— I spiked him with MDMA powder, sis, and I tuck some of her inky hair behind her ear, letting soul seep into my eyes. — All Euan talked about was you, and then he was cynically seduced by that maniac, who was just trying to get back at me. I place my hands on her shoulders.
— Cheer up, hen, shouts a nearby half-pished unhelpful fat cunt in a Hibs strip that clings to him like a body stocking in a chubster’s sex club, — we won the thing!
I half acknowledge the blob with a weary smile. I hate to see an overweight Hibs fan: fuck off to Tynecastle if you’ve no self-control or self-respect. — You mind of Marianne? I urge her to recall. — She came to the door with her old man, back in the day, up the duff, throwing accusations around. Of course, she got rid ay it.
Carlotta looks at me in scorn, but isn’t pushing me away. — I think so. Another one you treated like shite.
I’m not loosening my grip, just letting it dissolve into an easy kneading of her tense shoulders. — Heyyy… I wasn’t blameless, far from it, but it cut both ways. So anyway, let her take it out on me, I implore, — not a reliable pillar of the Edinburgh medical community. I drop my hands, ending my massage, lifting up her fallen head. — That’s her level of spite though. She knows family is the only thing I care about.
Carra hauls in a deep breath, glances over to where Euan stands, then faces me with her wild eyes. — But he was fucking her up the arse on a video recording, Simon, she shouts, as a few Hibby heads turn round. Somebody shouts something about Stokesy and Tavernier, which I have to stifle a giggle at. I crack an appreciative smile at the nearby group, but they are quickly distracted as the chants intensify with the bus edging nearer. With the crowds trying to get closer, a crush is developing, so I steer Carlotta back down the side street, more proximate to where Euan stands. — It’s just genital interaction and drugs. There’s no love on display. All I saw there was – I’m about to say ‘the tentative technique of the amateur’ but manage, — somebody having a glorified wank. Go to him, Carra, I beg, nodding to Euan. — He’s hurting as much as you. He’s had his life wrecked too. Heal. Heal together!
Carlotta purses her lips, her eyes stockpiling tears. Then she turns and heads over to him, and as David Gray holds up the cup to ecstatic acclaim, before passing it to Hendo, she takes her beleaguered hubby’s hand. He contemplates her, also displaying impressive waterworks, as I signal to Pitch and Toss and his daft sidekick to stand over by me. Ross looks at his sobbing parents in awe. — It’s a funny old life, buddy, I ruffle his hair.
This wee cunt shouldnae be riding hoors! He’s barely mature enough to have stopped climbing trees! Maybe Renton was right, and I made a mistake inducting him into the world of minge, projecting my own teen vices onto an obvious novice. I was differently made: at his age I had testicles as vicious and hairy as the heads of two ferrets.
This Sunday Cup parade is the best! The crowd is an endearing mix of families and the many casualties who have carried on through the night, and for whom probably the only respite from alcohol in the last thirty-six hours was that beautiful ninety-four minutes of football!
There are loads of old faces around. The Exercise Bike (every cunt has pumped it and it doesnae move) approaches me. Her face is set in the tentative slouchiness of Leith Academy days. A cigarette dangles from her 22 bus and the bag slung over her shoulder has a frayed strap, which, in combo with her vacant eyes, suggests that they might be strangers by the end of the day. Not that one can conceive of this day ever ending. — Funny tae see ye back up here in Leith, Sihmin, she says. I can’t for the life of me recall the Exercise Bike’s first name, but do recollect that I was the only one in that goods yard train of scurrilous villains who treated her with r-e-s-p-e-c-t.
— Hi, gorgeous, I say, in lieu of her moniker, pecking her on the cheek.
— Crazy here, ay? she declares, in a high, shrill sound. I swear the aroma of rancid spunk from every diseased cock she’s ever sucked wafts into me like a cosmic force, setting up home in some decrepit credenza of my psyche. But even though I’ve absolutely zero intention of slipping her a length, I’m excited to see her – this Cup win heightens every experience – and text Renton:
How is Ibiza? Exercise Bike on the prowl in the Walk! Blast from the past! Not with yours, matey!!
I’m looking at her company, seeing if any of them register on the fanny Rolodex, but that familiar toxic need is dripping out of her like radiation from stricken Chernobyl victims, and I have to get the fuck away. As she becomes distracted by the trivial intervention of a cohort, I take the opportunity to slip my marker and get talking to a lassie with a pretty, oval-shaped face who seems on the fringe of the group. Despite being obviously up the duff, she’s quite steaming drunk, wearing a ludicrously tight, sexy minidress. Showing like that, this woman is a nutty raver. — Your dress is perfect. It leaves little to the imagination, yet demands a great deal of attention. That’s a winning combo.
— It’s a special day, she says, holding my gaze and dispensing a big, toothy smile.
It sets off a twinge in the baws. — Did you go?
— Naw, never had a ticket.
— Too bad. Great day out.
— I’ll bet, she smiles again, eviscerating my libido’s guard with her dazzling white teeth and keen, dark saucer eyes. — I watched it on telly.
— You know, that’s what I’d love to dae now, just chill with a couple of tins of beer and watch it again on the box. I’m pretty much done with crowds, I state, looking around at the chaos, avoiding the hungry eyes of the Exercise Bike.
She half glances to her lump. — Aye. Me as well.
— I’d invite you back to mine, but I live in London. Been up for the game and visiting family.
— Come tae mine if you like, ah’m just in Halmyres Street. She points down the Walk. — Ah’ve got some beer and the whole game is up on YouTube. Ah can play it through my telly.
I nod to her lump. — Won’t your felly be a bit miffed?
— Who says I’ve got a felly?
— Didnae get there by itself, I grin.
— Might as well have done, she says with a shrug. — One-night stand in Magaluf.
So we slip away from the Exercise Bike’s mob and slither through the crowd back tae hers. She’s not letting me ride her at first, though if Jimmy Dyson could emulate her suction power in his next model, the cunt would make a second fucking fortune. We watch Stokesy’s first goal, then fast-forward to that last ten minutes of euphoria. I’m patting her belly, but stop when I recall my words at my old man’s similar fascination with the lump of Amanda, my ex, when she was carrying Ben. I told the cunt tae at least have the decency to wait till the bairn was born before he started fucking noncing it.
However, we’re snogging in celebration and eventually she relents, and we hit the bedroom. I’ve got her splayed forward on the bed and I’m rifling her from behind. Haven’t rode such a heavily pregnant bird since the ex-missus, and I have to confess that I’m enjoying the novelty. There’s something grotesquely beautiful about the form. We crash out afterwards and I’m glad of the kip, but I snap into consciousness that way you do when a whole swathe of peeve has left you in a oner, and you’re suddenly wide awake. She’s lying on her side, and I slip out the kip and leave a note, slightly concerned that I never got her name. I mean, she did tell me, but it’s been an emotional time.