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

— The boy will live oan in us aw, ah sais, gaun doon oan the first line.

Well, it wis no a bad hit but ah huv tae say thit it might huv been a bit better without Kravy bein in the mix. Awfay rough oan the beak n the lungs. No thit ah wis grudgin the boy, likes.

Ah gies Jenni the second snort, n she fair hoovers it aw up. Eftir, she throws back her heid, wrinkles her beak fir a bit n her eyes water up, but she fights it back.

— Awright? ah asks.

— Yeah… it’s quite nice, she grins, taking a big breath. — I just find the idea of him being inside us all really exciting! She sneezes, then squeezes ma leg again.

The Neebour n the Duke take thir shoat. Eftir a decent passage ay time, ah say tae thum, — Right, folks, ah’m gaunny huv tae chase yis oot. Aw except you, Jenni, we’ve goat a wee bit ay private business tae discuss, ah explain, as the lads file despondently oot, nae doot Goth-bound fir last orders.

Once thir oot the road, ah git tae the wardrobe. Ah take oot the styrofoam beer-carrying box. Openin it up, wi look at wir boy again, liberated fae the middle ay some shoodir-high jaggy nettles. Ghostly white, but blue aboot the eyes n lips, like a plasticine model ay ehsel, n startin tae seriously ming now.

— What are we going to do wi him? she gasps.

— Ah’ve goat an idea. N it’s goat tae be done soon. Eh’s in bad shape n ah’m sure thir’s still some ay they maggot hoors in the neck. Bit first wi hae another line, in tribute.

As she goes doon oan it and gits the buzz, she says, — I haven’t done coke for ages; not since Lara and I went up to St Andrews and tried to gatecrash Prince William’s graduation ceremony. She had a friend who graduated at the same time. We didn’t get near the Prince, though.

— A sensitive laddie, ay that ah’ve nae doots, ah tell her, but muh eyes nivir leave perr Kravy’s deid lamps in that rid-helmeted heid.

I WAKE UP on Jason’s floor. I think it’s the next morning. He’s lying next to me and we’re both fully clothed. So nothing went on. My sinus stings with the speed, cocaine and ash mix, and my throat feels like sandpaper.

I stand up and crouch down over him, kissing his forehead, but he’s dead to the world. I go downstairs and head out into the street, just as his dad is coming round the corner, and he looks as sheepish as I feel as we give each other a thin grin of acknowledgement.

I’m suffering badly with this hangover and I know that it’s going to get much worse once the cocaine and alcohol still in my system start to wear off. I recall Jason playing some interesting music, the likes of which I’ve never heard before. I climb into the car, which has been parked outside all night.

As my backside makes contact with the seat I feel wetness on my arse. I’ve probably been sitting in something. My armpits whiff a little. I should go home, shower and sleep, but I’m restless and excited and I go up to see Lara. When I get to the house, Dr Grant answers, his face lined, lean and tubercular. It’s as if the respiratory diseases he diagnoses in the district’s former mineworkers have somehow, by a strange osmosis, filtered into his own lungs. You can see why Lara loves to go out and fuck cavemen. How else would she get a reaction from this repressed, stoical figure? Despite the fact that she’s ‘grown out’, as she puts it, of Marilyn Manson, there’s still an anger in her that runs deep. Her habits are still the same and they’re worse than mine. She’s just good at the civilised veneers. Fuck that, I’ve seen what that shit does. My mother being a case in point.

— Is Lara in? I ask him.

Dr Grant looks through me. This man loathes himself and the world in equal measures. He just nods at the stairs and I go up. I wonder if he can see the sticky wet patch on my bum.

I knock and go right in to her bedroom. Lara’s sitting up on the bed reading her magazine and a purple-and-black eye looks out from over the top as she lowers it. — I can’t go into Dunfermline today, she says.

— What happened?

— What do you think? she challenges, and then adds cheerfully, — My bastard went psycho on me. I told him it was over. We argued. He wanted, you know, one last time.

I think about that scumbag Klepto, and how far evil trash like that would actually go. — Oh my God! Did he, you know—

— It wasn’t rape, far from it, she says, now smirking. — I was quite turned on at the idea. More than him when it came down to it. She shakes her head contemptuously. — He couldn’t perform. I was a little too scathing, and well, he didn’t take it so good. She now stifles a sniffle, seeming flooded by a rush of angry despair.

— Oh love, I cry and I open my arms and take her in them.

— You’re sweet, she says as she breaks off our hug and looks miserably at me. — It’s my own fault. I should have known better. He’s bad news. So is his friend. You just think, I don’t know…

I’m almost going to tell her about that horrible Klepto, and I can’t help but finish the sentence: — That you can change them?

Lara laughs loudly at me. — Fuck, no. I’m not that stupid, Ms Cahill, she snorts, as I realise that I’ll never confide anything of importance to her, ever again. — You just think that they might be a little grateful to spend time with somebody who has an IQ and who doesn’t want to be pregnant. I was wrong. Now this fucking bruise won’t go down for Hawick. I’ll look like some schemie crack whore from Glenrothes!

— It isn’t so bad, I tell her, getting out my make-up bag. — Let’s see what we can do.

THE AULD GIRL’S gittin gey meaty: especially roond the airms. She’s still goat that stiff blonde hair piled up and lacquered in place n thon foundation thickly caked in layers oan her coupon. She’s an awfay short-erse though; ah take thon vertically challenged gene offay her n it’s a persistent but disturbin thought that ah wis ripped oot ay her gash ower a quarter ay a century ago. — What the hell huv ye done tae yir airm?

— It’s jist bruising, ah explain, n tell her the story about perr Kravy.

She listens in open-moothed silence, eyes bulging oot like she’s done a strong line ay coke. — Are ye happy, son? she keeps askin ays. — N ah’m no meanin just aboot perr Allister; ah mean apart fae that. Are ye happy in general ?

— Aye, too right, Ma, ah tell hur. Then she gies ays that look and goes, — But ur ye really happy?

When ah say nowt, she does as she eywis does n blames ma faither. — That man spreads misery like ah spread butter on toast when ah dae the breakfasts here. Wanted a Marxist state which wis bad enough, but eh wanted everybody else tae bring it intae being. He wouldnae git oaf his erse though, no Alan King. It was aw ah could dae tae get him up in time for the bus for the picket line.

— How’s this new yin treatin ye then? ah ask hur, even though eh’s no that new now; its been fifteen year, longer thin she wis wi the auld boy. But ah still cannae even bear tae say the wee cunt’s name. Ah like the fact that even though eh’s bigger than me, every hoor prefixes his name wi the term ‘wee’. Ah mean, ah git called ‘wee man’ sometimes, but naebody gies ays that ‘Wee Jason’ treatment. Ah call it r-e-s-p-e-c-t, ya hoor.

Muh ma looks balefully at ays. Ah suppose yon Bambi moment wis the high-water mark ay wur relationship n yin that wir eywis baith subconsciously strivin but failin tae recreate oan oor very occasional meetings. — Look, Jason, ah’m no sayin that Wee Arnie’s perfect; ah mean, whae is, n what relationship is? But he’s been here fir me when ah needed um, n she sortay looks doon at her missin tit, no thit ah kin mind ay which yin they loped oaf, n they baith look the same wi that big rid jumper ower thum. Suckled oan they hoors ah wis; in a bizarre wey it makes ays gled thit ah goat ma share before they surgeons did thir deed.