Inside the flat, Nicksy’s sitting in the armchair, pretending to watch repeats of Crown Court, while contemplating grim options. How it was way too far gone to have been done legally. They said they scraped them out when it was at the right time, but had to get the forceps up there and pull the lot out in a oner, or in broken bits, when it was more advanced. How it, IT, deserved at least more than the chute.
He gives Renton and Charlene a perfunctory greeting as they bounce in and crash on the couch, but their attention is on each other and the telly. — Crown Court … barry … Renton says as Nicksy looks to the kitchen.
— Mark … I really need to talk to ya … Charlene says, sitting forward stiffly, but Renton lunges at her, silencing her with a deep kiss. They start a tickling fight, laughing hysterically, and then they’re necking again. Nicksy registers that his Scottish friend and the Bird With the Big Hair have adopted that arrogant ‘look-at-us-we’ve-just-invented-sex’ demeanour of people who’re fucking after a long hiatus. Their Bonnie and Clyde routine gnaws at his own celibacy and he thinks again of Marsha, seven floors of systems-built concrete above him, and the abortive fruits of their love, rotting on some council tip.
Charlene suddenly slaps Renton quite forcibly, pointing at him, demanding, — I’m being serious, but he’s still clowning, snapping at her fingers like the puppy, who lies on the floor at their feet.
Nicksy doesn’t like a mousy type of girl, but thinks that Charlene’s way too full of herself. The way she always runs her hands through that hair, observing the geezers for their reaction; it sets her up as a poseur in his book. He also feels that she’s nowhere near as good-looking as she thinks, although he has to admit that barnet is something else.
Renton and Charlene whisper a terse exchange and relocate to the spare room and its mattress. Nicksy decides to check out Dalston market. A mate of his back in Ilford has a pile of contraband Walkmans, and he knows a no-questions-asked West Indian fence.
Outside, it’s not a stimulating day. It’s already rained and filthy, saturated clouds threaten to dump more. Gobbing into the gutter, to try and spit out self-hate’s sour taste, Nicksy ponders the next move in his chaotic life. Like the Sealink job, the tenancy in Beatrice Webb House has possibly run its course. Perhaps he’ll take Giro with the Northern Soul singles to his mum’s in Ilford. She likes dogs and he’ll be happy there, with the back garden. He’ll check with her first: wouldn’t want him joining the post-Christmas canine holocaust at Gants Hill roundabout.
Back upstairs in the flat at Beatrice Webb House, Charlene and Rents play with Giro in the front room. They pass her leather purse back and forward, the pup trying to grasp it in his slavery jaws. On the seventh snap he gets a tight grip, as Renton holds resolutely onto the other end.
— Give us it ere! Blimey, you’re gonna pull yer teeth out, Giro, Charlene says, looking at the dog, then to Renton, unhappy that they’d once again made love, and she still hadn’t said what she’d wanted to. Well, that was the last time.
— Naw, ye cannae let go, he says.
His words carry a phantom weight and she feels a tenderness grip her. Fights it down. — You wot?
— Ye cannae let go, he keeps a grip on the purse as Giro emits low growls through his nostrils, — or the dug gits badly trained. It thinks it’s the dominant one in the pack.
— It ain’t got much bleedin competition in this flat, has it?
Renton looks at her and is about to say, ‘Fuck me, I think I’m in love with you,’ although he isn’t quite sure that he means it, and if he does, whether it would be a good strategic move at this point. So he hesitates. Then Charlene turns to him and says, — We gotta stop all this.
— What? Renton asks, experiencing an instant subsidence from somewhere deep within. His fingers go limp on the purse and Giro tugs it free, trotting off victoriously with his prize.
Charlene’s eyes are hard and focused. — You know what I’m on about.
— Fine by me, Renton says, in utter devastation. Then he starts to rant in anguish, — But … but it’s barry … the chorrin thegither. N the shaggin n that. You said so yirsel …
— Yeah, it is, she concedes, — but I told you all along, it ain’t as if we’re going out together.
— Never said we were. He hears the child in his voice, and in flashback envisions himself as a small boy, wielding a stick around inside the walls of the Fort. Then, on the promenade at Blackpool, tearful face pushed into the bosom of a stranger.
— You’re a nice bloke, but I told ya, there’s somebody else.
— So you’ve got this felly. Renton’s stung by his own bitter tone and by the fact that he wants to say: ‘I’ll bet he’s got a bigger cock than me,’ but checks himself and instead remarks, — He’ll be a handsome chappie, I take it.
— I think so. You’d like him. He ain’t that different ta you.
— Sure, Renton says dismissively. — How?
— Well, he’s a bit too fond of drugs, for one thing. And he likes Northern Soul and punk. Look … I told ya from the off that there was someone else. It was never gonna be a permanent arrangement.
— Sound by me, he says unconvincingly, then shakes his head ruefully and speaks, almost to himself: — Funny, aw ah wanted was a lassie where it wis like we sortay wirnae really like gaun oot thegither, we were just, like, mates. Like you sais, mates that fuck. Like Sick Boy has wi a couple ay birds back hame; nae complications or nowt. And ah’d goat that wi you …
— Yeah, well, problem solved, innit.
— Naw, cause it’s like ah want mair now, and he thinks of his previous encounters in the past year or so; Fiona, then that sound lassie from Manchester, Roberta her name was, and some others he doesn’t want to remember.
— Sounds ta me like you dunno what ya want.
Renton feels his shoulders flex in a shrug. — Ah jist like getting fucked up n chorrin n hingin aboot n shaggin. It rules.
— Don’t look at me like that, then!
— Like what?
— Like an orphaned baby seal caught on the ice that’s about to have its brains clubbed out!
The stiff smile on Renton’s mouth reluctantly crawls into his eyes. — Ah didnae realise … sorry. It’s just that you’re a cool lassie … he shakes his head fondly, — that foil in the bag thing ruled.
Charlene looks at him, then eases back onto the couch and thinks of Charlie, in the Scrubs. His two front teeth knocked out, giving him that simpleton smile she perversely loved. The two of them: childhood boyfriend and girlfriend from the Medway Towns. Rochester and Chatham. Yes, she loves Charlie. Mark is better in bed, but that won’t last, not with all that heroin he smokes. But she likes him. — You’re the first geezer wot didn’t go on about my fucking hair all the time; it gets on me nerves, she says unconvincingly.
Renton’s shoulders inch upwards in a disparaging thrust. — It’s really brilliant but ah sometimes think it would be better short. Accentuate those beautiful eyes, he drawls, feeling a muffled, queasy throb from somewhere deep inside him, making him think of skag again.