Trainspotting (Mark Renton series Book 2)

by Irvine Welsh

As with politics, he’d eventually come around to the opposite viewpoint from the one he’d previously advocated and express it just as stridently. All you needed to do was put up no hard front for him to argue against and he’d gradually talk himself around to your way of thinking. I sat for a while, nodding intently. Then I made some banal excuse and left. I returned home and checked my toolbox. A former chippie’s collection of various sharp implements. On Saturday, I took it round to Frances’s flat in Wester Hailes. I had a few odd jobs to do. One of them she knew nothing about. Fran had been looking forward to the meal out with her pals. She talked incessantly as she got ready. I tried to respond beyond a series of low groans which sounded like ‘aye’ and ‘right’, but my mind was spinning with thoughts of what I had to do. I sat hunched and tense on the bed, frequently rising to the window to peer out, as she put her ‘face’ on. After what seemed like a lifetime, I heard the sound of a motor rolling into the deserted, shabby car park. I sprang to the window, cheerfully announcing: — Taxi’s here! Frances left me in custody of her sleeping child. The whole operation went smoothly enough. Afterwards I felt terrible. Was I any better than Venters? Wee Kevin. We had some good times together. I’d taken him to the shows at the Meadows festival, to Kirkcaldy for a League Cup tie, and to the Museum of Childhood. While it doesn’t seem a great deal, it’s a sight more than his auld boy...