Glue
Authors: Irvine Welsh
GLUE
Irvine Welsh lives in London.
By the same author
FICTION
Trainspotting
The Acid House
Marabou Stork Nightmares
Ecstasy
Filth
DRAMA
You’ll Have Had Your Hole
SCREENPLAY
The Acid House
IRVINE WELSH
Copyright © 2001 by Irvine Welsh
First American edition 2001
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.,
500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110
Manufacturing by Quebecor Fairfield Inc.
Production manager: Leelo Märjamaa-Reintal
ISBN 0-393-32215-7 (pbk.)
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110
www.wwnorton.com
W. W. Norton & Company Ltd., Castle House,
75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0
This book is dedicated to
Shearer, Scrap, George, Jimmy, Deano, Mickey,
Tam, Simon, Miles, Scott and Crawf
for sticking together even when falling apart
glue
:
glōō, n
. an impure gelatine got by boiling animal refuse, used as an adhesive.
Chambers 20
th
Century Dictionary
1
ROUND ABOUT 1970:
THE MAN OF THE HOUSE
Terry Lawson
The First Day at School
Andrew Galloway
The Man of the House
2
1980ish:
THE LAST (FISH) SUPPER
Terry Lawson
Juiced Up
|
Uncle Alec
|
Sally and Sid James
Billy Birrell
Sex as a Football Substitute
|
The Referee’s a Bastard
|
Copper Wire
Andrew Galloway
Lateness
|
The Sporting Life
|
Clouds
|
A (Virgin) Soldier’s Song
|
The Rockford Files
v.
The Professionals
|
No Man of the House
Carl Ewart
Sex Education
|
Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)
|
Jews and Gentiles
|
Drinking to Forget
|
Debut Shag
3
IT MUST HAVE BEEN 1990:
HITLER’S LOCAL
Billy Birrell
The Hills
|
Memories of Italia
Andrew Galloway
Training
|
Nightmare on Elm Row
|
Limitations
Terry Lawson
Part-timers
|
Domestics
|
Home on the Grange
|
The Wheatsheaf
|
The Persistence of Shagging Problems
|
Freedom of Choice
|
Clubland
|
Competition
Carl Ewart
Ich Bin Ein Edinburgher
|
Contingency Planning
|
Foreskin
|
Now That’s What I Call Chorin
|
The Munich Beer Festival
|
Fight for the Right to Party
4
APPROXIMATELY 2000:
A FESTIVAL ATMOSPHERE
Edinburgh, Scotland
Abandonment
|
A Fringe Club
Somewhere Near the Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia
Edinburgh, Scotland
Post Mother, Post Alec
|
The Balmoral
|
Cocks Oot fir the Lassies
|
Record Company
|
I Know You’re Using Me
Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia
Edinburgh, Scotland
Scum
|
The Replica Shirt Problem
|
Marketing Opportunities
|
Richard Gere
Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia
Edinburgh, Scotland
Memories of Pipers DiSCOTec
Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia
Edinburgh, Scotland
Air-brush It
|
An Urban Myth
|
Pished, Drugged, Laid
|
A Welcome Alternative to Filth and Violence
|
Gimme Medication
|
The Rabbit
|
An American in Leith
|
Stone Island
Sydney Airport, NSW, Australia
Edinburgh, Scotland
The Bitterest Pill is Mine to Take
|
Taxi
|
Stars and Cigarettes
Edinburgh, Scotland
Our Bona Fide Guests
Edinburgh, Scotland
Young Cunts
|
Wanking
Heathrow Airport, London, England
Edinburgh, Scotland
The Business Bar
|
Islands in the Stream
Edinburgh, Scotland
Git Her Shoes Oaf! Git Her Slacks Oaf!
|
Baberton Mains
|
Slipping
|
Fucked and Hassled
|
The End
The sun rose up from behind the concrete of the block of flats opposite, beaming straight into their faces. Davie Galloway was so surprised by its sneaky dazzle, he nearly dropped the table he was struggling to carry. It was hot enough already in the new flat and Davie felt like a strange exotic plant wilting in an overheated greenhouse. It was they windaes, they were huge, and they sucked in the sun, he thought, as he put the table down and looked out at the scheme below him.
Davie felt like a newly crowned emperor surveying his fiefdom. The new buildings were impressive all right: they fairly gleamed when the light hit those sparkling wee stanes embedded in the cladding. Bright, clean, airy and warm, that was what was needed. He remembered the chilly, dark tenement in Gorgie; covered with soot and grime for generations when the city had earned its ‘Auld Reekie’ nickname. Outside, their dull, narrow streets nipping with people pinched and shuffling from the marrow-biting winter cold, and that rank smell of hops from the brewery wafting in when you opened the window, always causing him to retch if he’d overdone it in the pub the previous night. All that had gone, and about time too. This was the way to live!
For Davie Galloway, it was the big windows that exemplified all that was good about these new slum-clearance places. He turned to his wife, who was polishing the skirtings. Why did she have to polish the skirtings in a new hoose? But Susan was on her knees, clad in overalls, her large black beehive bobbing up and down, testifying to her frenzied activity. — That’s the best thing aboot these places, Susan, Davie ventured, — the big windaes. Let the sun in, he added, before glancing
over at the marvel of that wee box stuck on the wall above her head. — Central heating for the winter n aw, cannae be beaten. The flick ay a switch.
Susan rose slowly, respectful of the cramp which had been settling into her legs. She was sweating as she stamped one numbed, tingling foot, in order to get the circulation back into it. Beads of moisture gathered on her forehead. — It’s too hot, she complained.
Davie briskly shook his head. — Naw, take it while ye can get it. This is Scotland, mind, it’s no gaunny last. Taking in a deep breath, Davie picked up the table, recommencing his arduous struggle towards the kitchen. It was a tricky bugger: a smart new Formica-topped job which seemed to constantly shift its weight and spill all over the place. Like wrestling wi a fuckin crocodile, he thought, and sure enough, the beast snapped at his fingers forcing him to withdraw them quickly and suck on them as the table clattered to the floor.
— Sh . . . sugar, Davie cursed. He never swore in front of women. Certain talk was awright for the pub, but no in front of a woman. He tiptoed over to the cot in the corner. The baby still slept soundly.
— Ah telt ye ah’d gie ye a hand wi that Davie, yir gaunny huv nae fingers and a broken table the wey things are gaun, Susan warned him. She shook her head slowly, looking over to the crib. — Surprised ye dinnae wake her.
Picking up her discomfort, Davie said, — Ye dinnae really like that table, dae ye?
Susan Galloway shook her head again. She looked past the new kitchen table, and saw the new three-piece suite, the new coffee table and new carpets which had mysteriously arrived the previous day when she’d been out at her work in the whisky bonds.
— What is it? Davie asked, waving his sore hand in the air. He felt her stare, open and baleful. Those big eyes of hers.
— Where did ye get this stuff, Davie?
He hated when she asked him things like that. It spoiled everything, drove a wedge between them. It was for all of them he did what he did; Susan, the baby, the wee fellay. — Ask no questions, ah’ll tell ye no lies, he smiled, but he couldn’t look at her, as unsatisfied himself with this retort as he knew she would be. Instead, he bent down and kissed his baby daughter on the cheek.
Looking up, he wondered aloud, — Where’s Andrew? He glanced at Susan briefly.
Susan turned away sourly. He was hiding again, hiding behind the bairns.
Davie moved into the hall with the stealthy caution of a trench soldier fearful of snipers. — Andrew, he shouted. His son thundered down the stairs, a wiry, charged life-force, sporting the same dark brown hair as Susan’s, but shorn to a minimalist crop, following Davie through to the living room. — Here eh is, he cheerfully announced for Susan’s benefit. Noting that she was studiously ignoring him, he turned to the boy and asked, — Ye still like it up in yir new room?
Andrew looked up at him and then at Susan. — Ah found a book ah never had before, he told them earnestly.
— That’s good, Susan said, moving over and picking a thread from the boy’s striped T-shirt.
Looking up at his father, Andrew asked, — When can ah get a bike, Dad?
— Soon, son, Davie smiled.
— You said when ah went tae school, Andrew said with great sincerity, his large dark eyes fixing on his father’s in a milder form of accusation than Susan’s.
— Ah did, pal, Davie conceded, — and it’s no long now.
A bike? Where was the money coming from for a bloody bike? Susan Galloway thought, shivering to herself as the blazing, sweltering summer sun beat in relentlessly, through the huge windows.
The First Day at School
Wee Terry and Yvonne Lawson sat with juice and crisps at a wooden table of the Dell Inn, in the concrete enclosure they called the beer garden. They were looking over the fence at the bottom of the yard, down the steep bank, contemplating the ducks in the Water of Leith. Within a few seconds awe turned to boredom; you could only look at ducks for so long, and Terry had other things on his mind. It had been his first day at school and he hadn’t enjoyed it. Yvonne would go next year. Terry said to her that it wasn’t very good and he’d been frightened but now he was with their Ma, and their Dad was there as well, so it was okay.
Their Ma and Dad were talking and they knew their Ma was angry.
— Well, they heard her ask him, — what is it yuv got tae say?
Terry looked up at his Dad who smiled and winked at him before turning back to address the boy’s mother. — No in front ay the bairns, he said coolly.
