Irvine Welsh - The Blade Artist

Checking in to the familiar small hotel on Dalkeith Road, Melanie hasn’t asked specifically for room 8, but that’s the one she’s allocated. Lying down on the bed, she recognises that this was the scene of their first time together as lovers, and memories come flooding back. This was where she and Jim went every Monday, when he was given day release from prison on the Training for Freedom project. — I could fuck you senseless, he said. — But I’d really like you to show me how to make love.

— I’m happy to do that, Melanie replied, — provided you agree that we fuck each other senseless after.

The deal was struck, and had to be honoured. It was so straightforward, because Jim couldn’t have fucked her senseless. He was lost, rendered impotent in all but mind, useless among real people, like so many men who had undergone long-term prison sentences or were compulsive viewers of pornography. Melanie was patient, and in her hands his sexuality was carefully restored. It seemed to her that he was keen, even relieved, to be able to start from scratch.

But now she is here, alone. Where would she find him? It has to be Leith. The old bars. Tracers blazing behind her retina, she resolves: I’m not going back without him.

But she can’t do anything without proper sleep.

The pub is in a narrow south-side backstreet, close to Holyrood Park. It has avoided the slow gentrification of the neighbourhood, still managing to feel smoky, even though no cigarettes have been burned in there since the ban many years back. Franco instantly thinks of June’s lungs as he heads to the battered wooden bar and orders a drink.

Turning to scan the hostelry, he spies John Dick sat in the corner, waiting for him. Dick has a pint of Guinness in front of him, but notes with approval the glass of orange juice Franco brings to the table. — Still off the sauce, I see.

— Choose life, Franco says, sinking into the padded seating next to the prison service man.

— You’ve made a pretty decent yin for yourself!

A couple sitting across from them, by the dartboard and a jukebox with an OUT OF ORDER sign, are having a heated quarrel. — You ken how! the woman, squat frame, dark curly hair and pinched face, challenges.

— Thanks to you, Franco says to John, glancing over at the couple.

— Thanks to you, John points at him, — having the intelligence and the courage to see that the other one was going nowhere and rebuilding it. He takes a sip of his pint. Then his voice goes low in reprisal. — Now you’re going to throw it all away, and for rubbish that’s jail-bound anyway.

— Think so? Franco says, hearing the defiance flood into his voice, knowing that his prison mentor will perceive it as empty as he does.

— Frank, I thought that making bad decisions in life was a habit you’d got out off. John’s tongue darts out to remove the foam from his top lip. — Now you’re getting back in the gutter with a wee creep like Anton Miller.

Feeling himself regressing to a sullen teenager, Franco decides that it’s time to get a grip. — I’ve never seen the boy, he explains patiently. — Wouldnae ken him if he walked in here right now.

— But you’ve been asking around for him. And I hear he wants to see you, John fixes him in that owl-like stare. — Why are you doing this?

— Daein what?

— Sticking around. Sean’s gone, John says coolly, — There’s nothing for you here. Nothing but Miller and other trouble. He looks over at the screeching couple. Knows they are on Frank Begbie’s radar. — Go back home to Melanie and the kids, Frank. That’s your life now.

Franco draws in a deep breath, and looks intently at John. — I dunno who you’ve been talking to, he calmly protests, — But the fact is that I’ve not asked one single thing about Miller. It’s other people that’s been dropping his name here, there and everywhere, saying that he was involved with Sean.

They are disturbed by a roar from across the bar. — CAUSE YIR FUCKIN STUPIT! YOU’VE EY BEEN FUCKIN STUPIT! the man shouts at the woman, who seems to shrink into herself, then seethe in a silent rage.

— Whether he was or wasn’t, it’s not your battle. John Dick shakes Frank Begbie’s wrist gently, to get his attention back from the couple. — He’ll exterminate you, Frank. You’re just an obstacle. He’s cold-blooded, there’s no ego at work there, just superpowered insect brain. It’ll be a bullet in the head from a drive-by, you won’t even see it.

— Cheer me up some more, Franco says, looking at his orange juice on the table. He has no intention of drinking that shite, any more than he has of taking alcohol. Scotland? They’ve never fuckin seen real orange juice.

— CHEAT!!!

They are again diverted by the warring couple. The woman has got to her feet. — YIR A FUCKIN CHEAT, JIM MULGREW! A FUCKIN TWO-FACED LIAR! She turns and appeals to the rest of the bar, including Franco and John.

The man, Jim Mulgrew, waves her away with the back of his hand. — Aye, so you say!

Frank Begbie looks away. He knows the type. Wankers, who want to suck the world into their pathetic and tedious orbit. Jakeys are always fucking drama queens. Look at me. I’m hurting. Feel my pain.

Naw. Fuck off.

And now John Dick, a person whom he greatly respects (and such individuals are thin on the ground), is reading him the riot act. — The only person you’re damaging now is yourself. And Melanie and the kids, they’re the real ones you’re waging war on.

— Who said anything about a war? Franco asks, then realises that he did, back at the funeral. — I just want to know what happened to my son.

— War is what Anton Miller does, Frank. John lets out a long sigh. — Keep out his road.

— Sound advice.

— But?

— There is no but. It’s sound advice, end of, Franco states emphatically. — John, every cunt has been nipping my heid, giving it Anton this, Anton that. He did your laddie, aw that shite. I’m no interested. He shakes his head and he looks over at the feuding couple. The woman has turned pointedly away from the man, but is still sat at the same table. He finds himself willing her: just fuckin go .

— Mind the boy that stole that money from you, down in London? That old pal you used to tell me about? John Dick asks. — That you were so mad when you saw him years later, you charged across the road, so consumed with rage, you never even noticed this oncoming car that smashed ye tae pieces?

Renton.

— Mark Renton. How can I forget? The guy I killed, Craig Liddel, Seeker they called him, we had a long vendetta, and it was one that I started. I got obsessed with the boy, just because he was a mate of Renton’s. I thought he knew where Renton was, Franco laughs sourly, — that they would both be laughing at ays. In reality, Renton would have fuck all to do with the likes of Seeker, he’d only met him in rehab, then sometimes scored drugs offay him. I only got involved with Seeker cause of my obsession with getting Renton. It was pointless. Now he’s deid and I lost eight years of my life. Over nothing, he laments.

— What do you think of that Renton guy now?

Frank Begbie seems to consider this, rolls his bottom lip over his top one. — I can see it from his point of view. See that he had to get the fuck out, he acknowledges, his brow furrowed. — It’s funny, but he was probably the only real mate I ever had.

John Dick runs his finger over the rim of his glass. — Do you see what your obession with getting even with him has cost ye? Something that now means nothing to you? Your obsession with all those people?