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

— I had kind of anticipated that, she said, with a kinda grim, distracted cheer. — You’re an ambitious man, Raymond Wilson Butler. You’re definitely going places.

I guess I was finding it hard to keep the crap-eater outta my smile. It was true. I was goin places. Yolanda got some drinks: a gin for her, and my usual lemonade. I ain’t sure whether it was cause I wasn’t gonna see her again, or perhaps I was just being an arrogant jerk, too flushed with my recent success, but I decided to ask her about her plastic surgery routines. — You… eh, I touched my own face, — had a little work done?

— Stating the obvious, huh? She laughed, not at all offended.

I went to protest but she silenced me with a grandiloquent wave of her hand.

— Don’t worry none. It was a long time ago and he wasn’t exactly the best guy in Beverly Hills, she grinned. — In fact he wasn’t in Beverly Hills at all, just some rat-bastard suburb in Houston. She laughed loudly at her own wit. Her face looked more gargoyle-like than ever at that point, nerves frozen with bad cutting and the stretching of old dead skin.

— What made you decide to go under the knife?

— It was Larry Briggs got me into that. Thought if I looked a little bit like how I used to, back when I was queen of this damned state, then I might be good for some votes when I was on his arm. I admit, though, I didn’t take too much pushing. She smiled sadly. — One strives to keep beauty with one.

I looked over at ol Sparky; way the light hit his glass-eyed stare it seemed alive, feral. Then there was Marco, forever loyal, waitin patiently by the door.

She caught my eye on them. Gave me a nod that was slow, knowin, and that creeped me out a little. — The coyote is done. I’ll show you him in a little while; he’s down in the basement. We have to think of a name for him though, Raymond. I think that you should pick one.

I was thinkin about how that mean coyote followed me everywhere, like I couldn’t get rid of him, and then I recalled Tommy Sparrow, the lead singer in the Majestic Reptiles. — Thank you, ma’am. How does Tommy sound to you?

— Tommy it is, she said with a grin as wide as the Mississippi. — To Tommy the coyote. She laughed and raised her glass and I found myself guffawin along with her.

When we stopped, it was with a nervous silence on my part and a cold detachment on Yolanda’s. I came clean and told her that I was shiftin the emphasis of the book squarely back toward Glen’s work, and away from her story and his personal life. She looked at me quite harshly for a split second, and I don’t mind sayin now that her glance set something crawlin down my spine. Then she seemed to grow more thoughtful, noddin slowly as if to encourage me to go on.

I sure didn’t want to sit around here much longer. There was just one thing more I wanted to know about. — I need to ask you, ma’am… when Glen went…

— What makes you think he’s gone?

A sudden big chill came over me, and this house no longer seemed cool, but as cold as death. I forced a laugh. — Yolanda, I’ve seen the headstone in the cemetery. His place of burial, back in the family plot in Collins.

— C’mon, honey, she said brusquely, standing up and moving over to the door leading down to the basement. I followed her down the metal steps. We came into a small room; it was nowhere near large enough to run the full length of the house. It had a concrete floor and stone walls, which had been whitewashed. There was a reinforced steel door and a porthole window next to it, all steamed up with condensation. She unbolted the door and ushered me forward. — You can go in, but be very, very quiet, she whispered. I hesitated, but only for a second, intrigued as to what in hell’s name was going on in there.

Because I suddenly saw it all in my head: Halliday was still alive! I had this fantastic vision of him bent over the desk of an editin suite in a secret basement studio, splicin together his masterpiece. I was so convinced, I was even startin to rehearse my greetin in my head.

Mr Halliday, sir… this sure is a surprise .

As I stepped over a metal ridge at the bottom of a door frame and into the room, a mist nipped at my eyes. This place was so cold, like a great refrigerat—I turned quickly, alarmed, but the door slammed shut behind me. I pushed hard but I could hear the bolts slidin over. I banged on the door with desperate ferocity as the cold stung my bare arms. — Yolanda! You fuckin crazy… but I could feel the fear rising up in me with the cold, takin the fight from me. — C’mon, cut it out… I was pleadin. — Look, we’re gonna stay in touch…

And then I saw her face in the porthole; monstrous, bloated and white as her voice crackled from a speaker above me. — They all want to go, but they never can. We all stay together. Always.

— Yolanda, this is crazy… and I turned to take in the room as my eyes adjusted to the mist. Then I could see them all standin, the four of them, lookin at me, their timeless eyes of dead glass starin ahead.

Glen Halliday, those coal-black beads sunk into his hangdog face. That red and dark blue gingham shirt and those stonewashed blue jeans that were a kind of trademark. The still thick gray hair, slicked back. He even has a bottle of beer, a Coors Lite, in his hand. And then there are the others; Humphrey Marston, with that look of intense concentration on his face that he must have brought to his job, sittin at his desk workin on a small animal. Standin behind him, Dennis Andersen, a rifle slung over his shoulder. He’s replete with that toothy, wholesome smile which probably never left him, even as his finger squeezed on the trigger to blow away some animal, or the back of his hand snapped out to bust a woman’s chops. And then there’s Larry Briggs, standin at a lectern, immaculately suited: rakish and shifty, even in death.

The four horsemen of her own personal apocalypse: that twisted ol witch. I pulled my cellphone out of my pocket. — Goddamn you, you sick old fuck—

— You won’t get a signal in here, my darling. This ‘sick old fuck’ has had the walls lined. It’s signalproof and soundproof. So please do spare yourself the terrible indignity of shouting and screaming for ‘help’. Poor Glen was such a terrible baby. A man so cynical about life in his latter days, but how he begged to hold onto it when his time came. Strange that, don’t you think?

I ignored the crazy old hag. There had to be another way out of this place…

Her voice was rantin on, cracklin through the speakers. — Who the hell do you think you are, Raymond Wilson Butler, with your artist’s conceit, thinking you can come into my life and take, take, take, just like the rest of them, get me to spill my guts and then walk away when you’ve had your fill? Cause it don’t work that way, honey! Not here!

Then I saw the door to an anteroom and made toward it. The coyote was standing there, hunched, ready to pounce through the mist. — You can’t go in there, I got Tommy to guard it, you see, Yolanda’s voice mocked.

I moved forward warily but as I got closer I saw that the coyote was as dead as a dodo. Sure enough it was the old boy I hit; twisted into an action pose by Yolanda’s craftmanship. I kicked it over and my hand gripped the cold brass handle on the door.

— I really wouldn’t go in there if I were you, angel, she cooed.

— Fuck you, you fat crazy ol bitch!

I pulled it open and as soon as I registered what was inside I fell to my knees. All I could do was scream no no no over and over again, as I looked up at her chemical-gray skin that devoured the meager light in the room. She had a guitar in her hand, and her mouth was open, blastin out a silent power chord, frozen that way for all time.