Ирвин Уэлш - Dead Men's Trousers

He overhears a conversation between Mark and Davie Renton, and Renton’s girlfriend, whom he annoyingly finds exceptionally fit. He’s surprised that she’s English, rather than American. When he hears his old rival mutter something about his flight to LA, he cringes, and steers Marianne away. Renton will make the money back, he bitterly considers, scum rises to the top. Of course, Syme wouldn’t show his face, but Sick Boy is disappointed at Mikey Forrester’s absence.

Marianne asks him about attending the reception at the hotel on Leith Links, where the mourners are all heading. — No, I’ll spare myself the bleatings of victim plebs. Embittered anger and self-pitying grief love a spurious mission, and pissing it up with losers now has zero appeal. You move forward in life or you don’t move at all, he scoffs as they head into the Kirkgate. — Even the church was almost unbearable, despite the palatial holy surroundings. The Murphy family, though, they always did embrace the wrong elements of Catholicism. To me the only part that makes sense is confession, emptying the sin bin when it gets full, to make room for new, incoming ones.

— His son gave a really nice speech, Marianne observes.

— Aye, a bit too close to communism for the old priest, decidedly not a liberation theologist.

She looks thoughtfully at him. — Do you ever think about dying, Simon?

— No, of course not. Though as long as there’s a priest by my side I couldn’t give a toss how or when.

— Really?

— The deathbed repentance, the Davie Gray winner in the game of life deep in stoppage time, as I think ay it. No prods need apply.

— Hey! Marianne pushes into him. — I was christened Church of Scotland!

— Nothing sexier than a Scottish proddy bird with an arse like yours. Wait till I get you in the sixteen-ninety position.

— Aw aye, what’s that then?

— It’s the sixty-nine but with a really skinny fucker and a fat cunt standing on either side of youse, just watching as you go at it, maybe frigging themselves off.

The lovers double-back down Henderson Street, opting for a fish restaurant on the Shore. In a favoured surrounding, overlooking the river, Sick Boy continues to grow more effusive, after his moment of reflection. — Alas poor, skint Renton, he pours the Albariño, — now penniless despite his cowardly attack on me. I’m betting he actually thinks that it bothers me: it was a pleasure to finally out him as the Fort yob he really is, strip him of his pathetic, cultured affectations. Leith south of Junction Street bred only thuggery; north of that great cultural divide was all port sophistication.

— You both came from minging schemes, Marianne laughs.

— Aye, but Fort House was never a Cables Wynd House. One is demolished, the other designated a listed building and deemed essential to our city’s architectural heritage, Sick Boy snootily retorts. — Case rested.

Then Simon Williamson rises to head to the bathroom. Looks at himself in the mirror. His nose has set better the second time around. The A&E at the Royal was a painful nightmare, the beak still twisted after it was done. Apart from the unacceptable aesthetics, breathing through one nostril was proving difficult. And you could forget the ching. So Williamson was compelled to go private and have it reset under general anaesthetic at the Royal Free in Hampstead. But Marianne at least has been fussing over him. He now has her at an advantage. — I know you slept with that treacherous ginger bastard, my lady. Of course, I’ll keep this knowledge to myself and let you spoil me in your guilt. As for fucking Renton…

Mark Renton is across Leith in the small hotel, conversing with Spud’s family, his father, Vicky Hopkirk, and Gavin and Amy, the Temperley siblings. To satisfy a growing niggle in his bladder, he heads to the bathroom. En route, a cadaver-like man intercepts him. Seeming hollowed out by some virulent wasting disease, he bares his upper teeth in a death’s-head grin. — Ah hear you’ve got some money for me.

Renton feels the breath being knocked out him, as he contemplates Rab ‘Second Prize’ McLaughlin.

Wish ah could have made it ower for Spud’s funeral the other week. Too bad. But ye cannae just keep jumping on eleven-hour flights. Shame though. Harmless cunt. Aye, it’s a long way tae come and that jet lag is a killer, but Elspeth has had a tough time and she is ma sister. Didnae like the idea ay leaving Mel, no wi that fuckin Hammy the Hamster creep hanging aroond. But she took the kids to her ma’s, and it’s only for a few days.

Nae messing aboot; I take the tram fae the airport right tae Murrayfield. It’s cauld for June, no like last month at the Cup final, and the exhibition. What a week that wis. Hibs win the Cup, and I make a fortune flogging ma stuff! That’s a fuckin result! Hoping for another yin this time roond.

When I get tae the hoose, Greg’s just leaving with the boys. They’re shocked to see me, showing up like this. — Uncle Frank, Thomas, the younger, goes.

Greg looks up. — Frank… When did you… What are you…?

— Came over tae see Elspeth. How is she?

— She had the op yesterday, and came through it well. I went in to see her last night… We’re just going there now.

— Room for another in the motor?

— Actually we’re walking, he goes, n sees me lookin doubtful. The Royal is miles away and even the Western’s a fuckin trek. — She’s in the Murrayfield Hospital. We had it done privately, through BUPA, on the dependants company policy at my work.

— Nice one. Lead on, I say.

— When did you get in? Greg asks.

— Just now. Came straight fae the airport. Ah look at the two boys, George and Thomas. Fuck me, they’re getting big. — How’s the Young Murrayfield Team? ah joke. They look coyly at ays. Good laddies.

Greg smiles at them, then turns back tae me. The thin sunlight is being blocked oot by that big fir tree. — Are you sure you don’t want to come inside and rest for a bit, maybe have a cup of tea? It must have been a tiring flight!

— No, ah’m best keeping gaun till I crash.

— Well, she’ll be delighted tae see you, Greg says, as we make oor wey oantae the main road. — Hear that, boys? Your Uncle Frank flew in all the way from California, just to see your mum!

— Didn’t Auntie Melanie come with you? says Thomas.

— Naw, she’s got the girls to look after, pal. They all send you guys their love, by the way, I go, enjoying watching the poor wee cunts get a beamer.

It’s only a ten-minute walk. It doesnae look like a proper hoaspital tae me, mair like a bank that smells ay bleach, a place where they just take yir poppy. Suppose that’s mainly what it is. Elspeth is sat up in bed watching the telly, but she isnae looking well. She gapes at ays in disbelief. — Frank!

I gie her a hug, smelling the hoaspital and auld sweat on her. — How are you?

— Awright, she says, then goes aw hesitant, her brow furrowed, — well, aye and naw. I feel bloody weird, Frank, she says, as she greets Greg and boys. — But here are my big, strong men!

— Bound tae, ah nod, — a hysterectomy’s a big thing for a woman, ah’m gaun. Though ah ken fuck all aboot that. But when you’re a bairn in Leith, ye hear wifies gaun ‘she’s pit oan an awfay lot ay weight since her hysterectomy.’ Ah dinnae ken whether that’s through depression wi ‘the change in life’, as they caw getting yir fucking womb ripped oot, leading tae overeating, or if the metabolism just slows doon. Either way, Elspeth hus tae watch cause she’s packin oan the coral as it is.

— That’s what I’ve been saying, Frank, Greg cuts in, — there’s bound to be an emotional reaction.