Irvine Welsh - Filth

– Bruce, I don’t think you’re fit to work at the moment . . . she says.

I turn in the seat and look at her in a grim, tearing focus. That nosey cunt. Get a fuckin life of your own instead of nosing into other people’s. – I’m heading up this investigation Drummond! Don’t you ever forget that! GET ON WITH YOUR FUCKIN JOB AND STOP PLAYING THE AMATEUR PSYCHOLOGIST! I roar with violence and she cowers under the impact of my words and my hot slavering breath, stopping the car abruptly, her face crimson and her eyes watering. I jump out. She starts off at pace. Once she’s out of sight I get a taxi home and go to my bed where I see more demons forming in the swirling patterns of my artex ceiling.

The bed we used to share.

Time we acted.

It’s Hogmanay, and I’m going out tonight. Going out with Carole.

More Carole?

I’ve had a lot, in fact maybe too much, but it’s that time of year. It’s freezing and I’m glad I’ve put my big coat on. I’m carrying my nice new handbag, the one Bruce got me for last Christmas, well that should now be the Christmas before last, but I’ve not really used it yet. The Tron is sectioned off and the city is heaving. This used to be a traditional Scottish affair but now it’s just the Edinburgh Festival at New Year, another tourist thing. I’m sick of it. I head away from it all, down Leith Walk, passing crowds of jeering youths, couples and tourists who are all making their way up the town.

I turn off a sidestreet and see the glowing light of a bar. I’m heading towards it but I’m aware that there’s a car cruising alongside me, as if I was a hooker or something. One guy’s hanging out the window making signs. I ignore him. Then it stops a little bit in front of me and two young men get out. They approach me and one blocks my path. My grip tightens on my handbag.

– Happy New Year doll! he says.

– Ye comin fir a wee ride sweetheart? the other asks.

– No . . . I . . . I start, then stop. I don’t like talking. To strangers. Not when I’m out with

They start to laugh. I start to laugh. We start to laugh. Then one man gets out from the back of the car and pushes us into the back seat as another pair of hands grab hold of our wrists. We’re in the back seat of the car crushed between two men and the other two have got into the front and we’re speeding off. It’s strange, but we never thought of reacting: resisting or running off, although we had time to do both. This seems the right way.

– You’re a fuckin sick fairy. Ah’m gonny fuckin cripple you, one young man says, turning around in the front passenger seat. We know this albino-skinned boy to be Gorman. We know the record of this thug.

– Ye shag guys like that . . . darling? a guy next to us is laughing. He is big. His hands are like shovels. His head is as chunky as Darth Vader’s mask. This man we know to be Setterington.

They can’t talk to us like that. – Listen! we tell them, –Police! We’re working undercover!

They laugh. They just laugh at me. We pull off the wig we have been wearing. We still hold on to our handbag. Carole’s handbag. My present. Last Christmas I gave you my heart. The car seems to be moving so slowly, and there is a sickness in our stomach, a sickness which makes us feel as if we have eaten too much candyfloss at the fairground and gone on the waltzers. Stacey liked the waltzers. Us and her, her tucked in the middle. The nuclear family, spinning, twisting, disorientated, but still huddled together.

Still . . .

– Sexier oan but, eh, one guy’s laughing. He’s laughing at us. We do not recognise him.

Spinning, twisting out of control. The wig. It cost two hundred pounds from Turvey’s on the Glasgow Road. Made specially to look like Carole’s hair, long and black. I told the guy it was for my wife. Her hair fell out after chemotherapy. How terrible, he said. She smokes too many cigarettes, I told him.

– Any keks you wear may be taken doon and used in evidence, another one smiles; Liddell, this one is called.

– I’m Detec . . .

I’m

We’re a family . . . we knew a fam . . .

– Detective Se . . . we start to tell them, but Setterington has punched us hard on the nose with his anvil fist and the tears are filling our eyes and there is a sharp noise of pain spreading across our face and hitting the centre of our brain and an irregular pattern of breathing fits, a heaving in our chest, half a sob, half a puke. The only thing we can react to is the pain. We can see or feel nothing else.

How did it make you feel

We’re different to what they think

Where’s the fuckin back up team? We are fuckin polis! Police.

They put a plastic carrier bag over our head. We are now unable to see where we’re going. We’re remembering how this all started: that when Carole first left with the bairn we used to set the table for two and then we started wearing her clathes and it was like she was still with us but no really . . . Carole . . . Carole, why did you dae it, with that fuckin nigger, those whores they meant nothing tae me . . . you’re fuckin big-moothed hoor ay a sister . . . fanny like the fuckin Mersey tunnel . . . and the bairn . . . oh God . . . God . . . God . . . we want to live . . . all we’re asking for is some law and order . . . it’s the job . . .

we want tae make it up . . .

we’re not like the scum they put in the prisons . . .

we want tae make it right . . .

. . . we don’t know where we’re going. We don’t know at all. This is Edinburgh. It’s winter but it’s hot and sticky under this plastic bag and we can’t fuckin well breathe here.

We’ve lost the handbag.

And their voices.

– Need a bag ower that cunt’s heid before ah’d fuck it, Gorman’s voice.

– Get away! It’s a fuckin guy ya poofy cunt! another is telling him.

– Ah’m no gonnae fuck it wi ma cock, ah’m ah ya daft cunt, bit we’ll see what we can find tae stick up this queer erse, see how much the cunt can take.

– Barry.

We’re bundled out of the car and pushed up a set of stairs. Stairs. We can see the steps under our feet. Pushed. The coon. They make us move too quick and we go over in our heels, stumbling, but they’re stopping us from falling and they are shouting obscenities at us.

– Move yir queer erse ya fuckin buftie!

– C’moan ya fuckin daft twat!

This place is derelict, we can see the broken glass under our feet. It’s abandoned, no noise but our own. We reach the top of the stairs and they throw us into a room. Then there’s more voices. A girl’s voice. I recognise it.

– Ah kent ah had seen him fae somewhaire.

Estelle.

– Did eh huv a plastic bag ower ehs heid at the time?

– Wide cunt!

I feel a sharp pain in my testicles. I cover them with my hands. My fingers knead the material of the skirt.

– Nice one Ocky!

Ocky. I’ve been kicked by Ocky.

– The thing is boys . . . and girls, it’s Lexo’s voice, – we have tae go aw the wey wi this pig. Ye ken what that means.

– Ye cannae waste a pig man, the other guy, I think his name’s Liddell, is saying.

There’s a nervous laugh from Estelle. She thinks those cunts are joking. – Ah’m no wantin nowt tae dae wi this, she says.

– Dinnae be daft Lexo, Liddell’s saying. – Ye cannae waste a pig. End of. That’s it fucked eftir that.

Another voice cuts in, gasping, frightened. – It’s nae fuckin joke . . . c’moan boys . . . ye cannae kill the boy . . . no a polisman . . . My assailant Ocky.

– You shut yir fuckin grassin wee mooth, Ghostie says, and I can sense Ocky trembling from here. – We’ll see tae you later. We ken aw aboot you pal.