Skagboys

by Irvine Welsh

  Emerging into some kind of consciousness in the hospital, she was assailed by a procession of solemn faces who explained that they’d got to her in time, told her how close it had been, and stressed the luck she’d enjoyed on this occasion. — Please don’t tell my dad, she repeatedly begged, when they’d sternly asked about contact details and a next of kin.

  — We need to inform somebody, a short, middle-aged nurse explained.

  All she could think to do was give them Alexander’s number.

  They stitched her up and gave her a pint and a half of blood. Alexander came round later, and took her home to the Pilrig flat the next day. He brought her Chinese food and spent the night on her couch. She was asleep in the morning when he checked on her before he went to work. As he left, he looked at the picture in his wallet of his two children. He and Tanya, they had to be there for them. But he came by to check on Alison that evening, telling her he’d signed her off on two weeks’ leave, informing her with a grim smile that he’d ignored her resignation request. — I didn’t get a formal letter.

  They’d sat up, her on the couch, him in the armchair, and started talking about their own bereavement experiences. Alexander was conscious that his had been more limited than hers. — Tanya’s father died three years ago. Massive coronary. She’s been really angry since; principally, it seems, with me. But what can I do? I didn’t kill him. It’s not my fault.

  — It’s no hers either.

  Alexander thought about this. — No, it isn’t, he conceded, — and neither is it your fault that your mum died. So you shouldn’t be punishing yourself as if it was.

  It was then she looked at him, in mounting anxiety, letting him see her cry for the first time ever. It didn’t make him feel the way he’d envisaged it would; big, manly and protective. Her face was horribly distorted, and he shared her wretched pain, and powerlessness at being unable to make it go away. — I never wanted to die, Alison said, looking really scared, then tightly shutting her eyes, as if confronting the possibility. — No for one second … The doctor telt us if the arterial cut had been a millimetre deeper, I’d probably have bled tae death in a few minutes. I just wanted tae take the pressure off …

  — You can’t get rid of the pressure. Nobody can. It’s horrible, but all we can do is try and learn to carry its burden.

  She glanced miserably at him when he said that. She was thankful he’d been there for her, but was relieved when he was getting ready to go. Hoping he wouldn’t come back. He seemed to understand. — I really wish you well, Alison, he said to her.

  When he left, she was content to lie on the couch in the dark, still able to smell his aftershave in the room, to feel the soft burn on the back of her hand where he’d gently touched her. Then Alison fell into a bruising sleep, ignoring the calls racking up on her answer machine. At some point she rose, eventually pulling herself through to the bedroom, and slipping under the duvet. She slumbered in some kind of peace till midday, rising and feeling stronger. Then she heated up a tin of soup, ate, put on a long-sleeved cardigan and headed down Leith Walk to visit her father.

  The Rehab Diaries

  Day 1

  Stoned like a slug after Johnny’s hit. I knew it would be my last for a while and it started to leave my system almost as soon as I’d gained an awareness of how good I was feeling. Within a few hours I was writhing in discomfort. Lay most of the day on the wee bed, trying to catch my breath, sweating like a backshift hooker, as the vigour boiled out of my blood.

  The narrow windows, which you can’t open, are surrounded by big, forbidding trees that overhang the walled back garden, shutting out most of the light. The building seems airless; the only sound the disturbing moans of some poor fucker from an adjacent room. I’m evidently not the only cunt in detox.

  As the leaden dusk takes hold, bats dance outside in a small illuminated patch the trees can’t get at. I go from bed to window to bed, pacing like a madman but too scared to leave this room.

  Day 2

  FUCK THEM ALL.

  Day 5

  They’ve left this big, ring-bound, loose-leaf diary on the desk, but I’ve been too fucked to write anything the last couple of days. There have been times when I’ve really wanted to die, the pain and misery of withdrawal so fucking intense and incessant. They’ve given me some painkillers, which are probably useless placebo shite. You sense they want you to experience the torment of it all.

  If I’d had the means and the energy to dispatch myself yesterday, I’d have been seriously tempted. For the last few days I’ve been feeling like I could drown in my own sweat. My fucking bones … it’s as if I’m inside a car that’s being crushed in a breaker’s yard. It’s just so fucking relentless. And I think about Nicksy and Keezbo, and how I’d have jumped in their circumstances if I was feeling like this. Why the fuck put up with it?

  I NEED A FUCKING FIX.

  I need it bad.

  I only leave my room for the toilet, or for breakfast, the one time detoxers are required to join the others. I take my tea with five sugars, and Coco Pops and milk, scranning it back as quick as I can. It’s about all I can eat here; I usually have the same for lunch and dinner, which I always take in my room.

  Last night, or the night before, I got up for a piss. There’s a couple of thin-glowing night lights in the corridor, at skirting level, and I very near shat myself as this uplit, sweating beast came lumbering towards me. Some part of my brain told me to just keep walking, and the monster looked briefly at me, mumbling something as we passed each other. I said, ‘Awright?’ and carried on. When I came out of the bogs the thing had thankfully gone. I don’t know if this was a dream or hallucination.

  Day 6

  Woken from a jaggy, nightmare-stuffed sleep by an aggressive storm of birdsong. I force myself to rise. Can barely look in the mirror. I’ve been way too uncomfortable to try and shave and I’ve grown a thin, scraggy ginger beard which looks redder and thicker than it is, cause of the spots on my face. The yellowheads are repulsive enough, but it’s two big boil-like fuckers on my cheek and forehead that cause the distress. They throb under the surface of my skin like a Peter Hook bassline, hurting my face every time I try to move it. But my eyes provide the real shock; they seem pushed right back into my skull sockets, a deathly, defeated look to them.

  The ‘monster’ the other night was that big biker gadgie, Seeker. Cunt doesn’t look any better in the daylight.

  Sick Boy’s been chatting up that hostile Molly lassie. ‘Love’s the most dangerous drug of all,’ he solemnly declared, eyes full of seriousness. Of course, she’s falling for this garbage, nodding away. I was too fucked to enjoy his shite and Spud was rabbiting in my ear, about how detox isn’t so bad. ‘Ah jist keep thinkin thit it’s barry somebody cares but, Mark.’

  As I left the table I heard some smirking cunt, probably Swanney or Sick Boy, referring to me as Catweazle, after the crazed jakey on telly. With my straggly hair and beard and stooping gait, I sense that’s exactly how I look. I’m happy and relieved to get back to my room.

  Get assessed again by that Dr Forbes, who came in from the community drug clinic. He basically asked the same shite questions as before. Couldn’t stop looking at his head; it’s too big for his body, the Gerry Anderson puppet look.

  More Coco Pops for dinner, before retiring to my suite. Happy days. Len comes in and talks for a wee bit, mainly about music. We have a half-hearted Beefheart discussion on the merits of Clear Spot (me — a barry record) versus Trout Mask Replica (him – a shite album). He tells me again aboot the guitar in the recky room.

  Day 8

  At breakfast I had a wee bit of porridge. With salt. Skinny-Specky made some comment about salt in porridge (she took sugar in hers) and we playfully derided her English habits. She insisted that she was Scottish, but Ted and Skreel told her that posh Scots were, to all intents and purposes, the same as the English. I mentioned that there were actually working-class people in England, and social class supplanted nationali
ty as the parameters of our discussion. (Fuck sake – check the student cunt here!)

  The Tom gadgie listened intently, as did Seeker, and a new, dark-heided, pointy-jawed, blue-eyed lassie who was introduced by Skinny-Specky as ‘Audrey, from Glenrothes’, as if she was a contestant on the Generation Game.

  NOICE TA SEE YA, TA SEE YA, NOICE!

  Audrey has replaced Greg ‘Roy’ Castle, who was the first dropout of the rehab programme. Apparently, he couldn’t handle it and opted instead for residency courtesy of Her Majesty at Saughton. Audrey gave us a fretful nod, then sat in silence biting her nails. I felt for her, just shakily emerging from the detox cocoon of her room, the only lassie but one in the group. She looked even worse than I felt, rattling like a bairn’s toy.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll be very happy here, Audrey,’ Swanney said, sarcasm trickling from his tongue, then added, ‘You don’t have to be addicted to hard drugs to stay here, but it helps!’

  Day 9

  I take in another dull, fearsome morning. Outside, the white of the daisies on the dewy lawn, and crocuses, yellow, white and purple, spreading like a wave along the bottom of the stone wall. It’s not so bad.

  I’m sitting here, writing this shite and wondering why – probably because there’s fuck all else to do. The folders we’ve been issued have two sections; a diary, with one page for each of this forty-five-day programme, and appendices where there’s what they refer to as a ‘journal’. Skinny-Specky explained that this is for ‘developing any themes from the diaries that we may want to explore further’. Apparently the diaries are for our eyes only, and we can put anything into them. The journals we can elect to read out in the forthcoming group sessions. But nobody is going to write a fucking thing (at least not anything important); there are no locks on the doors here and nothing is secure. The fuckers that run this facility haven’t got a clue as to what the cunts in here are like. Keep a private diary when Sick Boy and Swanney are lurking about? Aye, right!

  All I can think of is: why the fuck are we here? How the fuck did I get here?

  Day 12

  WHAT THE FUCK DO THESE CUNTS WANT FROM US?

  Day 13

  ‘Honesty,’ skinny-Specky says, when I raise the issue at breakfast. A runny egg and toasty sodjirs. ‘You’ll understand more when you join the process review group.’

  Well, that’s me telt. I must have flashed a soor pus as she adds, ‘That’s what the diaries and journals are all about.’

  But when I get back to my room, I immediately start scribbling. If every other fucker’s writing nothing (as seems to be the consensus) then I’m going to get everything down.

  Skinny-Specky pops round and tells me she’d like me to join the meditation group. I agree, just basically to spend more time in her presence. We’re sitting cross-legged on the flair, as she puts a tape on and takes position in front of us. I’m ogling her small breasts through her tight, elasticated black top, awed by the way she stretches out, catlike, arching her back before getting into position. She gives us breathing exercises, and instructions to tense and then relax various muscle groups in our bodies. We should shut our eyes, but I’m watching her, then I see that Johnny has his lamps trained in the same direction. He gives me a collusive sex–fiend wink, so I close my eyes and breeeeaaaattthhhhheeee …

  After the session, I chat to her for a bit. She’s telling me that by learning to relax our muscles, we can therefore subsequently reduce agitation levels. I don’t trust any theory that inverts cause and effect, and show little enthusiasm for what she’s saying, but when I get to my room, I try the exercises again.

  Keezbo has left us. Spud tells me after lunch, as I’m sitting reading Joyce, looking out the window. The Fat Fort Felly was due to finish detox, but they’ve taken him to the hospital, due to supposed ‘medication complications’, whatever the fuck that means. They say he’ll be rejoining us soon. Fat Jambo cunt’s probably already sitting in the Village Inn with a cold pint of lager now that he’s chemical-free.

  ‘Is that a barry book, Mark?’ Spud asks, looking like he’s formulating something in one of the more intriguing chambers of that labyrinth inside his skull.

  ‘Aye.’

  Then he’s off, and I’m back at the desk. What to write about? Our feelings, says Skinny-Specky. How do I feel? Well, I feel horny as fuck. I can tell that I’m detoxing, not just because I’m by turn depressed and miserable, then anxious and excitable, but because the only respite is my increasing carnal obsessions. I think about Lesley in the bed at Sully’s at New Year, wishing I’d licked her oot, had rode my cock between her heavy tits or even got a gam off of her. It now seems like an opportunity missed and I feel foolish and weak, eaten up with self-reproach – another chance blown. YOU CUNT YOU CUNT YOU CUNT YOU CUNT YOU CUNT.

  Later in the afternoon I masturbated about Joanne Dunsmuir.

  Other than Joyce and jerking I keep quiet, detoxing, doing my time.

  Day 14

  Reading all this back, I realise that by repeating the dialogues I’ve heard, it’s reading more like a novel or series of stories than a diary. And that suits me. I couldn’t ever be arsed writing a conventional diary.

  Attended my first process review group. It was fucking mental! People got wired right into each other, no punches pulled; a stand-up shouting match between Johnny Swan and that Molly lassie, forcing intervention from Tom and Skinny-Specky. Too much for me in this state, and I opted to lunch in the privacy of my room, some bland steamed fish which I shouldn’t eat as I’m a veggie.

  This evening I shakily joined them all in the recky room. The pool table has its yellow striped ball missing. I suspect Johnny Swan, who ran an appreciative hand over my fresh-cropped skull, had maliciously slung it ower the garden wall, as he’s the only one who doesn’t play. Sick Boy and Swanney were deep in conspiracy, talking aboot Alison. Sick Boy was going, ‘Lozinska the great feminist. How does sucking cock for heroin advance the cause ay women’s liberation? Please explain. It was all because I was fucking somebody else as well as her; aw the spiteful bitch wis daein was trying tae keep us away fae the tightest pussy I’ve ever had. Clamps ye like a vice.’

  ‘Quality fanny,’ Johnny conceded.

  Fuck knows who they were talking about, but she must be something special for them to agree. However, I noticed Spud listening in, then cringing and turning away, wilting like a hamster in a microwave.

  I headed back to my room, planning to have another chug about Joanne Dunsmuir.

  Joanne Dunsmuir.

  What’s the fascination? She isn’t even particularly good-looking and certainly doesn’t have an agreeable personality, but I wank much more about her than I do about anybody else.

  I’m scene-setting and fluffing up nicely. In my mind’s eye Joanne’s lying on her stomach and I’m pulling up her brown-and-black-checked skirt and hauling down her shiny black panties to expose a tight, curvy pair of buttocks.

  That was as far as I got, as there was a knock and Spud burst in. He was in some distress, failing to notice that my hands were inside my tracky bottoms. He sat on the small basket chair fretting, sucking in his bottom lip. ‘People are sayin things … this place is a pure nightmare … ah feel shite, Mark, pure shite, n people are talkin rubbish.’

  I told him not to worry, that it was only Sick Boy and Swanney trying to show off. That it was all bullshit.

  ‘But how does he huv tae say they things aboot Alison? Alison’s a barry lassie!’

  ‘Because he’s a fucked-up arsehole, gadgie. We all are. But hopefully we’re getting better. Forget aw the sexist crap, it’s just them aw posturing tae each other. Aw these radges might talk like rapists among themselves, but they’ll aw grow intae hen-pecked husbands who’ll worry like fuck aboot their daughters. It’s just a pose.’

  He looked at me in melancholy accusation, like a bairn who’s been told that Santa Claus doesnae exist. He kept glancing fae me tae the flair n back, as if building up to say something, then he let fly. ‘You n Mat
ty … you youse stole that Cat Protection League money! Off of Offay Mrs Rylance! Out of the shop Ootay the shoap!’

  FUCK THAT.

  ‘We certainly did. That’s how we got here, for some poxy cash. When you think of the bother we had opening it. ‘We certainly did. That’s how I wound up here, for a few fuckin bob in a gantin plastic collection boax. The bother we had openin it … that’s what landed us in the fuckin cells! Some troll makin an example ay druggies! A poxy collection tin!’

  ‘Well, ye shouldnae huv done that, Mark,’ Spud bleated, ‘no tae auld Mrs Rylance, no tae the cats …’ Cause it’s no likesay stealin oot ay shoaps, it’s a charity tin likesay, an auld woman, whae’s daein her best fir abandoned animals. Animal charity, likesay.’

  ‘Point taken, buddy, point taken,’ I waved a hand in emphasis. ‘When ah strike it rich, ah’ll write the CPL and Lothian Cat Rescue a big cheque.’

  ‘A cheque …’ he parroted blankly, the notion seeming to calm him down, though our feline pals will be the last cunts to see any dosh I ever come into TAE SEE ANY DOSH AH EVER COME INTAE. (That is more like how I sound in my head heid. Sometimes. Mair like. Sometimes. Why try tae sound different? Why the fuck be the same as every other cunt? Ah mean, whae’s fuckin interest does it serve?)

  So ah tells Spud, ‘See, ma idea is tae get clean, then get the habit manageable. Never go ower, say, two or threeish grams a week. Make that a hard n fast rule. Stey at the point where ye git the buzz, but if thaire’s a drought, the withdrawal’s fuckin mild n ye can ride it oot oan painkillers n Vallies, till it’s biz as usual. It’s science, Danny. Or maths. Everything has an optimum point. Ah jist goat far too reckless and went past mine.’

  ‘That new lassie that’s came in, that Audrey; she seems a nice lassie, ken? Pure sat next tae me at breakfast,’ he went in that shy primary school qwally way he sometimes goes when manto flutter oantae the scene. ‘She doesnae say much, ken, so ah just looks at her n goes, “Ye dinnae need tae say nowt, but if ye need tae talk, likesay in private, ah’m here, ken.” She jist nods.’