Filth

by Irvine Welsh

  – What the fuck dae ye want us tae say? Remember the first time we made love darling? Ha ha ha. Eighty-five? Eighty-six? Over ten years ago now anyway. Carole . . . we were no long married. You were at ours and the pair of you were quite pished. Drove you hame. Mind that?

  – I remember, her face twists in recall at this shared but unacknowledged history.

  – Rode you in the back of the car. Portobello, we smile. – Mind what you said then? Naw? Never tell Carole. That was what you said. Ten years on and off and you’ve been getting rode by your sister’s man. Mind the time you came ower tae Australia? You n me n that Abo bird I used tae shag. Madeline. We had that threesome. She licked you oot. You couldnae wait for it. As soon as Carole’s back was turned. Mind?

  – You can be so cruel, she’s shaking her head. – What do you get out of being like that? Eh?

  – Just stating a fact. Ten years it’s been gaun oan. Kicked off again as soon as I got back fae Oz. Hudnae even unpacked the suitcase before ah wis pokin you, fir fuck sakes! That’s a cow in any book, I shake my head, watching her simmer in rage. – Once, even twice maybe, an indiscretion, but ten years? That spells cow. C. O. W. Cow. I tell her.

  – Yeah? Well have you ever thought what that makes you son? She coughs out.

  We, I, we, ignore her. – Mind when you got thegither wi Danny. The first time you brought us round tae yours was when he was on the rigs. Funny, mind a while back, ah brought Ray roond, you mind ay ma mate Ray? He was a D.C. at the time. D.S. now. The pair ay us rode ye. A right motley ménage à trois that yin. That’s you goat the set now, a threesome wi an extra bird and an extra guy.

  – That was . . . we were all drunk . . . you . . .

  – Perr Danny. Two weeks on, two weeks oaf. Know just how the cunt feels!

  She looks at us, in a bitter, focused way. – I don’t know why I waste my fuckin time oan you! You’re not that fucking good, she sneers.

  – There’s three reasons: one, Danny’s in the UAE, two, I have a cock and three, I am discreet, we smile at her.

  – Nae wonder Carole’s away! She did right tae get shot ay you! She’s up, getting dressed in haste. There’s nothing that excites the morbid fascination more than watching an old boiler you’ve just fucked struggling into her clothes without dignity.

  But we are injured by what she has said and want to shout, She’ll be back, but we say nothing on the subject. – Just go, I command.

  – Don’t you fuckin well worry, she spits back, and departs.

  After a while we, I, we find that we have become aroused again. We, I, we could have done with another go at it. Still, she’ll be back. Nothing surer than that. We put on our Frank Sidebottom Timperley EP. Then we, I, we put on a video in which this big blonde hoor takes on a couple of lumberjacks in an Alaskan forest. Now we are most definitely aroused and decide to call Bunty.

  – Hello Boontay!

  – Frank. If that’s your real name . . .

  – Course it’s me real name! You don’t know what you’re talking about you fooking stupid big-titted whore.

  There’s a bit of silence. No so sharp now Bunty. I have got this fuckin cow on the run. My breathing is getting out of control.

  – How do you know what size my breasts are? She eventually says, tentatively.

  She is now following the advice given to her by Detective Sergeant Brooossss Robertson. Detective Inspector Elect Brooosss Robertson. We find that our cock is really stiffening now and we are required to unbutton our trousers.

  – I know everything. Now tell me your sexual fantasies Boontay.

  – Shut up! You disgusting little creep! Leave me alone will you? She slams the phone down. This cunt’s riled.

  We wind on the video to the place where a tired-looking, greasy continental stud is fucking a stretch-marked boiler up the arse. Worn goods, but some excellent close-up shots. The pole must be well-greased to get that kind of motion. We discharge over the axminster.

  Later on we decide to telephone Bro. Clifford Blades.

  He’s a bit upset. – Sorry Bruce, can’t make the club tonight. Actually, Bunty’s in a state. The pervert called again.

  – Oh God, Bladesey. It never rains, eh. Look, you console her, and I’ll be right over.

  – Thanks Bruce, I really appreciate it. She’s beside herself.

  We go to the bog and give our arse, thighs and genitals a good clawing, then we cut up a line of coke. This is washed down with a Glenmorangie to get the taste of diseased druggy scum out of our tonsils.

  Then we realise that our car has been left in the works car park, due to the self-centredness of the hoor Shirley. We get a taxi out to Corstorphine, the meter running to the price of a gam from a half-decent hoor, just to be with our friends Cliff and Bunty Blades.

  Carole Remembers Australia

  The things my Bruce has seen, the things that have hurt him. They don’t know. They would never know. But he shared them with me. Always.

  He explained to me why he went with that prostitute back in Australia. He needed to be with someone. It meant nothing. I failed Bruce by not being there for him. I was with my mum.

  Bruce had been working all the hours God sends. He had been operating undercover in the Kings Cross district, on the trail of these gangsters.

  He told me about that terrible day. There he was, trying to open the huge, swinging doors of the garage. He couldn’t get them open properly, only just enough for him to squeeze through. He looked into the darkness, venturing right into its black heart. Looking back, behind him, he could see a ray of sunlight across the garage forecourt. The odd car drove by, perhaps the odd working girl swinging along in her short skirt and high heels.

  Inside, at the dark end of the garage, Bruce heard the low groans. He told me that it was the worst sound that he had ever heard in his life. They were scarcely human groans. Something was in the office at the back of the garage. He moved towards it.

  Bruce opened the door and switched on the lights.

  There he was. Costas. Or what was left of him.

  His torture had been systematic. He was lying across the table, face down on his belly. His chin is on the table, his head tilted up, facing Bruce. His jaw has been broken and his teeth have been pulled out. They lie next to his amputated fingers. His eyes witness this. The eyelids have been cut away and the eyeballs have been carefully removed from the head without severing the optic nerves. These had somehow been stretched like a cartoon character’s and the eyes lie, each one on a pile of books, each one facing some of the fingers and teeth and eyelids and ears, which have also been removed and cut off with surgical scissors. The scissors lie with the pliers, and the nail gun which has secured Costas to the bench by his hands and clothing. The genitals have not been severed, possibly to avoid him bleeding to death. His tongue has been cut out.

  They wanted to keep him alive as a message to his associates.

  Bruce stood there, facing him, thinking how could anybody do this to another human being. But all he said to Costas was, You’ve been keeping bad company mate.

  He puts the gun in the man’s mouth and fires. He cannot look but the groans are no more. Bruce shakes and moves out of the office across the forecourt. The door is stiff, and it is a tight squeeze to get into the Sydney sunshine. He panics, trembling with anxiety. He tries to phone me but I’m at my mum’s. If only I’d been home for him.

  Bruce walks for a little bit, then runs into a prostitute, a half-Aboriginal girl called Madeline. He takes her to a hotel and pays her five hundred dollars, just to talk to her.

  Just to talk. She sits warily as he speaks in measured tones, telling her about Costas and about the war he is having with the others and the consequences for him.

  It should have been me that was there, not that whore.

  I think that for Bruce that image of Costas became a symbol for extreme possibilities of evil. That’s why Bruce is how he is.

  Worms And Promotions

  I’m driving out to see
Rossi, but Carole’s on my mind. I used to tell her a pile of shite when I was knocking off Madeline, this half-Abo bird I used to leg out there. I made up a lot of bullshit about working undercover down Kings Cross to put

  Madeline was putting pressure on me to leave Carole. She was very headstrong and less easily controlled than Carole. The old country called.

  Carole always believed every word I told her. She was happy in her own world with the kid. Always a domestic type, old Carole. Dirty cow in bed mind you. Give her the meat and the dosh, and she’d accept anything. It was all the dyke politics that fucked up her heid, when I slapped her after she’d overstepped the mark and she freaked and went to that refuge. I apologised for that, but she overreacted. She’ll come to her senses soon though, nothing surer.

  I’m so lost in my thoughts that I miss the turning for Rossi’s. I stop off at a newsagent for Playboy, Penthouse and Mayfair, before pulling up outside his surgery.

  This Dr Rossi cunt fancies himself. Swarthy eyetie bastard. Dresses well does Rossi. Nice suit, shirt, shoes. Bet he makes a bundle on private consultations.

  – Yes, we’ve got the test results. As I suspected, you’ve definitely got worms. We’ll have to carry on with this treatment.

  – Eh!

  I can’t believe it. This is another price I have to pay for hanging around with schemies and criminals.

  – It’s only tapeworms, nothing for you to worry about. They’re very common, but not at all dangerous.

  – Something’s growing inside me and you say it isnae dangerous!

  – It’s not. What you have to do is take this solution and it’ll help you move your bowels more frequently.

  – No, that seems to be a persistent nervous condition. You don’t have anything on your mind, anything you haven’t told me about?

  Rossi’s just an exploitative quack, but that’s GPs for you. Fancy themselves as something else. Some want to be surgeons, Rossi evidently wants to be a psychologist. We ken you Rossi.

  – Nothing on my mind at all, I say stiffly.

  Dae yir fuckin job ya cunt.

  I’m glad to get away from Rossi and back to the station.

  I’m back just in time for lunch so I hit the cannie. Ina’s haggis is on the day. Lennox and the closet-faggot Peter Inglis are sitting together. I join them. Drummond and Fulton were behind me in the queue and they come and sit with us.

  Karen Fulton, Drummond’s new best pal. Was not always thus. I’m sitting opposite them looking at the haggis and I feel like shouting at Fulton: Mind the time I fucked you Karen? After Princess Di’s funeral? I’ve never seen such a big, thick, black minge in my puff. C’mon everybody, let’s take a look at former W.P.C. Fulton’s hairy pie! It’s a fuckin jungle: curly hairs right up to and around the arsehole.

  Drummond’s going on about her favourite shite: politics and changes in legislation and how it affects policing. She’s looking a bit tired. Too many long nights at the office, trying to trace where a hammer comes from. That’ll never be detected. I heard that cunt talking about me as well, her and the fag Inglis.

  – Poor old Clell. He’s defo lost the plot since that move to Traffic, Ray says. – Went to see him the other day. He looks at me and Drummond. – He was saying that we were working for the alcohol marketing board. He’s obsessed with this Drugs Führer the Government’s appointed.

  – No, we are working as enforcers of the law. The democratically elected government of the day makes the laws in Parliament. We enforce that law, Drummond squeaks, in polis rhetoric.

  – Hmm, I say teasingly. Clell may have a point. This new Drugs Führer wants to attack demand rather than supply. That means sending more kids to jail. If that works and kids are scared to take illegal drugs, then they’ll turn on to legal ones like alcohol as a substitute.

  – Which means more violence! Ray gives us the thumbs up.

  – Tougher sentences! I say.

  – Mair polis! Ray laughs.

  – And, mair promoted posts, I rub my hands. – It also means mair prisoners, mair prisons, mair wardens, mair security guards. Pump-priming, basic Keynesian economics! Then we’ll get Maggie back in ten years’ time telling us we’ve been spending too much!

  – But we can cut back on education, social work and health and aw that shit, Lennox nods.

  Drummond’s looking horrified. – We’re only the enforcers of the law of the land. I mean, if a left-wing government was elected to power and had a radical agenda which became law and that law was ignored or opposed by vested interests then that law would be enforced by us just as rigorously. That’s how it is in a democracy, she says smugly.

  – Bollocks, I tell her. – If you believe that then you’re even thicker than I thought.

  Ray raises an eyebrow as Drummond pouts sourly.

  – I mean . . . go back to the miners’ strike. Our job then was

  I don’t know who asked that queer to open his flaccid mouth. That cunt should stick to thinking about young laddies’ cocks or whatever pervy shite goes on in his sick head and leave the politics to the experts.

  – No, we upheld the law, Drummond’s screeching. Fulton nods supportively.

  – If unions had never broken the laws, we wouldnae have any democracy . . . in the first place, I say, wondering why the fuck I’m coming out with all this wank.

  – But that’s history. It isn’t like that now, Drummond says.

  – Yes, you’re right Amanda, I correct myself, – But there are people within the unions now who don’t give a fuck about democracy. Maggie sorted them out, but they’re still there, just waiting for that Tony Blair spastic to show signs of weakness and let them back in. That was why things got so messed up with the last Labour government. These bastards held sway. Scargill and the likes. That’s why we had to sort them out.

  – That Scargill was a trouble-maker, Inglis snorts, – but Tony Blair though, gie him his due, he’s got rid of that unions and socialism nonsense in the Labour Party now.

  As usual Lennox says fuck all. The best way I suppose. – Right enough, same rules apply. Anyway, I say, – enough boring politics! It’s Christmas! What’s the story with the Christmas do? You were organising that Amanda.

  With great restraint I stop myself from adding, That’s aw yir fuckin well good for.

  – Yes, well, we’ve booked The Burning Ruby Tandoori House in Cockburn Street for the meal, she says with distaste. Her and Fulton wanted to go to Pierre Victoire’s, but no way would the lads have that. I wasn’t into any sick frog poofs lisping around me while I was trying tae eat. I’m surprised Inglis didn’t want that, mind you.

  – There is just one problem though Bruce, Ray says.

  – Aye?

  – Well, Ralphy Considine’s been on the team, and I suppose he counts as one of us. We’ve yet to decide whether or not he should be invited for the curry.

  No way is a uniformed spastic one of us, but then again, I know that Drummond’s against Considine coming on the Christmas session.

  – Of course Ralphy Considine has to be asked, I tell them. – I’m getting a little bit sick of this division between uniformed and non-uniformed officers. We’re all on the same team and should reap the same benefits.

  I’m thinking about these scouse spaswits that did me over in Amsterdam. One of them had that t-shirt on. A red one. Commemorating Shankly, I think.

  – Very laudable sentiments Bruce, Drummond says, – and I think everyone sitting here would endorse them. But surely there are other issues to consider.

  I raise my eyebrows noncommittally and let Drummond launch into one about however we may personally feel about it, we have to acknowledge that the force is a hierarchical organisation and if we try to fly in the face of the organisation’s culture we will set up opposition, division and disillusionment in what are, after all, sensitive times with the reorganisation pending.

  – That’s an interesting point Amanda. I think I’m reluctantly coming round to your view. Maybe it does seem
a wee bit selfindulgent to make personal statements of our liberalism at a time when the organisation needs continuity of practice.

  There’s a few nods around the table, all except Inglis who doesnae look happy. He’s an irrelevance. No votes for queers in this section. So Drummond has her way and we decide that it’s expedient not to invite a uniformed spastic to our Christmas do.

  Result!

  Of course, if I had said, No way a uniformed spastic gets invited to a plain-clothes do, then Drummond would have been the first to shoot me down in flames. But the last thing I want is to be sitting in my brown (the new black) leather jacket, checked shirt and fawn flannels in the curry hoose beside Considine decked out in a white shirt, black polis troos and shoes.

  After this little meeting I get restless, and I feel a chug coming on. I head downstairs with the paper.

  I do a bit of graffiti in the bogs:

  PETER INGUS IS A FUCKIN HIV SPREADER

  and:

  INGUS = SICK, DISEASED QUEER

  I’m sitting there looking at it for a while. I start chuckling and my sides ache. Then a depressed feeling digs in, followed by a steady outrage. It was wrong to do this to a brother officer. The force can’t have this going on. I’m the fuckin Fed rep here. To describe a brother officer in this manner . . . I’m psyching myself up, getting into role.

  I pull the chain and flush away my shit. There’s some traces of worm, but no sign of the head. I’ll get the bastard though, sure as fuck I’ll get him.

  I’ll get him alright.

  I go upstairs and stride purposefully over to Peter, tapping his wrist and steering him over into a corner.

  – Peter, have you seen the graffiti in the toilet? I ask, in a low concerned voice.

  – Ach, thir’s always something thair. Ah nivir take any notice, he shrugs.

  – Maybe ye should, I tell him, letting my anger rise. – I’m getting a bit fuckin well fed up of this shite. As fuckin Fed rep ah’m no having people’s character defamed in this way. I’m gaun up tae see Total now. I raise my voice and look over the room, – Some cunt’s playin silly fuckers here. Just hope ah dinnae find oot whae it is!