Trainspotting - Irvine Welsh [109]
It is 5.06 a.m. and the hostelry’s yellow lights are on, a haven in the dark, wet and lifeless streets. It had been, Spud reflects, a few days since he’d seen the light. They were like vampires, living a largely nocturnal existence, completely out of synchronisation with most of the other people who inhabited the tenements and lived by a rota of sleep and work. It was good to be different.
Despite the fact that its doors have only been open for a few minutes, the pub is busy. Inside, there is a long formica-topped bar with several pumps and fonts. Battered tables in the same formica style stand shakily on dirty lino. Behind the bar towers an incongruously grandiose finely-carved wooden gantry. Sickly yellow light from the shadeless bulbs bounces harshly off the nicotine-stained walls.
The pub contains bona fide shift workers from the brewery and the hospital, and this is as it should be, given the avowed purpose of the early licence. There is also a smattering, however, of the more desperate: those who are there because they need to be.
The group entering the pub are also driven by need. The need for more alcohol to maintain the high, or to regain it, and fight off the onset of grim, depressive hangovers. They are also drawn by a greater need, the need to belong to each other, to hold on to whatever force has fused them together during the last few days of partying.
Their entry to the pub is observed by an indeterminately old drunkard who is propped up against the bar. The man’s face has been destroyed by the consumption of cheap spirits and overexposure to the frozen wind blasting cruelly from the North Sea. It seems as if every blood vessel in it has ruptured under the skin, leaving it resembling the undercooked square sausages served up in the local cafes. His eyes are a contrasting cool blue, although the whites of them are the identical colour of the pub walls. His face strains in vague recognition as the noisy group move up to the bar. One of the young men, perhaps more than one, he sardonically thinks, is his son. He had been responsible for bringing quite a few of them into the world at one time, when a certain type of woman found him attractive. That was before the drink had destroyed his appearance and distorted the output of his cruel, sharp tongue to an incomprehensible growl. He looks at the young man in question and considers saying something, before deciding that he has nothing to say to him. He never had. The young man doesn’t even see him, his attention focused on getting in the drinks. The old drunkard sees that the young man enjoys his company and his drink. He remembers when he himself was in that position. The enjoyment and the company faded away, but the drink didn’t. In fact, it expanded to fill the gap left by their departure.
The last thing Spud wants is another pint. Prior to their departure he had examined his face in the bathroom mirror back in Dawsy’s flat. It was pale, yet marked with blotches, with heavy, hooded eyelids attempting to draw the shutters on reality. This face was topped by sticking-up tufts of sandy hair. It might be an idea, he considers, to have a tomato juice for his aching guts, or a fresh orange and lemonade to combat his dehydration, before drinking alcohol again.
The hopelessness of the situation is confirmed when he mildly accepts the pint of lager Frank Begbie, first to the bar, had got up.
— Cheers, Franco.
— Guinness fir me Franco, Renton requests. He has just returned from London. He feels as good to be back as he did to get away in the first place.
— The Guinness is shite in here, Gav Temperley tells him.
— Still though.
Dawsy is raising his eyebrows and singing at the barmaid.
— Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’re a beautiful lover.
They’d had a crappest song competition, and Dawsy hadn’t stopped singing his winning entry.
— Shut the fuck up, Dawsy. Alison nudges him in the ribs. — Ye want tae git us flung oot?
The barmaid is ignoring him anyway. He turns to