Irvine Welsh - A Decent Ride

The rest of the service passes without controversy, though there are some teary eyes when the inevitable ‘Sunshine on Leith’ strikes up on the rickety sound system, as the coffin is lowered into the ground. Terry is too cold to wait for the closing hymn. He shuffles away and heads down the street to the Guilty Lily pub, where the reception will take place. He is the first person to get to the alehouse, and it’s a relief to be in the warm on this foul, dreich day. Outside it is already pitch dark at barely 4 p.m. A sombre barmaid points to a white-clothed table full of glasses of beer, whisky and wine, and another with a buffet of traditional funeral spread; the mini sausage rolls, the ham-and-cheese sandwiches. Terry hits the toilets, doing a livener before returning to get himself a bottle of beer. As he takes up position by the bar, the mourners file in. Terry, his eyes on Maggie’s entrance, fails to notice Stevie’s discord. As she moves elegantly over to the big fireplace, on the other side of the room, he wonders how long it will take her to come his way.

Maggie, comforting and placating a pent-up Stevie, has guided him away from Terry, in the hope that he’ll cool off. As she glances across at Terry, she recalls their early trysts, how she (perversely now) preferred him to the sweet and successful Carl Ewart, who had such a hopeless crush on her. But Terry had possessed that bombastic confidence, which obviously hadn’t changed. And, it has to be said, from his cocky bearing, perched at the bar on a stool, that he looks well. He is obviously taking care of himself and still, implausibly, has those force-of-nature corkscrew curls. They seem not to have thinned or receded at all, though she suspects he runs Grecian 2000 through them.

Maggie is thus moved to give her own reflection a surreptitious glance in one of the full-length windows, pretending to be looking outside into the darkness. As a younger woman, her small body and breasts had never felt much of a blessing, but as she drew close to her forties, Maggie had grown grateful for them. There was little for the hungry ravages of gravity to work with, and any potential traction was thwarted by a four-times-a-week gym regime, an obsession with healthy eating and the discipline of moderate food portions. Maggie also finds it hard to pass a spa, and indulges in high-end skincare products and exfoliation treatments. That she is often genuinely taken for her daughter’s elder sister is a great source of quiet pride to this elfin woman.

She turns to see that Terry has caught her lingering glance of self-regard. Her heart sinks as a smile splits his face and he moves over, waving a lecturing finger. — Aye, caught ye thaire, checkin yersel oot in the gless! No that ah blame ye mind, ah’m likin what ah’m seein n aw!

Maggie feels an invisible hand tear her face into a smile. — Well, you look very well yourself, Terry.

— Goat tae make an effort but, ay, Terry winks extravagantly.

He hasn’t changed, Maggie thinks. He never changes. She looks back across to the fire. Stevie has a whisky in his hand, and is thanking some elderly guests for coming.

— So how’s things? Terry asks, and before she can inform him, answers on her behalf. — Big changes wi the divorce n the lassie bein away at college, or so ah’m hearin.

— Aye, well, impeccable sources. Maggie raises her glass of whisky to her lips.

— Aw oan yir lonesome, Terry beams, pitching it as a statement.

Maggie chooses to answer it as a question. — Who says ah’m on my lonesome?

— So thaire’s a new felly? Well, eh’s a lucky laddie! Tell ye that for nowt!

— I never said that either.

— Well, what is it then?

— ‘It’ is my life, and it’s none of your business!

Terry spreads his arms. — Hi! Kin ye no comfort an auld pal in her hour ay need?

Maggie is about to retort that Terry’s attempt at mass comforting at the funeral speech has given him near-pariah status, but now Stevie is tearing towards them, murder in his eyes. — What was aw that aboot? That speech, he confronts Terry, in bug-eyed rage.

— Wis a tough balance, Terry nods, seemingly oblivious to Stevie’s seething anger. — Ah wanted tae keep it Alec-friendly but at the same time gie the family some closure, ay. He nods semi-smugly. — Ah think ah pilled it oaf if ah say so masel, and he pulls out his mobile phone and goes into photographs. — Ah took some pictures oan the mobby, like that Damien Hirst gadge. Huv a shuftie, and he thrusts the camera phone in Stevie’s face.

Stevie had never been close to Alec, but seeing the image of his father’s head frozen into a block of ice, with yellow vomit trailing from the mouth, is too much to bear. — Ah dinnae want tae see that! Git the fuck oot ay here!

— C’moan, mate! Closure!

Stevie lunges to grab Terry’s phone, but Terry shoves him in the chest and he stumbles backwards. — C’moan now, pal, yir makin an exhibition ay yirsel here. . Alec’s day but, ay. . Terry warns.

— FUCK. . FUCK YOU, LAWSON! Stevie stammers, as two relatives are on hand to pull him away. — Cunt’s fuckin mental. . ye see what he’s got on that phooooone. . Stevie’s voice rises to breaking levels, as he is protestingly hauled off to the other side of the room.

Terry turns to Maggie. — Ye try n gie some cunts, the family n that, a wee bit ay closure n git nae fuckin thanks!

— You’re crazy, Maggie says, and not in a flattering way, her eyes bulging in disbelief. — You huvnae changed!

— Keepin it real, Terry says proudly, but Maggie tears across the room to comfort her cousin. She always was a snooty wee cow, he thinks. Besides, Stevie never got on with Alec, what’s the hypocrite doing, playing the grieving son?

And now The Poof has caught his eye and is heading across to him. Despite rarely dressing in anything other than expensive designer suits and button-down shirts, there is always something slightly soiled-looking about The Poof. It’s as if he’s slept all night in his clothes and just been disturbed into consciousness. This impression is reinforced by the fact that The Poof is almost blind, his permanently screwed-up mole eyes adding to his sleepy demeanour. For a man who sadistically enjoys violence, he is paradoxically squeamish about anything to do with his eyes. Laser surgery is no-go, and he even baulks at fiddling with contacts. The Poof is also prone to heavy perspiration, thus clothes quickly look grubby on him. He has driven Edinburgh’s (and some of London’s) finest tailors to despair; despite their best efforts, around four hours will see him go from spruce to loose. The Poof’s younger sidekick, his face all tight angles, is backed up against the brickwork pillar in the centre of the bar, drink in hand, slyly scanning the gathering’s few younger women.

Terry turns back to The Poof. He recalls how everybody got called a ‘poof’ at Forrester High School in the seventies. Back then, only ‘wanker’ possibly rivalled it as the most common term of abuse. But The Poof was the Poof. Continuously bullied, rather than take the stock revenge route of joining the polis to get payback on the world, The Poof had gone against the grain and become gangster no. 1.

Of course, Terry knows that The Poof, strictly speaking, isn’t homosexual, and that he is one of few folk who still refers to him by that old school moniker. This is dangerous, as The Poof has worked his way up through the ranks by being a wide, vicious bastard. However, in Terry’s consciousness, part of Victor Syme will always be the dippit wee cunt in the brown duffel coat, whom he regularly took a crusty roll and crisps off of from outside the baker van at school break.

The game-changer for The Poof was his totally left-field attack with a sharpened screwdriver on Evan Barksdale. Barksdale was a bully: a twin who, along with his brother Craig, pursued a campaign of systematic, unremitting viciousness that pushed The Poof into the frenzied, psychotic bloodletting that instantly caused the world, and Victor Syme himself, to redefine his street status. Evan Barksdale, like a scheme Dr Frankenstein, had unwittingly created a monster substantially more dangerous than he, or his brother, could ever hope to be. Of course, The Poof had met with some pain and grief along his violence-strewn personal road to Damascus, but Barksdale’s persecution had schooled him well; everything else was insignificant compared to the psychic torture he’d already undergone.