— My ladies are returning. Ah’ll have to leave you gentlemen to your sordid little activities. Sick Boy shakes his head disdainfully, then scans the bar with a haughty, superior expression on his face. — The working classes at play, he derisively snorts. Spud and Renton wince.
Sexual jealousy is an in-built component in a friendship with Sick Boy.
They try to imagine all the cocaine-crazed sex games he’ll be playing with the ‘manto at the Minto’, as he refers to the women. That is all they can do, imagine. Sick Boy never goes into any details about his sexual adventures. His discretion, however, is only observed in order to torment his less sexually prolific friends rather than as a mark of respect for the women he gets involved with. Spud and Renton realise that three-in-a-bed scenes with rich tourists and cocaine are the preserve of sexual aristocrats like Sick Boy. This shabby bar is their level.
Renton cringes as he observes Sick Boy from a distance, thinking about the bullshit that is inevitably coming out of his mouth.
At least with Sick Boy, it is to be expected. Renton and Spud are horrified to note that Begbie has bagged off. He is chatting to a woman who has quite a nice face, Spud thinks; but a fat arse, Renton bitchily observes. Some women, Renton considers with a malicious envy, are attracted to the psychopathic type. They generally pay a high price for this flaw, leading horrible lives. As an example, he smugly cites June, Begbie’s girlfriend, who is currently in hospital having their child. Proud that he didn’t have to go far to make his point, he takes a swig of his Becks, thinking: I rest my case.
However, Renton is going through one of his frequent self-analytical phases and this smug complacency soon evaporates. Actually, this woman’s arse isn’t that fat, he reasons. He notes that he is operating his self-deception mechanism again. Part of him believes that he is by far the most attractive person in the bar. The reason for this being that he can always find something hideous in the most gorgeous individual. By focusing on that isolated ugly part, he can then mentally nullify their beauty. On the other hand, his own ugly bits don’t bother him, because he is used to them, and in any case, can’t see them.
Anyway, he is now jealous of Frank Begbie. Surely, he considers, I can’t fall any further from grace. Begbie and his new-found love are talking to Sick Boy and the American women. These women look pretty smart, or at least their tan-and-expensive-clothes packaging does. It nauseates Renton to see Begbie and Sick Boy playing the great mates, as all they generally do is to get on each other’s tits. He notes the depressing haste with which the successful, in the sexual sphere as in all others, segment themselves from the failures.
— That’s you n me left, Spud, he observes.
— Likesay, eh, yeah . . . it looks that way, catboy.
Renton likes it when Spud calls other people ‘catboy’ but he hates being referred to in that way himself. Cats make him sick.
— Ye ken, Spud, sometimes ah wish ah wis back oan the skag, Renton says, mainly, he thought, to shock Spud, to get a reaction from his hash-stoned, wasted face. As soon as it comes out, though, he realises that he actually means it.
— Hey, likesay, fuckin heavy man . . . ken? Spud forces some air out from between tightened lips.
It dawns on Renton that the speed they’d done in the toilet, which he’d denounced as shite, is now taking effect. The problem with being off smack, Renton decides, is that they are stupid, irresponsible fuckers, taking anything that they can get their hands on. At least with smack, there is no room for all the other crap.
He has an urge to talk. The speed is a good lap ahead of the dope and alcohol in his system.
— Thing is though, Spud, whin yir intae skag, that’s it. That’s aw yuv goat tae worry aboot. Ken Billy, ma brar, likes? He’s jist signed up tae go back intae the fuckin army. He’s gaun tae fuckin Belfast, the stupid cunt. Ah always knew that the fucker wis tapped. Fuckin imperialist lackey. Ken whit the daft cunt turned roond n sais tae us? He goes: Ah cannae fuckin stick civvy street. Bein in the army, it’s like bein a junky. The only difference is thit ye dinnae git shot at sae often bein a junky. Besides, it’s usually you that does the shootin.
— That, eh, likesay, seems a bit eh, fucked up like man. Ken?
— Naw but, listen the now. You jist think aboot it. In the army they dae everything fir they daft cunts. Feed thum, gie the cunts cheap bevvy in scabby camp clubs tae keep thum fae gaun intae toon n lowerin the fuckin tone, upsettin the locals n that. Whin they git intae civvy street, thuv goat tae dae it aw fir thumsells.
— Yeah, but likesay, it’s different though, cause . . . Spud tries to cut in, but Renton is in full flight. A bottle in the face is the only thing that could shut him up at this point; even then only for a few seconds.
— Uh, uh . . . wait a minute, mate. Hear us oot. Listen tae whit ah’ve goat tae say here… what the fuck wis ah sayin . . . aye! Right. Whin yir oan junk, aw ye worry aboot is scorin. Oaf the gear, ye worry aboot loads ay things. Nae money, cannae git pished. Goat money, drinkin too much. Cannae git a burd, nae chance ay a ride. Git a burd, too much hassle, cannae breathe withoot her gittin oan yir case. Either that, or ye blow it, and feel aw guilty. Ye worry aboot bills, food, bailiffs, these Jambo Nazi scum beatin us, aw the things that ye couldnae gie a fuck aboot whin yuv goat a real junk habit. Yuv just goat one thing tae worry aboot. The simplicity ay it aw. Ken whit ah mean? Renton stops to give his jaws another grind.
— Yeah, but it’s a fuckin miserable life, likesay, man. It’s nae life at aw, ken? Likesay whin yir sick man . . . that is the fuckin lowest ay the low… the grindin bones… the poison man, the pure poison . . . Dinnae tell us ye want aw that again, cause that’s likesay, fuckin bullshit. The response packs a bit of venom, especially by Spud’s gentle, laid-back standards. Renton notes he’s obviously touched a nerve.
— Aye. Ah’m talkin a loaday shite. It’s the Lou Reed.
Spud gives Renton the kind of smile that would make old wifies in the street want to adopt him like a stray cat.
They clock Sick Boy preparing to leave with Annabel and Louise, the two Americans. He’d spent his obligatory half hour boosting Beggar’s ego. That is, Renton decides, the sole function of any mate of Begbie’s. He reflects on the insanity of being a friend of a person he obviously dislikes. It was custom and practice. Begbie, like junk, was a habit. He was also a dangerous one. Statistically speaking, he reflects, you’re more likely to be killed by a member of your own family or a close friend, than by anyone else. Some tubes surround themselves with psycho mates imagining that this makes them strong, less likely to get hurt by our cruel world, when obviously the reverse is true.
On his way out the door with the American women, Sick Boy turns back, raising one eyebrow at Renton, Roger Moore style, as he vacates the bar. A speed-induced flash of paranoia hit Renton. He wonders if perhaps Sick Boy’s success with women is based on his ability to raise the one eyebrow. Renton knows how difficult it is. He’d spent many an evening practising the skill in front of the mirror, but both brows kept elevating simultaneously.
The amount of drink consumed and the passage of time conspired to concentrate the mind. With an hour to go before closing time, somebody you wouldn’t think about getting off with becomes acceptable. With half an hour left, they are positively desirable.
Renton’s wandering eyes now keep stopping at this slim girl with straight, longish brown hair, slightly turned up at the edges. She has a good tan and delicate features tastefully picked out by makeup. She wears a brown top with white trousers. Renton feels the blood leave his stomach when the woman puts her hands in her pockets, displaying visible panty lines. That is the moment for him.
The woman and her friend are being chatted up by a guy with a round, puffy face, and an open-neck shirt which strains at his bloated guts. Renton, who has a cheerfully undisguised prejudice against overweight people, takes the opportunity to indulge it.
— Spud: deek the fat radge. Gluttonous bastard. Ah dinnae go fir aw that shite
aboot it bein a glandular or metabolic thing. Ye dinnae see any fat bastards on tv footage fi Ethiopia. Dae they no huv glands ower thair? Stroll on. Spud just responds to his outburst with a stoned smile.
Renton thinks the girl has taste, because she cold-shoulders the fat guy. He likes the way she does it. Assertively and with dignity, not making a real arse out of him, but letting him know in no uncertain terms that she isn’t interested. The guy smiles, extends his palms and cocks his head to the side, accompanied by a volley of derisive laughter from his mates. This incident makes Renton even more determined to talk to the woman.
Renton gestures to Spud to move over with him. Hating to make the first move, he is delighted when Spud starts talking to her mate, because Spud never normally takes the initiative in that way. The speed’s obviously helping, however, even though he is somewhat distraught to hear that Spud is rabbiting on about Frank Zappa.
Renton tries an approach he considers is relaxed but interested, sincere but light.
— Sorry tae butt intae yir conversation. Ah jist wanted tae tell ye that ah admired yir excellent taste in kicking that fat bastard intae touch just now. Ah thought that ye might be an interesting person tae talk tae. If you tell us tae go the way of the fat bastard, ah won’t be upset though. Ah’m Mark, by the by.
The woman smiles at him in a slightly confused and condescending way, but Renton feels that it at least beats ‘fuck off by a good few furlongs. As they talk, Renton begins to get self-conscious about his looks. The speed kick is running down a little. He worries that his hair looks daft, dyed black, as his orange freckles, the curse of the red-headed bastard, are prominent. He used to think that he looked like the Ziggy Stardust era Bowie. A few years ago, though, a woman told him that he was a dead ringer for Alec McLeish, the Aberdeen and Scotland footballer. Since then the tag had stuck. When Alec McLeish hangs up his boots, Renton has resolved to travel up to Aberdeen for his testimonial as a token of gratitude. He remembers an occasion where Sick Boy shook his head sadly, and asked how some cunt who looked like Alec McLeish could ever hope to be attractive to women.
So Renton has dyed his hair black and spiked it in an attempt to shed the McLeish image. Now he worries that any woman he gets off with will laugh her head off when he removes his clothes and she is confronted with ginger pubes. He has also dyed his eyebrows, and thought about dyeing his pubic hair. Stupidly, he had asked his mother for her advice.
— Dinnae be sae fuckin silly, Mark, she told him, nippy with the hormonal imbalance caused by the change in life.
The woman is called Dianne. Renton thinks that he thinks she is beautiful. Qualification is necessary, as his past experiences have taught him never to quite trust his judgement when there are chemicals racing around in his body and brain. The conversation turns to music. Dianne informs Renton that she likes the Simple Minds and they have their first mild argument. Renton does not like the Simple Minds.
— The Simple Minds huv been pure shite since they jumped on the committed, passion-rock bandwagon of U2. Ah’ve never trusted them since they left their pomp-rock roots and started aw this patently insincere political-wi-a-very-small-p stuff. Ah loved the early stuff, but ever since New Gold Dream thuv been garbage. Aw this Mandela stuff is embarrassing puke, he rants.
Dianne tells him that she believes that they are genuine in their support of Mandela and the movement towards a multiracial South Africa.
Renton shakes his head briskly, wanting to be cool, but hopelessly wound up by the amphetamine and her contention. — Ah’ve goat auld NME’s gaun back tae 1979, well ah did huv but ah flung thum oot a few years back, and ah can recall interviews when Kerr slags off the political commitment by other bands, n sais that the Minds are just intae the music, man.
— People can change, Dianne counters.
Renton is a little bit taken aback by the purity and simplicity of this statement. It makes him admire her even more. He just shrugs his shoulders and concedes the point, although his mind is racing with the notion that Kerr has always been one step behind his guru, Peter Gabriel and that since Live Aid, it’s become fashionable for rock stars to want to be seen as nice guys. However, he keeps this to himself and resolves to try to be less dogmatic about his views on music in the future. In the larger scheme of things, he’s thinking, it doesn’t matter a fuck.
After a while, Dianne and her pal go to the bogs to discuss and assess Renton and Spud. Dianne can’t make her mind up about Renton. She thinks he’s a bit of an arsehole, but the place is full of them and he seems a bit different. Not different enough to go overboard about though. But it was getting late . . .
Spud turns and says something to Renton, who can’t hear him above a song by The Farm, which, Renton considers, like all their songs, is only listenable if you’re E’d out of your box, and if you’re E’d out of your box it would be a waste listening to The Farm, you’d be better off at some rave freaking out to heavy techno-sounds. Even if he could have heard Spud, his brain is now too fucked to respond, taking a well-earned rest from holding itself together to talk to Dianne.
Renton then starts talking personal shite to a guy from Liverpool who’s up on holiday, just because the guy’s accent and bearing remind of his mate Davo. After a while, he realises that the guy is nothing like Davo and that he was wrong to disclose to him such intimacies. He tries to get back to the bar, then loses Spud, and realises that he’s well and truly out of it. Dianne becomes just a memory, a vague feeling of intent behind his drug stupor.
He goes outside to get some air and sees Dianne about to enter a taxi on her own. He wonders with a jealous anguish if this means that Spud’s bagged off with her mate? The possibility of being the only one not to bag off horrifies him, and sheer desperation propels him unself-consciously towards her.
— Dianne. Mind if ah share yir Joe Baxi?
Dianne looks doubtful. — Ah go to Forrester Park.
— Barry. Ah’m headed in that direction masel, Renton lied, then told himself: Well, ah am now.
They talked in the taxi. Dianne had had an argument wi Lisa, her pal, and decided to go home. Lisa was, as far as she knew, still bopping on the dancefloor with Spud and some other cretin, playing them off against each other. Renton’s dough was on the other cretin.
Dianne’s face took on a cartoon sour look as she told Renton what a horrible person Lisa was, cataloguing her misdemeanours, which to him seemed petty enough, with a venom he found slightly disturbing. He was appropriately crawling, agreeing that Lisa was all the selfish pricks under the sun. He changed the subject, as it was bringing her down, and that was no good to him. He told her jocular stories about Spud and Begbie, sanitising them tastefully. Renton never mentioned Sick Boy, because women liked Sick Boy and he had an urge to keep the women he met as far away from Sick Boy as possible, even conversationally.
When she was lighter-hearted he asked her if she minded if he kissed her. She shrugged, leaving him to determine whether this indicated indifference or an inability to make up her mind. Still, he reasoned, indifference is preferable to outright rejection.
They necked for a bit. He found the smell of her perfume arousing. She thought that he was too skinny and bony, but he kissed well.
When they came up for air, Renton confessed that he didn’t live near Forrester Park, he only said that so that he could spend more time with her. In spite of herself, Dianne felt flattered.
— Do you want to come up for a cup of coffee? she asked.
— That would be great. Renton tried to sound casually pleased rather than rapturous.
— Only a coffee mind, Dianne added, in such a way that Renton struggled to determine what sense she was defining terms in. She spoke slyly enough to put sex on the agenda for negotiation, but at the same time assertively enough to mean exactly what she said. He just nodded like a confused village idiot.
— We’ll have to be really quiet. There’s people asleep, Dianne said. This seemed less promising, Renton thought, envisaging a baby
in the flat, with a sitter. He realised that he’d never done it with anybody that had had a baby before. The thought made him feel a bit strange.
While he could sense people in the flat, he couldn’t pick up that distinctive smell of pish, puke and powder that babies have.
He went to speak. — Dia . . .
— Ssh! They’re asleep, Dianne cut him off. — Don’t wake them, or there’ll be trouble.
— Whae’s asleep? he whispered nervously.
— Ssh!
This was disconcerting for Renton. His mind raced through past horrors experienced first hand and from the accounts of others. He mentally flipped through a grim database which contained everything from vegan flatmates to psychotic pimps.
Dianne took him through to a bedroom and sat him down on a single bed. Then she vanished, returning a few minutes later with two mugs of coffee. He noted that his was sugared, which he usually hated, but he wasn’t tasting much.
— Are we going to bed? she whispered with a strangely casual intensity, raising her eyebrows.
— Eh . . . that would be nice . . . he said, almost spluttering out some coffee. His pulse raced and he felt nervous, awkward and virginal, worrying about the potential effects of the drug and alcohol cocktail on his erection.
— We’ll really have to be quiet, she said. He nodded.
He quickly pulled off his jumper and t-shirt, then his trainers, socks and jeans. Self-conscious of his ginger pubes, he got into the bed before sliding his underpants off.
Renton was relieved to get hard as he watched Dianne undress. Unlike him, she took her time, and seemed completely unselfconscious. He thought that her body looked great. He couldn’t help a football mantra of ‘here we go’ playing repeatedly in his head.
— Ah want to go on top of you, Dianne said, throwing back the covers, exposing Renton’s ginger pubes. Fortunately, she didn’t seem to notice. Renton was pleased with his cock. It seemed so much bigger than usual. This was probably because, he realised, he’d become accustomed to not seeing it erect. Dianne was less impressed. She’d seen worse, that was about it.