Skagboys (56 page)

— So you’ve got this felly. Renton’s stung by his own bitter tone and by the fact that he wants to say: ‘I’ll bet he’s got a bigger cock than me,’
but
checks himself and instead remarks, — He’ll be a handsome chappie, I take it.

— I think so. You’d like him. He ain’t that different ta you.

— Sure, Renton says dismissively. — How?

— Well, he’s a bit too fond of drugs, for one thing. And he likes Northern Soul and punk. Look … I told ya from the off that there was someone else. It was never gonna be a permanent arrangement.

— Sound by me, he says unconvincingly, then shakes his head ruefully and speaks, almost to himself: — Funny, aw ah wanted was a lassie where it wis like we sortay wirnae really like gaun oot thegither, we were just, like, mates. Like you sais, mates that fuck. Like Sick Boy has wi a couple ay birds back hame; nae complications or nowt. And ah’d goat that wi you …

— Yeah, well, problem solved, innit.

— Naw, cause it’s like ah want mair now, and he thinks of his previous encounters in the past year or so; Fiona, then that sound lassie from Manchester, Roberta her name was, and some others he doesn’t want to remember.

— Sounds ta me like you dunno what ya want.

Renton feels his shoulders flex in a shrug. — Ah jist like getting fucked up n chorrin n hingin aboot n shaggin. It rules.

— Don’t look at me like that, then!

— Like what?

— Like an orphaned baby seal caught on the ice that’s about to have its brains clubbed out!

The stiff smile on Renton’s mouth reluctantly crawls into his eyes. — Ah didnae realise … sorry. It’s just that you’re a cool lassie … he shakes his head fondly, — that foil in the bag thing ruled.

Charlene looks at him, then eases back onto the couch and thinks of Charlie, in the Scrubs. His two front teeth knocked out, giving him that simpleton smile she perversely loved. The two of them: childhood boyfriend and girlfriend from the Medway Towns. Rochester and Chatham. Yes, she loves Charlie. Mark is better in bed, but that won’t last, not with all that heroin he smokes. But she likes him. — You’re the first geezer wot didn’t go on about my fucking hair all the time; it gets on me nerves, she says unconvincingly.

Renton’s shoulders inch upwards in a disparaging thrust. — It’s really brilliant but ah sometimes think it would be better short. Accentuate those beautiful eyes, he drawls, feeling a muffled, queasy throb from somewhere deep inside him, making him think of skag again.

Charlene smiles at Renton, wondering if he’s taking the piss. But he
seems
quite upset. She loves Charlie, but knows prison hasn’t done him any good, and she suspects that she’s yet to see the full extent of the damage. She’s pragmatic enough to keep her options open. It’s good to know Mark cares. She gets up, scribbles a name, ‘Millie’, and a number down on the notepad by the phone, tearing of the slip of paper. Renton rises too; he feels the moment calls for it. She crushes the paper into his jeans pocket. — It ain’t mine, it’s a friend’s in Brixton. She’ll know how to get in touch with me if ya ever wanna hook up. Leave your number with her and she’ll pass it on ta me, and I’ll get back ta ya.

Renton is in front of her and making no move to stand aside. Charlene thinks for a second he’s blocking her way, but she hasn’t tagged him as the sort to make a scene. In fact, as she puts her arms around him, she’s disconcerted at how distant and accepting of the situation he now is, how easy, after a brief flush of need, this has suddenly all become for him. A rush of regret swells in her. — You’re a lovely bloke, she says, tightening her grip.

But he’s squirming like an unruly toddler in the arms of an indulgent auntie. — Right … you’re barry … eh, ah’ll see ye, Charlene, he says robotically.

Leave me leave me leave me … skag skag skag
…

Charlene breaks off and stands back, holding his hands, taking him in. Marvelling at the angles of his thin frame, his yellow-toothed smile. — Ya will phone me, won’tcha? It was good … in bed n all that … she says.

— Aye, ah telt ye, Renton says, every nerve in his body screaming GO as to his massive relief Charlene walks out, the Sealink bag slung across her shoulder on the extended strap, thus obscuring his last view of the tight arse he’d come to regard as his altar. Even though its image was well burnt into his brain, a farewell glance would have been appreciated.

Chucked the student, given the elbow by the shoplifter
.

I will survive, wey-hey
.

As soon as he hears the lift doors outside, Renton rushes to his stash in the grumbling, tutting fridge. The heroin is cooling with some rotting lettuce and celery in a drawer. With his spec case, he heads back to the couch, arching over the coffee table littered with wastrel detritus, and starts to cook up. He’s piqued as the sound of the door going snaps in his ears, worrying that Charlene has returned. However, it’s only Nicksy, who looks down at Renton in disdain, then heads to the kitchen where he instantly chops out two big lines of speed on the shaky-legged table and declares, in punk-style, that England’s shit. — It’s all gone to pieces, mate.

Renton is burning the heroin, lighter flame lapping round the spoon.
He’s
a bit worried at its lack of purity, but it
seems
to be dissolving into a bubbling elixir. — Scotland n aw, he says empathetically, looking to Nicksy. It was true; the post-war optimism was most certainly over. The welfare state, full employment, the Butler Education Act were all gone or compromised to the point of being rendered meaningless. It now really was everyone for themselves. We were no longer all in this together. But it wasn’t all bad, he considered; at least we’re getting a wider choice of drugs now.

Nicksy springs to his feet, standing in the doorway of the kitchen and the front room. He points at the spoon and its contents, nerves jangling, bottom puppet-jaw in spasm, lank hair plastered to his skull. — Give it a rest, Mark. You said you was through banging up that shit.

Renton looks up, face a picture of surly, recalcitrant entitlement. — Geez a fuckin brek, Nicksy. Ah’ve just been chucked, eh.

— Oh … right. Sorry ta hear it, Nicksy says, stepping back into the kitchen. Doesn’t know why. Pirouettes on the tiled floor and hops back into the front room. — Have to be dynamic, he muses to himself.

— You’ve been thaire, buddy, Renton observes, clamping the flex from the table lamp round his thin biceps, then gripping the cord in his teeth. — No very nice, is it? he whines, disconcerted that his voice sounds the very same.
Fuck. Ah really do speak through ma beak now
.

— Nah. It ain’t.

— Aye, Charlene’s fucked off. She’s goat this boyfriend. He’s just gittin back oot the jail. Renton taps up a vein in his wrist.

— Well, that ain’t gonna help.

— It isnae aboot helping, it’s aboot
being
. If being Scottish is about one thing, it’s aboot gittin fucked up, Renton explains, working the needle slowly into his flesh. — Tae us intoxication isnae just a huge laugh, or even a basic human right. It’s a way ay life, a political philosophy. Rabbie Burns said it: whisky and freedom gang thegither. Whatever happens in the future tae the economy, whatever fucking government’s in power, rest assured we’ll
still
be pissin it up and shootin shit intae ourselves, he announces, pulsing with glorious anticipation as he sucks his dark blood back into the barrel, then lets his ravenous veins drink the concoction.

Home, boy
…

Whoa … ya fuckin beauty
…

Renton topples back onto the sagging couch and its pinging coils that hold up his shifting weight like pall-bearers, and laughs in a fathomless yawn, — Smokin shit … it just isnae cost-effective …

Nicksy has no time for the television or his friend’s junky observations.
He
can’t settle, the speed has kicked in and he’s vibrating in the armchair. Catching a sharp whiff from his own trainers, he leaps to a standing position. Looks up at the dull cream ceiling.

Marsha
.

He charges out the door as if the flat was on fire.

Junk Dilemmas No. 1

NICKSY DIDNAE HALF
tear oot the door. Cunt’s way too uptight these days. Whatever happened tae the cheeky wee cockney sparrer, the ducker and diver whae let nothing get under his skin?

Probably that Marsha bird upstairs. Women. What a fuckin minefield. The student you hump and dump. The shoplifter steals your heart and
–

SHARP THROB
…

Fuck sake
…

SHARP FUCKIN THROB
…

Whoops … ah’m on ma feet n through tae the bog. A long pish which seems tae last months. The dug’s up, balancing against the bowl wi his front paws, watchin ma pish stream. He pits his nose tae it, gits a splash fi the jet, yelps and dances off, lookin up at me like ah’m a cunt. — Giro … sorry, compadre
…

Ah’m bored wi this pish … end … end … end
…

END
…

END
…

BANG BANG DOOF DOOF
–

A knock on the door. Shake it oot. Pit it back. Move. Open the front door
.

It’s this wee black lassie, that Marsha bird, n she’s screamin a loaday shite at me. Aboot Nicksy, oan a ledge … rantin about dead bairns
…

Fuckin nut job … but then the polis … my God, it’s the fuckin polis … a blobby WPC n a jug-eared copper, n thir tellin us baith tae git doonstairs in the lift
…

The lift goes doon n she’s still screamin aboot Nicksy bein sick and twisted and what does he fuckin well want fae her n ah’m thinkin
…

FUCK ME
…

Thi’ll no lit us back in fir the gear
…

IT’S MA FUCKIN GEAR!

Towers of London

LUCINDA IS MY
ticket to the good life. It’s time tae stop fannying about and strike; get the ring on her finger, myself moved intae her Notting Hill pad on a permanent basis, then her right up the duff as an insurance policy. At which point her posh Ingloid old boy will have tae come round and acknowledge that Young Williamson is
not
going away. Then it’s all about sitting tight for a few years before stepping intae the family fortune. In ma pocket is the key that spells commitment with a capital K, the ring ah bought fae that semi-decent jeweller’s in Oxford Street.

She’s defo the sort ay girl you could take home to Mama, and ah might do just that, as Rents and I are feeling the pull ay Caledonia. The giro syndicate means one fortnightly National Express coach trip south tae sign on, and Nicksy is talking about leaving the flat and heading back tae his ma’s for a bit. Ah also want tae check in on poor Spud. He’s meant tae be in a bad way.

And Lucinda wants to slum it. It astonishes me that so many ay her friends have that thing going on. Tae the untrained eye, they perhaps look, act, smell and even talk poor, but somewhere along the yellow brick road, stuffed in a hidey-hole up ahead of them, a big stack ay unearned loot awaits. A pile that changes everything. A heap of dosh that says tae me:
fuck off, you empty fake
, whenever they drone on in their artificial cockney whines. She’s trying this shit on now, wi irony at the moment, but we both know that if ah gie her any encouragement at all, it’ll be shamelessly adopted as a stylistic device. She’s telling me that ah sound like Sean Connery, while displaying a worrying curiosity about Leith and the Bannanay flats. But if she wants scheme, ah can certainly dae scheme, and I have tae admit that the prospect ay pumping her on a mattress saturated wi the spunk stains and fanny juices of a hundred transients in a Hackney tower block does have a certain trash aesthetic. Then, in that post-coital moment, I shall bring out the ring, and we’ll head north tae meet Mama. There are faces (tae say nothing of fannies) ah miss back hame, and most of all, ah want tae make sure that the scumbag whose rancid cock dribbled me intae existence is not messing my mother about.

We get off the tacky North London Line at Dalston Kingsland, which has the one advantage that it’s effectively free, and head down tae the Holy Street Estate. Lucinda, for all her swagger, tightens her grip on my arm, confirming she’s just that wee bitty too soft for this terrain.
Fear not, fair damsel, Simon’s here
.

That thieving wee Charlene Fawcett-Majors-Plant chicky that Rents has been canoodling with is coming across the road. Our heads mutually swivel away; we pretend no tae notice each other. Ah’ve better goods on my airm than
that
wee hing-oot, thank you very much, although Lucinda’s daein ma crust in, slavering on about how it’s so ‘real’ around here. If ah wanted ‘real’ ah’d’ve steyed in Leith, but ah let her cling tae her rich bird’s delusions. But she’s caught Charlene and me pointedly ignoring each other: more suspicion-framing than any gushing acknowledgement. — Who was that girl?

— Oh, just this hostile bint Mark’s been shagging.

— What about that Penny? she says darkly.

— Exactly, I snap. — He has the morals of a sewer rat, that one. I think –

What in the name of fuck
…

— What’s going on? Lucinda’s grip tightens on mine again, as a crowd has gathered below Beatrice Webb House. Following the line ay vision ah can see that someone is standing on a ledge ay the tower block, having climbed right oot the fucking windae! It looks like one arm is fastened inside, securing them to this world. And fuck me, it’s
Nicksy
. — Fuck sakes! That’s my flatmate! Nicksy!

— Simon, that’s terrible … what’s he doing …?

I have to admit that ma first instinct is a fervent hope that he jumps; simply in order tae place myself as a central player in the drama of a short and tragic life. Ah think ay that record collection divvied up between Rents and myself. A stake for a wee bit ay brown, exported back up the road. Cunts wouldnae ken what it was. Then ah realise that it’s no our place he’s hanging ootay, it’s right near the top. It’s that dippit wee pump-up-the-breek’s gaff!