Irvine Welsh - A Decent Ride

— We do, Raymond, aye sur, aye, we do that! Aye, aye, aye. . Jonty pants.

Raymond smiles into Jonty’s bright, grinning face, before squirming inside at the silent impasse that follows. He clears his throat, pointing at the sausage roll in Jonty’s hand. — Righto, you git that doon yir neck, then sheet up in the front room n let’s get that emulsion oan they waws!

So Jonty wolfs the sausage roll, realising that he actually is hungry again. A McDonald’s did that. Then he sets to work and puts in a good shift, before stopping for half an hour for his lunch, a Greggs steak bridie and a bottle of Vimto. Then he works steadily till the early evening. Jonty can fairly throw paint on to a wall, coat after coat. When it is time to knock off, he thinks about Jinty, and the terrible argument they’d had before he’d gone to bed. He can’t face going home so calls his brother, Hank, to make arrangements to go there for his tea. It’s best Jinty doesn’t join them, she doesn’t get on with Hank’s girlfriend, Morag. Let her cool down after that bad tiff.

Hank and Morag live in a council house in Stenhouse, which had been purchased by Morag’s late parents, under Margaret Thatcher’s right-to-buy legislation. Morag’s father had died of a massive coronary, and her mother, who has senile dementia, is living in a home. Morag’s sister Kirsty had inherited the house first, but had left her husband and taken her kids to Inverness, to live with a guy she’d met in Spain. It had been a Herculean task for Hank and Morag to get Kirsty’s estranged, embittered husband out of the house, but they’d finally managed it, and are now happily nesting. The place is cosy and clean, and Jonty likes it. Morag has made roast beef, with gravy, mashed potatoes and peas. — Roast beef, Jonty said, — double barry. Aye sur!

— It is that, Jonty, Hank agreed. Hank is a tall, thin man. His hair is receding and thinning on top, like Jonty’s, but unlike his brother, he keeps it long at the back and sides. He wears a pair of Wrangler jeans and a Lynyrd Skynyrd T-shirt with a Confederate flag motif.

— Pity Jinty couldnae join us, Morag says. She is a big-boned woman, in a lilac blouse and black skirt, and she works at an insurance office in town. — They shifts must be a killer.

— Aye. . aye, aye. . Jonty says, suddenly uneasy. Hank and Morag steal an edgy glance at each other.

— Whatever ye think aboot her, Morag says warily, turning from Hank to Jonty and back, — she’s a grafter. Did she get hame fae work awright, wi aw that Bawbag cairry-oan, Jonty?

— Aye. . aye she did. Hame. Aye. Came hame early this mornin, Jonty says, forcing cheer into his tone. — Locked in the pub! Aye sur!

Morag frowns, shaking her head in tight disdain, but Hank shrugs. — No necessarily a bad thing, he states. — Ah’d have certainly waited till the worst ay yon Bawbag hud passed, that wid have been ma advice.

Jonty feels something pulling at his insides. He is trying not to squirm in his seat. He changes the subject, looking at the gravy boat. — Rerr gravy, Morag. Eywis makes a rerr gravy, ay, Hank? Ay, Morag makes a rerr gravy?

— She doesnae half, Jonty! Beyond yir wildest dreams! Hank winks at Morag, occasioning a slight flush in his partner.

The rest of the meal is eaten in silence, until Morag, scrutinising Jonty for a while, begins, — Ah hope Jinty’s lookin eftir ye, Jonty son, cause yir wastin away tae nuthin. Ye dinnae think ah’m speakin oot ay turn, dae ye?

— Aye, wastin away, Jonty repeats back. — Wastin away tae nuthin. Aye sur. Ah miss gaun oot tae muh ma’s oot in Penicuik, aye sur, Penicuik. Aw different now. Eh, Hank?

Hank has been staring over Jonty’s shoulder at the television and the Scottish news, which is cataloguing the devastation caused by Bawbag. — The damage could eventually run into tens of thousands of pounds , the sombre-voiced anchorman declares. — Aye, it is that, Jonty son, Hank concedes, — aw different right enough.

— Aw aye, aw different.

The dessert of Sainsbury’s apple pie and Bird’s custard is gratefully dispatched. Later, as a stuffed, contented Jonty makes to depart, Hank pats his shoulder and urges him, — Dinnae make a stranger ay yirsel, n bring wee Jinty doon tae the pub one night. Campbell’s, or that Pub Wi Nae Name.

Jonty nods, but he did not mean that. No, sir, he did not mean that, because he is firmly of the opinion that The Pub With No Name was what started all the problems in the first place.

So Jonty takes his leave and cuts across the park, back on to the Gorgie Road, passing that chip shop at the Westfield Road junction. It is one that he really likes. With that one and C.Star, Gorgie has better chippies than Leith. That can’t be denied. The other shops aren’t that good though, it has to be admitted. But Gorgie Road is always great to just walk down. Where else could you get a farm? Leith Walk has never had a farm on it! Up ahead, he sees Mrs Iqbal from downstairs again, with her infant in the cart. A broon bairn, thinks Jonty. There is nothing wrong with that; he’d made that very point, one night down The Pub With No Name, that nobody got to pick which colour they come out.

Tony had agreed with Jonty. It was right enough, it was nobody’s fault that they weren’t white.

Evan Barksie had sneered, called his neighbours tooil-heided terrorists, said the flat below was probably a bomb-making factory.

But Jonty wondered how a young lassie and her bairn could be like that. So he’d told them that, Evan Barksie, Craig Barksie, Tony and Lethal Stuart and all that crowd. Barksie just dismissed him, saying that he was too thick to understand politics.

Jonty had agreed that he was a simple country lad from Penicuik. Aye sur, aye sur, Penicuik, sur, he’d said in refrain till it trailed off under his breath. But it intrigued him that people could make bombs in their house. He had been moved to look it up on the Internet. A Molotov cocktail; it would be so easy to make.

Steering clear of the front room where Jinty still sleeps, Jonty, from the frosted window of his narrow bathroom, looks across the street and sees it in its starkness: The Pub With No Name. He doesn’t want to go in, but he decides that he will steel himself and do it: show them all that nothing is wrong. He gulps back mouthfuls of air, forcing it into his lungs and walking over the road, into the pub. His nerves are making his hands shake as he pulls money out of his pocket and orders a pint of lager, which Sandra pours with a smile.

He hasn’t looked across to the seats beside the dartboard but he knows they are there. They regard him in silence, till he hears Lethal Stuart’s booming voice: — Thaire he is!

— Awright, Jonty! Tony says.

Jonty picks his pint up off the bar, and moves over to them. Something falls inside him as he sees Evan Barksie’s face set in a sneer. He says nothing but is tightly focused on Jonty.

— Aye sur, ah saw that lassie fae ma stair, her wi the mask n the broon bairn. Aye, ah did.

— You’d git oan wi her, Jonty! She’ll be a fermer’s lassie, fae a wee toon n aw, Tony laughs.

— Nae cunt even talks like him back in Penicuik! He’s no like a real fermir’s boy! Ay, Jonty? Craig Barksie challenges, his bottom jaw sticking out.

— Aye sur, aye sur, aye sur, Penicuik, sur.

They all laugh at Jonty’s performance, but he contents himself that they don’t know what he does. — Aye, Gorgie’s changed n aw, changed jist like the Cuik hus, Jonty explains to the assembled company, — wi aw the broon people n the Chinkies n that, the boys sellin the DVDs, that Name ay the Rose , aye sur. Good fullum that yin, sur. But Penicuik, it’s aw different now, aye sur.

They laugh again, all except Evan Barksie, who twirls his index finger into his temple and informs Jonty that he’s mental.