Authors: Irvine Welsh
Ecstasy (31 page)
28 Lloyd
Ah’m sittin wi Ally and ah’m telling him: – Ah’ve never been sae fuckin scared in ma puff, Ally. Mibbee huv tae chill on this relationship thing a bit. It’s gittin too heavy.
Ally looks at ays and shakes his heid. – If you run fae this, Lloyd, make sure it’s fir the right reasons. Ah see ye when yir wi her. Ah see how ye are. Dinnae deny it!
– Aye, but …
– Aye but nowt. Aye but dinnae you start actin the cunt unless thirs something ah dinnae ken. That’s aw the fuckin aye buts you need tae listen tae. Dinnae be feared ah love, man, that’s what they want. That’s the wey they divide. Dinnae ever be feared ah love.
– Mibbe yir right, ah say. – Ye fancy daein some eggs?
29 Heather
The thing about Lloyd, though, was that he was never around during the week. It started to get to me. The weekends, it was great, we were E’d up and we made love a lot. It was big party. But he used to avoid seeing me during the week. One day I confronted him about it. I went round to his, and I didn’t call him first.
When I got there the place was a tip. Worse than Marie’s at its worst. – It’s jist thit ah’m intae a different scene during the week, Heather. Ah know myself. Ah’m just no good company, he told me. He looked terrible: worn-out, tense; dark circles under his eyes.
– I see, I said to him. – You come out with all that bullshit about how you love me but you only want to be with me when you’re high at the weekend. Great.
– It isnae like that.
– It is, I heard my voice rising, – You just sit here during the day, all depressed and bored. We only make love at the weekend, only when you’re E’d up. You’re a fake, Lloyd, an emotional and sexual fake. Don’t touch what you can’t emotionally afford. Don’t lay claims to emotions you can’t feel without drugs!
I’m feeling guilty at giving him such a hard time, because he looks in such distress, but I’m annoyed. I can’t help it. I want it to move on.
I want to be with him more. I need to.
– It’s not fuckin false. When I’m E’d up it’s like ah want to be. It’s no like anything’s been added to me, it’s like it’s been taken away fae me; aw the shite in the world that gets intae your heid. When I’m E’d up I’m my real self.
– So what are you just now then?
– I’m a fucking emotional wreckage, the waste product of a shitey
world
a bunch of cunts have set up for themselves at our expense, and the saddest thing of all is that they can’t even enjoy it.
– And you are enjoying it?
– Maybe no now, but at least ah have my moments, unlike these cunts …
– Yeah, weekends.
– Aye, right! Ah want it! Ah want that. Why the fuck shouldn’t ah be able to have it!
– You should be able to have it. I want to give you it! I need you to give it to me! Listen, just dinnae phone me for a bit. You can’t do without drugs, Lloyd. If you want to see me, do it without drugs.
He looked totally devastated, but he can’t have been as devastated as I felt when my anger subsided and I got home. I waited for the phone to ring, jumping out of my skin every time I heard it.
But he never called and I couldn’t bring myself to call him. Not then, and not later, not after I’d heard what they said at the party.
Marie and Jane and me at a party, and my blood running cold in the kitchen as I hear some guys talking about a guy named Lloyd from Leith and what he was supposed to have done and who with.
I couldn’t call him.
Epilogue
I was dancing away at The Pure, kicking like fuck because Weatherall’s up from London and he’s moved it up seamlessly from ambient to a hard-edged techno dance-beat and the lasers have started and everybody is going crazy and through it all I can see him, jerking and twitching under the strobes and he’s seen me and he comes over. He was wearing that top. The one he’d had on when we’d met. The one he put around me that night. – What do you want? I roar at him, not missing a beat.
– Ah want you, he said, – I’m in love with you, he’s shouting in my ear.
Easy to say when you’re fucking E’d up. But it got to me, and I tried not to show that I was moved, or that he looked so good to me. It had been three weeks. – Yeah, well tell me that on Monday morning, I smiled. It wasn’t easy, cause I’m well E’d and feeling so much. I would never be fucked around by a guy again though. Never. The noise was getting to me. It had been so good, but Lloyd had turned it into a grating grind with the piece of shit his simple words implanted in my head.
– I’ll be round, he shouted, smiling.
– I’ll believe it when I see it, I said. Who the fuck did he think he was.
– Believe it, he said.
Oh Batman, my Dark Fucking Knight I do not think. – Well, I’m away to find Jane, I told him. I had to get away from him. I was on my trip, in my scene. He’s a fucking freak, a fucking sad freak. I should have known. I should have been able to tell. Lloyd. Go. I moved to the front of the house. I was trying to get back into the music, thrashing, trying to forget Lloyd, to dance him out of my mind, to get
back
to where I’d been before he appeared. The crowd are going crazy. This mad guy’s in front of Weatherall giving it loads and standing back and applauding as the man responds, taking it higher. I got really hot and breathless and had to stop for a bit. I moved through the mental crowd and hit the bar for some water. I saw Ally, Lloyd’s mate. – What’s Lloyd on tonight, then? I asked him. I shouldn’t have asked him. I’m not interested in Lloyd.
– Nowt, Ally said. He was sweating like he had been really kicking it, – he’s just had a couple ay drinks. Didnae want a pill, eh no. Sais eh wis gaunnae take six months oaf n aw that shite. Didnae want ehs perspective damaged, that was what the daft fucker sais. Listen, Heather, man, he says with an air of confidence, – hope yir no gaunnae make him intae a straight-peg, eh.
Lloyd is not E’d up. A thousand thoughts shoot through my head with the MDMA. Weatherall took it down and I started to feel a bit giddy.
– Listen, Ally, I want to ask ye something, I say, touching him lightly on the arm, – Something about Lloyd. I told him what I heard, at that party. All he did was to laugh loudly, slapping his legs before composing himself and telling me the real story.
I felt a bit daft after this. I fingered my second pill which I had taken from my bra and slipped into the watch pocket of my jeans. It was time. But no. I saw Lloyd talking to this guy and these lassies. I nodded to him and he came over. – You talking to anybody special? I asked him, shrinking inside from my own voice: catty, jealous, sarcastic.
He just smiled softly and kept his eyes focused on mine, – Ah am now, he said.
– Want to go? I asked.
I felt his arm slide around my waist and his wet lips make contact with my neck. He squeezed me, and I returned the embrace, standing on my tiptoes, feeling my tits flatten against his chest. After a while he broke off and swept the hair back from my face. – Let’s get the coats, he smiled.
We turned our backs on the chaos and headed downstairs.
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Copyright © Irvine Welsh 1996
Irvine Welsh has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
Lines from ‘I Need More’ and ‘The Undefeated’ by Iggy Pop are used by permission of James Osterberg, copyright © 1996
First published in Great Britain in 1996 by Jonathan Cape
First published by Vintage in 1997
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ISBN 9780099572343