Trainspotting - Irvine Welsh [56]
— Dinnae be sae fuckin silly, Mark, she told him, nippy with the hormonal imbalance caused by the change in life.
The woman is called Dianne. Renton thinks that he thinks she is beautiful. Qualification is necessary, as his past experiences have taught him never to quite trust his judgement when there are chemicals racing around in his body and brain. The conversation turns to music. Dianne informs Renton that she likes the Simple Minds and they have their first mild argument. Renton does not like the Simple Minds.
— The Simple Minds huv been pure shite since they jumped on the committed, passion-rock bandwagon of U2. Ah’ve never trusted them since they left their pomp-rock roots and started aw this patently insincere political-wi-a-very-small-p stuff. Ah loved the early stuff, but ever since New Gold Dream thuv been garbage. Aw this Mandela stuff is embarrassing puke, he rants.
Dianne tells him that she believes that they are genuine in their support of Mandela and the movement towards a multiracial South Africa.
Renton shakes his head briskly, wanting to be cool, but hopelessly wound up by the amphetamine and her contention. — Ah’ve goat auld NME’s gaun back tae 1979, well ah did huv but ah flung thum oot a few years back, and ah can recall interviews when Kerr slags off the political commitment by other bands, n sais that the Minds are just intae the music, man.
— People can change, Dianne counters.
Renton is a little bit taken aback by the purity and simplicity of this statement. It makes him admire her even more. He just shrugs his shoulders and concedes the point, although his mind is racing with the notion that Kerr has always been one step behind his guru, Peter Gabriel and that since Live Aid, it’s become fashionable for rock stars to want to be seen as nice guys. However, he keeps this to himself and resolves to try to be less dogmatic about his views on music in the future. In the larger scheme of things, he’s thinking, it doesn’t matter a fuck.
After a while, Dianne and her pal go to the bogs to discuss and assess Renton and Spud. Dianne can’t make her mind up about Renton. She thinks he’s a bit of an arsehole, but the place is full of them and he seems a bit different. Not different enough to go overboard about though. But it was getting late . . .
Spud turns and says something to Renton, who can’t hear him above a song by The Farm, which, Renton considers, like all their songs, is only listenable if you’re E’d out of your box, and if you’re E’d out of your box it would be a waste listening to The Farm, you’d be better off at some rave freaking out to heavy techno-sounds. Even if he could have heard Spud, his brain is now too fucked to respond, taking a well-earned rest from holding itself together to talk to Dianne.
Renton then starts talking personal shite to a guy from Liverpool who’s up on holiday, just because the guy’s accent and bearing remind of his mate Davo. After a while, he realises that the guy is nothing like Davo and that he was wrong to disclose to him such intimacies. He tries to get back to the bar, then loses Spud, and realises that he’s well and truly out of it. Dianne becomes just a memory, a vague feeling of intent behind his drug stupor.
He goes outside to get some air and sees Dianne about to enter a taxi on her own. He wonders with a jealous anguish if this means that Spud’s bagged off with her mate? The possibility of being the only one not to bag off horrifies him, and sheer desperation propels him unself-consciously towards her.
— Dianne. Mind if ah share yir Joe Baxi?
Dianne looks doubtful. — Ah go to Forrester Park.
— Barry. Ah’m headed in that direction masel, Renton lied, then told himself: Well, ah am now.
They talked in the taxi. Dianne had had an argument