A Decent Ride Read online

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Irvine Welsh

  Dedication

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  PART ONE: PRE-BAWBAG INNOCENCE

  1. Taxi Days

  2. Guaranteed

  3. Office Work

  4. Sweet Liberty

  5. Jonty and Stormy Weather

  PART TWO: HURRICANE BAWBAG

  6. Speed Dating

  7. Jinty Nagged

  8. Running Around

  9. Refuge in The Pub With No Name

  10. The Bag of the Baw

  11. In God We Trust – Part 1

  12. Bawbag’s Last Stand

  PART THREE: POST-BAWBAG PANIC

  13. Jonts in the Hood

  14. The Knight in Shining Armour

  15. Jonts in McDonald’s

  16. Hotels and Saunas

  17. Unfazed by the Phenomenon

  18. The Lessons of Bawbag

  19. Sex Addicts’ Meeting

  20. What’s Cookin in the Cuik?

  21. Wee Guillaume and the Ginger Bastard

  22. A Shopping List Confession

  23. White Funny Stuff

  24. Instruments of the Devil

  25. Tynecastle Hospitality

  26. The Heart of the Matter

  27. In God We Trust – Part 2

  28. Cold Comforts

  PART FOUR: POST-BAWBAG RECONSTRUCTION

  29. Sauna Sojourn

  30. In God We Trust – Part 3

  31. Going McNuggets

  32. Through Streets Broad and Narrow

  33. Feverish

  34. Auld Faithful 1

  35. Scotland’s Smokers on the Offensive

  36. Transport Economics

  37. Auld Faithful 2

  38. Another Blow for Scotland’s Smokers

  39. The Boy in the Canary-Yellay Fleece

  40. Escape to Penicuik

  PART FIVE: POST-BAWBAG SOCIETY

  41. The Revenge of Scotland’s Smokers

  42. Auld Faithful 3

  43. Avoiding Stress

  44. Jinty’s Diary Excerpt 1

  45. Post Perishables

  46. The Snarling Fuds of May

  47. Jinty’s Diary Excerpt 2

  48. Powderhall

  49. In God We Trust – Part 4

  50. The Bridge Tournament

  Copyright

  About the Book

  How important is a decent ride?

  A rampaging force of nature is wreaking havoc on the streets of Edinburgh, but has top shagger, drug-dealer, gonzo-porn-star and taxi-driver, ‘Juice’ Terry Lawson, finally met his match in Hurricane ‘Bawbag’?

  Can Terry discover the fate of the missing beauty, Jinty Magdalen, and keep her idiot-savant lover, the man-child Wee Jonty, out of prison?

  Will he find out the real motives of unscrupulous American businessman and reality-TV star, Ronald Checker?

  And, crucially, will Terry be able to negotiate life after a terrible event robs him of his sexual virility, and can a new fascination for the game of golf help him to live without … A DECENT RIDE?

  A Decent Ride sees Irvine Welsh back on home turf, leaving us in the capable hands of one of his most compelling and popular characters, ‘Juice’ Terry Lawson, and introducing another bound for cult status, Wee Jonty MacKay: a man with the genitals and brain of a donkey.

  In his funniest, filthiest book yet, Irvine Welsh celebrates an un-reconstructed misogynist hustler – a central character who is shameless but also, oddly, decent – and finds new ways of making wild comedy out of fantastically dark material, taking on some of the last taboos. So fasten your seatbelts, because this is one ride that could certainly get a little bumpy …

  About the Author

  Irvine Welsh is the author of nine previous novels and four books of shorter fiction. He currently lives in Chicago.

  ALSO BY IRVINE WELSH

  FICTION

  Trainspotting

  The Acid House

  Marabou Stork Nightmares

  Ecstasy

  Filth

  Glue

  Porno

  The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs

  If You Liked School, You’ll Love Work . . .

  Crime

  Reheated Cabbage

  Skagboys

  The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins

  DRAMA

  You’ll Have Had Your Hole

  Babylon Heights (with Dean Cavanagh)

  SCREENPLAY

  The Acid House

  for Robin Robertson

  – it certainly has been one . . .

  A Decent Ride

  Irvine Welsh

  ‘An intellectual is someone who’s found one thing that’s more interesting than sex.’

  Aldous Huxley

  Part One

  Pre-Bawbag Innocence

  1

  TAXI DAYS

  — YI’LL NIVIR GUESS whae ah hud in ma cab the other day, ‘Juice’ Terry Lawson explains, his solid build contained by a luminous green tracksuit. His luxuriant corkscrew curls lash wildly in the gale that slaps up against the side of the perspex barrier winding from the airport concourse to a bank of parked taxicabs. Terry stretches, rips out a yawn, sleeves riding up to expose gold chains at the wrists and two forearm tattoos. One is of a harp that looks like an egg slicer, with HIBERNIAN FC and 1875 scrolled above and below. The second is of a fire-breathing dragon, which offers the world a lavish wink, inviting it in winding letters beneath to LET THE JUICE LOOSE.

  Terry’s mate, Doughheid, a thin, asthmatic-looking man, gazes blankly in response. He sparks up a fag and wonders how much of it he can suck back before he has to deal with the approaching planeload of passengers, jostling their luggage-laden carts towards him down the enclosed ramp.

  — That cunt oaffay the telly, Terry confirms, scratching his balls through the polyester.

  — Whae’s that? Doughheid mumbles, sizing up the piled suitcases of a huge Asian family. He’s willing a distracted man who struts behind to overtake them on the ramp, so that he won’t have to load the many bags into the cab. Let Terry get that one. The man wears a long cashmere coat, open over a dark suit, white shirt and tie, with black-framed glasses and, most strikingly, a Mohawk haircut.

  The man suddenly sprints ahead of the pack, and Doughheid’s spirits soar. Then he stops dead, and looks at his watch, as the Asian family trundle past him, all over Doughheid like a rash. — Please, please, quickly, please, please, a cajoling patriarch calls, as buckshot rain suddenly lashes against the perspex.

  Terry watches his friend struggle with the cases. — That stand-up boy, oan Channel 4. Eh wis ridin that burd, what’s-her-name, tidy fuckin boady oan it. He traces an hourglass, then steps up snugly against the perspex barrier for shelter.

  But as Doughheid strains and grunts with the cases, Terry regards the bespectacled man in the long coat, his incongruous hair blowing everywhere in the wind, fingers delivering heavy number-punches into his phone. Terry recognises him from somewhere, a band perhaps, then sees that he’s older than the haircut suggests. Suddenly, a cowed associate appears, blond hair shorn above a tense face, cautiously standing alongside him. — I’m so sorry, Ron, the car we had ordered broke down –

  — Get outta my sight! the punk businessman (for this is how Terry now thinks of him) barks in an American accent. — I’ll take this goddamn taxi! Just have my bags delivered to my hotel room!

  The punk businessman doesn’t even make eye contact through his pink-tinted lenses with Terry, before climbing into the back of his cab and slamming the door shut. His shamed associate stands in silence.

  Terry gets into the cab and k
eys the ignition. — Whaire is it yir gaun, chief?

  — What? The punk businessman looks over his light-reactive glasses, into the back of a mop of curls.

  Terry pivots round in the seat. — Where. Do. You. Want. Me. To. Take. You. To.

  The punk businessman is aware that this corkscrew-headed taxi driver is talking to him as if he, the punk businessman, is a child. Fucking Mortimer, can’t see to anything. Puts me through this BS. His hand tightens on the straps of the cab. He swallows tightly. — Balmoral Hotel.

  The Immoral! — Good choice, mate, Terry replies, his mind spinning through the database of the sexual encounters he’s enjoyed there, usually during two discrete periods on the calendar. There was nothing like the International Festival in August, and Edinburgh’s Hogmanay, for adding garnish to his basic diet of scheme minge and jaded porn performers. — So what line ay work is it yir in?

  Ronald Checker is not used to being unrecognised. An influential property developer, he is also a reality-TV star, known widely for his successful show The Prodigal. The scion of a wealthy Atlanta family, the Harvard graduate had followed his father’s footsteps into real estate. Ron Checker and his father had never been close, this fact making him utterly mercenary at utilising the old man’s extensive contacts. Thus son became more successful than father, breaking out of America’s sunbelt states to go global. Ron decided that he would pitch a TV show to the networks, positing himself as a Southern, youthful, punkish version of Donald Trump, who had enjoyed success with The Apprentice. A designer friend gave him the Mohawk look, and a researcher at the network coined his catchphrase: ‘Business takes balls.’ Now The Prodigal is a third-season globally syndicated show and Checker knows it screens in the UK. Uneasily, he asks the cabbie, — Have you ever seen The Prodigal?

  — No live, but ah ken what yir talkin aboot, Terry nods. — That ‘Smack Ma Bitch Up’ wis controversial, aye, but thaire’s some burds thit like that. A bit ay rough action, if ye ken what ah mean. No thit ah’m sexist or nowt like that. Tae me it’s ladies’ prerogative. They demand, you supply, it’s what gentlemen dae but, ay, mate?

  Checker is finding it difficult to understand this cabbie. All he can do is respond with a gruff: — Yes.

  — Ye a mairried man yersel, mate?

  Unused to being talked to with such presumption by a stranger, this common Scots taxi driver, Checker is thunderstruck. About to respond with a terse ‘Mind your own business’, he recalls how he’s been urged by his PR team to try and win hearts and minds after the Nairn fiasco. As part of the development process, a cove and a couple of listed cottages had been demolished, with a few rare nesting ducks relocated. Rather than welcome the golf resort, apartments and service jobs it created, the natives had largely taken a dim view of the enterprise.

  Forcing his sense of violation into a gallows grin, Checker permits, — Divorced, three times, while moved to think of Sapphire, his third wife, with some rancour, then Margot, his first, in sharp, poignant pain. He tries to remember Monica, the fleeting middle incumbent, but can scarcely summon her image to mind, which both cheers and dismays him. All that flashes into his head is a grinning lawyer’s face and eight fat figures. For a man still a year shy of forty, three is a troubling statistic.

  — Snap! Me n aw! Terry buzzes in empathy. — Kin find thum n gie thum a guid seein-tae awright, that part’s never been a bother, he sings triumphantly. — Auld Faithful here, Terry pats his groin reassuringly, — husnae had too many days oaf, ah’ll tell ye that for nowt! Goat tae be done but, ay, mate? Terry’s grin expands as Checker enjoys the sensation of his back flush against the hard seat, which feels good after the executive planes and limos he is constantly in. — See, keepin a hud ay thum but, well . . . you ken the score! Worse thing ye kin dae is faw in love. Ye kid yersel oan that’s the burd yir gaunny be shagging exclusively the rest ay yir life. But wir no made that wey, mate. So eftir a few months, the auld rovin eye n stiff cock come back oot tae play! Guaranteed!

  Checker feels the sides of his face redden. What newfangled Tophet had Mortimer cast him into? First an engineering failure in the Lear, which had forced upon him the ignominy of a scheduled flight, and now this!

  — Ma days ay gaun through ceremonies ur ower. Terry drops his voice and briefly turns his head. — Listen, mate, if yir eftir any nook n cranny ower here, jist geez a shout. Ah’m the boy. Kin sort ye oot wi anything ye need in this toon. Just sayin likes!

  Ron Checker has scant clue as to what this man is ‘just saying’. This asshole really has no idea who I am! Yet through the rush of contempt he feels for this cabbie, something else is happening: Ronald Checker is experiencing the phantom excitement at being cut adrift, of being a traveller again, as in his student days, as opposed to a cosseted business tourist. And those unyielding seats feel good on his spine! Strangely, Checker is conceding that part of him, that piece liberated by the most recent divorce, is enjoying himself! Why not? Here he is, striking out on his own, free from the sycophantic incompetents like Mortimer! Did he have to be limited and hemmed in by other people’s perceptions of Ronald Checker? Wasn’t it fun, to try and be somebody else for a while? And this back! Perhaps it was now time to give it a start. — I appreciate that . . . er . . .

  — Terry, mate. Terry Lawson, but ah git called Juice Terry.

  — Juice Terry . . . Checker lets the name play on his lips. — Well, pleased to meet you, Juice Terry. I’m Ron. Ron Checker. He looks at the cabbie in the mirror for any traces of acknowledgement. None. This clown really doesn’t know who I am, so self-absorbed is he in his own petty, trivial life. But he’d seen this before in Scotland, during the Nairn debacle.

  — Check thehhht! Juice Terry bellows, at what appears to Checker to be a rather ordinary young woman, who is stopped at a pedestrian crossing.

  — Yes . . . fetching, Checker forces himself to agree.

  — Ah’m gittin a twinge fir that minge!

  — Yes . . . Listen, Terry, Checker begins, suddenly inspired, — I love these cabs. These seats sure feel good against my back. I’d like to hire you this week. You’d drive me around locally, some tourist places, one or two business appointments further north. I have some negotiations at a distillery in Inverness, and I’m a keen golfer. There will be some overnight stays, in the best hotels, of course.

  Terry is intrigued, but shakes his head. — Sorry, mate, ah’ve goat ma shifts planned oot, ay.

  Unused to non-compliance in others, Checker is incredulous. — I’ll pay you twice what you earn in one week!

  A big grin framed by a mop of curls gazes back at him. — Cannae help ye, buddy boy!

  — What? Checker’s voice screeches in desperation. — Five times! Tell me how much you earn in a week and I’ll pay you five times as much!

  — This is the busiest time ay the year, mate, the run-up tae Christmas and Hogmanay – even worse thin the fuckin festival. Ah’m clearin two grand a week, Terry lies. — Ah doubt ye could pey us ten grand a week jist tae drive ye roond!

  — Consider it a deal! Checker roars, and dives into his pocket, producing a chequebook. Waving it at the back of Terry, he shouts, — Do we have a deal?

  — Listen, mate, it’s no jist aboot the money; ah’ve goat regular customers whae depend oan ays. Other activities, if ye catch ma drift. Terry turns, tapping the side of his nose. — In business-speak, ye cannae compromise the core enterprise, no just for a one-off. Ye huv tae look eftir the long-term client base, mate, the steady-income stream, n no git hijacked wi side projects, as lucrative as they might be in the short term.

  Terry can see Checker in the rear-view mirror thinking about this. He feels pleased with himself, although he is only quoting his friend Sick Boy, who makes the porn videos he occasionally stars in.

  — But I can offer –

  — Ah’ve still got tae say naw, mate.

  Checker is astounded. Yet deep in his core he is sensing that there is something about this man. Perhaps it’s even something he needs. This n
otion compels Ronald Checker to utter a word that he can’t consciously remember leaving his lips since he was a child at boarding school. — Terry . . . please . . . He gasps at his use of the word.

  — Awright, mate, Terry says, flicking a smile into the mirror, — we’re baith men ay business. Ah’m sure we’ll be able tae strike up some kind ay a deal. Just one thing but, pittin ye in the picture, Terry’s head swivels round, — they overnight steys in hotels . . . thaire’s gaunny be nae bum banditry gaun oan!

  — What?! No way, man, Checker protests, — I ain’t no goddamn faggot –

  — No sayin nowt against it, if that’s yir thing, like, n ah’m no sayin thit ah’m no partial tae a bit ay back-door action masel, but a hairy ersehole wi a pair ay hee-haws dangling under it, well, that jist disnae dae it fir the Juice felly here. Terry shakes his head violently.

  — No . . . you sure won’t have to worry about that! Checker says, wincing on the bitter aftertaste, but just about managing to swallow the power-ceding pill.

  The cab pulls up outside the Balmoral. Portering staff, obviously anticipating Ron Checker’s arrival, literally drop what they are doing, in one instance the luggage of another guest, to descend on the cab as the American steps out. The wind has intensified, a surging gust whipping Checker’s oily black-dyed locks skywards, holding them up in a formidable peacock-like display, as he talks to Terry.

  Terry Lawson is far more aware of the hovering porters than Ronnie Checker, taking his time and savouring the slow punching of digits into his phone as the two men exchange contact details. They shake hands, Terry going in aggressively to the hilt, without leaving trailing fingers to be crushed, reckoning that Checker is the type of man who would self-consciously work on a dominant shake.

  — I’ll be in touch, Ronald Checker smiles, a charmless display that most people could only evoke reflexively and privately if fortunate enough to stumble upon a much-hated rival falling under a bus. Terry tracks Checker’s departure, the American’s stride jaunty, as he tries in futility to flatten his hair against the ministrations of the gales, visibly relieved to walk past an obsequiously grinning doorman.