Irvine Welsh - A Decent Ride

GOD, PLEASE COME TO MY RESCUE!

We get to the club, and the assholes who caused all the trouble are gone. But this table of bums are still sitting around with dominoes in their hands. That asshole with the one leg. .

And my whisky. .

MY GOD! OH MY GOD! WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS?!

It’s opened! The assholes have opened it! There’s about two-thirds left, but that is totally irrelevant. They opened my fucking bottle of the Bowcullen Trinity. .

— Too late, Terry says, — the gannets have descended!

That crow-faced gimpy asshole with the porcine eyes looks up at us. — So ye got rid ay they bams then, eh? Private-hire fuckin sex-offender cunts. .

— Aye, sorry aboot that, Jackie boy, they’ll no be in here again, Terry says. — How’s the whisky, mate?

— No bad, the old asshole says.

God sacrificed His only son, Jesus Christ, so that those people would be saved. Is this what saved is? Is this what it means? To live among cretins? Why, God? Why?

Another leather-faced bum says, — Nah, ah’d take a nip ay Grouse ower that shite any day ay the week. That’s never a whisky that! No worth a sook, ay-no.

— Well, I thought it wasn’t too bad myself, although I have to say that a nice eighteen-year-old Highland Park takes some beating, this Limey prick in glasses says.

— ASSHOLES!!!!

I fall to my knees and I’m screaming at them all, pounding the ugly, stained carpet tiles in this rancid room, cursing all the assholes in this goddamn hellhole! I pray for a proper hurricane to come back, to wipe, please God, this shithole off the planet!

KILL THEM, GOD!

KILL THEM, JESUS!

BRING BACK THAT GODDAMN HURRICANE BAWBAG!!!

TERRY LAWSON DRIVES through an Edinburgh that seems to him tawdry and second-rate. A city crushed by its own lack of ambition, grumblingly miserable about its status as a provincial north British town, yet unwilling to seize its larger destiny as a European capital. His mood is bleak as he drives towards Haymarket to meet Shite Cop. The detective had called him to say there was another development in the Jinty case.

His anonymous dispatch of the diary had produced the desired impact. Kelvin, after being sweated down by police, had been ready to confess to any charge short of murder, which, in any case, couldn’t have been made as there was no body to be found. The police, despite locating a pair of Jinty’s DNA-soaked knickers (and those of every other Liberty girl) in Kelvin’s locker, couldn’t charge him with anything relating to her disappearance. But there was more than enough combined evidence and testimony to charge him with three counts of rape, two of grievous bodily harm, and several of sexual assault.

The Poof had decided to stay in Spain for a protracted spell and let Kelvin take the heat. The day after the arrest, he’d called Terry to tell him that Kelvin should be praying they give him a long sentence. This would be a far better option than his brother-in-law getting a hold of him.

As welcome as it was, Terry couldn’t take much cheer from this news. His own life has become a constant struggle. All he has to look forward to is a golf tournament in New York that Ronnie has set up. Meantime, women torment him with slutty calls and propositions. The dumber Jambos make five-one signs at him, which is nowhere near as bad as the smart ones, who silently deploy a knowing smirk every time their paths cross. He was even relieved when his best friend, Carl Ewart, after an extended stay, headed back to Australia. Since then, he’s emailed Terry every day, with FIVE-ONE on the masthead of his bulletins.

Perhaps the most galling thing is the play that Sara-Ann has written, A Decent Ride , the Edinburgh Festival production she is working on with the Traverse Theatre. — It obviously leans a lot on our time together and Steam Tommy might be taken as you by some people, but it’s fiction , she’d explained in a rambling message left on his phone. — Writers are thieves; that’s what we do.

All those factors wouldn’t have bothered him in the slightest if he didn’t have his sexual issue; but, as things stood, they relentlessly underscore his misery, to the point of him considering that he’ll have to leave Edinburgh.

But where could he go? Spain or Florida are out; too warm, and the naked flesh on show would destroy him. Northern Europe is too expensive. Perhaps he’d take up cabbying down in Newcastle or Manchester, and live a simple life with his books.

As an insipid sun comes out from behind the clouds, Terry lowers the visor and wonders what the ‘other development’ in Jinty’s case could be. Is it possible that he’s even in the frame for her murder? Not that he cares. Going to prison, for anything, he thinks, will probably be the best option for him. No women. Just books.

The lights at Tollcross seem to take an age, as Terry shivers in the chilly snap that has hit the city, destroying any confidence of a decent summer. It feels more like February than the end of May, and, on cue, the sun vanishes, spreading a black shadow over the town.

There will certainly be, he considers, no ‘other developments’ in the missing Bowcullen Trinity saga. Terry had drunk with some guilt as Ronnie had treated both him and Jonty to a couple of nips from the opened bottle of whisky. Of course, with the seal no longer intact, that blend of rare malts was now worth little more than a few thousand pounds. But Ronnie had resolved that he would enjoy it on special occasions, and took the half-empty bottle and the stories it contained back to the USA. His parting boast that he owned two of the whiskies, albeit one with the seal broken, therefore still more than any other man on this planet, almost made Terry want to tell him where the missing prize was.

At Saughton Mains roundabout, close to his old home, he thinks about Alec’s corpse, lying in Rosebank Cemetery with the second bottle. Poor Ronnie, back in Atlanta or New York, or wherever, still fretting over the fate of the vanished Bowcullen, unawares Rehab Connor and Johnny Cattarh had started that row on the links with them. Footballer’s shin pads wrapped under his jeans, Johnny was able to withstand the powerful blow that Terry’s putter hammered into them. Though he went down so convincingly, for a few seconds Terry wondered whether he’d remembered to put them in. And the police and Ronnie went after them, oblivious that when they’d taken the bottle in the melee, they’d stashed it in the wheelie bin in the club’s rear car park before driving off. Terry had returned later that evening to retrieve it.

It had been so tempting to let Ronnie know he had been played, but the consumption of the third bottle gnawed constantly at his American friend, so any form of disclosure was not an option. Besides, the investigation by the insurance company and the police was still ongoing, as was Ronnie’s litigation with Mortimer.

He meets Shite Cop, now sporting a beard, in Starbucks at Haymarket. He still has the default expression of studied neutrality on his face, but there is an underlying busy element to the eyes, hinting at the characteristic nosy police slyness, a quality his DJ friend Carl claimed they shared with many journalists. — So what’s the story? Terry asks, perfecting that air of detachment, but hoping Shite Cop will divulge the news about Jinty. Shite Cop toys with his espresso, then looks searchingly at Terry. — You heard that somebody anonymously sent us Jeanette Magdalen’s diary?

Terry plays dumb.

— Aye, this gave us the chance to get a search warrant, he explains, scrutinising Terry’s reaction. Then he adds, — But there were two pages ripped out.