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

Mona I’d already seen several times last year and talked to her at some length. She’d remarried and now lived in a dull subdivision of Fort Worth. She was polite but cold about her relationship with Glen. Basically Mona reckoned that Glen just worked, and when he wasn’t doin that he drank and hollered. I suppose because Glen Halliday was my hero and my inspiration, I didn’t take too kindly to what I was hearing. I guess I’d put a lot of it down to Mona’s bitterness and I left her to her suburban life. Unfortunately, he didn’t get a better posthumous reception back in Collins. It was a small conservative town and some folks were mighty irked by the way he’d portrayed them. But I came from a similar shithole and reckoned he’d got it just about right, and nothin I heard or saw in that place convinced me of anythin to the contrary.

The desert abruptly gave way to another walled and gated subdivision, and I was thinking that those places were what Halliday railed against in his films and writings. His overridin concern was how we’d gone wrong; concrete, preachers, emperor television, and the greed of the smilin suits that made a killin from that whole crock of shit. And those raggedy dumbassed baboons that just smiled and rolled over as those jerks shafted them where the sun don’t shine. I met some of those assholes back in Collins, and Glen Halliday’s vision was still touchin their nerves from beyond the grave.

This subdivision was like interminable others I had passed on the way out here. They all had a huge Old Glory hangin outside in the still desert air, as limp as the dick on one of them ol fellas in the rest homes that lined the route. Then I’m through it, back into more desert land, so complete it was like a mirage recedin to nothin in the rear mirror. So I got to Yolanda’s farm where they now only used the water for the swimmin pool nobody swam in, the land long turned bear-assed brown.

The house itself was a low stucco dwelling. It was large enough, but nuthin near as spectacular as the surroundin huge, perimeter stone wall, nor them big iron gates, which a wheezy, thirsty ol motor opened up when I rang the intercom. The residence was painted white, with some plants and cacti growin a few feet up its walls.

As I said, that ol Yolanda gal didn’t get much in the way of company. Only other fella I saw out here was the pool-cleanin boy. That pool was always full and thoroughly maintained. Always struck me as really crazy out here, especially with her not usin it. But I guess you don’t live out there alone in that kinda place without being just a little crazy.

Drivin past the pool, the boy couldn’t have missed the Land Cruiser, but he didn’t take no notice, just carried right on rakin up the scum from the water’s surface. He had a mean face. His eyes squinted tightly, and his mouth was just as ungenerous: a tight slash under his nose. Yolanda was standin in the doorway to greet me, in that swimsuit. She kissed me on the cheek and I screwed up my nose a little; there was a strange rank odor comin from her that I hadn’t noticed on my first visit. I followed her inside. Her front room was painted white, two big circular fans overhead whirling to the max. But most of the cool seemed to be coming up from the floor. She went to fix me some lemonade and I could hear her talking to herself. — Esmeralda, why are you standing around looking at me like that…

At first I reckoned that there was somebody else in the house, then I guessed she was talking to this cat or pooch. Then I realized it was a stuffed cat, which was mounted on an old mahogany sideboard. She was a strange ol gal, okay, but in fairness to her, Yolanda, as she insisted I called her, had been generous enough to cooperate with me in my researches on her late husband.

What I liked about being out here was that it was always so goddamn cool, especially those slate tiles on the floor. When she came back with the drinks, lemonade for me and gin for her, I had slipped off my shoes and my soles were freshinin up real sweet. — This is so good, I told her in appreciation.

— Underground cooling. There’s a refrigeration system that feeds the water we pump up from the aquifer. It supplies that pool too, once we put it through the filter, but we still get a lot of minerals and deposits. That’s why I need Barry to come by a whole bunch. She pointed outside to where the pool boy was still doin his thing.

I didn’t know with any great precision what an aquifer was, but the sonofabitch sure as shit must have held a whole bunch of water. I was gonna ask her but I reckoned she was the sort who could go on a little and I had my specific business. — As you know, ma’am, I’m trying to find as much as I can about Glen. He was your fourth husband, right?

— Check, she smiled, raising a glass of gin to her lips.

— Would you say you were close? I asked, then realizing how I sounded, quickly apologized. — Sorry, ma’am, I’m soundin like a local DA here. I guess I’m just tryin to understand your relationship.

She smiled at me, and settled back into the chair like a big cat, content with her drink and her audience of one. — Honey, as you said, he was number four. I’ve married for love, sex, and money but by the time you’re on your fourth your expectations are pretty low.

— Companionship?

She flinched a little, then screwed up her face. — God, I hate that word. But it’s probably as good as any, she conceded and in her voice and expression I could, for the first time, sense bitterness toward Glen Halliday.

— What did you know about his work as a filmmaker?

— Not a whole bunch, she said, takin another sip of her drink then raisin her eyebrows over the glass in classic lush style. — As you well know Glen was an independent, and I’m strictly a Burt Reynolds girl. Poor darling never had anything, he had to scrape and hustle for every dime to make his damned movies. Thought that I was money, I reckon.

I gotta say that at this point I found it hard to see Glen Halliday, Mr Integrity himself, cast as a gold digger. I’d seen him lecturing to NYU students at Hunter College, and again at Sundance, sharing a platform with Clint Eastwood. Both times he spoke with such passion and certainty. I couldn’t see him as a gigolo, man-whoring his weary ol ass to get a picture made.

I guess it must’ve showed in my face as Yolanda felt moved to elaborate. — He got plenty pissed at me when I wouldn’t sell this place.

This place was nice enough if you liked that kinda thing. But I was thinkin that if I had that ol gal’s money I sure as shit wouldn’t be spending the last of my days dryin out in the desert. I decided to digress and I asked her, — You pretty much settled here then, Yolanda?

Maybe it was just the liquor kickin in but I swear the wattage on her grin upped a little. — Pretty much. Oh, don’t get me wrong, it ain’t nothing special but it’s got memories. Besides, it was Humphrey’s legacy. He was my first husband and my one true love, she explained with a peachy glow. — When I pass on this’ll go to our son… he lives over in Florida. Humphrey Marston was the one I never managed to replace, and she gave a faraway smile, — the rest never even came close.

Ol Yolanda’s wrinkled lips pursed round the slice of lemon in the gin. She sorta sucked it up and kinda kissed it, before lettin it fall back into the glass. By now I was startin to get a little restless. I was sure that Humphrey was a fine man, but my business was with the other guy. — So about Glen, he was broke when you married him?

Yolanda looked a little bored, then she refreshed her glass, the act of doing so seemin to enliven her. — You know the type of films he made, she said impatiently, then softened a little. — I mean, he made them for love, not money. Anything he earned for him went on drink. A terrible lush, and such a bad drunk. My third husband Larry, Larry Briggs, he was the one before Glen, now there was a good drunk, she roared in celebration of the memory. — He wrote checks when he was loaded, bought gifts, pressed flesh, her voice dropped, — in bed he was just about the hottest darned thing… Her hand rose to her jaw. — This big mouth of mine, she cooed in a kind of simulated embarrassment.