Trainspotting - Irvine Welsh [137]
— 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.