Ирвин Уэлш - Dead Men's Trousers

Carlotta comes downstairs and starts on the meal preparations. Euan wants to help but his wife insists she has it all planned and that he should sit down with Simon and the boys and watch TV. Ross and Ben are less than enthralled at the prospect and retreat upstairs, while Euan complies, to find Simon enjoying an Innis & Gunn lager with the chocolate teddy, watching a rerun of White Christmas .

— A little early, Euan says, looking at the tin of beer.

— It’s Christmas, for fuck sake. And this lager is amazing. Who would have thought that the Scots could produce the best lager in the world? It’s what I would imagine Sleeping Beauty’s sweet douched-out fanny to taste like!

This extreme sexualisation of everything , Euan ponders, does he ever stop? Then he considers that it might not be a bad idea to have a couple of beers. Still woozy from the MDMA, they might provide a covering excuse for his lassitude. Fortunately, Carlotta seems too caught up in the Christmas dinner preparations to notice. Euan can hear his wife singing, the Eurythmics ‘Thorn in My Side’, melodic and sweet. He feels his heart swelling in his chest.

His mother-in-law and sister-in-law arrive, with Louisa’s husband and three children, all between the ages of seventeen and twenty-four. The house is busy and presents are swapped and unwrapped. Ross and Ben receive identical PS4s, and immediately head upstairs to download a favoured game from the Internet.

The Innis & Gunn lager is settling nicely into Euan, producing a satisfying, mellow cheer. He vaguely thinks something is off-kilter about his son as Ross suddenly reappears in the hallway, cornering Carlotta as she goes into the kitchen, urging his busy mother to follow him upstairs.

He cranes his neck over the back of the settee to watch them and is about to speak, when Simon shakes his arm, and mother and son ascend the stairs behind them. — I love this bit when Crosby makes that speech to Rosemary Clooney about the knight falling off his silver charger… he says, tears welling in his eyes. — That’s the story of my life with women, and he chokes, as if something is breaking in his chest.

Euan observes this in mounting unease. Simon appears to be absolutely genuine in his sentiments. It dawns on him that his brother-in-law is so dangerous to women due to his ability to totally immerse in, and believe, those self-cast fantasy roles.

Eventually, they are shouted through to the dining area at the rear of the kitchen for the meal. Photographs are taken with an air of ceremony. Simon Williamson snaps the family, then, individually, his mother Evita, who looks vacant, Carlotta, Louisa, Gerry and kids, Ben, a sullen Ross, and even Euan. Throughout this process, both Simon and Euan feel a strange tension in the air, but they’re now hungry and looking through mild intoxication’s fug, as they take their seats. Carlotta is whispering urgently to her mother and sister. Mindful of the weight of the Christmas dinner, she has prepared a light starter; small prawn cocktails, with a minimal lemon-based dressing, sit on the table.

Euan sits back appreciatively, and is about to speak, when he sees the tears streaming down his wife’s cheeks. Clutching her mother’s hand, she doesn’t meet his concerned eyes. And Evita is looking daggers right at him. Instinctively, he and Simon glance at each other in puzzlement.

Before Euan can say anything, his son stands up and slaps him hard across the face. — You’re a fuckin dirty old bastard! Ross points at Carlotta. — That’s my mum!

Euan can’t react, or even open his mouth, as his eyes go to his wife. Carlotta is now sobbing in heavy despair, her shoulders shaking. — You should be ashamed of yourself, Louisa screeches at him, as Evita curses in Italian.

The overwhelming sense that the world is crumbling to dust sucks every piece of energy and, indeed, sentience out of Euan.

And then Ross turns on his iPad, holding it up to his shocked father’s face. There he is, yesterday, with that Marianne woman, and they are naked, on her bed, and he is pushing his cock into her lubed-up arsehole, as he strokes her clitoris. She is coaching him through her groans, telling him what to do. And then he looks, in trauma, at his brother-in-law, realising that the words coming out of her mouth are really Simon David Williamson’s.

It flashes through his mind in a storm, as the faces gape in shock and disgust at him: Marianne has emailed him the tape they made. It must have gone to the family iCloud. Ross has accessed it by accident when trying to download the video game for his PlayStation 4. Now they are all watching it, as a family, literally over their Christmas dinner; Euan’s first ever drug-induced infidelity. His sister-in-law and her husband glare in disgust. His mother-in-law is crossing herself. Simon, genuinely shocked, looks at him in a phantom admiration. But in his son and wife, Euan can sense nothing on their shattered and wrecked faces but a deep, uncomprehending betrayal.

Euan McCorkindale can find no words. But he is speaking them, obscenely and deliciously, on the screen, which Ross grips with outstretched arms, firmly, unbendingly, in front of him.

It is Carlotta who finds her voice. — You are fucking out of here. You are fuckin oot ay here right now, and she points to the door.

Euan rises, with his head bowed. He is mortified in the sense of almost turned to actual stone by his shock, beyond even embarrassment. His limbs are heavy and his ears ring, as a rock the size of a black hole fills his stomach and chest cavity. Looking to the door, which seems so far away, he feels himself move towards it. He doesn’t know where he is going and it is only instinct that makes him pick up his coat from its hook in the vestibule, as he leaves his family home, quite possibly forever.

Closing the door behind him and stepping out into the cold, gloomy streets, all he can think of is that Christmas will never be the same again. But his hand goes to the iPhone, and plucks it out of his pocket. Euan McCorkindale doesn’t google hotel accommodation. Instead he hits the Tinder icon, the application he downloaded after leaving Marianne’s in crippling, joyous guilt, in the wee small hours of Christmas Day morning. Already, his cold fingers are quickly scrolling a new future.

A soft Sqezy-boatil heartbreak whine leaks ootay the wee gadge. He needs tae git a trim likesay, ye kin barely see they sparkly wee eyes through yon fur. — Freezin the auld hee-haws oaf here, Toto. Ah’m sorry aboot this, pal, but wi you bein likesay a West Highland terrier, you’ve goat the fur coat, man, ah tells ma boy, curled up at ma feet. Ah feel ehs neb, it’s stane cauld awright, but that’s meant tae be a sign ay canine health. Sometimes ah feel pure bad though, man, like ah’m one ay they gadges thit only gits a dug as an accessory for ma beggin pitch, a sympathy gambit, likesay. N they see Toto n say, — Spud, ah thoat you wir intae cats, man, n ah say, — Aw animals, likesay. N ah tell ye but, it’s pure done ays nae herm huvin Toto. For the beg, n that, ay. People hate tae see animals suffer.

— Bit that wisnae the reason ah goat ye, Toto, it wis mair fir the companionship, ay, pal, ah goes tae um. Ah ken animals cannae make oot what yir sayin, bit they kin detect the vibe, man, they wee bits ay negative body lingo ye gie oot whin yir voice or even think they bad thoats. It’s how the world’s sick, man: that media run by the corporations, spreadin that virus ay bad vibes. That Rupert Murdoch cat in that Sun . Every time ah see a headline in that paper ah just go: aw, man. Ah dinnae like subjectin Toto tae that sortay deal. It’s true but, ye need a wee four-legged buddy tae go through life wi, now that aw the two-legged yins have aw waltzed oaf intae the sunset, ken?