Irvine Welsh - If You Liked School, You'll Love Work

Fairly bonded, those two have, but it’s proper messing up my shagging plans. — Seph, you don’t wanna—

— He has insulted my father, who is a chief of police. He will pay for this, and she bursts into tears again, only to be crushed back into Cynth’s big floppy tits.

I let it go, cause when all’s said and done, there ain’t no use crying over spilt milk. As one door closes, another one opens; that’s what I’ve always believed to be the case concerning shagging. Sure enough, a couple of days later, they’re back to Gatwick on the flight, and I’m looking over at Marce. Bert was sitting in the corner of the bar getting plastered, while Rodj was cleaning glasses in the lounge. Ultimatums had evidently been issued. You could’ve cut the atmosphere with a knife. I nodded at Marce and dropped my voice. — Why the long face, gel?

— Bert and Rodger… they both say they want to be with me. I don’t know, Michael, I just don’t know, she told me. — It’s all too much.

I winked at her, cause I knew exactly where she was coming from. — Not that I wanna complicate things, gel, but at the election back home, that Liberal Democrat geezer said, ‘We are now in the age of three-party politics.’ Well, I think you’re in exactly the same position!

Well, she got my drift alright. — What position do you prefer? she asked, arching a brow.

And I have to say that she’s certainly delivered the goods. Poor Marce: all she wanted was a good nailing and a bit of fun, not Bert and Rodj giving it the old pistols at dawn routine.

So the summer didn’t turn out so bad, after all: the big disappointment being the film, Old Iron . It only went straight to video after me giving it the big one on the blower to the mates back home, about Hollywood beckoning and all that.

Still, you can’t have everything, and as I pull a frothing pint of John Courage’s finest for this tourist couple, Marce is on her knees behind the bar, her dirty, lovely mouth going to work on the old fellah, so I got to say that life could be worse. And you gotta admit that there’s a lot to be said for persistence. As the old cunt said back at his posh school: ‘This is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never, in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.’

Old misery-guts Rodj, cleaning up the glasses in the bar next door, daft little Bert, out on the piss somewhere, they should have heeded that advice. Reminds me though, Cynth’s only due back next week; or at least I believe that to be the case. No rest for the wicked. Still, with a bit of calmness and serenity, there ain’t no hurdle that can’t be negotiated.

THE CITY STEWS as the temperature soars past a hundred degrees. Their spirits muffled in the swampy insulation, some citizens veer for the lake. Many who live in apartments without air conditioning decant to the emergency cooling shelters set up by City Hall. On television, the mayor runs a hanky across the back of his sweaty, red neck for effect as he urges people to use those facilities.

Yet Kendra Cross is navigating the journey from her realty office to the small, new Asian fusion restaurant close to Clark and Fullerton with an air of insouciance. Mystic East, a manageable block away from her workplace, was where she had taken to lunching every Friday with her friends Stephanie Harbison and Stacie Barnes. Kendra seldom wearied of proclaiming that it was she who had unearthed this culinary pearl. Now she felt herself satisfyingly closing in on the weekend; all morning the lunch date had hummed urgently in her thoughts. Yes, Trent had been a washout last night, but there was the prospect of that cute rich guy from Capital Investments calling. Kendra thought that there was a mutual attraction at the meeting last week on that condo development at Printer’s Row.

Also: Kendra has floated through her morning duties on a magic carpet of Xanax, the same one that takes her down the sidewalk. Taut across the face, a tight, high, blond ponytail pulling her skin tensile on her forehead swings behind her, a tail as vital as the ones on the more enthusiastic dogs which negotiate Clark. Gliding among the buffed, two-pinned, mobile mannequins, she pouts in sympathy as she regards their quad-legged companions on the leashes, the heavy tongues on some grazing the sidewalk. She thinks of her black-and-white papillon, Toto, bonding with the other small dogs her sitter looks after, just as she is set to do with her own friends.

Kendra supposed that they were typical of many young, hardworking (Stacie excepted!), wealthy urban professionals. Apart from the demands of commerce, they had been unable to come up with suitable reasons for their ennui, and had overindulged in illegal drugs and alcohol as a convenient repository for their tired, listless, alienated behavior. Then they discovered the beauty of rehab. They’d taken to showing up at lunch dates, perky, superior and focused, hand placed strategically over the wine glass, a satisfied smile at the waiter. — Rehab, they’d whisper blissfully to their dining partners, as they discreetly washed down a Xanax with the proferred mineral water.

She had left her office at the real-estate agents prompt on 12.30 and at 12.38 Kendra opens the restaurant door to let the X-ray blast of air con invigorate her. The Japanese-looking waitress, wearing a dark kimono, escorts Kendra to her seat and she looks across at the chef, his round face pockmarked at the sides, eyes harsh in this light, under his dark brows, as he takes in everything in his benignly magisterial way from his vantage point behind the sushi bar.

Within a couple of minutes, Kendra is joined by Stephanie, whom, she notes, is wearing a green business suit of a similar cut to her own, with huge Dior sunglasses pushed onto her shiny blond hair, which is cut in a dramatic wedged bob. — No Stacie? Stephanie hums, her gaze, Kendra feels, one of assessment.

— She called to say she was running late.

— Let’s order anyway, Stephanie blows impatiently, — some of us have things to do.

— Affirmative, Kendra snorts, adding, — Stacie’s a fucking basket case, as she tactically drops and retrieves her napkin in order to check out Stephanie’s shoes, relieved that satisfying objections come quickly to mind. Fortified, she sits forward and lowers her voice. — Her stupid big mouth blew it for me with Trent last night.

Stephanie leans in, her eyes widening. Excitement and anxiety contend within her. She prays that Stacie won’t appear and interrupt this story. — How so? she urges in faux concern.

— We were in the LP Tavern. With Trent, Stuart Noble and Alison Logan. Alison saw this girl and shouted, ‘Isn’t she from Highland Park?’ I said I kinda recognized her from somewhere. Then blabbermouth Stacie cuts in and said she did psychology at DePaul, but that she was a couple of years below us . You could see Trent doing the freaking math there and then. He spent the rest of the evening looking at my crow’s feet, Kendra explains despondently, pointedly waiting for a reassurance that Stephanie assiduously withholds. Why thank you, fucking bitch . — He hasn’t returned my call, she moans dismally. — I’d phone again but it would come over as too needy.

And at that point Stacie, wearing a short, pink pleated skirt and matching tank top, blond hair in braids, appears in the restaurant, waving as she approaches them. She gapes suspiciously at Kendra and Stephanie. — Were you two just talking about me?

— Oh, wouldn’t you just love for that to be the case. Stephanie’s teasing tones are pitched somewhere between a snort and a purr as Stacie sits down. — But you are needy, she immediately points out to a grumpy-looking Kendra. — You need him . Or somebody like him.