Ирвин Уэлш - Dead Men's Trousers

Euan breaks my grip and pushes me away. — I’m not a fucking kidney surgeon! Can’t you get that through your head?

This cunt needs tae calm the fuck down. — The principles of surgery are generic. I lower my voice to a hush, pulling the laptop from Mikey’s bag. — We have a good YouTube video on the subject. I watch Euan’s face crumple further in disbelief. — Backup, likes.

— A YouTube video?! Are you kidding?

— Do not worry, my friend, Youssef smiles, — I am not really an anaesthetist either!

As desperate as it is, I feel a snigger rupture uncontrollably from me at that one.

— What…? Euan gasps.

— Well, I anaesthetised animals, in Baskent slaughterhouse back in Ankara. A place of the very highest standards. It is the same principle, just a different dosage. Enough to put them to sleep a little, but not enough for good! I have done those operations before many times and never lost anybody yet!

I haven’t a clue whether this cunt is joking or not, but he seems tae ken what the fuck he’s daein. Well, Spud looks like he’s kipping, rather than being broon breid. Mikey has the laptop fired up, and the video is on, and we’re quickly going through it on fast-forward. — I’m hoping this is ringing some fucking medical student bells, I snap at Euan.

— But I need to see it all the way through, I need time –

— We don’t fucking have time. The video will be playing as you’re operating, and I place the laptop on Spud’s milk-bottle white, pancake-flat chest, delighted to cover those incongruously red nipples that look like lesions. — You’ll have an ongoing tutorial.

Euan shakes his head in resignation, as Mikey and I lay out the equipment and instruments to his specifications: the knives, clamps and swabs.

I nod to the shiteing podiatrist, and he starts peeling off the minging bandages to expose an angry, weeping wound. I’m seriously crapping it now too, the tension rising through me, as sharp as those scalpels. I almost want to cry ‘stop’ but there’s no going back at this stage. Taking him tae a hospital isn’t an option. They wouldn’t let us keep Syme’s skag and they’d throw us in jail. And then there’s the other matter, of our real purpose here…

As Euan opens up the stitches, I suddenly realise that the fucking laptop is running out of juice. It blinks on the emergency power indicator. — Fuck… Mikey, gies ays the fuckin mains cable, I snap. — We’re nearly oot ay Robert the Bruce.

Mikey nods, goes into his leather bag. Then looks back up at me.

Surely fucking not . — What…? I hear the word wheeze out. — Dinnae fuckin tell me!

— You sais bring the laptop! Ye said nowt aboot a fuckin charger or a lead!

— Jesus fuck!

— I can’t do this! Euan pleads in that girly voice that is getting on my tits.

— We will make a great team! Youssef cheers in enthusiasm.

— Let me call Renton, I shout. — He’s here! The festival site is only twenty minutes away. He’s always got his Apple Mac with him!

I’m fucking stressed enough through getting the decks here, and I’m supervising a thankfully very German technician efficiently connecting them up to the mixer and amp, but now Carl has gone fucking AWOL. I turn round and Klaus is right in my fuckin coupon. — Where is your DJ?

— He’ll be here, I tell him, checking my phone. I don’t believe this cunt. I try to call him, then text:

Get the fuck here now please, mate .

Klaus sweeps his long fringe out of his eyes to show me him rolling them in exasperation, and steps away. Conrad is across, a big smile on his face, Jensen, who arrived on a later flight, by his side. — He will have gone to pieces. Taken cocaine, alcohol and run away. Thinking of his wife who is now being fucked by another man, he says with malice, as Jensen chuckles malevolently. — He is finished. It is all over for him.

I can do without this bullshit from that fat cunt, and AAAGGGHHH…

…I can do withoot Sick Boy phoning ays up! I should ignore it, but for some reason, I take the fucking call. The reason being that the cunt won’t stop until I pick up or block him.

— Mark, it’s a long story, but I’m here in Berlin. With Spud and Mikey Forrester.

— Spud? Forrester? In Berlin? What the fuck? I hear myself exhaling sharply. — Well, the answer is aye. Youse can get on the GL. Ah’ll leave passes for the three of yis at Will Call, I say, ma tones terse and clipped. I do not need this right now.

— That’s not what I’m after, but if it all goes okay it’ll be welcome. Right now I need you tae bring the lead fae your laptop, the power lead, fae your Apple Mac, right?

— What?

— Is it a Mac?

— Aye it’s a Mac, but –

— I need you tae bring it tae the address I’m going to text you. I need you tae bring it, right now , Mark, he stresses, adding, — Spud’s life literally depends on it.

— What? Spud? What the fuck is up wi –

— Mate, listen. I need you to do this and I need you to do it now . I’m no fucking aboot.

By his tone ah ken that he isnae. What the fuck are they involved in? The text drops in with the address. By my rudimentary knowledge of Berlin, it’s pretty close. — Okay, I’m on my way.

I grab my Apple Mac and tell Klaus that I need a driver, as I know where Carl is. He reluctantly nods tae a big, muscular bouncer-type guy who intros himself as Dieter, and we’re off the site and intae the car park, then in a people carrier and heading tae the address. We cross the river and drive through a warren of backstreets adjacent to a huge expanse of railway tracks and sidings, heading in the direction of the Tierpark.

After about twenty-five minutes Dieter pulls up outside an old, dark, three-floored industrial building, in a desolate quarter ay disused and squatted spaces. A weak sun sneaks timidly behind the back of it, almost synchronised with us stepping out the car. There’s an eerie silence. The vibe isnae right but it gets even worse when ah buzz a battered intercom, then, leaving the driver, go inside and head down a darkened, fusty-smelling and broken-glass-strewn corridor. At the end of it I see what looks like a ghost, and a freeze spreads up my back, but it’s Sick Boy, dressed in sterile hospital gown and mask. I’m now even mair curious as tae what the fuck is going on here. — Quick, he says, gesturing me into a creaky old goods lift.

— What the fuck?

He’s explaining, but it’s in a rant and it’s aw gaun ower my heid. I’m struggling tae keep up with him as he bombs doon the corridor and opens a steel door. I follow him inside. A guy I dinnae ken, wi a Scottish accent, thrusts a gown and mask at ays. — Put these on.

As I comply, I’m looking over his shoodir and cannae quite believe what I’m seeing. An unconscious man is lying oan a bed, in robes, a laptop oan his chest. There’s a wound in his stomach, held open by surgical clamps . He’s hooked up tae a drip in what seems tae be a makeshift operating theatre…

Fuck me, it’s Spud Murphy…

Mikey Forrester is also robed up, as is this outrageously fat gadge, and that Scottish guy I’ve never seen before.

— Rents, Mikey nods.

— Gies that lead… the fucking laptop is aboot tae die, Sick Boy barks.

I hand him the lead and eh plugs it in and scrolls back this online video. I can’t believe it. Sick Boy and Mikey Forrester are operating on Spud Murphy!

— WHAT THE FUCK! I shout. — What is this? What the fuck are youse playing at?

— Have tae dae this, this cunt’s hands were fucking shaking, Sick Boy growls, nodding tae the guy wi the Scottish accent. — A Nicola Sturgeon, my fuckin hole. Stey or go, Mark, but shut the fuck up, because ah need tae concentrate. Right!