Skagboys (51 page)

Sick Boy looks to Cream Shirt, still blowing compressed hot air through those tight, pursed, cock-sucking lips that would undoubtedly make him a hit in fagland, now whingeing on about what to do if the boat sinks.
Fuck aw that baws, if such an event occurs ye run tae the nearest lifeboat elbowing every cunt in your path ootay the fucking road
. He edges closer to Renton. — We’re talking about a woman here, Rents. A
sexy
woman. We can debate Fawcett-Majors versus Jackson, or Plant versus Page, but the analogy you used in this context was disturbingly homosexual. Are you getting curious being on this boat, Rent Boy? he asks, as Cream Shirt stiffens, and once again picks up his volume. — … to know exactly where each evacuation station is situated …

— Fuck off, your cock would be the last yin ah’d suck, Renton says, and the Girl With the Big Hair hears this, placing her hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle.

— The last, perhaps, but I notice that you still fall short of ruling it out. Kind ay makes my point for me, wouldn’t ye say?

— Ah deployed a fuckin figure ay speech, ya cunt, Renton whispers. — Ah’m happy tae rule it oot, one hundred per cent.

The Girl With the Big Hair again looks round, this time checking them out, forcing Cream Shirt once more to raise his voice. — … under the 1974 Health and Safety at Work Act …

— Delighted tae hear it, Sick Boy says to Renton.

— Dinnae sound sae hurt then.

— Oh God, Sick Boy retorts in bitter sarcasm, — see it fae my point of view. I’ve always wanted tae gaze doon on your badly dyed heid wi the ginger roots while your rotten teeth grate on ma baws. That’s been a fantasy ay mine since ah was knee-high tae a grasshopper. Now it’ll never be. Boo-hoo. Woe is me!

His indignant tones soar further on this tirade, attracting the laughter
of
more inductees, and Cream Shirt has had enough of the distraction. — Perhaps … he looks at Sick Boy with what the recipient worryingly sees as bend-over-and-spread-em eyes, then back to his list, — Simon … might share his little joke with us? Seeing as it’s obviously more important than our health and safety on this ship!

— No joke, ehm … Martin, the self-styled Scots-Italian Renaissance man suddenly recalls how the overseer had introduced himself, — I was just saying to my friend that, as a son of a seafaring community, whose family have taken to the ocean for generations through whaling, the trawlers and the mercantile fleet, just how great it feels to be given this opportunity by Sealink.

Cream Shirt’s expression indicates that he again suspects he’s being messed with. However, Sick Boy remains poker-faced to the extent that the supervisor is actually moved. — Thanks, Simon … it might not be the best job in the world, he declares, with emotion, — but it’s not the worst. But this part of the induction is particularly important so I would urge everybody to give it their full attention.

— Of course, Martin, I let my excitement get the better of me, he smiles sweetly, — please accept my humble apologies.

Cream Shirt flashes a brief dinner-invitation grin that makes Sick Boy’s guts flip, before he drinks in Renton’s whispered admiration. — Vintage Sick Boy, especially the term ‘mercantile fleet’ instead ay merchant navy. I’ll jot that yin doon!

Nicksy has sidled up to Renton, going on about the meaning of life. — Wot’s it all abaht, Mark? Eh?

A good question, Renton thinks, as Cream Shirt drones on. – … the legislation was framed largely as an enabling act. It aims to place the responsibility for health and safety at work on every individual employee. Therefore, we are all, in some sense, health and safety officers, with the responsibility to …

We all have tae take responsibility, he recalled his dad saying, concerning Wee Davie. A thump of death’s uncompromising beat in Renton’s chest: the knowledge that he’d never see, or hear his brother again. He swallows a ball in his throat that isn’t there: you really were a long time deid, as the old saying went.

Thinking of Wee Davie makes him consider Giro the dog. He’s started barking in the night; a sharp, oddly rhythmic sound, suggesting Wee Davie’s cough. It’s taken over from that noise as the source of something beyond torment for Renton, more like a peculiar attestation. Now he’s the only one who’ll rise in the darkness to scoop food into the pup’s bowl. One
night
he realised Giro had been at the wraps of speed on the coffee table. — It’s no good you living with us, pal, he’d said sadly, lamenting that he was getting too fond of this animal. Renton admired the way that Giro could just get up; no need to wash, brush teeth, dress, he was just instantly ready to go out to the park. And he loved the attention the dog got him from girls in London Fields.
Ain’t ee luverly!

That dug will get me a ride, almost in spite ay masel
.

But Nicksy is bugging him. — What the fark are we doin here, Mark? I mean … really?

What the fuck does that cunt ken aboot the meanin ay life?
Renton thinks, as Marriott’s now in his sights, standing motionless, hands clasped together in front of him.

— … so the first thing we need, Cream Shirt is saying, desperate to engage with a dozen pairs of eyes, — are two volunteers to be our designated health and safety officers … on the basis that a volunteer is worth two pressed men – or women, of course … he scans the blank faces, — … so please raise your hands if you’re interested …

All hands resolutely stay down and most heads bow to regard the green-painted metal floor of the deck. — C’mon, Cream Shirt begs, aghast, — it’s health and safety! It affects us all!

Still no takers: just a series of shifty sideways glances. With a bitter head-shaking sulk, Cream Shirt consults his clipboard, then scrutinises them again.

Renton now accepts he has the heebie-jeebies. He needs a little something.

Fortunately, Cream Shirt has arbitrarily designated a young man with constantly blinking eyes and lunar acne scars, and one of Sick Boy’s meaty-thighed, flirtatious barrow girls to the health and safety roles, mercifully ending the talk. A second supervisor minces alongside Cream Shirt and simpers in a high, fey sound, — Now if you’ll kindly adjourn to your cabins to get changed into your uniforms, we’ll assemble in twenty minutes in the canteen, where you’ll be designated to your workstations.

They head off, Renton stalling for a second or two, hoping to chat to the Girl With the Big Hair, but her attention is taken by the other supervisor, whom he’s dubbed Beige Blouse, so he heads down to the staff quarters in the bowels of the ship. When he reaches the cabin Nicksy’s already there, the Sealink bag at his feet, changing into his uniform. — Okay, bud?

— Farking not really, mate, and he pulls the cream shirt over his thin frame and buttons it up, adjusting the elastic on the bow tie for comfort,
then
the waistcoat, which is too big and hangs limply. — See ya up in the canteen.

— Righto … Renton elects to tough it out. He leaves the skag, the stash crushed into the toes of his trainers, and instead he takes some speed from a wrap in his jeans watch pocket. It’s the only way to get through this shift. Once the buzz kicks in, he heads up to the canteen to meet the others. He feels terrible, as if he’s papering over the cracks, the speed in some ways making the junk withdrawal pains keener, but the frenzied energy mentally distracting him.

Amphetamine pushiness gives him a wild swagger through several sets of swing doors into the staff area of the refectory. Fortune does indeed favour the brave, as it becomes clear that the roster’s designations have given Cream Shirt the impression that he’s in Beige Blouse’s team, while Beige Blouse seems to believe the opposite. Disinclined to disabuse either of them, or their rota, of this notion, Renton opts to stay non-assigned, deciding that he’ll walk the ship like a ghost.

A line has formed for the food. Renton’s not hungry but the lentil soup on offer looks edible and he feels that he should try to eat
something
. He rips the pish out of the chef, proud and military-stiff in his big hat and whites. — Awright, cookie boy? he barks, playing to the gallery, toxic speed energy notched up further by the gushing screams of queens, the appreciative chuckle of wideos, and a delectable smile from the Girl With the Big Hair.

Chef stands impassively: thick, black-rimmed glasses and red liver spots on his neck, a smouldering volcano in starched white linen. Renton suddenly feels, even through his drug arrogance, that this insolence just might be a mistake. This is confirmed when a veteran English homosexual cabin steward lisps, — Don’t fuck Chef out, mate, he’s a real bastard.

It’s a phrase Renton has never heard before; don’t fuck Chef out.

Nicksy’s gone and he can’t see Sick Boy, and the cute Fawcett-Plant lassie is chatting to one of the barrow girls, so Renton decides to forgo the soup and commence his wanderings, to get out of range of Chef’s cold, dangerous gaze. As he leaves, he hears him bellow at a kitchen hand, — Who is that cheeky little Scotch cunt?

As he climbs a staircase, Nicksy feels the weight of his breath in his lungs. At the top he looks outside the portholed swing doors to the sea. They are on the decks, the staff, waiting for the vehicles and foot passengers to embark. He spies Marriott leaning on the rail, smoking a cigarette, the burning eyes in his wrecked, cadaverous figure forever trained on them.
Following
the line of vision, Sick Boy is revealed chatting to that bird with the big blonde hair all over the place. Studying her small tits, tight curvy figure and all that hair flying in the wind, Nicksy’s thinking: tasty, but without a semblance of prurient lust.

— Got any hash? Sick Boy asks her.

— Yeah, a bit, she says, vainly trying to restrain her swishing locks, as the first cars roll over the ramp and eager foot passengers trudge up the bridge hoping in futility that the bar is already open.

Sick Boy overhears Cream Shirt saying to a languid sidekick, — It’s this bit that always gets me, as he grandly sweeps his arms, watching the passengers pile forward, — this is what makes me realise why I’m here.

Sick Boy stares at the passengers and decides that he already hates every last one of them. Then a chat of ‘Man-chis-tihr na, na, na …’ comes up as a gang of sallow, strutting youths around his age emerge onto the deck. He turns to the girl with the hair. — In that case, I’ll need to swing by your cabin later. I can’t sleep without a smoke.

— Okay, she says, her head whipping briefly to acknowledge the singing. — I’m Charlene.

— Simon, Sick Boy curtly nods.

Cream Shirt squeaks out instructions to the welcoming cabin staff, as the travelling British public stream onto the vessel. Nicksy sidles off, heading up another flight of metal steps onto the upper deck. After a spell, a farty-sounding siren blares, followed a little later by a rumble and shake as the ship’s engine starts up. The boat leaves the harbour slowly, picking up speed and being pursued by excited gulls as it reaches open water. Then he’s aware of footsteps behind him, followed by a shout: — Nicksy you cahnt!

He turns to see the floppy fringe of Billy Gilbert, an old West Ham mate, wearing a brown-and-cream Adidas top. He’s prominent in a squad of boys, who march along the deck towards him. They all share a coiled, alert look, like greyhounds in traps waiting for the doors to fly open and the mechanical bunny to bolt down the rail. Billy gives Nicksy’s uniform the once-over. — Nice threads, mate. High fashion is wot you might call it.

Cackles all round, as Nicksy sees another Ilford friend, Paul Smart, and a few more mob faces of his acquaintance. He doesn’t know what’s going on. — Fuck’s all this about?

— Gor blimey, you’re narky, Nicks. Ain’t they treatin you right on the
Titanic
here?

He sucks in some air and forces a smile. — Yeah, sorry, Bill, it ain’t so bad; a relatively honest crust.

— You off ta the game later?

— Thought I might, Nicksy lies. Although he’d read a piece in the
Standard
about it, he’d somehow thought the first leg of the forthcoming UEFA Cup tie was at Upton Park. — If I get finished in time after this bleedin shift.

— Great, see ya in the Bulldog then, Billy says, then rubbernecking, as if in anticipation of an ambush, — Heard there’s a load of Man U on this fucking boat.

— Ain’t heard nuffink. You planning on chasing them back to Surrey, then?

— Might just do that, Billy laughs.

A pasty-faced kid with a fringe, wearing a green Sergio Tacchini top, comes running towards them with urgency and squeaks, — There’s a load of Man U in the farking bar downstairs!

And the mob are off, stalking down the steps, surging past the ascending Sick Boy, Cream Shirt and some other members of staff, as Nicksy sharpishly heads in the other direction.

— That looks like trouble, Cream Shirt says. — Simon, could you and your friends … he looks at the sheet, — Mark and Brian, come with me? Where are they?

Sick Boy realises that both Rents and Nicksy, like Cream Shirt’s health and safety officer designates, have vanished. — I’m not exactly sure.

— The first sailing of the season and the place is crawling with hooligans, Cream Shirt hisses in distaste. — Let’s keep an eye on them and make sure they settle down.

— Eh, okay … Sick Boy says reluctantly. Cream Shirt has evidently taken some sort of a shine to him. He’s as yet unsure as how to work this in his favour, but highly intrigued at the prospect of being able to do so.

On deck Nicksy runs into a meaty-armed woman in a sleeveless quilted jacket. She seems in distress and tells him she’s lost her daughter. — Come with me, love, we’ll find her, he says, and he leads her away.

2. Reasonable Duties

I admit that ah’m a wee bitty too fond ay the Salisbury Crag for my ain good, but something’s flipped in Renton’s ginger dome. He’s an embarrassment, with his continually streaming beak, and that metallic nasal voice he seems tae have adopted; he’d suck the pish ootay a jakey’s crotch if he thought there was a buzz in it for him. He’s hiding; it’s so obvious tae
see.
From what? What else but his fears? His biggest fear? That the spazzy gene, which produced the fucked
fratello
, is apparent in him. Well realised, Rent Boy. Realised.