Marabou Stork Nightmares by Irvine Welsh Read Free Book Online Page B

the hand of the African woman called Sadie rest on my shoulder. — You are veh tense, she said. — Would you like me find girl massage you neck? Perhaps bit more than you neck?
    — Eh . . . if I could just have a glass of water, please.
    Dawson curled his lips downwards in disapproval. — Yes, Sadie, the water. For myself and Mr Jamieson as well. I should imagine you two are rather thirsty camels after your exploits.
    — I'll say! I nodded appreciatively.
    Sadie departed but returned quickly with a tray on which sat three glasses and a pitcher of iced water. Also now in attendance were three young white girls. They looked skinny, malnourished and dirty and their eyes were thickly clouded over.
    I sipped at the water which was so cold that it made my teeth hurt.
    — So you are, like Mr Jamieson, a hunter?
    — Yes, though perhaps not as successful as Sandy . . . I started.
    Dawson interrupted me with a nasty smirk. — I would hardly say that Mr Jamieson has been particularly successful on the trophy hunting front. I must say, though, that I've found it persistently difficult to find hunters who look like bagging trophies. What is your specialisation, Roy?
    — Sharks mainly, but also scavengers.
    Dawson raised an eyebrow and gave a knowing nod. — And you, Mr Jamieson, still hunting the maneaters?
    — Eh, yes, said Sandy nervously, — I mean, with only spears to rely on in defence, African villagers are effectively helpless in the face of lion attacks on their settlements . . .
    — Yes, smiled Dawson, — in nearly all cases the maneater is an animal well past his prime. He has lost all his youthful agility and is simply not up to the capture of wild game for food.
    — Man, though, is easy to procure, Sandy said, the unease of realisation coming into his voice.
    — Oh yes, agreed Dawson with a slow, sly nod, — oh yes. Then he looked intently at Sandy and, with his face strangely blank and dead, said in a teasing tone out of synch with his expression: — I'd like to ask you, Mr Jamieson, have you an awareness of the role of ritual?
    Sandy, obviously fazed, looked across at me, then back at Lochart Dawson. — As a sportsman, he began, but Dawson raised a Pillsbury Dough-boy hand to silence him.
    — A sportsman. How . . . anachronistic. I should not have addressed such a statement to a sportsman. His voice went low and mocking at the term 'sportsman'. — The role of ritual is to make things safe for those who have most to lose by things not being safe. Wouldn't you agree, Roy?
    — It's not a concept I've thought about exploring deeply Lochart, though I have to confess it does have a certain prima facie appeal.
    Dawson seemed irritated that I was not getting into things with him. — And my proposal that the sportsman is an anachronism? Is that a concept you've had time to explore? His pitch is now challenging.
    — I'd probably need to have the proposition defined in a little more detail before I would presume to comment.
    — Very well, Dawson smiled, tucking his shirt into his trousers and belching, — I contend that sport, like everything else, has been replaced by business.
    Dashed if I didn't find myself arguing in spite of what I'd intended. — Up to a point. Sport though, when it has a cultural locus, becomes a source of identity to people. Lose such sources of identity, and you have an atomised, disjointed society. Sport can move some people in a way that the profit motive can never. Our values have become obscured and warped to the extent that the means for self-actualisation, i.e. money, has become an end in itself. One of the ends is the appreciation of sport. Another might be art. Another might be the precipitation of chaos.
    Dawson chuckled pneumatic-drill style, his flesh wobbling steadily as he laughed. — Yes Roy, sport does move the masses, but they only gain any relevance insofar as they are involved in the economic process, insofar as they become consumers. Sport has to be packaged to the