Ирвин Уэлш - Dead Men's Trousers

— Some cunt was fuckin aboot, Frank says, in a voice that strikes terror into Sick Boy. It is almost signalling the return of someone much feared, whose impending presence is hinted at, but as yet unconfirmed. Sick Boy sees it in the eyes staring at him, inspecting the latex mask, before looking to the imprint in the discarded block, noting it has set as a mould. — Good… Franco Begbie purrs, hauling in a breath, seeming to slip back into the mode of artist Jim Francis.

Franco pulls Spud’s almost weightless figure from Mark Renton. He falls to his knees and starts giving Renton the same treatment as Sick Boy.

— Will I take this off him? Sick Boy asks, reaching for the block that covers Spud Murphy’s face.

— Leave it! Franco first snaps, then adds, more gently, – Ah’ll see tae it… as he cuts and tears Renton’s casing from his head.

A gasping, jerking Renton can suddenly breathe, as he feels the air and sees the light flood in. Then Frank Begbie is lunging at him with a pair of industrial cutters. — NO, FRANK!

— Shut it, I’m taking this oaf for ye!

— Ay, okay… thanks, Frank… Renton wheezes in gratitude. — Some cunt fell on ays, he moans, as Frank Begbie springs the mould from him. Then Franco is over to Spud Murphy, now a thin, motionless body sticking out from a block of concrete.

— I was smacked by some bastard, Sick Boy says, pulling the latex mask from his face.

— It wisnae me… Spud fuckin fell on toap ay me! What was he playing at? Renton rises, staring at the immobile body on the floor. — Fuck… is he okay?

Frank Begbie ignores them, cutting through the block, then tearing it from Spud’s head. He rips off the latex mask. Spud doesn’t respond to a hearty slap across the chops, so Begbie pinches his nose and sets to work on him with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Sick Boy and Renton look at each other in trepidation.

Frank lurches back as Spud’s lungs explode into life, puke shooting across the floor, then trickling out from the side of his mouth as Franco spins him onto his side. — He’s awright, he announces, before helping Spud to sit up, propping him against the wall.

Spud gulps in air. — What happened…?

— Sorry, bud, ma fault. Fuckin phone. Franco shakes his head. — Loast track ay the time.

A snigger suddenly ebbs from Renton. First Sick Boy looks at him, then Spud and Franco, compelling him to ask, — What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?

The laughter is loud and tension breaks from them like wild stallions smashing out of a corral. Even Spud, through a fitting cough, is moved to join in. When there’s a lull, Sick Boy looks at his phone and turns to Begbie. — Is that us done?

— Aye, thanks for your help. If you have to get off, go ahead, Franco nods, then turns to the others. — Mark, Danny, ah could do wi a wee hand.

— What can we do? Renton wonders out loud.

— Help ays cast my ain heid.

On this news, Sick Boy finds himself inclined to loiter, as they assist Franco in putting on his own latex mask. Then, as he had done to them, they encase his head in the Perspex box, and start to pour the concrete-plaster mix around it. The timer on the clock is set. As the block solidifies, Sick Boy play air-humps at it, to Spud’s and Renton’s mild amusement. As they know through experience, Franco will hear nothing now, yet they opt to remain silent.

At the allotted time, they tear off the mould. The freed artist calmly inspects the indentation of his own face in the concrete block. — Good work, boys, it’s perfect. He immediately starts to cast all the heads from the impressions, filling them in with clay. Once they set, he explains, he will do the eyes by hand, from photographs he takes of them all. Then he’ll take the moulds to a specialist forge to be cast in bronze.

Sick Boy is now fascinated, and in no hurry to leave. They chat more easily and when the heads finally come out of the kiln, the others are shocked, not at their own images, but that of Frank Begbie’s. There is something about it, gaunt and tense, still with hollows for the eyes that he will add later. It isn’t a representation of the man now in their company. The head looks like how he used to appear; full of psychotic anger and murderous intent, and that is before he has filled in those blank voids. It is the mouth; it twists in a familiar cold sneer, which they haven’t yet seen in the Jim Francis version. It chills each man to his bones.

The artist picks up on the mood of his subjects and the shifting atmospherics of the room, but can’t determine its source. — What’s up, boys?

— They look great mate, Renton says uneasily. — Very authentic. I’m just blown away by how real they seem, even withoot the mince pies.

— Nice one, Frank Begbie smiles. — Now as a token of my appreciation, I’ve booked us a table at the Café Royal. A slap-up nosh on me. He looks at Sick Boy. — You still in a hurry to get off?

— It might be nice to catch up properly, Simon Williamson concedes. — On condition Renton puts his fucking phone away for ten minutes. I thought I was bad, but you have to retain some fucking social skills in the digital age.

— Business, Renton says defensively. — It never stops.

— Vicky business, I’m betting, Frank Begbie teases.

Sick Boy’s guileful grin slides over Franco and Renton, deft as a pickpocket’s fingers. — So he has a proper girlfriend, which he’s kept silent about! He still reverts to his seventeen-year-old self on such occasions!

— Aye, right, Renton says, his hand wet with sweat on the device in his pocket.

— And on the subject of business, if you gentlemen are ever in London and looking for escort services, and he hands them all an embossed Colleagues business card. — Now, he smiles at Franco, — let us feast!

Carlotta is constantly on the phone, even though I’m back in London where I can do little to find her missing Thai-hooring husband. She’s fucking relentless, so I pick up, as I trek from King’s Cross Underground to my office. I can’t leave Colleagues for too long. There’s only so much you can do online without being at the holeface. The girls form their own bonds with the clients, then conspire to undercut you by making their own deals. There is zero you can do about it. Then they’ll rip off, or fall out with the customers, who return like nothing has happened, to use my service again. So you are continually firing and recruiting. And for a pittance. They make the real money.

But Carlotta does not give a fuck about my business affairs, as her sobs heave down the line. — It’s killin me, Si-mihn… it’s fuckin killin me, as I jink past open-mouthed stunned plebs waiting for the lights to change, hopping over York Way to the Caley Road. This time my sis really is beside herself and making no sense. I’m looking around the tarted-up street, barely able to comprehend what’s become of the bookies and the Scottish Stores pub, those once-redoubtable centres of hooring and drug activity that constituted my personal power base. Grim days. Carra can barely speak; thankfully Louisa takes over. — She’s in pieces. Still husnae heard a single word fae Euan since he went tae Thailand.

The dirty bastard. Lumpy-bawed Presbyterian hoor’s erse-ramming cunt… — Has anybody been able to work out how long he’s going to be away?

Louisa is trying to sound outraged, but she can’t help a salacious Schadenfreude seep into her tones. Nobody could have female siblings like mine and believe in the concept of the sisterhood as anything other than a movable feast. — Only that he bought a round-the-world ticket after sorting out a career break with his employer. Of course his first port of call is Bangkok!