Trainspotting - Irvine Welsh [8]
Ah sit oan the couch, beside but a bit away fae a gross bitch with a broken leg. Her plastered limb is propped up on the coffee table and there is a repulsive swell of white flesh between the dirty plaster and her peach coloured shorts. Her tits sit on top of an oversized Guinness pot, and her brown vesty top struggles tae constrain her white flab. Her greasy, peroxide locks have an inch of insipid grey-brown at their roots. She makes no attempt tae acknowledge ma presence but lets oot a horrendous and embarrassing donkey-like laugh at some inane remark Forrester makes, which I don’t catch, probably concerning my appearance. Forrester sits opposite me in a worn-out armchair, beefy-faced but thin bodied, almost bald at twenty-five. His hair loss over the last two years has been phenomenal, and ah wonder if he’s goat the virus. Doubt it somehow. They say only the good die young. Normally ah would make a bitchy comment, but at this moment in time ah would rather slag ma granny aboot her colostomy bag. Mikey is, after all, my man.
In the other chair next tae Mikey is an evil-looking bastard, whose eyes are on the bloated sow, or rather the unprofessionally rolled joint she is smoking. She takes an extravagantly theatrical toke, before passing it onto the evil-looking gadge. Ah’ve goat fuck all against dudes with dead insect eyes set deep in keen rodent faces. They are not all bad. It’s this boy’s clathes that gie him away, marking him oot as wide-o extraordinaire. He’s obviously been residing in one ay the Windsor group hotels; Saughton, Bar L, Perth, Peterhead, etc., and has apparently been there for some time. Dark blue flared troosers, black shoes, a mustard polo-neck wi blue bands at the collar and cuffs, and a green parka (in this fuckin weather!) draped ower the back ay the chair.
No intros are made, but that’s the prerogative of my baw-faced icon, Mike Forrester. He’s the man in the chair, and he certainly knows it. The bastard launches intae this spiel, talking incessantly, like a bairn trying tae stay up as late as possible. Mr Fashion, Johnny Saughton ah’ll call the cunt, sais nothing, but smiles enigmatically and occasionally rolls his eyes in mock ecstasy. If ye ever saw a predator’s face it wis Saughton’s. The Fat Sow, god she is grotesque, hee-haws and ah force oot the odd sycophantic chuckle at times ah gauge tae be roughly appropriate.
After listening tae this shite for a while, ma pain and nausea force me tae intervene. My non-verbal signals are contemptuously ignored, so ah steam in.
— Sorry tae interrupt ye thair mate, but ah need tae be pittin ma skates oan. Ye goat the gear thair?
The reaction is over the top, even by the standards ay the crappy game Forrester is playing.
— You shut yir fuckin mouth! Fuckin radge. Ah’ll fuckin tell you whin tae speak. Just shut yir fuckin erse. You dinnae like the company, you kin git tae fuck. End ay fuckin story.
— Nae offence mate . . . It’s aw tame capitulation oan ma part. After all, this man is a god tae me. Ah’d walk oan ma hands and knees through broken gless fir a thousand miles tae use the cunt’s shite as toothpaste and we baith know it. Ah am but a pawn in a game called ‘The Marketing Of Michael Forrester As A Hard Man’. To all those who know him, it’s a game based on ridiculously flawed concepts. Furthermore, it obviously aw being played fir Johnny Saughton’s benefit, but what the fuck, it’s Mike’s gig, and ah asked tae be dealt a shite hand when ah dialled his number.
Ah take some more crass humiliation for what seems like an eternity. Ah get through it nae bother though. Ah love nothing (except junk), ah hate nothing (except forces that prevent me getting any) and ah fear nothing (except not scoring). Ah also know that a shitein cunt like Forrester would never pit us through aw this bullshit if he intended holding out on me.
It gies us some satisfaction remembering why he hates us. Mike was once infatuated wi a woman who despised him. A woman ah subsequently shagged. It hadn’t meant a great deal tae either masel or the