Porno

Table of Contents

Published by Jonathan Cape 2002

2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

Copyright © Irvine Welsh 2002

Irvine Welsh has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

First published in Great Britain in 2002 by Jonathan Cape
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Irvine Welsh is the author of six previous works of fiction, most recently
Glue
. He lives in London.

For:

Johny Brown

Janet Hay

Stan Keiltyka

John McCartney

Helen McCartney

Paul Reekie

Rosie Savin

Franck Sauzee

And remembering:

John Boyle

Contents

1

Stag

1

Scam # 18,732

C
roxy, sweating from exertion rather than from drug abuse for once in his life, struggles up the stairs with the last box of records as I collapse on the bed, gaping through a numb depression at the cream woodchip walls.
This
is my new home. One poky room, fourteen foot by twelve, with an attached hallway, kitchen and bathroom. The room contains a built-in wardrobe with no doors, my bed, and just about space for two chairs and a table. I couldn’t sit in here: prison would be better. I’d fucking well go back up to Edinburgh and swap Frank Begbie his cell for this frozen hovel.

In this confined space the stench of old fags from Croxy is suffocating. I’ve gone three weeks without a cigarette, but I’ve passive-smoked about thirty a day just from being in his proximity. — Thirsty work, eh, Simon? You coming down the Pepys for one? he asks, his enthusiasm seeming like a gloat, a calculated sneer at one Simon David Williamson’s reduced circumstances.

On one level it would be sheer fucking folly to go down Mare Street, to the Pepys, so that they can all snicker, ‘Back in Hackney, Simon?’ but, aye, company is what’s wanted. Ears must be bent. Steam has to be let off. Also, Croxy needs an airing. Trying to give up fags in his company is like trying to come off gear in a squat full of junkies.

— You’re lucky to get this place, Croxy tells me, as he helps me unload the boxes. Lucky my fuckin arse. I lie down on the bed and the whole joint shakes as the express train to Liverpool Street hurtles through Hackney Downs station, which is about one foot outside the kitchen window.

Staying put in my state of mind is even less of an option than going out, so we’re cagily descending the threadbare stairs, the carpet so worn that it’s as hazardous as the side of a glacier. Outside, sleet falls and there’s a dull aura of festive hangover everywhere, as we make our way towards Mare Street and the town hall. Croxy, with absolutely no sense of irony, is telling me that ‘Hackney’s a better manor than Islington, any roads. Islington’s been facked for years.’

You can be a crustie for too long. He should be designing websites in Clerkenwell or Soho, rather than organising squats and parties in Hackney. I put the cunt wise to the ways of the world, not because it’ll do him any good, but simply to stop nonsense like that filtering into the culture unchallenged. — No, it’s a step backwards, I say, blowing on my hands, my fingers as pink as uncooked pork sausages. — For a twenty-five-year-old crustie, Hackney’s fine. For an upwardly mobile thirty-six-year-old entrepreneur, I point at myself, it has to be Izzy. How can you give a class bit of fanny in a Soho bar an E8 address? What do you say when she asks, ‘Where’s the nearest Tube?’

— The overland’s orlroight, he says, pointing up to the railway bridge beneath the turgid sky. A 38 bus chugs past, spewing its toxic carbon. These fucking London Transport cunts, they whinge on in their expensive pamphlets about the damage the car causes to the environment as they blooter in your respiratory system at will.

— It’s no fucking awright, I snap, — it’s shite. This place’ll be the last part of north London ever to get the Tube. Even fuckin Bermondsey’s got it now, for fuck sake. They can build it out tae that stupid fuckin circus tent, which nae cunt wants tae go tae, and they cannae do it here, that’s well fucked.

Croxy’s narrow face twitches in a sort of smile and he looks at me through those big, hollowed-out eyes. — You’re throwing a right farkin moody today, aintcha, he tells me.

And it’s true. So I do what I always do, drown my sorrows in drink, tell them all in the pub – Bernie, Mona, Billy, Candy, Stevie and Dee – that Hackney is just a temporary switch, don’t expect to see me back on this manor full-time. No siree. Bigger plans, matey. And yes, I’m visiting the toilet frequently, but it’s invariably to ingest rather than excrete.

Even as I’m shovelling it up my hooter, I realise the sad truth. Coke bores me, it bores us all. We’re jaded cunts, in a scene we hate, a city we hate, pretending that we’re at the centre of the universe, trashing ourselves with crap drugs to stave off the feeling that real life is happening somewhere else, aware that all we’re doing is feeding that paranoia and disenchantment, yet somehow we’re too apathetic to stop. Cause, sadly, there’s nothing else of interest to stop for. On that note, rumours abound that Breeny’s got a shitload of ching and a fair bit seems to be flying around already.

Suddenly it’s tomorrow and we’re in a flat somewhere hitting the pipe and Stevie’s going on about how much it cost to purchase this load he’s washing up and grudging crumpled notes come out as the stink of ammonia fills the air. Whenever that horrible pipe hits and blisters my lips, I feel sick and defeated until the toke sends me into another corner of the room: cold, iced, content, full of myself, talking shite, hatching plans to rule the world.