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

Midnight is in the stables, standing beside Clifford, Indigo’s pony, who is his companion animal. Originally bought for that purpose was Curran, the psychotic pig, who makes both animals lives a misery with his butting and nipping. Even the dog keeps away from Curran.

Lara explains to me that she’s driven over to give Scarlet Jester a break after his Ireland exertions. — He looked peaky and was a wee bit snottery. Fiona’s looking after him at the stables.

She keeps him at Fiona La Rue’s stables, which is only a mile down the road, out of town. They take better care of him there than we evidently do with poor Midnight. He’s strained a tendon in his front lower leg and has been on anti-inflamatory drugs. Dobson the vet came over yesterday to check it, massaging the tendons and ligaments and manipulating the foot to assess freedom of movement. Midnight hurt it when I was riding him over the boards at home a few weeks back.

As the vet urged, I try to replicate his actions. Then I put on Midnight’s harness and walk him around the field, leaving my dad and Lara in the stables. I can hear her laugh, shrill, insistent: desperate to affirm some comment he’s made in his phoney James Bond voice. I stroke Midnight’s long, velvet-smooth face and watch his nostrils flare. — It’s a good thing I’ve got you, Midders, I tell him in a whisper.

BACK IN THE New Goth for the evening, enjoyin a decent pint ay the black gold. Now ah ken thit oor Celtic cousins acroas the Irish Sea will tell ye thit the black gold ower here tastes like it’s been strained through the bloomers ay a seasoned Lochgelly hoor, but this ey fair hits the spot fir me.

— The cunt’s mad. Stab-yir-faither n shag-yir-ma mad, Neebour says, talking aboot Monty. Aye, thon hoor’s a wrang yin awright.

Bit ah’m no wantin tae talk aboot bams, no the now, so when wee Reggie Comorton, Mister Reflected Glory himself, starts oan aboot this Mossman boy ah’m playin the morn in the Scottish, ah gits right intae the discussion. — Ya hoor ye, the cunt’s no goat a flick in um. Boy’s a fuckin slider, ahm tellin ye.

So Comorton, looking like auld Peter Falk’s Columbo in this dirty wee overcoat, turns tae me n says, — It’s the Fife style ay play. Yir still trapped in the Fife style ay play, Jason. The game’s moved oan.

— What ye tryin tae say Comorton?

— Eftir yon twa thoosand n twa World Cup they selt nearly one million table-football pitches in South Korea. Think wir gaunny huv it wur ain wey in Fife forever?

Ah looks tae the Neebour tae see if yon bourgeois revisionist sentiments are bein endorsed, but ehs goat that staney coupon oan. No thit it bothers me. As ah’m short ay black gold tokens, n ah’ve goat the big game oan the morn, ah takes ma leave n gits hame tae ma residence, jist roond the corner next tae the railway station. Central Fife: as central as it gits.

Ah gits up tae ma room n pits oan ma Cat Stevens album, skins up n starts tae huv a wank thinkin aboot yon Lara n her chunkier wee pal Jenni, jodhpur-clad erses bouncin oan yon saddles, sweaty wee minges batterin oaf yon hoarses’ backs as they brek intae a trot, n ah manage a fair auld spurt withoot video assistance! Whoa, ya cunt ye! Tea for the Tillerman. Aye, sor.

Some ay they equestrian-orientated lassies’ll take some satisfyin n aw, ah kin tell ye. Thir’s been a few thit huv hud that hymen burst acroass the back ay a hoarse, ahm stressing through sportin endeavour, nowt untoward, ya hoor sor! Been a guid few marital ceremonies throughout the ages declared null n void oan the absence ay thon elastic twang on the end ay the cherry oan the first night in yon marital bed, but it kin happen in pure innocence wi a sportin maid. Funny tae think ay that perr Princess Di as a wee thing huvin tae go through the indignity ay the ‘intact fud test’ before her marriage tae Prince Charles. Nae danger ay thon Camilla needin tae subject that aulder clam tae the same scrutiny! Progress, ya hoor, whin feminism finds its wey intae the royal gynecological services! Bit hoarses n lassies; aye, once yuv hud that sort ay power between yir legs yir standards might jist go up a wee bit!

That Lara; eywis tidy, but awfay snooty, even back in the day. Went oot wi her whin she wis fourteen n ah wis twenty-one. Ah hae ma doots thit her faither, Doaktir Grant fae yon practice oan the Lochgelly Road, wid huv blessed a fully-fledged sexual relationship back then. Academic point cause she gied ays ma marchin orders jist eftir the fuckin stable ah wis attached tae did, purely by coincidence ah’m sure! Ah reckon she still huds a candle fir me, but. But aw aye, sor, ya hoor ye, it wid take some satisfyin these days, by maist accoonts.

Mind you, thir aw boozer accoonts, and by thaime every cunt takes some satisfyin. Telt muh auld man aboot this n he sais it wis much different in his day. A lassie wis gled ay a length back then, n accordin tae the auld yins they aw went oaf like nuclear bombs. ‘A sexual fuckin utopia, right here in Fife,’ tae paraphrase the auld boy, ya hoor.

Ya hoor sor, ah’m better gittin back wi that Alison Broon, she wis the lassie fir me. Ah wanted tae git back the gither wi her, bit as Scottish Table-Football Cup Champion. Fower n a hauf inches didnae bother that wee yin. Or so she sais at the time. Mind you, she’s in Canada n she’s married. Three bairns n aw, they tell ays.

Too far away tae contemplate a visit oan the mere speculation ay a ride, so ah gits oot the table-football n practises for the game the morn. Ah’ve jist goat Cowdenbeath and Dunfermline set up whin the phone goes. Ah cannae hear the auld boy in the hoose, eh must be doon at the library reading socialist tracts, so ah runs doon n picks it up.

— Kingy! What kept ye? You been huvin a wank?

It’s ma auld mucker Kravy fae Spain. — It’s pointless lyin tae ye, buddy; aye, a substantial chug wi the usual suspects oan the jukebox.

— They hoarsey lassies? Dae you never change the record?

— If it isnae broke thir’s nae need tae fix it, sor.

— Sorry if ah put ye off yir stroke.

— Thir’s nae danger ay that, ah goes, n ah ken it’s just phone lines n thir aw the same, but ah git a wee hunch eh’s a wee bit closer thin Spain. — Whair ur ye?

— Jist this minute walked intae the New Goth, Cowdenbeath, Fife, Scotland. Where else?

— What aboot Spain, ya hoor?

— Hud tae come back tae look eftir the auld mare. She hud a faw while pished n smashed her hip comin doon they big steps outside the Miners’Welfare.

— The Fountain Bar n Pool Hall as we call it now.

A wee silence, then eh goes: — Aye, ah heard they hud changed it. Now thuv changed the auld mare’s hip n aw.

— Sair yin.

— Aye, but they reckoned it wis riddled wi arthritis anywey, so they stuck in a plastic joab, the hoor explains. — Ye comin fir a pint?

Ah’m thinkin aboot the contest versus Moosey-Face Mossman the morn. — Ah’m a bit short ay the sheckles, bro, the giro ay last week bein jist a nostalgic memory.

— Ah’m in the chair. Goat enough narks tae pit Boots oot ay business n aw.

Well, thir wis nae mair tae be said!

Jist then ah heard the door open n the auld boy came in wi a cairry-oot. — What up, bro? eh sais, then regards Cat Stevens oan the stereo n looks at ays, shakin ehs heid as eh lays the bevvy oan the table. — Nae cunt listened tae Cat Stevens, even back in the day. It wis wankers’ music, even back then. Thon 50 Cent boy’s the man.

The auld man listens tae the likes ay yon 50 Cent aw day. — How kin ye say that, Faither, eftir raisin me oan Eldridge Cleaver, Bobby Seale n Malcolm X? The black man’s loast it; jist wants the bling, the hoors n then tae off ehs brothers. Like the Fifer, ah suppose.