Irvine Welsh - The Blade Artist

Ralph had now sunk into unconsciousness and didn’t appear to be breathing. As she spoke to the operator Melanie could hear Juan’s anguished cries: a mixture of English and a Spanish she’d rarely heard coming from his mouth. She was astonished that her husband seemed to know exactly what he was doing.

Jim had decided that Ralph was likely to be in cardiac arrest so there was no sense in wasting valuable time looking for a pulse. Instead he immediately started cardiopulmonary resuscitation, placing the palm of his hand flat on Ralph’s chest just over the lower part of the breastbone and starting to pump by applying pressure using his other hand.

— He’s dying, Juan screamed.

— No fuckin way: cunt dies when ah fuckin well say eh dies, Jim snapped, so violently that Melanie and Juan looked at each other, briefly astonished. He now had his elbows locked into his side and was slamming his bodyweight down on Ralph’s chest. — One, two, three. .

After thirty thumps, he opened Ralph’s mouth, tilting his head back, lifting his chin and shouting to Melanie, — Pinch his nostrils shut!

Melanie fell down by his side and complied. Jim took a deep breath and sealed his own mouth over Ralph’s.

As he breathed into Ralph, his stricken friend’s chest rose. He started another round of thumps on his sternum, — One, two, three. . c’mon, Ralphie son, moan tae fuck!

— Oh my God, Juan shrieked, — where are they! Melanie squeezed his hand with her free one.

Then Jim was back on Ralph, back on the mouth of a man who had, in his own words, ‘blown a thousand cocks’, and Melanie recalled this drunken, scandalous statement, as she looked into the eyes of, not Jim, but Frank Begbie, the thug, who seemed to be asking himself: What am I doing, why am I here. .?

Then there was a convulsion, almost like a mini-internal explosion, as Ralph started breathing again, hollow at first, then more regular. Melanie could feel the pulse in his neck. — He’s back! He’s back!

Juan crossed himself, and kept muttering, — Thank you, thank you. . oh, thank you. .

Ralph was still unconscious, so Jim rolled him gently onto his side into the recovery position. Mucus and vomit trickled out of his mouth onto the deck. Jim asked Melanie to get a blanket, and she returned with one and draped it over their afflicted guest. Grace had woken up with the shouting and, alarmed by all the commotion, had come through, and Jim calmly explained to his daughter that Uncle Ralph had been taken ill, but was going to be fine, leading her back to bed.

When Jim returned, Ralph had regained consciousness but was bewildered. Melanie was telling him that he’d had a turn, but Juan was here and an ambulance was on its way. When it arrived, Jim said he’d stay with the kids, if Melanie wanted to go in the ambulance and look after Juan, who was also obviously in shock.

Ralph was taken immediately to the Heart and Vascular Center at the nearby Cottage Hospital. He was breathing comfortably when Melanie and Juan went up to see him, some forty minutes later.

The next day, she and Jim went to the hospital to visit him. Ralph smiled at her husband. — Hey, Jim, Juan and Mel both tell me that you’re one hell of a kisser. I’m sorry I missed it.

— You’re lucky the kissing worked, Jim said, deadpan. — You don’t know what I was going to do next.

Then he and Melanie drove down to Goleta Point, looking out to the sea, where he explained about the Telford College first-aid course they’d sent him on years ago. It was related to a job that his probation officer had set up, working in a box-manufacturing factory. It was a shit gig and he’d only taken the course as it meant eight Mondays at college instead of the monotony of the assembly line. — Thank fuck for the Scottish penal system, he laughed.

Ralph had suffered a serious heart attack, due to an undetected congenital defect, but this could be corrected by a procedure. Jim had certainly saved his life, and his long-term prognosis following the surgery was good. — He’ll soon be able to salsa again, Melanie smiled.

— Good on him, Jim said, picking up a large rock crab that was stranded in a pool. He placed it on the sand, watching it scuttle sideways towards the sea.

— What were you thinking when you were doing that first aid on Ralph, saving his life? Melanie asked.

— I was thinking, Jim went, — with a Leith voice in my head: so this is what the fuckin salsa leads tae!

Their laughter echoed out down the beach and up to the clifftops.

The music being pumped into the limo isn’t salsa, but bland, easy-listening rock. It’s a cheesy ballad called ‘I’d Love You to Want Me’ and Melanie can’t recall who the artist is. The large man sitting next to her, driving the car, seems to know the words, mouthing them softly under his breath. David ‘Tyrone’ Power had introduced himself as a friend of her husband. He’d told Melanie that he’d been concerned about Frank, and had a mutual acquaintance call by at Elspeth’s. They had just missed Melanie, but heard that she was planning to head down to Leith and look for him, just as he himself had decided to do. — I’ve been working my way up the Walk and Junction Street.

Power explains that he has the boys out searching, and invites her to come round to his place. He tells her there is a good chance that Frank will be heading there, as he had given him a set of keys. Melanie agrees, as she knows Power by reputation, and that he and Frank go way back. In the absence of anyone else, who is there to rely on?

The ballad eases into another, ‘When You’re in Love with a Beautiful Woman’. Again, the performer’s name escapes her, though David Power is once more lip-syncing enthusiastically. Melanie asks him if he knows where Larry Wylie lives. — Unfortunately no. But that’s a gey colourful pairing. . Tyrone grins. — . . that’s an old Scots word, gey , means ‘very’. Has Frank ever used that word with you?

— No.

Tyrone seems disappointed, but fights through it. — Well, my point is, if they’ve gone out together drinking, we can’t rule out the possibility that they might get into a little mischief.

Melanie clenches her teeth, shaking her head vigorously. — Frank stopped drinking alcohol years ago.

— And good on him. But he’s under a lot of stress, and getting together with some of the old team. . well, you never know. He bumped into Nelly the other day, an old friend, who assured me, David Power grins at her, — that Frank’s patter is still as sharp as ever.

Melanie thinks about this all the way back to Power’s house, that big red sandstone villa that really has to be classed as a mansion. If she found it impressive from the outside, when she goes indoors to her eye it is all wealth, with a complete absence of taste. It brings to her mind a Vegas hotel; it is as if Power has gone once to Paris and Venice, and then said to a designer: make it like that. He seemed to merely desire the most expensive of everything, with little thought as to how it would hang together stylistically.

Now he is trying to show Melanie the paintings that festoon the walls. — Are you interested in the Pre-Raphaelites?

— All I’m interested in at present, Mr Power, is Frank.

— Of course, of course, Power stresses. — And it’s David. I’ve been trying to help him, Melanie — is it okay to call you Melanie?

— Yes, of course it is, she nods. — Where do you think he could be?

— Probably one of his old stomping grounds, Power declares, ushering Melanie to sit down on the couch, as he collapses into the armchair opposite. — Basically where we were; Leith Walk, Junction Street, Duke Street, Easter Road, perhaps Abbeyhill. But my people are out there looking for him, and we’ll find him, Power boldly exclaims. — Hopefully he’ll be on his way here. His phone is going to voicemail, but he’s not great at having it switched on.