by Irvine Welsh
— You’re a really nice person, Davie, dae ye ken that? she said. If she knew what I was going to do, she wouldn’t have held such a lofty opinion. It made me feel bad, but whenever I thought of Venters, the feeling evaporated. I would go through with it alright.
I timed my courtship of Frances to coincide with Venter’s decline into serious illness and his attendant incapacity in the hospice. A number of illnesses were in the frame to finish Venters, the leader of the field being pneumonia. Venters, in common with a lot of HIV-infected punters who take the junk route, escaped the horrible skin cancers more prevalent amongst gays. The main rival to his pneumonia was the prolific thrush which went into his throat and stomach. Thrush was not the first thing to want to choke the living shit out of the bastard, but it could be the last unless I moved quickly. His decline was very rapid, at one stage too rapid for my liking. I thought that the cunt would cash in his chips before I could execute my plan.
My opportunity came, in the event, at exactly the right time; in the end it was probably fifty-fifty luck and planning. Venters was struggling, no more than a wrinkled parcel of skin and bone. The doctor had said: any day now.
I had got Frances to trust me with the babysitting. I encouraged her to get out with her friends. She was planning to go out for a curry on the Saturday night, leaving me alone in her flat with the kid. I would take the opportunity presented to me. On the Wednesday before the big day, I decided to visit my parents. I had thought about telling them of my medical condition, and knew it would probably be my last visit.
My parents’ home was a flat in Oxgangs. The place had always seemed so modem to me when I was a kid. Now it looked strange, a shantytown relic of a bygone era. The auld girl answered the door. For a second she looked tentative. Then she realised it was me and not my younger brother, and therefore the purse could be kept in mothballs. She welcomed me, her enthusiasm generated by relief. — Hu-low stranger, she sang, ushering me in with haste.
I noted the reason for the hurry, Coronation Street was on. Mike Baldwin had apparently reached a point where he had to confront live-in-lover Alma Sedgewick and tell her that he was really into rich widow Jackie Ingram. Mike couldn’t help it. He was a prisoner of love, a force external to him, which compelled him to behave the way he did. I could, as Tom would have put it, empathise. I was a prisoner of hate, a force which was an equally demanding taskmaster. I sat down on the couch.
— Hello stranger, ma old man repeated, not looking at me from behind his Evening News. — What have you been up tae then? he asked wearily.
— Nuthin’ much.
Nothing really pater. Oh, did I mention I’m antibody positive? It’s very fashionable now, you know. One simply must have a damaged immune system these days.
— Two million Chinkies. Two million ay the buggers. That’s whit we’re gaunnae huv ower here whin Hong Kong goes back tae China. He let out a long exhalation of breath. — Two million Wee Willie Winkies, he mused.
I said nothing, refusing to rise to the bait. Ever since I’d gone to university, jacking in what my parents habitually described as ‘a good trade’, the auld man had cast himself as hard-nosed reactionary to my student revolutionary. At first it had been a joke, but with the passing years I grew out of my role as he began to embrace his more firmly.
— You’re a fascist. It’s all to do with inadequate penis size, I told him cheerfully. Coronation Street’s vice-like grip on my Ma’s psyche was broken briefly as she turned to us with a knowing smirk.
— Dinnae talk bloody nonsense. Ah’ve proved ma manhood son, he belligerently replied, digging at the fact I’d managed to reach the age of twenty-five without obtaining a wife or producing children. For a second I even thought that he was going to pull out his cock to try and prove me wrong. Instead he shrugged off my remark and returned to his chosen theme. — How’d you like two million Chinkies in your street? I thought of the term ‘Chinky’ and visualised loads of aluminium cartons of half-eaten food lying in my road. It was an easy image to call to mind, as it was a scene I observed every Sunday morning.
— It sometimes seems like I already huv, I thought out loud.
— There ye are then, he said, as if I’d conceded a point. — Another two million ur oan thir way. How’d ye like that?
— Presumably the whole two million won’t move into Caledonian Place. I mean, conditions are cramped enough in the Dairy ghetto as it is.
— Laugh if ye like. Whit aboot joabs? Two million on the dole already. Hooses? Aw they perr buggers livin in cardboard city. God, was he nipping my heid. Thankfully, the mighty Ma, guardian of the soap box, intervened.
— Shut up, will yis! Ah’m tryin tae watch the telly!
Sorry mater. I know that it’s a trifle self-indulgent of me, your HIV offspring, to crave your attention when Mike Baldwin is making an important choice which will determine his future. Which grotesque auld hing-oot will the shrivelled post-menopausal slag want tae shaft? Stay tuned.
I decide not to mention my HIV. My parents don’t have very progressive views on such things. Or maybe they do. Who knows? At any rate, it just did not feel right. Tom always tells us to keep in tune with our feelings. My feelings were that my parents married at eighteen and had produced four screaming brats by the time they were my age. They think I’m ‘queer’ already. Bringing AIDS into the picture will only serve to confirm this suspicion.
Instead I drank a can of Export and quietly talked fitba with the auld man. He hasn’t been to a game since 1970. Colour television had gone for his legs. Twenty years later, satellite came along and fucked them up completely. Nonetheless, he still regarded himself as an expert on the game. The opinions of others were worthless. In any event, it was a waste of time attempting to venture them. As with politics, he’d eventually come around to the opposite viewpoint from the one he’d previously advocated and express it just as stridently. All you needed to do was put up no hard front for him to argue against and he’d gradually talk himself around to your way of thinking.
I sat for a while, nodding intently. Then I made some banal excuse and left.
I returned home and checked my toolbox. A former chippie’s collection of various sharp implements. On Saturday, I took it round to Frances’s flat in Wester Hailes. I had a few odd jobs to do. One of them she knew nothing about.
Fran had been looking forward to the meal out with her pals. She talked incessantly as she got ready. I tried to respond beyond a series of low groans which sounded like ‘aye’ and ‘right’, but my mind was spinning with thoughts of what I had to do. I sat hunched and tense on the bed, frequently rising to the window to peer out, as she put her ‘face’ on.
After what seemed like a lifetime, I heard the sound of a motor rolling into the deserted, shabby car park. I sprang to the window, cheerfully announcing: — Taxi’s here!
Frances left me in custody of her sleeping child.
The whole operation went smoothly enough. Afterwards I felt terrible. Was I any better than Venters? Wee Kevin. We had some good times together. I’d taken him to the shows at the Meadows festival, to Kirkcaldy for a League Cup tie, and to the Museum of Childhood. While it doesn’t seem a great deal, it’s a sight more than his auld boy ever did for the poor wee bastard. Frances said as much to me.
Bad as I felt then, it was only a foretaste of the horror that hit me when I developed the photographs. As the prints formed into clarity, I shook with fear and remorse. I put them on the dryer and made myself a coffee, which I used to wash down two valium. Then I took the prints and went to the hospice to visit Venters.
Physically, there was not a great deal left of him. I feared the worst when I looked into his glazed eyes. Some people with AIDS had been developing pre-senile dementia. The disease could have his body. If it had also taken his mind, it would deprive me of my revenge.
Thankfully, Venters soon registered my presence, his initial lack of response probably a side-effect of the medication he was on. His eyes soon fixed me in
their gaze, acquiring the sneaky, furtive look I associated with him. I could feel his contempt for me oozing through his sickly smile. He thought he’d found a sappy cunt to indulge him until the end. I sat with him, holding his hand. I felt like snapping off his scrawny fingers and sticking them into his orifices. I blamed him for what I had to do to Kevin, as well as all the other issues.
— You’re a good guy Davie. Pity we didnae meet in different circumstances, he wheezed, repeating that well-worn phrase he used on all my visits. I tightened my grasp on his hand. He looked at me uncomprehendingly. Good. The bastard could still feel physical pain. It wasn’t going to be that kind of pain which would hurt him, but it was a nice extra. I spoke in clear, measured tones.
— I told you I got infected through shooting up, Al. Well, I lied. I lied tae ye aboot tons ay things.
— What’s aw this, Davie?
— Just listen for a minute, Al. Ah got infected through this bird ah’d been seein. She didnae ken thit she wis HIV. She goat infected by a piece ay shite that she met one night in a pub. She was a bit pished and a bit naive, this wee bird. Ken? This cunt sais that he had a wee bit ay dope back at his gaff. So she went wi the cunt. Back tae his flat. The bastard raped her. Ye ken whit he did, Al?
— Davie . . . whit is this . . .
— Ah’ll fuckin tell ye. Threatened her wi a fuckin blade. Tied her doon. Fucked her fanny, fucked her arse, made her go doon oan him. The lassie wis terrified, as well as being hurt. Does this sound familiar then cunt?
— Ah dinnae . . . ah dinnae ken whit the fuck yir oan aboot Davie . . .
— Di-nnae fah-kin start. You remember Donna. You remember the Southern Bar.
— Ah wis fucked up man . . . — you remember whit you sais . . .
— That wis lies. Bullshit. Ah couldnae huv goat a fuckin root oan if ah knew ah hud that shite in ma come. Ah couldnae huv raised a fuckin smile.
— Wee Goagsie . . . mind ay him?
— Shut yir fuckin mooth. Wee Goagsie took his fuckin chance. You sat thair like it wis a fuckin pantomime whin you hud yours, I rasped, watching drops of my gob disseminate into the film of sweat which covered his shrunken coupon. I composed myself, continuing my story.
— The lassie went through a heavy time. She was strong-willed though. It would huv fucked up a lot ay women, but Donna tried tae shrug it off. Why let one spunk-gobbed cunt ruin your life? Easier said than done, but she did it. What she didnae ken wis thit the scumbag in question wis HIV positive. Then she meets this other guy. They hit it off. He likes her, but he kens that she’s goat problems wi men and sex. Nae fuckin wonder, eh? I wanted to strangle the perverse force which passed for life out of the cunt’s body. Not yet, I told myself. Not yet, you doss fucker. I drew a heavy breath, and continued my tale, reliving the horror of it.
— They worked it oot, this lassie and the other guy. Things were barry for a bit. Then she discovered that the rapist fuckbag was HIV. Then she discovered that she was. But what was worse for this person, a real person, a fuckin moral person, was when she found out that her new felly was. All because of you, the rapist cunt. Ah wis the new felly. Me. Big fuckin sap here, I pointed to myself.
— Davie . . . ah’m sorry man . . . — whit kin ah say? Yiv been a good mate . . . it’s that disease . . . it’s a fuckin horrible disease, Davie. It kills the innocent, Davie . . . it kills the innocent . . .
— It’s too late fir that shite now. Ye hud yir chance at the time. Like Wee Goagsie.
He laughed in my face. It was a deep, wheezing sound.
— So what are ye . . . what are ye gaunnae dae aboot it? . . . Kill me? Go ahead . . . ye’d be daein us a favour . . . ah dinnae gie a fuck. His wizened death mask seemed to become animated, to fill with a strange, ugly energy. This was not a human being. Obviously, it suited me to believe that, made it easier to do what I had to do, but in cold light of day I believe it still. It was time to play my cards. I calmly produced the photographs from my inside pocket.
— It’s not so much what ah’m gaunnae dae aboot it, mair what ah already have done aboot it, I smiled, drinking the expression of perplexed fear which etched onto his face.
— Whit’s this . . . whit dae ye mean? I felt wonderful. Shock waves tripped over him, his scrawny head oscillating as his mind grappled with his greatest fears. He looked at the photographs in terror, unable to make them out, wondering what dreadful secrets they held.
— Think of the worst possible thing I could do to make you pissed off, Al. Then multiply it by one thousand . . . and you’re not even fuckin close. I shook my head mournfully.
I showed him a photograph of myself and Frances. We were posing confidently, casually displaying the arrogance of lovers in their first flush.
— What the fuck, he spluttered, trying pathetically to pull his scrawny frame up in the bed. I thrust my hand to his chest and effortlessly pushed him back home. I did this slowly, savouring my power, and his impotence in that one gorgeous motion.
— Relax, Al, relax. Unwind. Loosen up a little. Take it easy. Remember what the doctors and nurses say. You need your rest. I flipped the first photo over, exposing the next picture to him. — That wis Kevin thit took the last picture. Takes a good photae fir a wee laddie, eh? There he is, the wee felly. The next photograph showed Kevin, dressed in a Scotland football strip, on my shoulders.
— What have you fuckin done . . . It was a sound, rather than a voice. It seemed to come from an unspecific part of his decaying body rather than his mouth. The unearthliness of it stung me, but I made the effort to continue sounding nonchalant.
— Basically this. I produced the third photo. It showed Kevin, bound to a kitchen chair. His head hung heavily to one side, and his eyes were closed. Had Venters looked at the detail, he may have noticed a bluish tint to his son’s eyelids and lips, and the almost clownish whiteness of his complexion. It’s almost certain that all Venters noticed were the dark wounds on his head, chest, and knees, and the blood which oozed from them, covering his body, at first making it hard to note that he was naked.
The blood was everywhere. It covered the lino in a dark puddle underneath Kevin’s chair. Some of it shot outwards across the kitchen floor in squirted trails. An assortment of power tools, including a Bosch drill and a Black and Decker sander, in addition to various sharpened knives and screwdrivers, were laid out at the feet of the upright body.
— Naw . . . naw . . . Kevin . . . for god’s sake naw . . . he done nuthin . . . he hurt naebody . . . naw . . . he moaned on, an ugly, whingey sound devoid of hope or humanity. I gripped his thin hair crudely, and wrenched his head up from the pillow. I observed in perverse fascination as the bony skull seemed to sink to the bottom of the loose skin. I thrust the picture in his face.
— I thought that young Kev should be just like Daddy. So when I got bored fucking your old girlfriend, I decided I’d give wee Kev one up his . . . eh . . . tradesman’s entrance. I thought, if HIV’s good enough for Daddy it’s good enough for his brat.
— Kevin . . . Kevin . . . he groaned on.
— Unfortunately, his arsehole was a bit too tight for me, so I had to extend it a little with the masonry drill. Sadly, I got a wee bit carried away and started making holes all over the place. It’s just that he reminded me so much of you, Al. I’d love to say it was painless, but I cannae. At least it was relatively quick. Quicker than rotting away in a bed. It took him about twenty minutes to die. Twenty screaming, miserable minutes. Poor Kev. As you sais, Al, it’s a disease which kills the innocent.
Tears rolled down his cheeks. He kept saying ‘no’ over and over again in low, choking sobs. His head jerked in my grip. Worried that the nurse would come, I pulled out one of the pillows from behind him.
— The last word wee Kevin sais wis ‘Daddy’. That wis yir bairn’s last words, Al. Sorry pal. Daddy’s away. That wis whit ah telt him. Daddy’s away. I looked straight into his eyes, all pupils, just a black void of fear and total defeat.
I pushed his he
ad back down, and put the pillow over his face stifling the sickening moans. I held it firmly down and pressed my head on it, half-gasping, half-singing the paraphrased words of an old Boney M song: ‘Daddy, Daddy Cool, Daddy, Daddy Cool . . . you been a fuckin fool, bye bye Daddy Cool . . .’
I merrily sang until Venter’s feeble resistance subsided.
Keeping the pillow firmly over his face, I pulled a Penthouse magazine off his locker. The bastard would have been too weak to even turn the pages, let alone raise a wank. However, his homophobia was so strong that he’d probably kept it on prominent display to make some absurd statement about his sexuality. Rotting away, and his greatest concern is that nobody thinks he’s a buftie. I set the magazine on the pillow and thumbed through it in a leisurely manner before taking Venters’s pulse. Nothing. He’d checked out. More importantly, he’d done it in a state of tortured, agonised, misery.
Taking the pillow off the corpse, I pulled its ugly frail head forward, then let it fall back. For a few moments I contemplated what I saw before me. The eyes were open, as was the mouth. It looked stupid, a sick caricature of a human being. I suppose that’s what corpses are. Mind you, Venters always was.
My searing scorn quickly gave way to a surge of sadness. I couldn’t quite determine why that should have happened. I looked away from the body. After sitting for another couple of minutes, I went to tell the nurse that Venters had left the stadium.
I attended Venters’s funeral at Seafield Crematorium with Frances. It was an emotional time for her, and I felt obliged to lend support. It was never an event destined to break any attendance records. His mother and sister showed up, as did Tom, with a couple of punters from ‘HIV and Positive’.
