Renton smirks softly at this, and Second Prize, who didn’t really hear it, laughs loudly. He is not, as yet, pickled enough to feel completely comfortable forgoing the bare bones of social contact. Spud says nothing, but grimaces as the vice-like grip of junk withdrawal squeezes harder on his brittle bones.
Begbie is unconvinced that Sick Boy would have the bottle to stand up to McGregor.
— Shite. You wouldnae fuckin mess wi that cunt.
— Fuck off. Jimmy Busby wis wi us. That cunt McGregor shites it fae the Buzz-Bomb. He’s shit-scared ay aw the Cashies. The last thing he wants is a squad ay the Family swedgin in his club.
— Jimmy Busby . . . he’s no a fuckin hard cunt. A fuckin shitein cunt. Ah stoated that radge in the Dean. You minday that time, Rents, eh? Rents! Mind the time ah panelled that Busby cunt? Begbie glances over the seat for support but Renton is starting to feel like Spud. A shudder twists through his body and a grim nausea hits him. He can only nod unconvincingly, rather than provide the elaboration Begbie is looking for.
— That wis years ago. Ye widnae dae it now, Sick Boy contended.
— Whae fuckin widnae! Eh? Think ah fuckin widnae? Ya fuckin radge! Begbie challenges aggressively.
— It’s aw a loaday shite anywey, Sick Boy meekly counters, using one of his classic tactics. If you can’t win the fine detail of the argument, then rubbish its context.
— That cunt kens no tae fuckin mess, Begbie says, in a low growl. Sick Boy does not respond, knowing that this was a warning by proxy, directed at him, through the absent Busby. He realises that he’s been pushing his luck.
Spud Murphy’s face is smeared against the glass window. He sits in silent misery, lashing sweat and feeling like his bones are grinding against each other. Sick Boy turns to Begbie, seizing the opportunity to make a common cause.
— These cunts, Franco, he nods backwards, — sais they wid stey clean. Lyin bastards. Fuck us aw up. His tone is a mixture of disgust and self-pity, as if he is resigned to the fact that his lot in life is to have all his moves sabotaged by the weak fools he was unfortunate enough to have to call his friends.
Nonetheless, Sick Boy fails to strike an empathetic chord with Begbie, who dislikes his attitude even more than he disapproves of Renton and Spud’s behaviour.
— Stoap fuckin moanin. You’ve fuckin been thair often enough.
— No fir ages. These nondy cunts never grow up.
— So ye’ll no be wantin any fuckin speed then? Begbie teased, dabbing at some salty granules in silver foil.
Sick Boy really wants some Billy Whizz, to cut down the hideous travelling time. He is fucked if he going to plead with Begbie however. He sits staring ahead, gently shaking his head and muttering under his breath, a wrenching anxiety in his guts forcing his mind to flip through unresolved grievance after unresolved grievance. He then springs up and goes to grab a can of McEwan’s Export from Second Prize’s pile.
— Ah telt ye thit ye should’ve goat yir ain cairry-oot! Second Prize’s face resembled that of an ugly bird whose eggs are under threat from a stalking predator.
— One can then, ya tight cunt! Fuck sakes! Sick Boy slaps his forehead with his palm in exasperation. Second Prize reluctantly hands a can over, which, in the event, Sick Boy cannot drink. He has not eaten for a while and the fluid feels heavy and sickly in his raw guts.
Behind him, Renton’s slide into the misery of withdrawal continues apace. He knows he has to act. This means holding out on Spud. However, there was no sympathy in business, and much less in this particular one than in any other. Turning to his partner he says: — Man, ah’ve goat a fuckin bad rock in ma erse. Ah’ve goat tae spend a bit ay time in the bog.
Spud shoots to life for a second. — Yir no haudin, ur ye?
— Away tae fuck, Renton convincingly snaps. Spud turns and melts miserably back into the window.
Renton goes into the toilet and secures the door. He wipes the pish off the rim of the aluminium pan. It is not hygiene that concerns him, merely the avoidance of a wet sensation on his creeping skin.
On the tiny sink he places his cooking spoon, syringe, needle and cotton balls. Producing a small packet of browny-white powder from his pocket, he tips the contents diligently into his prized piece of cutlery. Sucking 5 mls of water into the syringe and squirting it slowly into the spoon, Renton takes care to avoid flushing away the grains. His trembling hand firms up with the concentration only junk preparation can facilitate. Passing the flame from the Benidorm plastic lighter under the spoon, he stirs at the stubborn dregs with the needle tip until he has produced an injectable solution.
The bus lurches violently, but he moves with it; his junky’s vestibular sense tuned in, like radar, to every bump and bend on the A1. Not a precious drop is spilled as he lowers the cotton ball onto the cooking spoon.
Sticking the needle into the ball, he sucks the rusty liquid into the chamber. He pulls off his belt, cursing as the studs catch in the tabs of his jeans. He violently jerks it free, feeling as if his insides are folding in on themselves. Tightening the belt around his arm just below a puny bicep, he clamps yellowing teeth onto the leather to hold it fast. The sinew in his neck strains as he maintains the position; teasing up through patient, probing taps, a reluctant healthy vein.
A brief flicker of hesitancy glows in the corner of his mind, only to be snuffed cruelly by a twisting spasm which convulses his sick body. He zeros in, watching the tender flesh give way to the penetrating steel. He pushes the plunger part of the way home, for a split-second, before sucking back to fill the chamber with blood. He then releases the tension in the belt and flushes everything into his vein. He raises his head, and savours the hit. He sits for a period which could be minutes or hours, before standing up and looking at himself in the mirror.
— You’re fuckin gorgeous, he observes, kissing the reflection; feeling the cold glass against his hot lips. He turns and puts his cheek on the glass, then licks at it with his tongue. Then he stands back and adjusts his features into a forced mask of misery. Spud’s eyes would be on him as soon as he opened the door. He must contrive to act sick, which is not going to be easy.
Second Prize has drunk off a crippling hangover and is having what would have been described a second wind, had his constant state of inebriation and withdrawal not rendered such a term superfluous. Begbie, realising that they are well on their way and have not been intercepted by the Lothian and Borders Constabulary, the labdicks, is more relaxed. Victory was in sight. Spud takes a troubled junky sleep. Renton feels a little more animated. Even Sick Boy senses that things are going well, and unwinds.
The fragile unity is shattered when Sick Boy and Renton have an argument about the merits of the pre and post Velvet Underground achievements of Lou Reed. Sick Boy is uncharacteristically tongue-tied under an onslaught from Renton.
— Naw, naw . . . he weakly shakes his head and turns away, devoid of inspiration to counter Renton’s arguments. Renton had stolen the cloak of indignation that Sick Boy likes to wear on such occasions.
Savouring his adversary’s capitulation, Renton pulls his head back sharply and smugly; folding his arms in a gesture of triumphant belligerence, the way he’d once seen Mussolini do in an old newsreel.
Sick Boy contents himself with checking out the other passengers. There are two auld wifies in front of him, who have been intermittently looking around with disapproving expressions and making clucking references to ‘the language’. They have, he notes, the auld wifie smell of pish and sweat, partially obscured by layers of stale talcum.
Opposite him sits an overweight couple in shell-suits. Shell-suited bastards are another breed apart, he caustically thinks. They should be fuckin exterminated. It surprised Sick Boy that the Beggar did not have a shell-suit in his wardrobe. Once they coined in the dough, he thinks he’ll treat the bastard to one, just for the crack. Additionally, he resolves to present Begbie with an American Pit-Bull pup. Even if Begbie neglected it, it wouldn’t go hungry with
the bairn in the house.
There was one rose amongst thorns on the bus, however. Sick Boy’s eyes cease their critical scrutiny of his fellow passengers when they focus on the streaked-blonde backpacker. She sits all by herself, in front of the shell-suited couple.
Renton feels full of mischief and pulls out the Benidorm lighter and starts burning Sick Boy’s ponytail. Hair crackles, and yet another unpleasant smell mingles with the rest at the back of the bus. Sick Boy, realising what is happening, springs round in his seat. — Fuck off! he snarls, thrashing at Renton’s now raised wrists. — Immature cunts! he hisses as the laughter of Begbie, Second Prize and Renton mocks him, ricocheting around the bus.
Renton’s intervention though, gives Sick Boy the excuse he scarcely needs to leave them and join the backpacker. He pulls off his Italians Do It Better t-shirt, exposing a wiry, tanned torso. Sick Boy’s mother is Italian, but he wears the t-shirt less to show pride in his origins, as to wind up the others at his pretension. He pulls down his bag and rummages through its contents. There is a Mandela Day shirt, which was politically sound and rock enough, but too mainstream, too sloganistic. Worse, it was dated. He felt that Mandela would prove to be just another tedious old cunt once everyone got used to him being out of the jail. He only gave Hibernian F.C. — European Campaigners a cursory glance before rejecting it out of hand. The Sandinistas were also passé now. He settled for a Fall t-shirt which at least had the virtue of being white and would show off his Corsican tan to its best effect. Pulling it on, he moved over and slid into the seat beside the woman.
— Excuse me. Sorry, I’m going to have to join you. My travelling companions’ behaviour is a touch immature for my taste.
Renton observes, with a mixture of admiration and distaste, the metamorphosis of Sick Boy from waster into this woman’s ideal man. Voice modulation and accent subtly change. An interested, earnest expression comes over his face as he fires seductively interrogative questions at his new companion. Renton winces as he hears Sick Boy say: — Yeah, I’m more of a jazz purist myself.
— Sick Boy’s cracked it, he observes, turning to Begbie.
— Ah’m fuckin pleased fir the cunt, Begbie says bitterly. — At least it fuckin keeps the moosey-faced cunt away fae us. Fuckin nondy cunt’s done fuck all but fuckin moan since we saw um . . . the cunt.
— Every cunt’s a wee bit tense, Franco. Thir’s a loat at stake. We did aw that speed the other night thair. Everybody’s bound tae be a wee bit para.
— Dinnae keep fuckin stickin up fir that cunt. Needs a fuckin lesson in manners that fuckin wide-o. Might soon be fuckin well gittin yin n aw. Disnae fuckin cost nowt tae huv manners.
Renton, realising that the discussion cannot be fruitfully advanced, settles down into his seat, letting the gear massage him; unravel the knots, and smooth out the creases. It was quality stuff alright.
Begbie’s bitterness towards Sick Boy is not so much fuelled by jealousy but resentment at his departure; he is missing sitting beside someone. He now has a big speed kick on. His mind flashes with insight after insight, which Begbie thinks are just too good not to share. He needs someone to talk at. Renton notes the danger signs. Behind him, Second Prize is snoring loudly. Begbie would get little from him.
Renton pulls the baseball cap down over his eyes, while simultaneously nudging Spud awake.
— Ye sleepin Rents? Begbie asks.
— Mmmmm . . . Renton murmurs.
— Spud?
— What? says Spud irritably.
It was a mistake. Begbie turns in the seat; resting on his knees, he overhangs Spud and starts to repeat an oft-told story.
— . . . so ah’m oan toap ay it, ken, cowpin it likes, gaun fuckin radge n it’s fuckin screamin likes n ah thinks fuck me, this dirty cow’s right fuckin intae it, likes but it pushes us oaf, ken n she’s bleedin ootay her fanny ken, like it’s fuckin rag week, n ah’m aboot tae say, that disnae bother me, specially no wi a fuckin root oan like ah hud, ah’m fuckin tellin ye. Anywey, it turns oot thit the cunt’s huvin a fuckin miscarriage thair n then.
— Yeah.
— Aye, n ah’ll fuckin tell ye something else n aw; did ah tell ye aboot the time whin me n Shaun picked up they two fuckin hounds in the Oblomov?
— Yeah . . . Spud moans weakly, his face feeling like a cathode-ray tube which is imploding in slow motion.
The coach swings into the service station. While it provides Spud with some much-needed respite, Second Prize is not happy. Sleep had only just taken him, but the harsh lights of the bus are switched on, cruelly ripping him from his comforting oblivion. He wakes disorientated, in an alcoholic stupor; bemused eyes unable to focus, ringing ears assaulted by a cacophony of indistinguishable voices, flapping dried-up mouth unable to shut. He instinctively reaches for a purple can of Tennent’s Super Lager, letting the sickly drink act as surrogate saliva.
They slouch across the motorway’s fly-over bridge, persecuted by the cold, as well as the tiredness and drugs in their bodies. The exception is Sick Boy, who waltzes confidently ahead of them with the backpacker.
In the garish Trust House Forte cafeteria, Begbie grabs Sick Boy by an arm and extracts him from the queue.
— Dinnae you fuckin rip oaf that burd. Wir no wantin the fuckin polis swarmin aw ower us for a few hundred quid ay some fuckin student’s holiday poppy. No whin wuv goat eighteen fuckin grand’s worth ay skag oan us.
— Ye think ah’m fuckin daft? Sick Boy snaps, outraged, but at the same time confessing to himself that Begbie has provided him with a timely reminder. He had been necking with the woman, but his bulging chameleon eyes were always frantically scanning; trying to work out where her money was stashed. The visit to the cafe had been his opportunity. Begbie was right however, this was no time for a move like that. You couldn’t always trust your instincts, Sick Boy reflected.
He tears himself away from Begbie with an injured pout, and rejoins his new girlfriend in the queue.
Sick Boy starts to lose interest in the woman after this. He is finding it hard to maintain an acceptable level of concentration on her excited tales of going to Spain for eight months, before taking up a place on a law degree course at Southampton University. He gets the address of the hotel in London she is staying at, noting with some distaste that it seems to be a cheap Kings Cross job, rather than a more salubrious place in the West End, which he’d enjoy hanging out in for a day or two. He was supremely confident that he’d get a shag out of this woman once they got the business with Andreas settled.
The bus eventually starts to roll through north London’s brickwork suburbs. Sick Boy looks out nostalgically as they pass the Swiss Cottage, wondering whether a woman he knew still worked behind the bar. Doubtlessly not, he reasons. Six months is a quite a while behind the bar of a London pub. Even so early in the morning, the bus is reduced to a crawl as it reaches central London, and it takes a depressingly long time to wind down to Victoria Bus station.
They disembark like pieces of broken crockery being poured out of a packing case. A debate develops about whether they should go down to the railway station and get a Victoria Line tube up to Finsbury Park, or jump a taxi. They decide that a taxi is a better bet than messing about through London with a load of smack.
They squeeze into the Hackney cab, telling the talkative driver that they are down for the Pogues gig, which will take place in a tent in Finsbury Park. It provided ideal cover, as they all planned to go to the concert, combining pleasure with business, before heading to Paris for a break. The cab almost backtracks the way the bus had come in, prior to stopping at Andreas’s hotel, which overlooks the park.
Andreas, who came from a London-Greek family, had inherited the hotel on the death of his father. Under the old man, the hotel had predominantly housed emergency homeless families. Local councils had the responsibility to find short-stay accommodation for people in such circumstances, and as the Finsbury Park district was sliced up between three London Boroughs, Hackney, Harringey and
Islington, business had been good. On taking over the hotel, however, Andreas saw that it could be even more lucrative as a knocking-shop for London businessmen. While he never really hit the top end of the market he aimed at, he provided a safe haven for a small number of prostitutes. Mid-ranking city punters admired his discretion and the cleanliness and safety of his establishment.
Sick Boy and Andreas had got to know each other through going out with the same woman, who had been mesmerised by the both of them. They hit it off instantly, and worked a few scams together, mainly petty insurance fiddles and bank-card frauds. On taking over the hotel, Andreas had started to distance himself from Sick Boy, deciding that he was now in a bigger league. However, Sick Boy had approached him about a batch of quality heroin he had got a hold of. Andreas was cursed with a dangerous fantasy, and a timeless one: namely that he could hang around with villains to boost his ego, without paying an attendant price. The price Andreas paid was getting Pete Gilbert together with the Edinburgh consortium.
Gilbert was a professional who had worked in drug-dealing for a long time. He’d buy and sell anything. For him, it was strictly business, and he refused to differentiate it from any other entrepreneurial activity. State intervention in the form of police and courts merely constituted another business risk. It was however, a risk worth taking, considering the supernormal profits. A classic middle-man, Gilbert was, by nature of his contacts and his venture capital, able to procure drugs, hold them, cut them and sell them to smaller distributors.
Straight away, Gilbert clocks the Scottish guys as small-time wasters who have stumbled on a big deal. He is impressed however, by the quality of their gear. He offers them £15,000, prepared to go as high as £17,000. They want £20,000, prepared to go as low as £18,000. The deal is clinched at £16,000. Gilbert will make £60,000 minimum once the gear is cut and distributed.
He finds it tiresome negotiating with a bunch of fucked-up losers from the wrong side of the border. He’d rather be dealing with the person who sold it to them. If their supplier was desperate enough to punt such good gear to this squad of fuck-ups, then he didn’t really understand the business. Gilbert could have turned him onto some real money.