Free The Blade Artist by Irvine Welsh Page B

We’re still family, she states, her gaze challenging him. But there is no response; his eyes are on his plate.
    — Wonder what happens when you die, George says.
    Fuck all, Franco thinks. You cease to exist, that’s it. He is about to say something, but considers it might not be his place.
    — Never mind that, Elspeth barks, — finish your breakfast.
    — But it’s just so strange to think we’ll never see Sean again, George says. — Never ever.
    — Nobody knows, Franco offers.
    — Do you think you go to heaven or hell? Thomas asks him.
    — Maybe both, Franco says. — Maybe there’s some kind ay transit between the two, when you get bored with one, you can mix it up a bit, and head to the other.
    — Like on holiday? Thomas wonders.
    — Like a bus between two airport terminals, George volunteers.
    — Aye, Franco considers, — why not? If nobody knows, what happens after could be anything we imagine, or maybe nothing at all.
    Thomas is still in holiday mode. — Holidays in hell, he says dreamily.
    — Been there, done that. Frank Begbie looks at his sister. — Mind the time we went to Butlins at Ayr? He turns to the boys. — Nah, your mum won’t, she was just a wee baby.
    The boys seem to look at their mother in an almost mystical light, trying to envisage this. — I can’t imagine Mum as a baby, George says, half shutting his eyes as if to conjure up the image.
    Elspeth turns to her sons. — Right, you two, jildy.
    — Ah’ve no heard that word in years, Franco says.
    —What does it mean? George asks.
    — It means hurry up , Elspeth says briskly, — so less talk, more rock.
    As his nephews depart, Franco leans back in his chair. — Who was it that said that? Was it old Grandad Jock?
    — Like Butlins at Ayr, that was before my time, Elspeth says snootily. — What have you got on today?
    — I’m meeting an old friend.
    — Another auld lag fae the nick, I expect. Elspeth crunches on a slice of toast.
    — Aye, Franco grabs the teapot and tops his mug up, — and he’s done even more time than I have.
    Elspeth shakes her head in contempt. — You’re such a loser, Frank. You just cannae help yirsel –
    Franco raises his hand to silence her. — He’s a screw. A prison officer. The guy who got me into reading, writing, painting.
    — Aw, right . . . Elspeth says, and she looks genuinely ashamed and penitent.
    Franco decides to quit while he is ahead, gulping down his tea and going to his room to get ready. The Tesco phone has, to his astonishment, shot into some kind of life. It glows a radioactive lime green. He tries to type in Melanie’s number, but the zero key sticks to send 0000000 flying across the screen. — Fuck, he curses, drawing air down deep, filling his lungs.
    Of course he’d see John Dick. Before Melanie there was John, the man who believed in him, despite Franco being determined to present all the evidence to the contrary. The radical prison officer, who went against everything established, from the narrow, reductivist government economic and social policy, the institution’s petty rules and procedures, to the self-defeating fatalism of the cons themselves. Dick brought in the writers, poets and artists, to see if anything would gel. Saw a spark ignite in a few, Frank Begbie being the most unlikely.
    They meet in the Elephant House cafe on George IV Bridge, close to where he’d started out yesterday, at theCentral Library. His impression is that John Dick looks well; longish face, dark-framed glasses, black hair cut short, a permanent five-o’clock shadow, and baggy clothes which conceal a wiry but muscular build. Franco recalls that when they first met, Dick had the relaxed bearing around him that he knew came from possessing a physical confidence. Amid all the other chunky, aggressive screws, John Dick seemed like a prisoner whisperer, his soft voice having the gift of turning down the volume in others. With the exception of Melanie, he probably listened to nobody in