Ирвин Уэлш - Dead Men's Trousers

— I don’t have any either, Marianne says, nutter imperious, hand on her lily-white breasts, — because I don’t shag around. I haven’t fucked anyone in months. You?

— Same here, I concede. I stopped banging young chicks from clubs several years back. They’re only really after the DJ, and you’re generally a consolation prize. What starts off as succour to the psyche eventually tramples the self-esteem.

— Then let’s get it on, she says, like she’s challenging me to a square go.

We do, and I try to bring my A-game, in order to show her what she’s been missing.

Afterwards, as we lie alongside each other, the distance of an ocean and continent I thought I’d put between Victoria and myself suddenly narrows. Guilt and paranoia rips out ay ays tae the extent that she could be in the next room. Then Marianne says with a harsh laugh, — You were better than I thought you’d be…

This would have been affirmation had her expectations no been rock-bottom. If I still saw her as the too-cool-for-school chick, it figured that she’d always see me as the socially awkward, ginger-heided loser. We were condemned tae those perceptions ay our fourteen-year-old selves. I can not only feel the ‘but’ coming; much worse I ken exactly who he will be.

—… But not as good as one person we both know, she says, as her eyes take on a faraway aspect. I feel my spent dick shrivel a little. — He always left me wanting more, and feeling as if I could have given him more. Teased me, and she looks at me with a bitter smile that ages her. — I always liked good sex, and she spins catlike in the bed. — He gave me the fucking best.

My exhausted cock retracts another half-inch. When I speak, tae break my own ruinous silence, ma voice is at least an octave too high. — Ye let him wreck your life, Marianne. Why? I force my tones down. — You’re a smart woman.

— No. She shakes her head, her static blonde locks, like a nylon wig, falling exactly into place, just as they’d done when we’d been going at it full steam ahead. — I’m a fucking child. He’s made me that, she states, then looks at ays. And he’s here. In Edinburgh, not in London. Up here for Christmas, the cunt.

This was a revelation. Of course he’d be here: his mother, sisters, the big Italian family thing. — Do you know where?

— His sister’s, for Christmas, Carlotta, the younger one. But his brother-in-law… She suddenly looks awkward. — I met them in George Street. Simon told me that he was taking his son to the hospitality suite at Easter Road, for the game at New Year.

— Right… maybe see him there.

But I’m a fucking child too. So when Marianne leaves, I find out fae the Hibernian FC website that the game at New Year is against Raith Rovers at home. This is what we now have instead ay the derby. I’m glad I’ve been spared Hibs, and even fitba, in the last twenty years, becoming an armchair supporter. Ajax went downhill when I started following them. From the European Cup and the last season at De Meer, tae the fabulous Arena, and fucking mediocrity. I cannae even remember my last Hibs game. I think at Ibrox with the old boy.

So I go back tae my dad’s down in Leith. He’s seventy-five and sprightly. Not Mick Jagger sprightly, but nimble and strong. He still misses my mother every day, and his two dead sons. And, also, I suspect, his living one. So when I come into his life beyond the weekly phone call, I take him to Fishers down the Shore for some seafood. He likes it there. Over the sublime fish soup, I tell him how it came about that I’m pally with Franco again.

— I read about him, Dad nods. — Nice to see that he’s doing well. He waves his spoon at me. — Funny, I thought that art stuff was mair your thing. You were ey a good wee drawer at school.

— Ah well… I smile, a little infantilised. I love this old bastard. I look at his white hairs, plastered back in thin strands like a polar bear’s claw on a pink scalp, and I wonder how many of them are down to me.

— Good that you’ve put aw that behind youse, he growls. — It’s a short life; far too short tae faw out over money.

— Shut it, ya auld commie. I can’t resist the opportunity to recentre his politics. — Money is the only thing worth fawin oot ower!

— That’s what’s wrong wi the world the day!

My work is done! We finish a bottle ay Chardonnay, him still a bit fucked as he shifted too much whisky – as did I – on Christmas Day. When he starts tae get a bit woozy in the chair, I call a cab and drop him off home, then head on tae the hotel.

As the car trundles through the dark streets, I cannae believe who ah see begging on the pavement under a street lamp. Tae my mixed joy and trepidation, it’s Spud Murphy, sitting there, just yards fae my hotel. Ah ask the cabbie tae stop, and climb oot and pey the boy. Then I walk quietly up tae Spud, who wears a Kwik-Fit baseball cap and cheapo bomber jaiket, jeans and incongruously new-looking trainers, wi a scarf and mittens. He’s sat like he’s folding in on himself. Beside him, one of these wee terriers, dunno if it’s a Yorkie or a Westie, but it looks like it needs a wash and fur trim. — Spud!

He looks up and blinks a couple of times before a smile spreads across his face. — Mark, ah cannae believe it, ah was jist aboot tae pack up. He rises and we share an embrace. A rank odour of stale sweat peels fae him, and ah even have tae fight down a retching impulse. We decide tae get a drink, and repair tae the hotel bar. Spud is a semi-jakeball and has a scabby wee dug in tow, but I’ve an account at this doss, so despite the barmaid’s glance indicating she’s singularly unimpressed, they let it slide. This is actually quite big ay them, because, well, ah hate tae be a cunt, but he kind ay fuckin mings, like he hasnae since he was a wee laddie. Well, maybe in the junk days, but ma ain smell probably masked that. We position ourselves in a dark corner, a bit apart from everyone else in the sparsely filled bar. The dug, called Toto, sits silently at his feet. I’m thinking it’s strange Spud going canine, as he was eywis a cat obsessive. We inevitably start discussing the Franco phenomenon, and I’m telling him aboot wanting tae square up Sick Boy, Second Prize and the art radge himself. How I need tae find one, how another has vanished, and how the third doesnae want the money he’s owed.

— No surprised Franco isnae interested in the dosh, catboy. Spud slurps back a good quarter of the pint of lager, as Toto accepts my pettings under the table. He’s a matted-furred minger, but he’s cute and sweet-hearted, and his sandpaper tongue slaps ma knuckles.

— What dae ye mean?

— Pure cursed that dosh, likesay. That money you gied ays was the worst thing that ever happened tae ays. A big, big binge ay drugs, the end ay me n Ali. No that ah kin pin ma demise on you, catboy, he helpfully adds.

— I suppose we all make our choices in life, mate.

— Ye really believe that?

So here I am, sitting discussing free will and determinism with a jakey; me on Guinness, him on Stella. And the debate carries on up in my room. — What other option dae ye have but tae believe it? I ask, as I open the door and the afternoon sex smells hit ays, but Spud seems oblivious. — Yes, we’ve goat strong pulls but we can see what they are and where they take us and we therefore resist and reject them, ah tell him, suddenly realising that ah’m chopping oot the lines ay coke in the bathroom, using ma stainless-steel Citadel Productions business caird.

— Can you no see what you’re daein now?

— I’m no in a resist-and-reject mode at the moment, I tell him. — I’m in a getting-through-shit-at-all-costs one. You dinnae need tae join ays. It’s up tae you, ah tell him, waving a rolled-up twenty. — Make yir choice: this is mine.