Trainspotting - Irvine Welsh [115]
— Awright doll! Ali shouts, in a mock workie’s voice.
— Get ’em off! Veronica laughs.
— Ah’ve fuckin shagged it. No a bad fuckin ride as ah remember. Bit oan the fuckin smaw side likes! ah sais, pointing at him, impersonating Franco’s voice. Frank Begbie, every woman’s dream, I don’t think, has been getting well slagged by me and Ali.
He takes it well though, poor Mark, ah’ll say that for him. Just shakes his heid n laughs.
— Ah’ve obviously called at an inconvenient time. Ah’ll gie ye a bell the morn, he sais tae me.
— Aw . . . perr Mark . . . wir just havin a woman’s crack . . . ye ken the score . . . Ali sais, guiltily. Ah laugh oot loud at what she said.
— Which woman’s crack are we havin? ah sais. We’re all fallin about laughing wildly. Ali n me maybe should’ve been born men, wi see sex in everything. Especially when wir stoned.
— It’s awright. See yis, he turns n leaves, giein me a wink.
— I suppose some of them are okay, Jane sais, eftir we’ve composed oorselves.
— Aye, when they’re in the fucking minority thir okay, ah sais, wondering where the edge in ma voice had come fae, then no want in tae wonder too much.
The Elusive Mr Hunt
Kelly is working behind the bar at a punter’s pub in the South Side. She is kept busy, as it is a popular shop. It is particularly mobbed out this Saturday afternoon when Renton, Spud and Gav call in for a drink.
Sick Boy, positioned at the phone in another pub over the road, calls the bar.
— Be wi ye in a minute Mark, Kelly says, as Renton goes up to get the drinks in. She picks up the ringing phone. — Rutherford’s Bar, she sings.
— Hi, says Sick Boy, disguising his voice, Malcolm Rifkind merchant-school style. — Is there a Mark Hunt in the bar?
— Thir’s a Mark Renton, Kelly tells him. Sick Boy thinks for a second that he’s been rumbled. However, he carries on.
— No, it’s Mark Hunt I’m looking for, the plummy voice stresses.
— MARK HUNT! Kelly shouts across the bar. The drinkers, who are almost exclusively male, look around at her; faces breaking into smiles. — ANYBODY SEEN MARK HUNT? Some guys at the bar collapse into loud laughter.
— Naw, but ah’d like tae! one says.
Kelly still doesn’t catch on. With a puzzled expression at the reaction she is getting, she says: — This guy on the phone wis after Mark Hunt . . . then her voice tails off, her eyes widen and she puts her hand to her mouth, understanding at last.
— He’s no the only one, Renton smiles, as Sick Boy comes into the pub.
They practically have to hold each other up, as they are so overwhelmed with laughter.
Kelly throws the half-empty contents of a water jug at them, but they scarcely notice. While it’s all a laugh to them, she feels humiliated. She feels bad about feeling bad, about not being able to take a joke.
Until she realises that it’s not the joke that bothers her, but the men in the bar’s reaction to it. Behind the bar, she feels like a caged animal in a zoo who has done something amusing. She watches their faces, distorted into a red, gaping, gloating commonality. The joke is on the woman again, she thinks, the silly wee lassie behind the bar.
Renton looks at her and sees her pain and anger. It cuts him up. It confuses him. Kelly has a great sense of humour. What’s wrong with her? The knee-jerk thought: Wrong time of the month is forming in his head when he looks about and picks up the intonations of the laughter around the bar. It’s not funny laughter.
This is lynch mob laughter.
How was ah tae know, he thinks. How the fuck was ah tae know?
Easy Money for the Professionals
It wis a piece ay pish, a total piece ay pish, but likesay, Begbie’s so fuckin uncool man; ah’m tellin ye, likes.
— Say fuckin nowt tae nae cunt, mind. Nowt tae nae fucker, he sais tae us.
— Eh, likesay, readin ye loud n clear man, likesay, crystal clear. Chill oot Franco man, chill oot. We cracked the gig likesay, ken.
— Aye, but fuckin nowt tae nae cunt. No even fuckin Rents n that. Mind.
There’s nae reasoning wi some cats. You say ‘reason’, they mew ‘treason’.