, having a proper toe-to-toe. Passengers panic, charging outside, kids and women scream, and straight fuckers indulge in pained protest about ‘animals’. Crème de la Shirt shakes my shoulder, pleading, — We have to stop them! They’re wrecking the place!