Trainspotting

The next chapter shifts to Kelly’s point of view and narration. She is working at a pub in Scotland and missing Mark. She is enrolled in university and spending her work shift thinking about a philosophy paper she has to write. Rowdy patrons arrive. They are drunk, loud, sexist, and rude. While Kelly is used to such treatment, tonight she takes a stand—albeit quietly.

The men order soup, and Kelly, who is on her period, takes her bloody tampon and squeezes it out into the dish. She then fills a saucepan with her own urine and adds this to the men’s wine. Finally, she defecates on a piece of newspaper in the toilet and adds this to their profiteroles, concluding, “IT looks good enough tae eat. Too radge!” (305). Finally, she adds a bit of rat poison to their ice cream.

It’s an empowering moment for Kelly that continues the brief moment of freedom and power she expressed in Chapter 32: “Ah feel charged wi a great power, actually enjoying their insults. It’s a lot easier to keep smiling now” (305). She ends by returning her thoughts to her philosophy paper, noting that she will “be forced tae put that, in some circumstances, morality is relative” (305).

Mark is revisiting his old neighborhood haunts. He is still clean. He sees Second Prize drunkenly throwing up in an alley and this sight seems to confirm his move toward sobriety. Still, Second Prize is an old friend, so Mark helps him into a taxi. Next, he runs into Frank, who reveals that Tommy has AIDS (as foreshadowed with a mention of Tommy’s mouth sores in Chapter 11).

Sober and strong, Mark seems to find it easier to put up with Frank’s attitude. He recognizes that Frank just needs the ego boost. Now that he has some sort of confidence in his own sobriety, Mark appears less conflicted about providing this boost; he lucidly sees his friend’s weakness and soothes it.

Frank and Mark head to Leith Central Station, which is no longer operational. An old drunk man jokingly asks the boys if they are there to do trainspotting, the habit of meticulously tracking train arrivals. Frank refers to the man as a “fuckin auld cunt” (309), and Mark then realizes the man is Frank’s own father. Frank and Mark continue walking, and Frank randomly beats up a young man; Mark doesn’t try to stop the attack and neither does the targeted boy.