Irvine Welsh - Filth

Some bastard beeps me on the bypass and I think about giving chase but I don’t feel up to it.

Our coping capacity is low.

our appetite and all I want is more of the same, fuck eating anything now.

Coke for fuel, coke for energy. Have a coke and a smile. Coking coal. This is white, not black; clean, not filth. You never eat coke. You just snort it up.

Snort the whole fuckin lot of it up.

I’ve done the lot, so I try to have a wank to Hector’s vids in order to distract the coke craving, but I can’t concentrate. My whole body wants the blood my cock needs and I head up to Ray Lennox’s. I’m tanning it in the car, giving a daft spastic the V-sign as I cut him up. Cheeky cunt. Polis. Priority. I come upon Ray’s gaff and I batter the door polis-style until his dressing-gowned figure appears on the doorstep. – Ray, I smile, – sort me out with some posh. Pronto mate.

– Bruce . . . I can’t . . . he says.

– Sort ays oot Ray! Hogmanay the morn! I snap, grinding my bare teeth at him. The night is but young.

I hear a voice coming from inside the house. – Who is it Ray? What’s wrong?

– It’s nothing! he shouts back into the gaff.

That voice. It sounded like Drummond. I suppose plenty hoors have those irritating whingy tones. Maybe it’s that Trudi bird.

– Company Ray? I smirk.

– Wait there a minute, he says shaking his head before moving back in. Ootside in this cauld? My fucking arse. I step into the lobby. He’s gone for a second or two and returns, producing a gram. – That’s it Bruce, that’s my lot.

– Aye, you’ll ken, I say, then I head away, leaving him looking like fuckin Noddy. Cheeky cunt.

I get into the motor and I want to snort a line on the dashboard, but there’s too many cunts around. Desperation takes over and I do it anyway. It’s as strong as fuck. You have to test the stuff, save wasting police time putting it through the labs. One big snort. I’m trembling as I drive through the city back towards Collie. I don’t know what I want to do. I’ll probably hit the piss in a bit. I need to take the edge off this coke. Now. I need a drink now. I stop off outside a bar I used to frequent years ago, before we went to Oz. It’ll have to be one: we realise that our bank cards are at home.

FUCKEN STUPID SHITING CUNT!

Our fist slams the dashboard repeatedly until our hand is swollen and almost too sore to hold the wheel. Then we exit and go into the pub. A pocket of shrapnel: barely enough for a pint of lager. I feel like a fuckin jakey as I walk into this tiny dive of a public bar. There’s a small lounge separate from it next door, partitioned by a wooden panel and some frosted glass. From behind it I can hear the hee-hawing laughter of a four-bacardi slag, when I don’t even have enough to stand the cow one. I get the pint of lager up and throw two-thirds of it back in no time. There’s a party of auld cunts playing dominoes in the corner and a nae-mates fucker reading the Evening News at the bar. I recognised him as polis, Drylaw I think. I finish the pint quickly and exit the dive, getting in the motor and driving swiftly back to Collie. I’m focused all the way on the bank cards which are in the inside pocket of our jacket over the chair in the front room.

With great despondency we, I, we (we’re all here now) clock a car parked outside our house. It looks vaguely familiar. We consider double-backing, but we need our cards and our money. We ignore the occupant of the car, even now we recognise it as Chrissie and storm down the path. But she’s straight out after us.

– Bruce . . . I’ve tried to call you at work, she says. Her swine-like nostrils flare at me.

Why pick on Bruce all the time, there’s others too, why can’t they fuckin well dae anything . . .– She’s ill you know, she could be dying, we tell her. We produce our keys and put them in the lock.

– Who?

– Shirley, my sister-in-law. She’s ill. Same rules apply, we say, turning the lock.

– Too bad, she says, pushing in the door after me.

We try to repel her but she’s all over us like a cheap suit and she’s shouting, – C’mon, I want to turn off the gas for you, come on, and her hands in my flies. – God, this place stinks . . . c’mon Bruce . . .

It’s only fuckin well me, only me . . . I’m on my fuckin ain here . . .

I pull away, but she’s still coming on, this fucking cackling witch, her mocking, vicious hoor’s eyes; and I’m pulling her hands away, but I’m stiffening against my will. – Leave me . . . leave me . . .

– C’moan . . .

She’s got my cock out and she’s sucking me off and we are crying, crying for Shirley no no no crying for ourself and she’s got my belt off and I’m saying, – Naw naw but Chrissie, wait a minute, wait a minute Chrissie, and she’s diving out of her clothes and she gets the cord from her bag and wraps it round her own neck.

I’m shivering and trembling and I need my charlie, it’s in my pocket, and I need to see Shirley or Carole . . . she’s the one I need . . . and she’s tightened the belt around my neck before I can speak and her sharp painted nails dig into the foreskin of my semi she’s pushing me back on to the couch and it’s horrendous and she’s pushing her cunt on to it against my will and thrusting on to me and the friction’s hurting me and she’s choking me harder and I can’t breathe or speak as the grip tightens . . .

– Git fuckin harder ya silly wee poof! C’moan! Get it in! She’s rubbing and twisting harder and I’m getting harder and it’s going up, she’s enclosing me, and I want to fuck this bitch to pieces but there’s no way, cause although I’m hard now she’s fucking the life out of me, throttling it out of me and she’s screaming: – Turn off ma fuckin gas! Fuck harder! Move! Move! Turn oaf ma fuckin gas!

I’m choking and blacking out as I convulse and she’s screaming and growling and her teeth bite my bottom lip as she roars and bucks and crashes before she pulls away gasping and I watch my cock disintegrate.

She lies back and lights a cigarette. – Mmmm. That was great. What’s wrong Bruce? You okay? You’re greeting like a wee laddie!

– Shirley’s ill, I say. – My sister-in-law. She’s no well.

I’m crying for myself.

She looks at me and shakes her head. – You’re no fun any more Bruce.

– We hear voices Chrissie. Aw the time. Do you ever hear them? All our life we’ve heard them. The worms.

– What? What are you on about?

– We say this, they say that. We turn the records on loud. It’s like the messages in the records when they play them backwards. Like me and her. We’re together still, you ken that? It’s all of us . . . I, we, I hear myself singing in a low, tuneless voice, – Why not take all of me . . .

– I have to go, she says, pulling her clothes on. – Whatever it is that you’re on, you should lay off it.

We say nothing, we’re just willing her not to be there. Depart depart depart naebody asked you tae come

When she goes, we binge on the coke we got from Ray. After a few hits we wish the cow would come back cause I’d really show that cunt, but naw, my cock’s still as limp and sad as Ray Lennox’s that time with with Shirley.

Cause it was me and Shirley and I let her down and I can’t blame the others.

I go to phone, but decide against it. I try to light the fire, but my hands are trembling. A bit of Toal’s manuscript has been preserved, brittle and dry. in BILL TEALE’s office. [ANDERSON] This psycho, you reckon he’ll strike again? [TEALE] What makes you so sure it’s a he? [ANDERSON] C’mon Bill. They usually are. [TEALE] I think that our mystery lady may have more to do with this than we imagine. ANDERSON looks visibly flustered. [ANDERSON] What makes you say that? [TEALE] Basically, there’s two things. One, she’s vanished off the face of the planet which means someone’s covering up for her, someone perhaps, who knows a lot about this investigation, and secondly