Trainspotting - Irvine Welsh [60]
— Well, she’s more a friend of a friend. You know Lisa?
She nodded. Renton continued, warming to his lies, finding the comforting rhythm of deceit.
— Well, this is actually a wee bit embarrassing. It wis ma birthday yesterday, and ah must confess ah got pretty drunk. Ah managed tae lose ma flat keys and ma flatmate’s in Greece oan holiday. That wis me snookered. I could have just went home and forced the door, but the state ah wis in, ah just couldnae think straight. Ah would probably have got arrested for breaking intae ma own flat! Fortunately, ah met Dianne, who was kind enough to let me sleep on the couch. You’re her flatmate, right?
— Oh . . . well, in a way, she laughed strangely, as he struggled to find out the score. Something was not right.
The man came and joined them. He nodded curtly at Renton, who smiled weakly back.
— This is Mark, the woman told him.
— Awright, the guy said, noncommittally.
Renton thought that they looked about his age, perhaps a bit older, but he was hopeless with ages. Dianne was obviously a bit younger that the lot of them. Perhaps, he allowed himself to speculate, they had some perverse parental feelings for her. He had noted that with older people. They often try to control younger, more popular and vivacious people; usually due to the fact that they are jealous of the qualities the younger people have and they lack. These inadequacies are disguised with a benign, protective attitude. He could sense this in them, and felt a growing hostility towards them.
Then Renton was hit by a wave of shock which threatened to knock him incoherent. A girl came into the room. As he watched her, a coldness came over him. She was the double of Dianne, but this girl looked barely secondary school age.
It took him a few seconds to realise that it was Dianne. Renton instantly knew why women, when referring to the removal of their makeup, often say that they are ‘taking their faces off’. Dianne seemed about ten years old. She saw the shock on his face.
He looked at the other couple. Their attitude to Dianne was parental, precisely because they were her parents. Even through his anxiety, Renton still felt such a fool for not seeing it sooner. Dianne was so much like her mother.
They sat down to breakfast with a bemused Renton being gently cross-examined by Dianne’s parents.
— So what is it you do, Mark? the mother asked him.
What he did, at least work-wise, was nothing. He was in a syndicate which operated a giro fraud system, and he claimed benefit at five different addresses, one each in Edinburgh, Livingston and Glasgow, and two in London, at Shepherd’s Bush and Hackney. Defrauding the Government in such a way always made Renton feel virtuous, and it was difficult to remain discreet about his achievements. He knew he had to though, as sanctimonious, self-righteous, nosey bastards were everywhere, just waiting to tip off the authorities. Renton felt that he deserved this money, as the management skills employed to maintain such a state of affairs were fairly extensive, especially for someone struggling to control a heroin habit. He had to sign on in different parts of the country, liaise with others in the syndicate at the giro-drop addresses, hitch down at short notice to interviews in London on a phone tip-off from Tony, Caroline or Nicksy. His Shepherd’s Bush giro was in doubt now, because he had declined the exciting career opportunity to work in the Burger King in Notting Hill Gate.
— Ah’m a curator at the museums section of the District Council’s Recreation Department. Ah work wi the social history collection, based mainly at the People’s Story in the High Street, Renton lied, delving into his portfolio of bogus employment identities.
They looked impressed, if slightly baffled, which was just the reaction he’d hoped for. Encouraged, he attempted to score further Brownie points by projecting himself as the modest type who didn’t take himself seriously, and self-deprecatingly added: — Ah rake around in people’s rubbish for things that’ve been discarded,