A familiar character returns in this enticing extract from Irvine Welsh’s new sequel to Trainspotting

The man, in his mid-twenties and a stranger to the group, rises from his chair of tubular black metal and moulded red plastic. His bearing strong and confident. Unlike most of the others in the functional room of this north London community centre, located in a nondescript backstreet off a main shopping thoroughfare, he is persuasively dressed, sporting a long Burberry overcoat. His hair is cut in mod revivalist fashion, with hooked pseudo-sideboards. Strip lights above dazzle a magnesium flare on the leather uppers of Italian shoes, hand-made by a Milanese cobbler in Shoreditch. His eyes, a fiery blaze of luminous sepia, stand out in the sea of dulled trepidation around him. Perhaps the only clue of any residual trauma lies in a faint shading beneath them, and the gauntness of his pallid face.

As all eyes fall upon him, he lets the silence hang. Picks his moment.—My name is Simon David Williamson and I’m a drug addict, he announces in strident authority.

From the eight other occupants, the respondent chorus,— Welcome, Simon, ranging from grudged mumbles to enthusiastic salutations, bubbles through the room.

— There. Got your attention. Williamson tosses his head back.—That keeps us in that comfortable world of absolutes. Sobriety is essential. Intoxication is the devil’s work…

Philip Carter, a skinny, angular man in faded jeans and grey polo-neck sweater, scrunches his features in disbelief. Chairing such groups means attesting to all sorts of evinced behaviours. This, disturbingly, hints at something new.

— …the only problem being it’s absolute bullshit. Williamson thrusts his jaw forward.—Most people are here because, let’s face it, he looks around the perplexed faces in pitying contempt,—they’re either inherently mentally ill, or somebody, some butt-fucking stepfather or uncle, has made them that way. Drug abuse? Just the manifestation of this.

His words set off gasps of shock, bemusement and scorn. One burly, shaven-headed man springs up, pointing at him, declaring, to the cheers and applause of others,—You don’t know nuffink abaht my loife! Don’t tell me abaht my loife!

Simon David Williamson sits in calm defiance, chin visibly extending further.—You’re telling me all I need to know, right now!

The skinhead takes a step forward.—Who are ya, you cahnt?

He’s restrained by another man, who fastens a grip on his wrist.—Don’t rise to his bait, mate.

— Thank you, Len, Mickey. Philip Carter waves them down, urging calm.

Perhaps embarrassed by his loss of control in contrast to Williamson’s demeanour of sharkishly cool satisfaction, Mickey, the skinhead, complies, lowering himself back into his seat, settling for training a malevolent glare on his antagonist.

Carter pauses to let the heat leak from the faces around him. Then he addresses Simon David Williamson.—Well… Simon… seeing as you have it all figured out, why are you here?

Simon David Williamson, known as Sick Boy in his home town of Leith, Edinburgh, Scotland, glances at the blonde-haired girl opposite him in the semicircle. The one he’d seen in the street earlier, and had followed into this hall. After her golden mop had demanded a second glance, the lacy gloves she wore had further intrigued him. The next hook was her unbowed, upright posture, as she moved in an untroubled glide through that door. A dramatic contrast to the hunched, furtive, beaten look normally evidenced at such venues. For this was Sick Boy’s modus operandi: hanging around rehab group meetings, waiting till he saw a desirable woman go into one.

The woman, early twenties, around five six, with dark, hypnotic eyes, regards him with interest. She is dressed in what he judges as a combination of expensive boutique, high-street chain and second-hand-store chic, but blended with the aesthete’s care. Yes, he has her attention. Time to show his human side, and dispense what they crave.—Forgive my presumption… Sick Boy begins, in suddenly penitent tones,—I’ve had ma issues wi drugs, he corrects himself,—my issues with drugs… and lowers his head, shaking it slowly. When he lifts it to reveal his gaze again, his eyes are wide and moist.—I’ve found it hard tae accept, because there seems to be no reason. He slams his fist into his palm.—I mean, neither of my siblings touched drugs. I’ve never been abused, had mental health issues, or any other trauma. Why me? he pleads.

A few heads nod empathically.

Carter again permits the silence in the room to play for a couple of beats. Then, while looking to Sick Boy, he addresses the gathering.—One of the things we do in this group is to accept that the ‘why’ is less important that the actuality of it. When we do this, and permit our own powerlessness in the face of addiction, then we really start the process of recovery.

This is an extract from Men in Love by Irvine Welsh (Jonathan Cape, £20).

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Irvine Welsh is our guest on “A Drink with the Idler” this week, when he’ll be talking about rave and romance. Thursday 9 October at 6-7pm. Book here (it’s free for subscribers).

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