If You Liked School, You'll Love Work

by Irvine Welsh

  I look over at Em, still reading old Philip K. Dick. Some mind, that geezer. Blade Runner, Minority Report, Star Wars, the brains behind all that shit, he was. Nice work if you can get it. Too bad he’s dead now, so he won’t have seen any dosh for it all. Life can be unfair, but mind you, you dunno how much the cunt was worth alive.

  Rodj’s been on the treble eighteen for centuries, after looking like he was gonna take me to the cleaners. Bottle always goes: couldn’t bleedin well check out in the farking supermarket. If Marce wants a length from that department, she could be waiting a long time, especially with old Bert doing his nut. An ominous silence on that topic.

  I hit the fourteen and finish up all nifty on the double twenty. — Bastard, Rodj curses and then looks at Em and Cynth. — Pardon my French, ladies, he adds. They both look unimpressed, as well they might.

  — This geezer wot was gunned down, what do they say about him? I ask.

  — Businessman on holiday, Vince goes.

  Businessman. Every cunt’s a farking businessman nowadays. Covers a bleedin multitude, that one. — What sort of business was he in?

  Rodj shrugs and pours himself a large snifter from the bar. He glances to me and I find myself nodding back in agreement without thinking what I’m doing. Sure enough, I’ve a glass of Scotch you could float the HMS Belfast in. — They didn’t say, Vince shrugs.

  Nah, they wouldn’t bleedin say. So, in reality, we know nothing.

  Later that night Seph bells and tells me she’s over in Lanzarote. I inform Cynth that I’ve business over there and ask her to look after Em tomorrow. They ain’t best pleased, nor is Rodj, but shit happens and I ain’t up for explaining things.

  4.

  SEPH

  I DECIDED THAT it was about time that I went to visit my old mate Pete Worth at the Cumbria Arms, over in Lanzarote. It was a bright Saturday morning and I got into the motor ready to head down to the ferry, change islands and drive up to the nice little bar in the old town harbour at Puerto del Carmen, where I’d arranged to meet Seph. I was anticipating a carefree, seamless little jaunt.

  Didn’t work out like that though.

  I’m passing the garage, and I look over and I see a sight that makes my arsehole clench like a bookie’s fist. It’s them two geezers, the ones what was in yesterday and they’re only talking to Emily and Cynth …

  I stop the car and get out sharpish. As I stride across the forecourt, the geezers get into their own motor and head off without seeing me. Emily and Cynth clock me soon enough, though. — I thought you’d gone, Cynth says.

  — Nah … only running late, innit. I look over my shoulder. — What did them geezers you was talking to want?

  — Trying to chat her up, Em laughs.

  Cynth goes all that silly little girl way, like some old boilers tend to whenever there’s a fresh slab of beef around. That old routine ain’t fooling nobody. — No they wasn’t, and she even touches her flaming hair, — they was just asking about the bar, that’s all.

  I do not like the smell of this, and I ain’t talking about Cynth’s knickers neither, though by her posture I detect a fair amount of spillage in that department. — What do you mean, asking about the bar?

  — Well, they were in the other night for a drink … Cynth says, her eyes going wide.

  — Yeah, yeah, I remember …

  — … and they were just saying how nice a pub the Herefordshire Bull was, made them feel right at home. They was asking about how long it had been up and running, that’s all, she says, looking all guilty, like she’s been caught telling tales out of school.

  I grab a handful of Cynth’s fleshy arm. Pulling her away from Em, I lower my voice, — Asking about the guvnor, was they? I dig my other thumb into my chest.

  — No … she says, then admits, — well, just if it’s an Englishman what runs it and where you come from … They was just making conversation, that’s all, and then she shrugs my grip off and starts rubbing her arm, looking at me like I’m some sort of beast.

  Questions and answers, honesty lies. Cool it, Mickey son. Think what Roger Moore or Kenneth More or Bobby Moore would do in this situ. Think composure under pressure. Calmness and serenity.

  — Sorry, darlin, I’m a bit uptight at the mo, I apologise, stepping into her with a peck on the cheek, leaving my face up close to hers.

  She’s staring back at me like she don’t have a clue. Cynth ain’t no mug, but like most skirt, thinking outside the box ain’t exactly her forte.

  I see that Em’s distracted, looking at stuff in the garage-shop window. — Listen, Cynth, if those geezers come sniffing around you, or Em or the bar, I want you to bell me on the mobile straight away, capeesh?

  Cynth takes a step back. — They wasn’t the law, was they?

  — Worse than that, darlin, I lower my voice, — HM Customs and Excise, I believe, I touch my nose and wink. — Keep shtum abaht this one gel, alright?

  — Of course … she says, then looks worried. — … There’s nothing wrong, is there?

  — Nothing we can’t sort out, I say, looking across at Em by the shop. I leap over to the kiosk and order three big chocolate ice-cream cones. — There ya go, I say, dishing them out. Takes me back to the summer jaunts me, Em and Trees had down in Hastings. Good times. Em don’t look too chuffed though. Cynth blows out her cheeks and says, — We just had one …

  I’m reasoning that Cynth needs to keep that calorie count up. Getting extra fat is one thing, but sustaining it is a problem. If she falls below one thousand five hundred a day, it’ll start dropping off. Loads of snacks with high sugar content does the trick, along with convenience food loaded with additives; that and plenty of booze. — Can’t have too much of a good thing, I tell her. — If we hadn’t had that stuff around in the Second World War, the Yanks might never have come in and we might all be poncing around in jackboots right now. Come to think of it though … I wink at Cynth. — Right, I look over to the car, — I’d best scarper. My old mate Worthy, he can’t abide lack of punctuality. Reckons it shows disrespect, and I’ll tell ya wot, I wag my finger in lecturing mode, — he ain’t wrong.

  Cynth looks at me all that pleading way and she goes, — When will you be back?

  — A few hours, gels, worse bleedin luck. No rest for the wicked, I shout at Em. — Bye, princess!

  Then I’m in the motor and that ice cream gets slung out the window as soon as I’m out of sight. Chunking up in skirt is fine; I reckon lots of us geezers are closet chubby-chasers. It ain’t an option for me though; no decent minge wants porky trouser. I get down to the harbour and I’m ramping the motor onto the ferry. Never really liked Lanzarote; too commercialised. Mind you, Fuerty’s getting that way n all, and Worthy, to give him his due, fairly rakes it in at the Cumbria. He can stuff it though, it’s the QOL issue, innit.

  When I get to the bar Seph’s sitting at a table outside, writing postcards, a white bag at her feet. Looks as lonely as a virgin on Valentine’s Day. She’s wearing shades under a big straw hat with a scarf tied round it. That’s a fetching little aqua-coloured dress, plenty of flesh on show, and her hair’s tied with a blue ribbon in one ponytail, one of those jobs what hangs to the side. That’ll have to go when I nail her: I wanna see that stuff farking flying all over them pillas.

  Course, when she sees me she starts playing it all standoffish; kiss on each cheek, Euro-style. I was hoping for a big embrace and a tongues job from the off. The chaste approach don’t impress me none. Right load of old bollocks that one: you don’t come all this way if you don’t want a bleedin good rattling at the end of it.

  The good news is that the tash has gone! She’s been doin a bit of waxing, or zappin with the laser, by the looks of things.

  I sit down and she starts tellin me about the aggravation she’s getting from her old man, this police geezer. Seems he wants her to go to college somewhere, and she’s thinking about England. Asking me what part’s the best.

  Maybe it’s all down to recent personal ex
periences with certain parties who shall remain nameless, but I suppose I ain’t painting that much of an enticing picture. I tell her that the North’s grim, the Midlands are dull, and the countryside’s boring: full of farking inbred mutant toffs, and London’s chock-a-block with scum and ponces these days.

  — I was thinking about Brighton, Sussex University, she says, and I’m hoping that long vodka I’ve set up for her will thaw her out a bit. Worked before, and you gotta stick to tried and tested methods. What was it that the great man said: ‘It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.’

  Got to come in on the B-word though. Even my liberalism’s got its limits. — Nah, you don’t wanna go to flaming Brighton, do ya. Full of bleedin arse bandits, innit, I explain, and that gets me wondering if she’s into the Greek love, her being Greek and all that. Ain’t my thing, that kinda dirt; I’m not sayin I ain’t stuck it in some manky holes in my time, but they’ve all been front uns. — The best part of England to go to now is Wales, I venture, — it’s all sort of unspoiled, Aber … whatever the fark they call it, by the sea n all that. Good university town, I am led to understand. Prestigious, some might say.

  She lifts her shades over her head and her big dark eyes blink in the sun. — Wales is good?

  Good? What is farking good? I find myself squelching through a swamp of moral relativism every day, as the geezer on the Discovery Channel said the other night. I shouted at the screen: ‘Tell me about it, mate, it’s called the licensing trade.’ — Yeah, but the only problem with Wales is that there’s too many Welsh. They don’t count themselves as English down there, and neither do we as it happens, although they still come under England.

  She shakes her head, and delves into that white leather bag of hers for a packet of fags. — I would want to be close to London.

  I can see the point. Seen enough sheep in Greece, I suppose.

  A very civilised people, the Greeks. Homer. Aristotle. Socrates. Plato. Just some of the names who’d walk into the starting line-up of any country’s Grey Matter First Eleven. But your classics ain’t exactly what’s on my mind just right now. — So, eh, what do ya want to do? I ask, knowing full well the answer. It’s a long way to come from Greece and they got enough beaches there.

  Suddenly there’s a big light in her eyes and a smile across her face. — I have come to tell you that I have fallen in love, she says.

  I look at her and in spite of everything, all the farking aggravation it’s gonna cause me, I can’t help but feel a little warm glow, nestling in the gut. — Well, you’re young, but I understand … I tell her, and grab her hand.

  She shakes it all sort of funny and says, — It is good that you understand these things, after what has gone between us.

  I’m thinking: the older the fiddle, the better the tune right enough, but I elect to keep shtum as it’s an emotional time for her. She’s still young. Proper idealistic n all. Though I suppose I’m the same. Numerical years: it don’t matter a fark. If that’s the way you are, you never lose it.

  Her little face glows and she says, — His name is Costas and he comes from Athens. He is an actor and …

  And I can’t hear nothing all of a sudden.

  And she goes on and on about this flaming bubble and squeak geezer, waving this packet of Marlboro Lites in my face as she talks, but I can’t hear the rest. I’m thinking, what the fuck is she doing over here then …

  But all I can do is look at the turkey ducks, them birds that just lie out on the ground around the harbour. Fuck knows what they are, I ain’t seen them anywhere else. They just sit there on the tarmac, like they was all gonna lay eggs. All together, a proper little mob of them. They got turkey-like faces and necks and fat bodies but they got ducks’ bills and webbed feet.

  Weird-looking cunts, but they ain’t no bother to nobody, just like them old boys who sit and talk on the benches, or the tourists under the patios of the harbour bars. Yeah, the old town here is quite picturesque. The rest? Too shit to even discuss.

  The turkey ducks.

  It’s me who’s the right bleeding turkey now though. Turkey ducked. Or maybe not. — So, what brings you here? Don’t tell me that you came all this way just to share this news, excellent as it is, with your old buddy Mickey? I say, reasoning that she probably wants a good old-fashioned seeing-to before she ties the knot with this bubble thespian. Last days of freedom n all: perfectly understandable.

  — I am here with Costas. He is filming here and over where you stay in Fuerteventura. He plays an Italian policeman from Interpol in a movie they are shooting.

  You cunt! A wasted afternoon, by the sound of things. Farking films. They’re always shooting farking movies here. In theory at least, they got the weather all year round. It’s Worthy’s boast that Moonraker was shot in his flaming backyard. Well, at least them bits on the moon was.

  But right now I’m feeling like one of them Failed Men, only don’t farking bother ploughing me up. Cause there ain’t gonna be no nailing taking place this afternoon, not with this pace of drinking any roads. — Same again, señorita! I shout at the waitress.

  So as I slide back into a mire of despondency, she starts recounting the tale. — I met Costas back on the island where my father, who is chief of police, was able to advise him on how to play this detective.

  All I can do is smile through my disappointment and nod like a fucking muppet as the drinks slide down.

  After the tale, she gives me one of them looks and says, — You are a good man, Michael, loyal and faithful. What was it your friend said back in Athens? ‘He shines like a diamond fountain.’

  — Diamond geezer, I correct her. — That was Billy Guthrie, bless him, I say, and I’m starting to feel the drink, so I clink glasses. — Diamond fountain of love, gel, that’s me.

  Reminds me that I must call Bill, see how he is. He wasn’t well for a bit. Packed in the drink, then lost a bollock in a freak paintballing accident. So much for harmless sport. Don’t know what the fuck he was up to, mind you, surely some abuse of the old equipment going on there. That’s what being off the booze does for ya.

  Not that we’d know much about that here. Seph’s looking well trolleyed. She can’t decide whether or not she wants a cigarette. She takes one out from her packet, then puts it back in. — You would have been a good man to marry, but in men of your age the seed is likely to be spent, my father says, she kindly informs me. — The gift I must give to him is that of a grandson. My three sisters all have daughters.

  — Oi! I protest. — I don’t think I like this spent seed bit.

  — Your child is also a girl.

  — That don’t mean nothing.

  She gives me a knowing look, which, given our history, chuffs me no end. — But it means that you are a man; that is for sure. My father is the same. He once said to me that all the stuff of man-ness has gone into him, there was nothing left over for his offspring. But I know that a grandson would warm his heart and some day I will give him one.

  I’m thinking: I’d like to give you one. Maybe it’s the heat, maybe it’s the booze, but a nailing is absolute priority.

  — Costas and I will live in England, close to London, she says, finally lighting up a ciggy and sticking the pack and lighter back into her bag. — He will improve his English and find acting work, while I study. Then we will have sons, many Greek sons, she smiles and raises her glass, forcing me to toast.

  I’m thinking that we ain’t got much time if she wants a bottling fitted in, but then she explains that she’s waiting on Costas, making me feel a right cunt. I set up more drinks.

  Baker ain’t sticking no bun in an oven here.

  Costas finally shows up. He’s a skinny bloke with blond hair, looks more like a farking Swede than a Greek, and he’s got a nervous way about him. First impressions ain’t always right but he don’t look the sort of geezer what’s gonna settle down and breed a load of Finsbury Park kebab cutters.

&nbs
p; Seph intros us and he looks shiftily at me, then her. Something’s up here.

  — Alright, Cost? How goes the movie business?

  Seph decides she’s gonna go to the shop to get some stuff. — I will leave you boys for a while to get to know each other, she smiles, happy as a fly in shit.

  Sure enough, Costas ain’t slow in opening up to me. — The woman is crazy. She thinks that we’re getting married. Huh! Her father caught me dealing cocaine to tourists on their island. He threatened to have me locked up if I didn’t go along with her crazy scheme. Said he had police contacts all over Greece and would make my life miserable. London would be nice for my career, but …

  — A lovely gel, don’t get me wrong, but she’s a few bob short of the big note, if you get my drift.

  Costas pulls a grim smile, and throws down the bulk of a rum and Coke. His face is tense and sweaty. He lets the tumbler hit the table in a heavy bang, which attracts the waitress, and he signals another two up. — In Greece we say that some sheep may be missing from the flock.

  I nod in total sincerity. Costas ain’t a happy camper. He’s been made a proper Herbert. Herbertitis A, I would say. I’m warming to the geezer, though. — Her father asked me about my family. If I had brothers. For sure, I tell him, six of them, and no sisters. His face expands into the grin of a reptile. Later on he … he shakes his head and shudders in the heat and the waitress brings more drinks.

  — Wot?

  — He tries to touch me, he spits, outraged. — Like I was a bitch.

  — Wot happened?

  Old Cost fairly bursts into a rant. — I push him away. He says, ‘That is good. You are a man.’ They are crazy: the whole family. I have to get away from them all. My shooting time here has wrapped up today, but I have not told her that. Tomorrow I will go to London and stay with my uncle. Away from the crazy bitch and her fascist homosexual father. Did you know that he even gave me the ring to give to her? Picked it himself. Diamond and sapphire. For his daughter’s eyes, he said. It is he himself who should be fucking her. When you hear them talk it is like that is what they both want!