Contents
Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Irvine Welsh
Dedication
Title Page
Foreword
Epigraph
Lorraine Goes To Livingston: A Rave and Regency Romance
Dedication
1. Rebecca’s Chocolates
2. Yasmin Goes To Yeovil
3. Freddy’s Bodies
4. Admission
5. Untitled – Work In Progress (Miss May Regency Romance No. 14.)
6. Lorraine And Yvonne’s Discovery
7. Perk’s Dilemma
8. Freddie’s Indiscretion
9. In The Jungle
10. Rebecca’s Recovery
11. Untitled – Work In Progress
12. Rebecca’s Relapse
13. Perks Sees The Script
14. Untitled – Work In Progress
15. Perks Is Upset
16. A Bugger In The Scrum
17. Lorraine And Love
18. Untitled – Work In Progress
19. The Pathologist’s Report
20. Untitled – Work In Progress
21. Lord Of The Rings
22. Untitled – Work In Progress
23. Perk’s End
24. Pathologically Yours
25. Lorraine Goes To Livingston
Fortune’s Always Hiding: A Corporate Drug Romance
Dedication
Prologue
Aggravation
London, 1961
Suburbia
Wolverhampton, 1963
A Slag’s Habit
Toronto, 1967
Decent Skirt
London, 1979
Mouthy Slags
New York City, 1982
Injustice
Pembrokeshire, 1982
Sacred Cows
Orgreave, 1984
London, 1990
Fitted Up
Sheffield Steel
London, 1991
You Want Some?
The Yard
The Undefeated: An Acid House Romance
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Part One: The Overwhelming Love Of Ecstasy
1. Heather
2. Lloyd
3. Heather
4. Lloyd
5. Heather
6. Lloyd
7. Heather
8. Lloyd
9. Heather
10. Lloyd
11. Heather
12. Lloyd
Part Two: The Overwhelming Ecstasy Of Love
13. Heather
14. Lloyd
15. Heather
16. Lloyd
17. Heather
18. Lloyd
19. Heather
20. Lloyd
21. Heather
22. Lloyd
23. Heather
24. Lloyd
25. Heather
26. Lloyd
27. Heather
28. Lloyd
29. Heather
Epilogue
Copyright
About the Book
Rebecca Navarro, best-selling authoress of Regency romances, suffers a paralysing stroke. Assisted by her nurse, Rebecca plans her revenge on her unfaithful husband. But will Freddy Royle, hospital trustee, celebrity and necrophiliac, thwart those plans? Dave Thornton, soccer thug, has lost his heart to flawed beauty Samantha Worthington. Together they go in search of the man who marketed the drug that crippled her – in order to cripple him. Lloyd from Leith has a transfiguring passion for the unhappily married Heather. Together they explore the true nature of house music and chemical romance. Will their ardour fizzle and die in the grim backstreets of Edinburgh, or will it ignite and blaze like a thousand suns?
About the Author
Irvine Welsh is the author of eight novels and four books of shorter fiction. His most recent novel Skagboys is the prequel to the bestselling Trainspotting. He currently lives in Chicago. www.irvinewelsh.net
Also by Irvine Welsh
Fiction
Trainspotting
The Acid House
Marabou Stork Nightmares
Filth
Glue
Porno
The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs
If You Liked School, You’ll Love Work …
Crime
Reheated Cabbage
Skagboys
Drama
You’ll Have Had Your Hole
Babylon Heights (with Dean Cavanagh)
Screenplay
The Acid House
To Sandy MacNair
They say that death kills you, but death doesn’t kill you. Boredom and indifference kill you.
I Need More, Iggy Pop
Ecstatic love and more to Anne, my friends and family, and all the good people – you know who you are.
Thanks to Robin at the publishers for his diligence and support.
Thanks to Paolo for the Marv rarities, especially Piece of Clay; Toni for the eurotechno; Janet and Tracy for the happy house; and Dino and Frank for the gabber. Nice one to Antoinette for the stereo and Bernard for the gaff.
Love to all the posses in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Amsterdam, London, Manchester, Newcastle, New York, San Francisco and Munich.
Glory to the Hibees.
Take care.
Lorraine Goes To Livingston
A Rave and Regency Romance
For Debbie Donovan and Gary Dunn
1 Rebecca’s Chocolates
Rebecca Navarro sat in her spacious conservatory and looked out across the bright, fresh garden. Perky was down at the bottom end by the old stone wall, pruning the rose-bushes. She could just about make out the suggestion of that familiar pre-occupied frown on his brow, her view distorted by the sun shining strongly into her face through the glass. She felt floaty, drowsy and dislocated in the heat. Succumbing to it, she allowed the heavy typescript to slip through her hands and fall onto the glass coffee table with a fat thump. The first page bore the heading:
UNTITLED – WORK IN PROGRESS
(Miss May Regency Romance No. 14.)
A dark cloud hovered ominously in front of the sun, breaking its spell on Rebecca. She took the opportunity to steal a brief glance at her reflection in the now-darkened glass of the partition door. This triggered a brief spasm of self-loathing before she altered her position from profile to face-on and sucked in her cheeks. The new image obliterated the one of sagging-flesh-hanging-from-the-jawline to the extent that Rebecca felt justified in giving herself a little reward.
Perky was engrossed in his gardening, or pretending to be. The Navarros employed a man to do the gardening and he undertook his duties thoroughly and professionally, but Perky would always find a pretext to go out and do some pottering. He claimed it helped him to think. Rebecca could never, for the life of her, imagine what her husband had to think about.
Despite Perky’s preoccupation however, Rebecca was still swift and furtive as her hand reached across to the box. She pulled up the top layer and quickly removed two rum truffles from the bottom section. She crammed them into her mouth, the sickly sensation almost making her faint, and started to chew violently. The trick was to consume as quickly as possible; in doing it this way there was a sense that the body could be cheated, conned into processing the calories as a block lot, letting them go through as two little items.
This self-delusion could not be sustained as the vile, sweet sickness hit her stomach. She could feel her body slowly and agonisingly breaking down those ugly poisons, conducting a meticulous inventory of calories and toxins present before distributing them to the parts of the body where they would do the most damage.
So at first Rebecca thought that she was experiencing one of her familiar anxiety attacks when it hit her: that slow, burning pain. It took a couple of seconds before the possibility, then the actuality, dawned on her, that it was more than that. She couldn’t breathe as her ears began to ring and the world around her started to spin. Rebecca fell heavily from her chair to the floor of the conservatory, gripping her throat, her face twisting to one side, chocolate and saliva spilling from her mouth.
A few yards away, Perky chopped at the rose-bushes. Buggers want spraying, he thought, as he stood back to assess his work. Out of the corner of his eye he saw something twitching on the conservatory floor …
2 Yasmin Goes To Yeovil
Yvonne Croft picked up the copy of the book Yasmin Goes To Yeovil by Rebecca Navarro. She had scoffed at her mother’s addiction to this series of pulp romantic fiction known as the Miss May Regency Romances, but she just couldn’t leave this book alone. There seemed, times, she considered, when its hold on her reached fearsome levels. Yvonne sat up in the lotus position in her large wicker basket chair, one of the few items of furniture alongside the single bed, the wooden wardrobe, the chest of drawers and the miniature sink in her small rectangular room in the nurses’ home of St Hubbin’s Hospital in London.
She was greedily devouring the last two pages of the book, the climax to this particular romance. Yvonne Croft knew what would happen. She knew that the wily match-maker Miss May (who turned up in every Rebecca Navarro novel in various incarnations) would expose Sir Rodney de Mourney as an unspeakable cad and that the sensuous, tempestuous and untameable Yasmin Delacourt would be united with her true love, the dashing Tom Resnick, just as in Rebecca Navarro’s previous work Lucy Goes To Liverpool, where the lovely heroine was saved from kidnap, the smuggler ship and a life of white slavery at the hands of the evil Milburn D’Arcy, by dashing East India Company official Quentin Hammond.
Yvonne nonetheless read with enthusiasm, and was transported into a world of romance, a world free from the reality of eight-hour backshifts on geriatric wards, looking after decaying, incontinent people who had degenerated into sagging, wheezing, brittle, twisted parodies of themselves as they prepared to die.
Page 224
Tom Resnick rode like the wind. He knew that his steadfast mare was in great pain and that he risked Midnight’s lameness by pushing the loyal and noble beast with such savage determination. And for what? His heart heavy, Tom knew that he would never reach Brondy Hall before Yasmin was joined in marriage to the despicable Sir Rodney de Mourney, that trickster who, unbeknown to his beautiful angel, was preparing to swindle her out of her fortune and reduce that lovely creature to the role of imprisoned concubine.
At the ball, Sir Rodney was relaxed and cheerful. Yasmin had never looked so beautiful. Her virtue would be his tonight, and how Sir Rodney would savour the final surrender of this headstrong filly. Lord Beaumont stood by his friend’s side. – Your bride-to-be is indeed a treasure. To be frank with you, Rodney, my dear friend, I thought that you would never win her heart, convinced as I was that she had seen us both as frippery fellows indeed.
– Never underestimate a huntsman, my friend, Sir Rodney smiled. – I am far too experienced a sportsman to pursue my quarry too closely. I simply held back and waited for the ideal opportunity to arise before administering the coup de grâce.
– Despatching the troublesome Resnick overseas, I’ll wager.
Sir Rodney raised an eyebrow and lowered his voice. – Please be a little more discreet, my friend, he looked around shiftily and, convinced that nobody had heard them over the noise of the band that played the waltz, continued – yes, I arranged for Resnick’s unexpected commission with the Sussex Rangers and his posting to Belgium. Hopefully Boney’s marksmen have delivered the knave to hell even as we speak!
– A good thing too, Beaumont smiled, – for the lady Yasmin had sadly not conducted herself in the manner appropriate to a delicately nurtured female. She seemed to know little discomfiture on that occasion when you and I visited her; finding her embroiled in the concerns of someone no more than an urchin – certainly far beneath the notice of any aspirant to social heights!
– Yes, Beaumont, the wanton streak, though, has appeal in a filly, though that streak must be broken if the woman is to become a dutiful wife. It is this streak that I shall break tonight!
Sir Rodney was unaware that a tall spinster was standing behind the velvet curtain. Miss May had heard everything. She moved off, into the body of the party, leaving him with his thoughts of Yasmin. Tonight would be
Yvonne was distracted by a knock on the door. It was her friend Lorraine Gillespie. – Ye on a late, Yvonne? Lorraine smiled at her. It was an unusual smile, Yvonne thought, one which always seemed to be directed at something beyond its recipient. Sometimes when she looked at you like that, it was as if it wasn’t even Lorraine at all.
– Yeah, worst bleedin luck. That fucking Sister Bruce; proper old bag she is.
– Ye want tae see that Sister Patel … her fuckin patter, Lorraine winced. – You will go-ooh and change the bedclothes, and when you have done this, you will go-ooh and do the drug round, and when you have done this you will go-oh-oh and do the temperatures and then when you have done this go-oh-oh …
– Yeah … Sister Patel. She’s damaged goods, that one.
– Yvonne, is it cool for me tae make a brew, aye?
– Yeah, sorry … you stick on the kettle, will ya, Lorraine? – I’m sorry to be such an anti-social cow, I just gotta finish this book.
Lorraine went over to the sink behind Yvonne and filled the kettle and put it on. On her way past her friend she bent over her chair and filled her nostrils with the fragrance of Yvonne’s perfume and shampoo. She caught herself rubbing some of Yvonne’s shining blonde hair between her thumb and forefinger. – God, Yvonne, your hair’s gone really lovely. What shampoo is that you’ve been using?
– It’s just that Schwartzkopf stuff, she said, – you like it?
– Yeah, said Lorraine, feeling a funny dryness in her throat, – I do.
She went back over to the sink and unplugged the kettle.
– So you going clubbing tonight? Yvonne asked.
– Aw aye, I’m always up for clubbing, Lorraine smiled.
3 Freddy’s Bodies
There was nothing like the sight of a stiff to give Freddy Royle a stiffie.
– Bit bashed about this one, Glen, the path lab technician explained, as he wheeled the body into the hospital mortuary.
Freddy was finding it hard to maintain steady breathing. He examined the corpse. – She’s bain a roight pretty un n arl, he rasped in his Somerset drawl, – caar accident oi presumes?
– Yeah, poor cow. M25. Lost too much blood by the time they cut her out of the pile-up, Glen mumbled uncomfortably. He was feeling a bit sick. Usually a stiff was just a stiff to him, and he had seen them in all conditions. Sometimes though, when it was someone young, or someone whose beauty could still be evidenced from the three-dimensional photograph of flesh they had left behind, the sense of the waste and futility of it all just fazed him. This was such an occasion.
One of the dead girl’s legs was lacerated to the bone. Freddy ran his hand up the perfect one. It felt smooth. – Still a bit wahrm n arl, he observed, – bit too waarm for moi tastes if the truth be told.
– Eh, Freddy, Glen began.
– Oh zorry, me ol moite, Freddy smiled, reaching into his wallet and peeling off some notes which he handed over to Glen.
– Cheers, Glen said, pocketing the money and hastily exiting. Glen fingered the notes in his pocket as he walked briskly down the hospital corridor and took the lift to the canteen. This part of the ritual, the exchange of cash, left him elated and debased at the same time. He could never tell which emotion was the strongest. Why though, he reasoned, should he deny himself a cut if the rest of them were in on it? Those arseholes who had more than he ever would: the hospital trustees.
Yes, the trustees knew all about Freddy Royle, Glen reflected bitterly. They knew the real secrets of the chat-show host, the presenter of the lonely hearts television show, From Fred With Love, the author of several books, including Howzat! – Freddy Royle On Cricket, Freddy Royle’s Somerset, Somerset With a Z: The Wit Of The West Country, West Country Walks With Freddy Royle and Freddy Royle’s 101 Magic Party Tricks. Yes, those trustee bastards knew what this distinguished friend, this favourite caring, laconic uncle to the nation did with the stiffs they got in here. The thing was, Freddy brought millions of pounds into the place with his fund-raising activities. This brought kudos to the trustees, and made St Hubbin’s Hospital a flagship for the arm’s-length trusts from the NHS. All they had to do was keep shtumm and indulge Sir Freddy with the odd body.
Glen thought about Sir Freddy, thrusting his way to a loveless paradise with a piece of dead meat. In the canteen, he joined the line and examined the food on display. Glen decided against a bacon roll and had processed cheese instead. He thought of Freddy and the old necrophiliac joke: someday some rotten cunt will split on him. It wouldn’t be Glen though: Freddy paid too well for that. Thinking of the cash and what it could buy, Glen’s thoughts turned to AWOL at the SW1 Club tonight. She would be there – she often was on a Saturday – or at Garage City in Shaftesbury Avenue. Ray Harrow, one of the theatre technicians, had told him. Ray was into jungle; he had the same modus operandi as Lorraine. Ray was okay, he had lent Glen tapes. Glen couldn’t get into jungle, but he’d try for Lorraine. Lorraine Gillespie. Beautiful Lorraine. Student Nurse Lorraine Gillespie. He knew she worked hard: conscientious, dedicated on the ward. He knew she raved hard: AWOL, The Gallery, Garage City. What he wanted to know was how she loved.
When he came to the end of the line with his tray and paid the cashier, he saw the blonde nurse sitting at one of the tables. He didn’t know her name, all he knew of her was that she was Lorraine’s friend. By the look of things she was just starting her shift. Glen thought about sitting beside her, talking to her, perhaps even finding out about Lorraine through her. He moved over towards her, and then obeying a sudden nervous impulse, half-slipped and half-collapsed into a seat a couple of tables away. As he ate his roll he cursed his weakness. Lorraine. If he couldn’t work up the bottle to talk to her friend, how was he ever going to work up the bottle to talk to her?
Then she rose and smiled over at him as she passed him. His spirits lifted. The next time he’d talk to her, then the time after that he’d talk to her when she was with Lorraine.
When Glen returned to the ante-room, he heard Freddy next door in the mortuary. He couldn’t bear to look, but he listened at the swing doors. He heard Freddy’s gasps, – Wor, wor, wor, looks like a good un!
4 Admission
The ambulance arrived quickly, but it seemed a long time for Perky. He watched Rebecca gasp and groan on the conservatory floor. Self-consciously, he grabbed her hand. – Chin up, old girl, they’re on their way, he said once or twice.
– You’ll be right as rain, he told her, as the ambulance men loaded her into a chair, placed an oxygen mask over her face, and wheeled her into the back of the van. It was as if he was watching a silent film in which his own sounds of encouragement seemed like a badly imposed voice-over. Then Perky was aware of Wilma and Alan Fosley, watching the scene from over their hedge. – Everything’s fine, he assured them, – just fine.
The ambulancemen, in turn, gave Perky a similar reassurance that this would indeed be the case, intimating that the stroke looked a mild one. This contention carried a conviction that he found unsettling and it served to lower his spirits. Perky found himself hoping fervently that they were wrong and that a doctor would come up with a more negative evaluation.
He started to perspire heavily as he turned the options over in his mind:
The best scenario: she dies and I am minted in the will.
Next best: she is okay and continues to write, and promptly completes the latest regency romance novel.
He shuddered as he realised that he was in fact flirting with the worse-case scenario: Rebecca is incapacitated in some way, perhaps even reduced to a vegetable, incapable of writing but a drain on our resources.
– Aren’t you coming with us, Mr Navarro? one of the ambulancemen asked, his tone quite accusatory.
– You chaps go ahead, I’ll follow in the car, Perky replied sharply. He was used, in social situations, to giving orders to people from such a class, and was therefore riled by their presumption that he should do as they think appropriate. He looked over at the rose-bushes. Yes, they could do with a spraying. At the hospital there would be all the fuss and palaver of checking the old girl in. Yes, time for a spraying, surely.
Perky’s attention was arrested by the manuscript which lay on the coffee table. There was chocolatey vomit on the front page. With some distaste, he brushed the worst off with a handkerchief, exposing the bubbled, wet paper.
He opened its pages and started to read.
5 Untitled – Work In Progress (Miss May Regency Romance No. 14.)
Page I
It only required the most modest of fires to heat the small, compact schoolroom in the old manse at Selkirk. This was considered a particularly advantageous state of affairs by the Minister of the parish, the Reverend Andrew Beattie, a man noted for his frugality.
Andrew’s wife, Flora, matched this frugality with a lavish extravagance. She knew and accepted that she had married into reduced circumstances and that money was tight, but while she had learned to be what her husband constantly referred to as ‘practical’ in her day-to-day dealings, the essential extravagance of her spirit could not be broken by those circumstances. Far from disapproving, Andrew adored her all the more for it. To think that this wonderful and beautiful woman had given up fashionable society in London for the life he had to offer. It made him believe in the virtue of his calling and the purity of her love.
Their two daughters, huddled in front of the fire, had inherited Flora’s extravagance of spirit. Agnes Beattie, a porcelain-skinned beauty, the elder at seventeen years, pushed back her raven hair to afford herself an unbroken view of the contents of Ladies Monthly Museum. – There is the most ravishing evening gown! Do look at it, Margaret, she exclaimed wildly, thrusting the page in front of her younger sister by one year, who was idly stoking the meagre coals in the fireplace, – a bodice of blue satin, fastened in front by diamonds!
Margaret sprang up and attempted to wrestle the paper from her sister’s grasp. Agnes tightened her grip, then her heart skipped a beat, from anxiety that the paper might tear, but she kept her tone admirably condescending as she laughed, – But dear sister, you are far too young to consider such things!
– Do, pray, give it me! Margaret implored her sister even as her own hold was loosening. In their frivolity, the girls failed to notice the entrance of their new tutor. The slender, spinsterly English woman pursed her lips and tutted loudly. – So this is the behaviour I must expect from the daughters of my dear friend Flora Beattie! I must think twice before absenting myself in the future!
The girls looked embarrassed, but Agnes detected the note of playfulness in the tutor’s reprimand. – But madam, if I am to be introduced to society, in London too, then I must consider my attire!
The woman looked at her. – Training, education and etiquette are more important qualities for a young lady in her introduction to polite society than the detail of the finery she wears. Do you imagine that your dear mama, or your father, the good Reverend, for all his austerity, would see you embarrassed in that way at London’s balls? Leave the consideration of your wardrobe in those capable hands, my girl, and turn your attention to more pressing matters!
– Yes, Miss May, Agnes said.
That girl has an untameable streak, thought Miss May, just like her dear mama, the tutor’s dear old friend from many years ago – from the time, in fact, when Amanda May and Flora Kirkland were introduced to London society together.
Perky slung the manuscript back onto the coffee table. – What a load of utter nonsense, he said out loud, then, – Absolutely fucking brilliant! The bitch is on form. She’ll make us another fucking fortune! He rubbed his hands together gleefully as he strode out into the garden towards the rose-bushes. Suddenly, a tumult of anxiety rose in his breast as he ran back into the conservatory and picked up the manuscript. He thumbed through it, to the back pages. It stopped at page forty-two and had, by page twenty-six, degenerated into an unintelligible series of stark sentences and ramshackle spidery notes in the margins. It was nowhere near finished.
I hope the old girl’s all right, Perky thought. He felt an uncontrollable urge to be with his wife.
6 Lorraine And Yvonne’s Discovery
Lorraine and Yvonne were preparing to go onto the wards. After their shifts they were going out to buy some clothes, because tonight they were hitting a jungle club where Goldie was headlining. Lorraine was slightly perturbed to find Yvonne still engrossed in her book. It was all right for her; she didn’t have Sister Patel on her ward. She was about to remonstrate with her friend and tell her to get a move on when the name of the author on the cover jumped out at her. She examined the book and the picture of a glamorous young woman adorning the back. It was a very old picture, and if it hadn’t been for the name she would not have recognised Rebecca Navarro.
– Fuckin hell! Lorraine’s eyes widened. – See that book you’re reading?
– Yeah? Yvonne looked at the glossy, embossed cover. A young woman in a bodice pouted in a dream-like trance.
– Ken her that wrote it? Her on the back?
– Rebecca Navarro? Yvonne asked, flipping it over.
– She was admitted to Dean, Ward Six, last night. She’d had a stroke!
– That’s wild! What’s she like?
– Dinnae ken … well, she’s fuck-all like that anyway! She seems a bit dotty tae me, but she’d just had a stroke though, eh?
– That would do it right enough, Yvonne smirked. – You gonna see if she’s got any freebies?
– Aye, ah’ll dae that, said Lorraine. – Aye, and she’s really fat as well. That’s how she had the stroke. She’s a total pig now!
– Yeuch! Imagine looking like that and letting yourself go!
– Right but, Yvonne, Lorraine looked at her watch, – we’d better be makin a move, eh no?
– Yeah … Yvonne conceded, earmarking a page and rising to get ready.
7 Perk’s Dilemma
Rebecca was crying. Just as she had been every day that week he had gone in to visit her. This gravely concerned Perky. When Rebecca cried it was because she was depressed. When Rebecca was depressed she didn’t write, couldn’t write. When she didn’t write … well, Rebecca always left the business side of things to Perky, who in turn painted a far glossier picture of their financial situation than was actually the case. Perky had certain expenses unknown to Rebecca. He had needs; needs, he considered, that the self-centred and egotistical old bag could never comprehend.
Their whole relationship was about him indulging her ego, subsuming all his own needs in the service of her infinite vanity, or at least that’s what it would have been had he not been able to lead his private life. He deserved, he reasoned, some recompense. He was, by nature, a man of expensive tastes, as extravagant as her blasted heroines.
He looked at her clinically, drinking in the extent of the damage. It had not been what the doctors would term a severe stroke. Rebecca had not lost the power of speech (bad, Perky considered) and he was assured that her critical faculties had not been impaired (good, he thought). But it certainly appeared nasty enough to him. One side of her face looked like a piece of plastic which had been left too close to a fire. He had tried to keep a mirror away from the self-obsessed bitch, but it proved impossible. She’d insisted, until someone had furnished her with one.
– Oh Perky, I’m so horrible! Rebecca whined, gazing at her collapsed face in the mirror.
– Nonsense, my darling. It’ll all get better, you’ll see!
Let’s face it, old girl, you were never much in the looks stakes. Too gross, always stuffing fucking chocolates into your face, he thought to himself. The doctors had said as much. Obese was the word they had used. A woman of only forty-two years of age, nine years his junior, though you would never think it. Three stone overweight. It was a fantastic word: obese. The way the doctor had said it, clinically, medically, in its proper context. It hurt her. He noticed that. It cut her to the quick.
Despite this recognition of the change in her face, Perky was astonished that he couldn’t really ascertain any real aesthetic decline in Rebecca’s looks since the stroke. The truth was, he reckoned, that she had repulsed him for a long time. Perhaps, indeed, she always had: her childishness, her self-obsession, her fussing, and above all, her obesity. She was pathetic.
– Oh darling Perks, do you really think so? Rebecca moaned to herself rather than Perky, then turned to the approaching Nurse Lorraine Gillespie, – Will it get better, Nursey?
Lorraine smiled at her, – Aw, ah’m sure it will, Mrs Navarro.
– See? Listen to this lovely young lady, Perks smiled, raising a bushy eyebrow at Lorraine, and maintaining eye contact for a flirtatiously long time, before ending it with a wink.
A slow burner, this one, Perky thought. He regarded himself as a connoisseur of women. Sometimes, he considered, beauty just bit you straight away. You went wow!, then you acclimatised yourself to it. The best ones, though, the ones like this little Scotch nurse, they just crept up on you slowly but resolutely, showing you something else every time, with every mood, every different expression. They allowed you to form a vague woolly neutral perception of them, then they looked at you a certain way and ruthlessly mugged it.
– Yes, Rebecca pouted, – my darling little Nursey. She’s so kind and gentle, aren’t you, Nursey?
Lorraine felt flattered and insulted at the same time. All she could think about was finishing. Tonight was the night. Goldie!
– And I can tell that Perky likes you! Rebecca sang. – He’s such a terrible flirt, aren’t you, Perks?
Perky forced a smile.
– But he’s such a darling, and so romantic, I don’t know what I’d do without him.
His personal stock with Rebecca seemingly higher than ever, Perky instinctively placed a micro-cassette recorder on her locker, along with some blank tapes. Maybe a bit heavy-handed, he thought, but he was desperate. – Perhaps a bit of match-making with Miss May might take your mind off things, my darling …
– Oh Perks … I couldn’t possibly write romance now. Look at me. I’m horrendous. How could I possibly think of romance?
Perky felt a sinking fear hang heavily in his chest.
– Nonsense. You’re still the most beautiful woman in the world, he forced out through clenched teeth.
– Oh darling Perky … she began, just before Lorraine stuck a thermometer in her mouth to silence her.
Perks looked coldly at what he saw as this ridiculous figure, his face still moulded in a relaxed smile. Duplicity came so easily to him. However, the nagging problem remained: without another Miss May Regency Romance manuscript, Giles at the publishers would not cough up that hundred-and-eighty-grand advance on the next book. Worse, he would sue for breach of contract and want back the ninety grand on the last one. That ninety grand; now the property of various London bookmakers, publicans, restaurateurs and prostitutes.
Rebecca was getting bigger and bigger, not just literally, but as a writer. The Daily Mail had described her as the ‘world’s greatest living romance writer’, while the Standard referred to her as ‘Britain’s Princess Regent’. The next one would be the biggest yet. Perks needed that manuscript, something to follow up Yasmin Goes To Yeovil, Paula Goes To Portsmouth, Lucy Goes To Liverpool and Nora Goes To Norwich.
– I’ll really have to read your books, Mrs Navarro. My friend’s a big fan of yours. She’s just finished reading Yasmin Goes To Yeovil, Lorraine told Rebecca, taking the thermometer from her mouth.
– Then you shall! Perks, be a darling, do remember to bring in some books for Nursey … oh and, Nursey, please, please, please, please, please call me Rebecca. Of course I shall keep calling you Nursey because I’m used to it now, although Lorraine is a most lovely name. You look just like a young French countess … in fact, you know, I think you look just like a portrait I once saw of Lady Caroline Lamb. It was a flattering portrait, as she was never as lovely as you, my darling, but she’s my heroine: a wonderfully romantic figure not afraid to risk scandal for love, like all the best women throughout history. Would you risk scandal for love, Nursey darling?
God, the sow’s ranting again, Perks thought.
– Dinnae ken, eh, Lorraine shrugged.
– Oh, I’m sure you would. You have that wild, ungovernable look about you. Don’t you think so, Perks?
Perky felt his blood pressure rise and a layer of salt crystallise on his lips. That uniform … those buttons … removed one by one … he forced a cool smile.
– Yes, Nursey, Rebecca continued, – I see you as a consort of Lady Caroline Lamb, at one of those grand regency balls, pursued by suitors eager to waltz with you … do you waltz, Nursey?
– Naw, ah’m intae house, especially jungle n that likes. Dinnae mind trancey n garage n techno n that, bit ah like it tae kick but ken?
– Would you like to learn to waltz?
– No really bothered. Mair intae house, eh. Jungle likes. Goldie’s ma man, eh.
– Oh, but you must, Nursey, you really must, Rebecca’s swollen face pouted insistently.
Lorraine felt faintly embarrassed as she was aware of Perky’s eyes lingering on her. She felt strangely exposed in her uniform as if she was something exotic, something to be held up for inspection. She had to get on. Sister Patel was coming on soon and there would be trouble if she didn’t get a move on.
– Where about in Bonnie Scotland are you from? Perks smiled.
– Livingston, Lorraine said quickly.
– Livingston, Rebecca said, – it sounds perfectly delightful. Are you going home to visit soon?
– Aye, see ma mother n that.
Yes, there was something about that Scotch nurse, thought Perks. She had an effect on more than his hormones; she was helping Rebecca. This girl seemed to ignite her, to bring her back to life. As Lorraine left, his wife drifted back into a litany of self-pitying whines. It was time he left as well.
8 Freddie’s Indiscretion
Freddy Royle had had, by his standards, a tiring day prior to his late afternoon arrival at St Hubbin’s. He had been in the television studios all morning filming an episode of From Fred With Love. A young boy, whom Fred had sorted out to swim with the dolphins at Morecambe’s Marineland, while his grandparents were brought back to the scene of their honeymoon, was all excited in the studio and writhed around on his lap, getting Freddy so aroused and excited that they had to do several takes. – Oi loike em still, he said, – very, very still. Barry, the producer, was not at all amused. – In the name of God, Freddy, take the rest of the fucking afternoon off and go to the hospital and shag a stiff, he moaned. – Let’s see if we can dampen that bloody libido of yours.
It seemed good advice. – Oi think oi moite just be doin that, me ol cocker, Freddy smiled, summoning a commissionaire to order him a cab from Shepherd’s Bush down to St Hubbin’s. On the ride through West London, frustrated at the grindingly slow pace of the cab in the traffic, he changed his mind and requested the driver to drop him off at a Soho bookshop he frequented.
Freddy winked at the man behind the counter of the busy establishment before sauntering through to the back. There, another man, wearing strange, horn-rimmed glasses, and drinking tea from a Gillingham F.C. mug, smiled at Freddy. – All right, Freddy? How you going, mate?
– Not baad, Bertie, moi ol mucker. Yourzelf?
– Oh, musn’t grumble. Here, I got something for you … Bertie opened a locked cupboard and rummaged around through some brown-paper packages until he saw one marked FREDDY in black felt pen.
Freddy didn’t open it, but instead nodded, over to a display bookcase on the wall. Bertie smiled, – Quite a few been in today, and moved over to the wall. He grabbed a handle and pulled open a door. Behind it was a small, narrow room, with metal shelving stacked with magazines and videos. Two men were browsing, as Freddy walked in and pulled the bookcase door shut behind him. Freddy knew one of them.
– Alroight, Perks, me old sport?
Perky Navarro averted his gaze from the cover of Long-Tongued Lesbo Love-Babes No.2 and smiled at Freddy. – Freddy, old boy. How are you? He did a quick double-take to the rack, as he was convinced he saw a likeness of Nurse Lorraine Gillespie in New Cunts 78. He picked it up, studied it closely. No, just similar hair.
– I’m foine, me old mucker, Freddy began, then noting Perk’s distraction, asked – Zeen zumthin interestin?
– I rather thought I had, but, alas, no, Perky sounded deflated.
– Oi dare zay you’ll foind zumthin that takes your fancy. And what news of the Angel, ow’s she farin?
– Oh, she’s doing a lot better.
– Well, she’s in the roight place. I’m going to drop in and see her today, cause oime headin down to St Hubbin’s for a fund-raisin meetin.
– Well, I can see a huge difference, Perky smiled, perking up again. – She’s even talking about starting to do some writing soon.
– Crackin show.
– Yes, that young nurse that’s been looking after her … little Scotch girl … she’s been good for her. A stunning little bird as well. In fact I’ve been scouring the wares for a likeness …
– Anything interesting in?
– There’s some new stuff that Bertie tells me just came from Hamburg yesterday, but that’s over there, Perks ushered Freddy to one of the racks.
Freddy picked up a magazine and thumbed through its contents. – Not baad, not baad at all. Oi got moiself a noice little vist-vuckin magazine the other week there. Ow zum of them there girlz an boyz can take one of them vists up their doo-daas oi don’t know. Oi be bad enough trying to shoite if I’ve gone a vew days without spendin a penny!
– I think some of them must be full of those muscle-relaxant drugs, Perks told him.
This seemed to intrigue Freddy. – Muzzle-relaxint drugs … hmmm … that open them up noicely now, would it?
– Yes, that would do the trick. Read about it. You’re not thinking of trying some, are you? Perky laughed.
Freddy turned a toothy grin his way and Perky found himself recoiling from the television star’s pungent breath. – Oi rulz out nuttin at no toimes, Perky me boy, you knows me.
Slapping his friend on the back, the television star picked up his package and left the shop, hailing another taxi outside. He was off to see Rebecca Navarro, a woman he, like all her friends, indulged shamelessly. He had playfully, and to her delight, nicknamed her ‘The Angel’. But after seeing her, Freddy would spend more time with some other friends whom most people would describe as ‘absent’, but who, for his purposes, were very much present and correct.
9 In The Jungle
The night before his life changed, Glen had had to plead with his friend Martin, – Come on, mate, give it a try. I got good pills, those Amsterdam Playboys. The best ever.
– Exactly, Martin sneered, – and you’re gonna waste them on this fuckin jungle shit. I don’t go for that shit, Glen, I just can’t fucking well dance to it.
– C’mon, mate, as a favour. Give it a go.
– A favour? Why you so desperate to check out this club? Keith and Carol and Eddie, they’re all going down to Sabresonic and then on to the Ministry.
– Look, mate, house music’s at the forefront of everything, and jungle’s at the forefront of house. It’s got to have a capacity to surprise, innit, otherwise it just becomes affirmation, like country-and-western, or like rock’n’roll’s become. Jungle’s the music with the capacity to surprise. It’s where the cutting edge is. We owe it to ourselves to check it out, Glen implored.
Martin looked at him searchingly. – There’s someone you want to see at this club … someone from the hospital goes there … one of them nurses I’ll bet!
Glen shrugged and smiled, – Well … yeah … but …
– All right, that’s cool. You want to chase the girls, we’ll chase the girls. Ain’t got no objections on that score. Just don’t give me all this cutting-edge bollocks.
They got to the club, and Glen felt despondent when they saw the size of the queue. Martin strode up to the front and talked to one of the bouncers. He then turned and gesticulated violently at Glen to come up. There were some moans of frustrated envy from others in the crowd as Glen and Martin strode through. At first Glen had been terrified that they would not get in. After Martin had blagged it so effectively, he worried that Lorraine might have been stuck outside.
In the club, they went straight to the chill-out zone. Martin hit the bar and bought two fizzy mineral waters. It was dark and Glen pulled a plastic bag out of his Y-fronts. It contained four pills with a Playboy bunny logo stamped on them. They swallowed one each and washed them down with water.
After about ten minutes, the pill kept coming back on Glen, as it tended to do, and he had dry, hiccupy wretches. He and Martin were unconcerned; Glen was just bad at taking pills.
Three girls sat down close to them. Martin had been quick to start chatting to them. Glen was equally quick to leave him and hit the dance-floor. These Es were good, but unless you started dancing straight away you would sit around talking in the chill-out zone all night. Glen had come to dance.
He skirted the already-busy dance-floor and quickly came across Lorraine and her friend. Glen danced a discreet distance away. He recognised Murder Dem by Ninjaman sliding into Wayne Marshall’s G Spot.
Lorraine and her friend Yvonne were up there, going for it in a big way. Glen watched them dancing with each other, Lorraine blocking out all the world, focusing on Yvonne, giving her friend everything. God, for just a bit of that attention, he thought. Yvonne, though, was more disengaged, further away, taking in the whole scene. That was how it seemed to Glen. His pill was kicking in, and the music, which he had had a resistance to, was getting into him from all sides, surging through his body in waves, defining his emotions. Before it had seemed jerky and disjointed, it was pushing and pulling at him, irritating him. Now he was going with it, his body bubbling and flowing in all ways to the roaring bass-lines and the tearing dub plates. All the joy of love for everything good was in him, though he could see all the bad things in Britain; in fact this twentieth-century urban blues music defined and illustrated them more sharply than ever. Yet he wasn’t scared and he wasn’t down about it: he could see what needed to be done to get away from them. It was the party: he felt that you had to party, you had to party harder than ever. It was the only way. It was your duty to show that you were still alive. Political sloganeering and posturing meant nothing; you had to celebrate the joy of life in the face of all those grey forces and dead spirits who controlled everything, who fucked with your head and livelihood anyway, if you weren’t one of them. You had to let them know that in spite of their best efforts to make you like them, to make you dead, you were still alive. Glen knew that this wasn’t the complete answer, because it would all still be there when you stopped, but it was the best show in town right now. It was certainly the only one he wanted to be at.
He had looked back over at Lorraine and her friend. He couldn’t tell at first, but he was dancing like a maniac, and when he glanced over at them, he realised. There were no poseurs here, they were all going crazy. This wasn’t dance, that wasn’t the word for what this was. And there they were: Lorraine and her friend Yvonne. Lorraine, the goddess. But the goddess had multiplied. There wasn’t just one of them now, like when he came in, there was just Lorraine and her friend. Now it was Lorraine and Yvonne, in a dance of crazy, rapturous emotion which, while conducted at ninety miles an hour, slowed down to almost nothing under the onslaught of the throbbing strobes and jerky break-beats. Lorraine and Yvonne. Yvonne and Lorraine.