A Decent Ride by Irvine Welsh Page A

we only have one bottle of it. It costs two thousand pounds.
    — Send it up! What else ya got?
    — The next most expensive is a 1958 Highland Park, which is eleven hundred pounds.
    — Send them up! And tell the guy to knock three times!
    — I will be glad to do just that, Mr Checker.
    So I’ll drink their shit, and just hope I’m spared to get those proper bottles of real Bowcullen Skatches back to the USA! But I gotta get through this goddamn nightmare first.
    New Orleans . . . Please God, I swear that if I get through this night I will donate a seven-figure sum to the Katrina disaster fund!

12
BAWBAG’S LAST STAND
    THE PUB WITH No Name nestles in darkness underneath a block of tenements and a railway bridge. The clandestine, forbidding site with its esoteric feel has made the howf a favoured spot for the area’s uncompromising drinkers since its founding back in the Victorian era. On match days, the bar’s proximity to Tynecastle stadium has secured its popularity with football supporters. Outside of that it has enjoyed a chequered history. There has been a steady chain of unfortunate owners, and the hostelry has attracted a mixed clientele of rival biker factions, right-wing loyalist elements, some veteran drinkers who appreciate its competitive prices, and antagonistic football gangs, who attack it regularly on the basis of its Hearts connections.
    To some, most of whom have never set foot inside, The Pub With No Name has an unsavoury, even notorious edge: an ugly, brutal hole full of knuckle-dragging dinosaurs representing a darker age. To others, those who frequent the bar, it is simply a place of liberation: an old-school boozer, free from the tiresome ministrations of the professional moralisers and disapprovers, and satisfyingly resistant to the bland brush of modernity.
    Now it’s under a different kind of siege. Bawbag whistles outside like an accordion played by an asthmatic Satan, vaguely seductive in its threat. But back in the warmth of The Pub With No Name, they soon become attuned to his frequencies. Those high-pitched sounds are punctuated by the odd crash, which might just be that of a pool cue falling on the floor. The regulars exchange sage glances and faux-impressed comments of the I-would-not-fancy-being-outside-in-that variety. However, nicotine cravings show an aggressive weather phenomenon scant respect, and they soon begin to venture through the doors, braving the volley of grit, crisp packets and takeaway cartons that come swirling their way. Defiant cries of ‘moan tae fuck!’ rage against a wind that makes lighting up such a frustrating undertaking.
    Then, in the early hours of the morning, around 2 a.m., it all stops. Nobody quite notices the precise time. Many, indeed, have forgotten all about the hurricane as they spill out of the pub, into the ghostly, rubbish-strewn avenues, and make their way unsteadily home.
    One of the last to leave the party is Jinty Magdalen, who heads down the cold-morning street; shivering, her nasal cavities wrecked, eyes stinging and head throbbing in dreadful dislocation.

PART THREE
POST-BAWBAG PANIC

13
JONTS IN THE HOOD
    THE FOLLOWING MORNING the cracked light rises weakly and Jonty MacKay wakes up with it, as is his fashion. But there is no Jinty next to him. A surge of panic explodes in Jonty’s chest, as a deluge of memories flood through him, causing him to convulse. He springs out of bed and runs to the door, which he opens slowly. He wants to shout something, but the words catch in his dry throat. He trembles, and sweat trickles from him, as he steps out into the hallway. Then, through the crack at the edge of the door to the front room, he sees that Jinty has slept on the couch. Her tousled dark hair spills out from under the Hearts duvet he remembers placing over her last night. He opts not to disturb her, but quickly dresses, then steals out of the flat, along the landing, down the stairs.
    On the floor below, a young woman, clad in a burka