Irvine Welsh - A Decent Ride

Doughheid is prompt, and Terry gratefully settles back in the cab. However, it’s an older, less slick and upholstered version of his own beloved TX4, made by the London Carriage Company, and its spartan environment makes him feel overdressed in his black velvet jacket, yellow shirt, buttoned up to the top with no tie, and grey flannel trousers. He’s tied back the corkscrew curls in an elasticated band, but a couple have already popped out, jumping irritatingly across his eyeline as he scans women on the streets towards the inner-city district of Pilrig, which looks frosty and threadbare around the park. As Terry steps out the cab and bids Doughheid farewell, the cold drizzle assails him. This is the first ever burial he’s been at, surprised when he’d heard that Alec’s do wouldn’t be in the usual venues of Warriston or Seafield crematoria. It was disclosed that there was a family plot of land purchased many years ago, and Alec was to be buried beside his late wife Theresa, who had died tragically in a fire. Terry had never met her, and he’d known Alec since he was sixteen, but had learnt over the years, through the odd tearful bout of alcoholic remorse and lamentation, that Alec, inebriated, had accidentally started the chip-pan fire which had led to his wife’s demise.

Pulling up the collar on his jacket, Terry heads across to where a large group of mourners have gathered around a grave. It’s busy, but then Alec’s passing was always likely to precipitate a jakey convention. What surprises Terry is that many old faces he has presumed either dead or in prison, are discovered merely not to have ventured past their local supermarkets since the smoking ban.

It isn’t all low-rent style though. A green Rolls-Royce pulls assertively through the gates, crunching the gravel of the path. All the other cars are parked in the street outside, but, much to the chagrin of the bemused cemetery officials, the Rolls inches as close as it can to the gravestones, before two suited and overcoated male passengers exit ceremoniously. One is a gangster whom Terry knows as The Poof. He is accompanied by a younger, wily-eyed, narrow-featured man, who, to Terry’s eye, appears too physically unimpressive to be a minder.

The grand entrance, which has certainly attracted the attention of the mourners, fails to hold Terry’s, his gaze soon turning in other directions. Experience has taught him that grief affects people in different ways. Along with weddings and holidays, funerals afforded the best pulling opportunities. With this in mind, he remembers how Councillor Maggie Orr has returned to her original surname from the clumsy designation Orr-Montague, the latter part belonging to the solicitor husband she’d recently divorced. Terry is armed with two pieces of knowledge: one is that Maggie has worn well, the second is that relationship breakdown and bereavement means double vulnerability. Perhaps he’ll get the old Maggie back, the bewildered Broomhouse girl, rather than the slick, self-actualised professional woman she’s morphed into. The thought excites him.

Almost immediately, he sees her standing by a large Celtic cross gravestone, talking to a group of mourners, wearing a sombre dark suit and gently drawing on a cigarette. Tidy enough, Terry thinks, licking a crystallising layer of salt from his top lip. He meets her eye, allowing first a faint smile then a sad nod of acknowledgement to pass between them.

Stevie Connolly, Alec’s son, sidles up to him. Stevie is a wiry guy, with a permanent bearing of semi-indignation that he inherited from his father. — You found ma faither, ay?

— Aye. Died peaceful like.

— You were his mate, Stevie says, in accusation.

Terry recalls how father and son had never been close, and partly empathises, being himself in a similar situation of paternal alienation, but is unsure of how to react to Stevie’s contention. — Aye, worked oan the windaes thegither, he says blandly, recalling another eventful chapter in his life.

Stevie’s doubtful scowl seems to be saying: ‘and the fucking housebreaking’, but before he can voice the thought, a series of calls and signals ripple across the cemetery, compelling the mourners to bunch slowly around the graveside. The minister (Terry gives thanks that Alec, though originally a Catholic, had left instructions that the funeral would be as secular and short as possible, so this meant Church of Scotland) makes a few non-contentious remarks, centring on how Alec was a social man, who missed his beloved Theresa, cruelly taken from him. They would now be together, not just symbolically, but for all time.

A couple of psalms are sung, the minister gamely trying to garner the enthusiasm of probably the weakest and most self-conscious backing chorus in the history of Christendom, unaided by indoor acoustics. There follows a short speech from Stevie. He just about manages to cover up his resentment towards Alec and his role in his mother’s demise, before inviting anybody who feels so inclined to come up to the microphone to give testimonial. There follows a nervous silence, with much studying of the blades of wet grass.

Then, at the urging of both Alec’s son and niece, Terry gets up to speak, standing on a box behind the microphone. Looking out at the sea of faces, he cracks what he thinks is a winning smile. He then taps the microphone in the manner he’s seen stand-up comics do at Edinburgh Fringe shows. — Once Alec goat the results n kent thaire wis nae wey back, eh took oaf oan a massive session, drinkin his wey through half the local Lidl’s stock! That wis Alec, he thunders, waiting for laughter to erupt.

But there is mostly stillness around the grave. The few who choose to react polarise between half-stifled chuckles and gasps of horror. Maggie shakes her head ruefully at Stevie, whose hands are balled tight and white, his teeth almost cracking as he hisses through them, — He thinks it’s a fuckin best man’s speech at some waster’s wedding!

Terry elects to soldier on, raising his voice above the intensifying grumbles. — Then he decided tae pit his heid in the oven, ay. But Alec bein Alec, he wheezes, — the cunt wis that pished he thought the fridge wis the fuckin oven! Pardon ma French but, ay. Aye, eh went intae the boatum freezer compartment, couldnae git ehs fuckin heid in, cause ay the wire basket n the McCain oven chips, so eh stuck ehs heid intae the plastic container next tae the basket n filled it wi ehs puke! Terry’s laughter explodes across the cold, wet cemetery. — Any cunt else ye’d blame it oan the medication, but that wis Alec, ay!

Stevie’s face crumbles as he takes this in, and a hyperventilating fit starts to seize him. He looks to Maggie and the other relatives in appeal. — What’s eh sayin? Eh? What is aw this?

But Terry, the wind whipping up his curls, has the floor and, in full flow, is all but oblivious to the reaction from the mourners. — Well, even wi the door open, it was such a cauld night that when ah found um in the morning, his heid wis frozen in a solid fuckin block ay iced-up seek-water, fae jist under his chin tae the back toap part ay his neck. Thaire was an aypil frozen in the water for some reason. Like he’d been tryin tae fuckin dook fir it, before eh passed oot! But that wis Alec, ay! Terry pauses. There follows a few tuts, with some heads shaking. Terry glances at Stevie, being restrained by Maggie, who has a firm grip of his arm. — Some boy for a peeve! But it’s great tae see um buried next tae his beloved Theresa. . Terry says, pointing at the grave next to the one they are standing around. Then he indicates a patch of grass between the two graves. — That’s whaire they buried the auld chip pan; in between the two ay thum, he says, poker-faced, drawing real gasps of disgust, and some barely supressed guffaws. — Anywey, that’s me done. See yis back at the boozer for a scoop, for the boy’s memory, like, and he hops down into the body of the mourners, who stand apart from him like he has a contagious disease.