Trainspotting

Davie wakes up in his girlfriend Gail’s bed, alone, to discover that he’s urinated and defecated in the bed. He can barely remember the night before and is extremely hung-over. He finds Gail having breakfast with her parents downstairs.

He plans to get rid of the sheets himself, but Gail’s mother, Mrs. Houston, insists on taking care of the mess. She wrestles the sheets out of his hands, and they fly open, spewing “a pungent shower of skitter shite, thin alcohol sick, and vile pish out across the floor” (94).

Mrs. Houston sweetly tries to help him mop up the mess while Mr. Houston, sprayed with “brown flecks of runny shite” mutters “God sake…god sake” (94). Gail shoots him “a look of loathing and disgust” (94), but Davie isn’t bothered; he just wants to get out of there.

Mark is high, hanging out with Danny. Mark is very cold but is too high to move and is convinced that if he moves, he will get even colder. He tries to speak to Danny but doesn’t get a reply. He wonders if Danny’s dead.

Chapter 17 appears to depart from the book’s central narrative around Mark and the other Skag Boys completely. The only link appears to be that it includes Billy Renton, Mark’s brother, and brief cameos by some of Mark’s friends including Tommy, Danny, and Gavin “Gav” Temperley. It’s told in third person and relays a tale of a group of men, including Billy, who play poker together.

The men have a communal pot of money that they use to play in gaming clubs and make cash with. They also play with the communal pot amongst themselves and allow the winner to take home the pot at the end of the night. When the chapter opens, they are waiting for the last winner, a man named Granty, to show up. He’s late, and the men are getting anxious, as Granty hasn’t missed a game in six years.

It turns out that Granty has had a heart attack. After briefly mourning the man’s death, the remaining poker players talk money. They wonder if Granty’s wife, Fiona, will spend the money. They decide they should tell her that the money is technically theirs at the funeral, but nobody has the guts to approach her when the time comes.

The day after the funeral, the men head to Fiona’s. A neighbor tells them that she’s left for the Canary Islands. One of the men, Jackie, seems oddly unconcerned about this development, and the men learn that Jackie has secretly been sleeping with Fiona. The men are outraged and jump Jackie: “Jackie’s screams reverberated around the stairwell, as they booted and dragged him from landing to landing” (104).