Trainspotting - Irvine Welsh [107]
I merrily sang until Venter’s feeble resistance subsided.
Keeping the pillow firmly over his face, I pulled a Penthouse magazine off his locker. The bastard would have been too weak to even turn the pages, let alone raise a wank. However, his homophobia was so strong that he’d probably kept it on prominent display to make some absurd statement about his sexuality. Rotting away, and his greatest concern is that nobody thinks he’s a buftie. I set the magazine on the pillow and thumbed through it in a leisurely manner before taking Venters’s pulse. Nothing. He’d checked out. More importantly, he’d done it in a state of tortured, agonised, misery.
Taking the pillow off the corpse, I pulled its ugly frail head forward, then let it fall back. For a few moments I contemplated what I saw before me. The eyes were open, as was the mouth. It looked stupid, a sick caricature of a human being. I suppose that’s what corpses are. Mind you, Venters always was.
My searing scorn quickly gave way to a surge of sadness. I couldn’t quite determine why that should have happened. I looked away from the body. After sitting for another couple of minutes, I went to tell the nurse that Venters had left the stadium.
I attended Venters’s funeral at Seafield Crematorium with Frances. It was an emotional time for her, and I felt obliged to lend support. It was never an event destined to break any attendance records. His mother and sister showed up, as did Tom, with a couple of punters from ‘HIV and Positive’.
The minister could find little decent to say about Venters and, to his credit, he didn’t bullshit. It was a short and sweet performance. Alan had made many mistakes in his life, he said. Nobody was contradicting him. Alan would, like all of us, be judged by God, who would grant him salvation. It is an interesting notion, but I feel that the gaffer in the sky has a fair bit of graft ahead of him if that bastard’s checked in up there. If he has, I think I’ll take my chances in the other place, thank you very much.
Outside, I checked out the wreaths. Venters only had one. ‘Alan. Love Mum and Sylvia.’ To my knowledge they had never visited him in the hospice. Very wise of them. Some people are easier to love when you don’t have to be around them. I pumped the hands of Tom and the others, then took Fran and Kev for some de luxe ice-cream at Lucas in Musselburgh.
Obviously, I had deceived Venters about the things I did to Kevin. Unlike him, I’m not a fuckin animal. I’m far from proud about what I did do. I took great risks with the bairn’s well being. Working in a hospital operating theatre, I know all about the crucial role of the anaesthetist. They’re the punters that keep you alive, not sadistic fuck-pigs like Howison. After the jab puts you under, you’re kept unconscious by the anaesthetic and put onto a life-support system. All your vital signs are monitored in highly controlled conditions. They take care.
Chloroform is much more of a blunt instrument, and very dangerous. I still shudder when I think of the risk I took with the wee man. Thankfully, Kevin woke up, with only a sore head and some bad dreams as a remnant of his trip to the kitchen.
The joke shop and Humbrol enamel paints provided the wounds. I worked wonders with Fran’s makeup and talc for Kev’s death mask. My greatest coup, though, was the three plastic pint bags of blood I took from the fridge in the path lab at the hospital. I got paranoid when that fucker Howison gave me the evil eye as I walked down the corridor past him. He always does though. I think it’s because I once addressed him as ‘Doctor’ instead of ‘Mister’. He’s a funny cunt. Most surgeons are. You’d have to be to do that job. Like Tom’s job, I suppose.
Putting Kevin under turned out to be easy. The biggest problem I had was setting up and dismantling the entire scene inside half an hour. The most difficult part involved cleaning him up before getting him back to bed. I