Irvine Welsh - The Blade Artist

The airport is deserted at the early hour, bar a couple of package flights, with nothing open except one Costa Coffee chain. He’d read that they were one of the companies who had issued dire warnings of what would have happened had the most unbendingly pro-austerity party failed to win the election. He listens to the dull, slithering clatter of cups and saucers on veneered tables, his head throbbing with excitement and fatigue as if hung-over. A red-eye full of worn-out, desperate-looking business travellers takes them to London, with little more than an hour layover before they board the connecting flight to LAX.

The incongruence of fine tailoring matched with ruddy dishevelment and a stumbling gait indicates an archetypal amateur airport drinker: the nervous flyer who can’t manage to get on a plane unless totally wrecked. He returns unsteadily to his seat, from the rear of the London to Los Angeles British Airways flight, clutching the small bottles of red wine he’s secured from a sympathetic stewardess who knows his type. As he frantically opens one on the way to his seat, the top slips through his fingers onto the floor. It rolls under a chair, so he presses on, burping, trying to keep down a sudden reflux, stumbling right into a passenger seated on the aisle: Frank Begbie. The claret from the bottle splashes over Begbie’s white T-shirt like an opened wound. — Oh my God, I’m so sorry. .

Franco looks at the mess, then to the drunk. — Sorry isnae gaunny git ma –

He feels Melanie’s grip on his wrist, and he draws in a breath as he smiles first at her then the terrified drunk. — No worries. Accidents will happen.

— I’m really sorry, the drunk repeats.

— No worries, bud, Franco insists, as another stewardess materialises, already assisting the man to his seat.

— Ah wisnae gaunny touch the guy, Frank says to Melanie.

She gives him a doubtful look. — So you were in control?

— Of course, he declares. Her eyes widen, to indicate that this response isn’t sufficient. — Look, as I’ve said, the most important thing is us and the kids. I’m never going to compromise that.

Melanie’s voice, when it comes, is hushed by incredulity. — I love you, Frank, I really do. But you live in a parallel moral universe to the rest of us. It’s one where everything you do is justified in some way or another.

— Yes, he nods, in that disarmingly heartfelt way of his, — and I want out of it. I’m working hard to get out. Every day. For us. If you still think there can be an us?

Melanie knows the answer, and it isn’t an unambiguous one. In Scotland’s and California’s prisons she’s seen all those pathetic women who stood by their damaged men, and vowed she would never be one. But you had to put children first and, more dauntingly, you had to allow that when you committed to a person, you did it because, on some level, it was what you required. And rather than dig up the psychological roots of her own needs for self-examination, Melanie Francis accepted this. Facts are bigger in the dark. But there are still things she needs to know. And to say.

So she tells her own story. The tale of her betrayal of him with that call to the police, Harry Pallister’s disturbing intervention, and the dead man, Marcello Santiago. Only for a very brief moment does she detect a flash of anger in his eyes, when she mentions Harry’s troubled phone calls. Then it’s gone. — I was wrong, she concedes. — It wasn’t the best thing to do. I’m sorry.

— It’s okay. He squeezes her hand. — I know you did it with the best of motives. You were right, we should have gone tae the police straight away. Me and my jailbird nonsense, he attempts to admonish them both, — I feel bad that you had to face that Harry creep on your own.

Melanie is not looking for his absolution, though. She has bigger concerns. — Those men on the beach. Did you hurt them?

Breathe, breathe, breathe. . Franco regards his wife, his lip turned down. — As I told you, I did their van. I would have loved for them to have been in it, but they werenae. So I got out of there, as it would have been unwise to stick around, for all sorts ay reasons. I knew those guys wouldnae be far away, but I didn’t trust myself to go after them. If they didnae kill me, I would have smashed them to pieces. They would have been found mashed on that beach, and students would have been filming it on their phones and putting it on YouTube.

In massive relief, Melanie sucks in the dry, recycled cabin air. Frank had stayed out of bother because he had managed to control his darker impulses. Santiago had been found snagged on the oil platform; Coover was still missing: Melanie has no doubt about her husband’s capacity to be violent towards those men. However, disposing of their bodies in that manner was way too premeditated. It was simply beyond him. — I had to ask. Harry made all sorts of inferences.

Francis Begbie strokes her arm. — Polis are the same everywhere; it’s all about clearing the books, he smiles grimly. — I wouldn’t worry about him, with his mentality and skill set. He seems to have got obsessed with you and made a bit of a cunt of himself. Not that I can blame him. He raises an eyebrow.

His trivialising flattery doesn’t sit well with Melanie. She keeps a pointed gaze on him. Her husband is composed and seems genuine, but she can’t shake off the dark sense that he’s done something terrible.

He reads the dreadful concern in her eyes. — Look, I don’t want to hurt anybody, good or bad, Franco stresses. — I just want us to get on with our lives. I’ve the exhibition coming up –

— Fuck your exhibition, Melanie snaps, to the extent he almost flinches. — Bottom line: I need to know, first and foremost, that I and the kids and my friends and family are not only protected by you, but also safe from you. Because if you can’t look me in the eye and really guarantee that, then we are done.

Frank Begbie doesn’t think. He doesn’t even breathe. He lets his instincts operate, because part of him knows that if he can’t be honest here, for the sake of the ones he loves, then he will have to walk away. — Of course you are. I would die before I’d hurt any of you. I’d treat myself in exactly the same way as anybody else who tried to harm you.

He sees a tear rolling down Melanie’s cheek. But her breathing stays even, as he feels her great strength and is nourished by it, as he always was. In her absence, he’d let himself get weak again, get drawn into old feuds. But it had served a purpose. Then Melanie’s hand goes to his face. He feels a hot wetness on the side of it. It astonishes him. — So I’m not living with a monster, she smiles, a lift in her eyes, and kisses his wet cheek.

— Nope. Franco finds his breath catching. — A human being. Quite a fucked-up one, but one who’s trying to be better.

Melanie shakes her head and gazes deeply into his eyes. — Well, maybe you gotta try a whole lot harder.

Her tone makes him feel like a rescued pit bull, a much-loved but dangerous family pet. And, he realises, that’s exactly what he is, and he has to earn the right to be more. — For you and the girls I will. I’ll do whatever it takes.

— I must be as crazy as you, but I believe you, she says, and they share an embrace.

When they pull apart, he looks at Melanie gravely, punching anxiety back into her frame. — There’s something I need to tell you.

Melanie Francis can scarcely breathe. She feels her shoulders sag. He has done something terrible. I knew it.

— I know who killed Sean.

— David Power told me. It was that young guy, Anton.

— It wisnae him. Power tried to set me up against Anton.