T2 Trainspotting Page #5

with Jacob's Pillow.

Hello, Franco.

Simon.

-But you're not...

-I'm out.

-"Out"?

-Aye. F***ing shut up.

Yeah, sorry if I seemed a little shocked

to see you, Frank. It's just...

Well, I was gonna...

I was gonna deal with this myself

and then give you the good news, but...

You're not gonna believe this.

So, two days ago,

I got a call from an old friend of mine.

Gav Temperly. You remember him?

Aye.

Anyway.

He's on business in Amsterdam.

And he's in a cafe one morning,

and he hears this voice beside him.

A whiny, cunty voice.

No.

So he turns around, right?

This is two f***ing days ago.

I'm just getting over it myself.

-There he is.

-Holy f***ing moly.

Hasn't changed in 20 years.

Very same smug, little cunty grin

across his ugly face.

-For f***'s sake!

-Aye, Renton.

Mark f***ing Renton.

Living in Amsterdam

all this time on our money.

-C*nt. Did Renton clock him?

-No.

So Gav followed him.

He went into an office block

not far from the center of town.

And Gav had to split then,

but he's gonna go back.

He's gonna hang out,

he's gonna follow Renton home, and then...

-And we're gonna pay him a visit.

-Exactly.

-I need a passport.

-I can get you one.

I'll take some weapons.

Well, we can probably get

weapons there, Franco.

Aye. Probably. They've got

that kind of stuff in Amsterdam, eh?

Aye. Now, the important thing

is for you to keep your head down.

Low profile till the passport comes through,

till I get the tickets.

-'Cause this is an opportunity, Frank.

-Right.

I'm gonna f***ing tear him to pieces.

You most definitely f***ing will.

Simon and I do not sleep together.

No? I had wondered.

Once, but...

I'm his girlfriend, but it's business, really.

Simon is not a good person.

But I like him.

More than he likes himself, I think.

Right, but if you're not...

If there's no physical aspect

to your relationship,

I mean, you don't want to be, like...

You know, wasting your time.

What's "choose life"?

-What?

-"Choose life."

Simon says it sometimes.

He says, "Choose life, Veronika."

"Choose life."

"Choose life" was a well-meaning slogan

from a 1980s antidrug campaign.

And we used to add things to it.

So I might say, for example, choose...

Designer lingerie

in the vain hope of kicking some life

back into a dead relationship.

Choose handbags.

Choose high-heeled shoes.

Cashmere and silk

to make yourself feel what passes for happy.

Choose an iPhone made in China

by a woman who jumped out of a window,

and stick it in the pocket of your jacket

fresh from a South Asian firetrap.

Choose Facebook, Twitter,

Snapchat, Instagram

and a thousand other ways to spew your bile

across people you've never met.

Choose updating your profile.

Tell the world what you had for breakfast

and hope that someone, somewhere cares.

Choose looking up old flames,

desperate to believe that

you don't look as bad as they do.

Choose live-blogging

from your first wank to your last breath.

Human interaction reduced

to nothing more than data.

Choose ten things you never knew

about celebrities who'd had surgery.

Choose screaming about abortion.

Choose rape jokes,

slut shaming, revenge porn,

and an endless tide of depressing misogyny.

Choose 9/11 never happened,

and if it did, it was the Jews.

Choose a zero-hour contract

and a two-hour journey to work,

and choose the same

for your kids, only worse.

And maybe tell yourself it's better

that they never happened.

And then sit back and smother the pain

with an unknown dose of an unknown drug

made in somebody's f***ing kitchen.

Choose unfulfilled promise

and wishing you'd done it all differently.

Choose never learning

from your own mistakes.

Choose watching history repeat itself.

Choose the slow reconciliation

towards what you can get

rather than what you always hoped for.

Settle for less and keep a brave face on it.

Choose disappointment.

And choose losing the ones you loved.

And as they fall from view,

a piece of you dies with them.

Until you can see that one day in the future,

piece by piece, they will all be gone.

And there'll be nothing left

of you to call alive or dead.

Choose your future, Veronika.

Choose life.

Anyway, it amused us at the time.

I like you, Mark.

F***.

What are you gonna do?

I'm going to be the madame

in Simon's bordello.

But really...

What are you gonna do?

I don't know. I should go home.

But...

To go home with nothing?

No qualification, no career,

not even bringing money.

What's at home?

You know.

Emotional attachment.

That's all.

-All set?

-Yeah, fine. You're okay?

-Aye.

-Sure?

-Why?

-Nothing.

-Why? What's happened?

-No, nothing's happened. I'm just...

I'm just enjoying us working together.

That's all.

Good. So...

-Shall we go in? Right.

-Aye.

Jesus.

This is the renovation and conversion

of an iconic Leith building.

We see it very much as being an artisanal

bed-and-breakfast experience.

A destination in its own right.

Artworks by local artists on the walls.

Locally sourced fresh food.

Outreach programs to inspire children

in school to think outside the box.

To inspire in them a belief that...

Yes, they can.

There was a time when this port

served thousands of ships around the globe.

Now it can rise again.

And we believe our business

will occupy a central role,

both physically and emotionally,

at the heart of this new wave

of regeneration in Leith.

Leith 2.1.

Exactly.

We used to steal all this stuff.

Fancy wallpaper.

Sell on to the middle classes and that.

Me and Mark used to steal

all kinds of stuff, actually.

Till we got caught.

He got off. I got six months.

Still, you find out what you're good at inside.

Signatures... That's what I found out.

Anyone's. If I seen it once, I can do it.

So, when I got out, "Bye-bye, shoplifting.

Hello, checkbook. Hello, check card."

Up to Western Union.

Signature, cash in hand.

Up to Swanney's,

pay off my debts, buy some skag.

I was a portable f***ing goldmine.

So, what happened?

Chip and PIN, debit cards, e-banking.

Billionaires moving money

at the touch of a button.

There's no room

for an honest artisan like me anymore.

So, what did you do?

Back on the pavement. Seven days a week.

I like your stories.

I think you should write them down.

You think?

Yeah. Just write them the way you say them.

They're funny. I would like to read them.

Mark and Simon can help.

"Tommy looks well.

"It's terrifying.

"He's gonna die.

"Sometime between the next few weeks

and the next 15 years,

"Tommy will be no more.

"Chances are that I'll be exactly the same.

"Difference is we know this with Tommy.

"Tommy cannot get out.

"He cannot afford to heat his home,

"put himself in a bubble,

"live in the warm, eat good fresh food,

"keep his mind stimulated

with new challenges.

"He will only live five or 10 or 15 years

before he is crushed.

"Tommy will not survive winter

in West Granton."

Well, I'm trying hard, Mark,

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