MASARYK UNIVERSITY
FACULTY OF EDUCATION
Department of English Language and Literature
Power and Corruption in Irvine Welsh’s Filth
Master’s Diploma Thesis
2019
Supervisor: Written by: Mgr. Lucie Podroužková, Ph.D. Bc. Kateřina Barranco
1 Abstract
The objective of the thesis is to demonstrate how Filth addresses its two most prominent themes – power and the corruption within Scottish societal institutions. It will focus predominantly on the Scottish police force, which the main protagonist is a member of, and will subsequently deal with the post-Thatcherite period in Scotland and the UK in which the novel is set. While British society continues to progress socially, economically and politically during this time, some of its institutions and their practices remain stuck in the past - the consequences of which mean that they are barriers to social progression in the eyes of the author.
Key Words
Irvine Welsh, power, corruption, Scotland, Scottish society, police, institutions, post- Thatcherism, racism, homophobia, misogyny, sectarianism.
Anotace
Cílem teto práce je analyzovat způsob, jakým se román Špína zabývá dvěma hlavními tématy - mocí a korupcí v rámci skotských společenských institucí. Práce se soustředí zejména na skotskou policii a hlavního hrdiny, který je členem této instituce. Dále se práce soustředí na období post-Thatcherismu ve Skotsku a Velké Británii, kde se děj románu odehrává. Zatímco Britská společnost se nadále vyvýjí po sociální, ekonomické a politické stránce, některé společenské instituce setrvávají se svými praktikami v minulosti, v čemž vidí autor románu hlavní překážku společenského rozvoje.
Klíčová slova
Irvine Welsh, moc, korupce, Skotsko, skotská společnost, policie, instituce, post- Thatcherismus, rasismus, homofobie, mizogynie, sektářství.
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Prohlášení
Prohlašuji, že jsem závěrečnou diplomovou práci vypracovala samostatně, s využitím pouze citovaných literárních pramenů, dalších informací a zdrojů v souladu s Disciplinárním řádem pro studenty Pedagogické fakulty Masarykovy univerzity a se zákonem č. 121/2000 Sb., o právu autorském, o právech souvisejících s právem autorským a o změně některých zákonů (autorský zákon), ve znění pozdějších předpisů.
V Brně 30.3. 2019 ...... Kateřina Barranco
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Acknowledgement I would like to gratefully and sincerely thank to Mgr. Lucie Podroužková, Ph.D and Dr. Sam Beaton for their patient guidance, encouragements and valuable advice.
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Contents
Introduction ...... 6 1. Power ...... 10 1.1. The Games and Symbolic Power...... 10 1.2. Gender Power Struggle ...... 12 1.2.1. Misogyny ...... 13 1.2.2. Rape as an Extreme Form of Male Domination ...... 18 1.3. Racism ...... 19 1.3.1. Racism Awareness...... 20 1.4. Homophobia and sexual Prejudice ...... 23 1.5. Sectarianism ...... 26 1.6. Power and Thatcherism ...... 29 1.6.1. Miners’ Strikes ...... 30 1.7. Robertson and Power without a Badge...... 34 1.8. Matter of Size ...... 40 1.9. The Tapeworm and Childhood Trauma ...... 42 1.9.1. Ian Robertson ...... 44 1.9.2. The Face of a Beast...... 47 1.9.3. Rhona ...... 49 1.10. Carole ...... 50 1.10.1. Domestic Violence ...... 53 1.10.2. The Revenge ...... 55 2. Corruption ...... 57 2.1. The Freemason’s Code...... 57 2.2. Drugs...... 60 2.3. Prostitution ...... 65 2.4. The Job ...... 66 Conclusions ...... 69 Works Cited ...... 71
5 Introduction
Drug abuse, exorbitant sex, violence and other taboo subjects never used to be associated with Scottish literature until the appearance of Irvine Welsh. In the first half of the twentieth century, the Scottish Renaissance Movement poet Hugh MacDiarmid believed that Scottish literature that had become too influenced by English writing and intended to rectify this by integrating the Scottish vernacular, political views and renewed national image into his poetry. It is important for Welsh not to disown England’s influence on Scotland as well as Scotland’s complex identity instead of trying to reduce it like MacDiarmid tried (Cartaino 1). Welsh himself sees MacDiarmid as “a symbol of all that’s horrific and hideous about Scotland and Scottish culture” (Schoene 11). However, the influence and impact of Trainspotting – both as a novel and film – has been heralded by some as being one of the most significant Scottish cultural products of the 20th century in terms of impact and influence; subsequently rendering Welsh as a cult writer. (Paget qtd. in May 2016:5). Herbrechter explains Welsh’s success by the social message his writings carry, and the identification of their readership with his texts rather than by their “undeniable quality” (110). As Welsh points out in an interview: “Half of the people who have bought the books have never bought a book before, never even read a book before…” (Berman 58).
After the success of Trainspotting, Welsh has become a bestselling author, and his fourth novel Filth, published in 1998, can be classified as detective fiction. The novel centres on the main character’s investigation of the potentially racially-motivated murder of a Ghanaian ambassador’s son. Negative reviews which jibed the novel as a “shambolic scatological mess” and “exercise in misanthropy and hatefulness” did not stop this “detective novel” from becoming Welsh’s biggest seller outside Trainspotting in the UK and an international bestseller, selling more than 250,000 copies in the first two years. (Morace 88)
Although Karnicky states that it is important to note that Filth is Welsh’s first novel which doesn’t focus on the lower-class, drug-taking residents of Edinburgh (Karnicky 150),
6 Kelly argues that Welsh’s experiments with crime writing does not represent such a radical change from his earlier fiction as it may at first seem; as he continues dealing with the sociological implications opened up by the genre. As he states, “Welsh also makes subversive use of the detective thriller in Filth to turn the genre’s formal logic of pursuing crime towards a questioning of the very legitimacy of the police and the state” (Kelly 153).
Numerous critics have compared Filth to Don DeLillo’s massive novel Underworld, with both titles being published in the same year. Unlike Underworld, which may be regarded as historically thorough, intellectually concerning, and narratively challenging, Filth is regarded by some as nasty, atrocious and short. (Morace 89)
As for Irvine Welsh, well, it always looked more like word-processing, than writing, but surely now the game’s up for the foul-mouthed chancer? Compare his most recent novel, the dire, unfunny, remorselessly vulgar Filth to, say, Don DeLillo’s Underworld and it is clear that while American literature’s concerns are politics, history, adultery, money and war, Welsh’s go no further than a tapeworm and the c-word” (Maconie qtd. in Kelly 151).
The novel that focuses its attention on institutions, notably the state police, mimics the narrative logic of crime fiction. It starts with a seemingly racially motivated murder and the more or less fruitful attempts of the police serious crimes unit to solve it.
Filth’s main story line depicts the final weeks in the life of its power thirsty narrator- protagonist Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson - a hard-drinking, drug-taking, homophobic, misogynist, racist, rapist and sociopathic officer of the Lothian and Borders Police. His obsessive goal is to win a promotion to Detective Inspector, a position he should have been already holding, he had not followed his wife to Australia where the family lived for several years; putting his career on hold. Not only does Robertson use various Machiavellian actions to discredit his rival colleagues’ professionalism and therefore assure the promotion for himself, he also enjoys every minute of playing such sophisticated dirty games. He is firmly convinced that after becoming a detective inspector, his estranged wife who, as he believes, only temporarily left him, will return into his life along with their daughter and they will live happily ever after. Instead, his mental disease develops fully towards the end of the novel as his wife
7 finds another partner and files for divorce. The novel ends with Robertson’s total physical and psychological disintegration. An equally corrupt and racist - yet more cunning -younger colleague wins the Inspector’s promotion, and Robertson hangs himself on the very last page of the novel.
There are several reasons for the selection of the novel Filth for the analysis for my Master’s thesis. First, as an admirer of Welsh’s work, I find this novel particularly interesting as it proposes a broad socio-political look at the life of Scotland’s society at a time of critical change, having a huge potential for a study. Secondly, Welsh’s best known and most successful novel Trainspotting has been widely examined by scholars and numerous academic researchers have been conducted over last twenty years. In my humble opinion, Filth deserves the same academic attention that has been given to this complex and narratively rich novel.
The objective of this thesis is to analyse how Filth addresses its two most prominent themes – power and the corruption that comes from the abuse of it – within Scottish societal institutions. It will focus predominantly on the Scottish police force, which the main protagonist is a member of, and will subsequently deal with the post-Thatcherite period in Scotland and the UK in which the novel is set. While British society continues to progress socially, economically and politically during this time, some of its institutions and their practices remain stuck in the past - the consequences of which mean that they are barriers to social progression in the eyes of the author. The principal issues will be investigated using a variety of primary and secondary literatures, relating to Welsh, politics, Scottish society, institutions, and the police.
The thesis discusses these very prominent concepts over two main chapters. The first chapter analyses the way in which the protagonist capitalises upon his symbolic and legitimate power, in order to win himself a coveted promotion, boost his fragile ego and fulfil his obsessive sexual desires. The chapter further provides the analysis of these concepts from the point of view of the novel’s two narrators: The Tapeworm who reveals the protagonist’s traumatic childhood and Carole, Robertson’s feminine alter- ego, as well as the definition of power and how it relates to the Scottish police force and
8 the protagonist’s powerful position within this institution that emboldens his actions in number of different ways.
The following chapter is dedicated to corruption analyses how the role of those entrusted with the authority by the state is essentially based on easily corruptible power. It further discusses how the Freemasons’ movement, whose membership the protagonist Robertson exploits to avoid criminal charges and utilise its widespread connections, is depicted in the novel as a corrupt organisation having influence over many Scottish institutions.
It will be argued that the issues of power and corruption are inextricably linked and interlaced throughout the novel, and many of the themes involve both these two variables.
9 1. Power
1.1. The Games and Symbolic Power
Filth’s main narrative starts Robertson’s reminiscing about his police profession: “Woke up into the job. The job, it holds you. It’s all around you; a constant, enclosing absorbing gel. And when you’re in the job, you look out at life through that distorted lens” (3). The first chapter, aptly named The Games, reveals the daily manipulative actions by which the protagonist relates to his colleagues, in an institutional environment that he sees as structured by power relationships. Bruce engages in power games in order to win his coveted promotion and also to humiliate others, which brings him feelings of self-aggrandisement. He constantly seeks for proof that he is better than the rest. “The games are the only way you can survive the job. Everybody has their wee vanities, their, their own little conceits. My one is that nobody plays the games like me…” (3). Robertson adds that it best not to acknowledge the existence of games in any organisation, but “they’re always there” (3).
In Masculine Domination, Bourdieu explains the desire for men to play power games, regarding it as a particular form of socialisation affecting men. This is particularly apparent in situations where this behaviour has been instilled, which “causes men to be socially instituted and instructed in such a way that they let themselves be caught up, like children, in all the games that are socially assigned to them, of which the form par excellence is war” (Bourdieu 2002: 75).
The narrative of the Tapeworm, disclosed at the end of his monologue, provides another reason for playing these games – to repress the numerous traumas from his childhood and adolescence: “Sometimes you can’t help yourself but the games help. Or at least they used to. Now they are no longer enough” (376).
Bruce and his younger colleague Ray Lennox are assigned to investigate a burglary in the old house of an elderly, well-off lady; which they consider as a mere time-wasting activity. During their visit, the landlady briefly leaves to make some tea and Robertson
10 steals a paperweight. His motive for this action is the exercise of his (in this instance symbolic) power, which is possessed by the police and their representatives. Boudieu explains the concept of symbolic power as an invisible force, implanted through instruction, habit and routine:
Symbolic power - as a power of constituting the given through utterances, of making people see and believe, of confirming or transforming the vision of the world and, thereby, action on the world and thus the world itself, an almost magical power which enables one to obtain the equivalent of what is obtained through force (whether physical or economic), by virtue of the specific effect of mobilization - is a power that can be exercised only if it is recognised, that is, misrecognised as arbitrary. (Bourdieu 1991: 170)
The police’s position in a society is one which stands or falls upon the idea of legitimacy. If the police were considered as illegitimate by the majority of society, its position would be particularly impaired and it could not be used as an instrument of enforcement. Power in the police, therefore, can be used by Robertson and his colleagues because of their authority – and power being recognised. They are able to maintain their legitimacy through narrative utterances- the use of speech to manipulate situations and the use of a narrative which conveys that they are in power and control.
The detective enjoys his professional status and the power and lack of accountability it comes with. The lady immediately notices the missing paperweight and her reaction to this triggers scorn and resentment from Robertson; believing people like her are “Used to getting their own way. Those tones I know so well (…) The bemused look, the great fucking British public; it makes me want to smash the wearer’s teeth in with a baton” (11). This serves as a reminder that, “as a servant of the state” who is “in the business of law enforcement” (11), he can do whatever he pleases. Well aware of the police’s legitimacy, Mrs Dornan remains polite and respectful and does not intend to accuse the two detectives of stealing her object. Robertson delights in her vulnerable state - feelings of fear and embarrassment. He is exploiting his professional position for his own gain, here being only his self-amusement and an ego trip. “She looks like a cow being herded into an abattoir” (12). He continues terrorizing the old lady, implying that one of them stole the paperweight while she is “buckling inwards, shrinking like a crisp packet flung into a pub fire…” (13) until his pager beeps and another duty makes him
11 abandon his game.
1.2. Gender Power Struggle
In Masculine Domination, Bourdieu describes the indisputable link of sexuality and power:
On top or underneath, active or passive - these parallel alternatives describe the sexual act as a relation of domination. To possess sexually, as in the French baiser or the English ‘to fuck’, is to dominate in the sense of subjecting to one’s power, but also to deceive, mislead, or, as we say, ‘to have’ (whereas to resist seduction is not to be deceived, not ‘to be had’). The manifestations of virility, whether legitimate or illegitimate, belong to the logic of prowess, the exploit, which confers honour… (Bourdieu 2002:19)
Women characters are perceived as sexual objects, most often entitled as rides, fannys or silly wee lassies by the sex obsessed Robertson; and he does not try to hide the great disdain he has towards them. If he finds a woman of any age irritating or having an issue of any sorts, he automatically sees this as lack of sex and “good fuckin” (16) and explains everything by this. For example, the elderly Mrs Dornan’s issue is that “she’s been too long without a good fucking knobbing. That always distorts a woman’s perspective” (16); or even colleagues such as Amanda Drummond who “Need[s] a good fucking ride, that’s what she needs…probably frigid, I speculate” (29). Even when he is referring to his old and unwell mother-in-law, he cannot escape such an analysis: “Needed rode though: that was her problem, ever since the old boy kicked it. No enough rumpy-pumpy tae keep the circulation ay blood flowing” (38).
Even if Robertson is not particularly attracted to all the women characters in the story, he constantly expresses his desire to have sexual intercourse with them to affirm his powerful position and virility. “I’d fucking well gie her one awright. No much in the coupon stakes but a tidy body on it…Never mind the mantelpiece when yir poking the fire”(50). He likes to think these women lust after him in the same way: “Probably game as fuck and aw”(50). In instances when he doesn’t get any positive response to his signals, he labels such behaviour as homosexual rather than admit to himself that a particular female is not interested in him.
12 1.2.1. Misogyny
As Bourdieu explains in his writing:
Men continue to dominate the public space and the field of power (especially economic power - over production) whereas women remain (predominantly) assigned to the private space (domestic space, the site of reproduction), where the logic of the economy of symbolic goods is perpetuated, or to those quasi- extensions of the domestic space, the welfare services (especially medical services) and education, or to the domains of symbolic production (the literary, artistic or journalistic fields, etc.) (Bourdieu 2002: 94)
Robertson has huge difficulties acknowledging the fact that his female colleague Amanda Drummond occupies the same hierarchical post as him and his male colleagues. Also, he cannot stand the fact that she gets the same, equal treatment from their superiors as his other male co-detectives do. Robertson hates everything about her as he feels subconsciously threatened by her persona. Not only is Amanda not easy prey for his power games and manipulations, but she properly executes her professional duties, does not question authority or the power structure of the department.
She represents the minority of women that he finds unattracted to, but still considers her as a sexual object: “why doesn’t anybody tell the silly wee lassie that she is superfluous now that we’ve got that big blonde civvy piece wi the waxed legs and sunbed tan handling oot the paperwork” (26). He describes his co-worker as being rather unsightly:
Her frizzy blonde hair cut short, which makes her look even mair of a carpet muncher…she’s hardly any chin; just a sour twisted mooth which comes out of her neck…I’ve seen more meat on a butcher’s knife (6).
At the beginning of the murder investigation, Bruce learns that this female colleague who is, according to him, only “good for doing a pseudo clerical job” (6) has been assigned to help with solving it. He is beside himself: “I’m fucking burning inside though when I see that silly wee cow Amanda Drummond here. What the fuck is she daein on a murder team? Wouldnae trust her to pick the fucking curtains for the office” (26).
13 Bourdieu analyses male discontent in similar situations:
The violence of some emotional reactions to the entry of women into a given occupation can be understood when one knows that social positions themselves are sexually characterized, and characterizing, and that, in defending their jobs against feminization, men are trying to protect their most deep-rooted idea of themselves as men, especially in the case of social categories such as manual workers or occupations such as those of the army, which owe much, if not all of their value, even in their own eyes, to their image of manliness. (Bourdieu 2002: 96)
Due to the severity of the journalist’s murder case, all leave is suspended for Serious Crimes personnel which Robertson refuses to respect: “—Me give up ma fuckin holiday for some stiffed nig-nog?” (17) He uses his influence and connections in the masonic lodge to get his way, and eventually departs on a last-minute holiday. Although he does not for a second think this move would somehow affect his career growth, he realises on his return that his place in the investigation has been filled by his more responsible and conscientious colleague, who possesses another quality Bruce obviously lacks (due to his racist world view): “—In your absence Amanda Drummond’s been taking the leading role in the investigation…—I expect you to give her full co-operation” (184). Bruce’s superior explains his move by the media’s renewed interest in the case. “It seems that you’ve been a bit lax on the community relations side. It’s exactly that area that Amanda’s strong in” (184).
Robertson is convinced that these hostile sentiments are mutual and has frequent feelings of paranoia that this young woman is trying to discredit him professionally: “— What is there to do there? Drummond probes. She wants me to say ‘hoors and drugs’ in front of Toa.” (185).
Although there are several other female employees present in the police division, Amanda is the amalgam of political correctness and the qualities police should have in the novel, as she offsets the chauvinistic actions of the male agents. According to Robertson, she is not a real officer and “is only playing at being polis” (6). He addresses to her as darling, and Mandy my sweet for which he gets reproved by his superior. “Do you have to refer to her in that condescending way? Her name’s Amanda, it might be better if you called her that” (187). Robertson objects to this blaming Amanda for being far too uptight and him just being friendly and informal.
14 –Bruce, you’re a good and experienced officer, but you’re going to have to relate better to all other officers…These things are important in the modern police force, mark my words, Toal reprimands (…) but it’s a gentle reprimand and he can’t keep the underlay of complicity out of his voice. (187)
Robertson thus translates his boss’s reproach as only a matter of formality - he pays no further notice to it and continues employing political incorrectness. “I turn to Drummond: – Mandy my sweet, what news from our friends in the ethnic community? –I don’t think it’s appropriate for you to refer to female officers in that way, she challenges” (303). However, instead of correcting his manners, he only ridicules Amanda and she needs to stand up for herself:
–Absolutely right! I sing.—Apologies for any offence caused my darling, force of habit. Bad habit yes, but habit nonetheless. That’s why I rely on people like your good self who are so much more aware of those issues than I am to keep me informed of my transgressions in this important area…–I’m not your darling either, she says. (304)
Carsianos explains that it is common for female officers to experience the negative attitudes of their male colleagues and that it is one of the most serious problems for them while on the job. The gendered discrimination women officers experience is the result of their perceived gender status (Carsianos 66). Martin and Jurik suggest that within the culture of policing, which is one of the few remaining professions where physical strength and ability are occasionally useful, male officers feel threatened by female officers primarily for four reasons:
Women’s presence implies either that the men's unique asset-physical strength- is irrelevant and other three, less frequently articulated concerns: the belief that women are ‘mentally weaker’, the view that women are unable to command public respect as officers, and the concern that ‘moral’ women will break the code of silence and expose the men’s illicit activities. (qtd. in Carsianos 66)
In Filth, the male prevailing unit applies these stereotypes against the female part represented by Amanda, who is far mentally stronger than most of her male colleagues; and despite previous attempts to sort this problem out with her subordinate, she eventually needs to spell her frustrations out to Robertson:
–Look Bruce, you may think that I’m being pedantic, but it’s hard enough getting all the abuse under the sun out there from the public, without being patronised and sneered at by your own colleagues. All I want is equal treatment,
15 that’s all. (303-4)
Nothing can change Robertson’s old-fashioned views or make him, at least, think about alternative ones. He holds his ground and uses the above-mentioned male assets when defending his reasons not to treat her equally: “–She wants equal rights, get her tae dae equal work. I’d like tae see her go doon tae Leith and haul in Lexo Setterington or Ghostoe Gorman or Franco Begbie” (304).
Female officers often experience pressure to fit into the patriarchal culture of police that encourages machismo. Given the linkage of masculinity to the police culture, women are often seen by both male officers and the wider public as inherently less able to perform particular police tasks (Carsianos 64-65).
In their 2012 survey on sexual harassment and workplace authority, the authors suggest that women in authority may be more frequent targets, speaking about sexual harassment acting as a tool to penalise gender nonconformity in the workplace. There are two hypotheses presented in the article. The first and probably better known to the general public, being the vulnerable-victim pattern, refers to more vulnerable employees—including women, racial minorities and those with lesser workplace authority as being more susceptible to sexual harassment. The second, the power-threat model, proposes that women who threaten men’s dominance are more likely to face harassment and discrimination (McLaughlin et al. 626).
When women’s power is viewed as illegitimate or easily undermined, co- workers, clients, and supervisors appear to employ harassment as an “equalizer” against women supervisors, consistent with research showing that harassment is less about sexual desire than about control and domination (McLaughlin et al. 641)
In her book dedicated to misogyny, Manne argues that this phenomenon is not about male hostility or hatred for women — but it is rather about controlling and punishing women who challenge male dominance. Misogyny rewards women who reinforce the status quo and punishes those who don’t. “Misogyny ought to be understood as the system that operates within a patriarchal social order to police and enforce women’s subordination and to uphold male dominance” (Manne 33).
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Besides the overt hate towards Robertson’s female colleagues, and his omnipresent distaste of women in his (inner) discourse, misogyny in Filth is further demonstrated by the protagonist’s obsession with sex. He is constantly taking advantage of women who have feelings for him, yet he only sees them as “repository for [his] come” (391). He plays a partly sensitive, considerate man in front of them, often saying that he loves them, yet casts them away once they become too clingy or start to expect more than just a sexual relationship. It might seem that willingness to have sex is not enough for Robertson, as he needs to exploit these women emotionally too. “She holds my gaze and her eyes start to water and I think of all the injustices that have been perpetrated against me recently and I hope I feel sorry enough for myself to make my eyes moisten as well (…)” (252).
When Amanda, who Robertson sincerely hates because of her integrity, principles and political correctness, tries to make him speak about his personal issues, Robertson interprets it as if she is coming on to him. Amanda strictly rejects this, instead spelling out to Bruce what she really thinks of him:
Bruce, you're an ugly and silly old man. You're very possibly an alcoholic and God knows what else. You're the type of sad case who preys on vulnerable, weak and stupid women in order to boost his own shattered ego. You're a mess. You've gone wrong somewhere pal, she taps her head dismissively. (338)
She then remembers Karen, a colleague who Robertson took advantage of whilst drunk in the aftermath of Princess Diana’s funeral. When she correctly claims that Karen (although possibly less scrupulous than Amanda) would have never gone with Robertson if she was sober, he objects that it was Karen who got herself drunk in the first place. Drummond concludes that “She wasn’t in any state to consent or not to consent” (338), and that her sex-obsessed colleague would not miss the opportunity.
After having achieved the conquest of Blades’ wife Bunty, Robertson expresses his fundamental misogynist mind-set explaining his tactics of seductions and subsequent disposal of the ‘used goods’:
17 What I usually do with a new bird is hole up with them for a weekend and spoil them with loads of foreplay, champagne, takeaways and undivided attention to all the preposterous shite they drivel (…) The best lovers ken that you only need tae be a good lover once with one bird. Get it right the first time and then ye can basically dae what ye like. Eventually they tipple that you're just a selfish cunt, usually eftir a few years ay fruitless self-analysis, but by that time you've generally had your fill and are firing into somebody else. (299-30)
1.2.2. Rape as an Extreme Form of Male Domination
Hello Conrad, I force a smile back. I want to punch his face and deck him and then stomp that smirking posh face into the ground under the heel of my boot and keep doing it until his skull explodes over the lino, sending its fucked criminal-loving contents squidging across the tiled canteen floor. (62)
Bruce bears a grudge against solicitor Conrad Donaldson Q.C. not only because he “(…) defends the kind of fucking scum that we risk our lives to try and put away: rapists, murderers, child molesters (…)” (62), but also because he represents a threat to Robertson’s authority; as he actually possesses more symbolic and institutional power than him. When the lawyer presents him to his colleagues, he is introduced as “Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson. One of the force’s leading reactionaries. Comes from a mining family as well, I hear” (62). Robertson denies his self-detested origins; saying the barrister must have confused him with someone else; and this encounter greatly upsets him. “I…devour the rolls, ripping and rending the stringy meat in my sharp teeth, wishing that it was Donaldson’s scrawny neck” (63).
Several days after, during a police investigation, Bruce comes across his informer’s underage girlfriend and accidentally discovers some ecstasy pills in her purse. He starts threatening to charge her with possession with intent to supply. As usual, he enjoys every minute of her horror with great pleasure until the moment he realizes he has his enemy’s daughter right in front of him: “Oh ya fucker! Mister Fucking Smug Cunt himself! Bingo! His offspring right here on Bruce Robertson’s plate” (94)! He sees this as an opportunity to take revenge on Donaldson, who he sees as the number one saboteur of police work, and he ends up making the minor schoolgirl perform fellatio on him in exchange for his silence. “Good girl. Fair exchange is no robbery. Why involve the state doll? Why cause all the nasty paperwork? A mining family. Ha! I come from a
18 lot dirtier, filthier places than doon a fucking pit…” (94).
Sexual assault is motivated by power, as is proposed by numerous feminist scholars. “This power motivation, as opposed to sexual motivation, is recognized by third-party perceivers asked to identify the motives of perpetrators of sexual assault” (Gravelin et al. 100).
In the Encyclopaedia of Rape two very similar attackers’ profiles can match Robertson’s characteristic: Power-reassurance (compensatory) rapists are the least violent and aggressive, using only enough force to control their victims and often expressing concern for the victim's welfare. They suffer from low self-image, and their basic purpose is to elevate their self-status…often referred to as the gentleman rapist, he bolsters his masculinity through the exercise of power over women. (Smith 158)
Nevertheless, the protagonist is quite unconcerned over the welfare of his young victim: “She’s choking, but I haud her heid steady until I’m ready, then I withdraw my cock from her miserable torn face, stuff it in my troosers, zip up and leave her to her tears. – That’s us square hen, till the next time” (95). Thus another very similar category may fit his profile: “Power assertive rapists exhibit selfish behaviour with no regard for the victim's welfare, attempting to express their virility and dominance through rape” (Smith 158).
1.3. Racism
Welsh explains his motivation to shift focus from the underclass junkies and ravers to more covert societal ills:
I wanted to write about institutions…I noticed all the cases against the police, like racism and sex discrimination; there seems to be one every day in Britain. All these things came out about “canteen culture”, and I wanted to write something about that, the misogynistic, racist, misanthropic sort of culture that people get involved in. And I thought, well, what if we have somebody who can hide in that kind of culture? The challenge was to try and write a character that represented everything that I detest in a way, but then to try and empathise with him . . . (Cavenett qtd. in Kelly 156)
19
The term “racism” and its French precursor “le racisme”, were first used in the late 1930s, largely as a way of clarifying of the systematic discrimination against the Jews apparent in the rise of fascism (Goldberg qtd. in Crossley 236). Crossley suggests that today we need to speak of racisms in the plural rather than of one single racism, as racism varies widely across different contexts. Diverse forms of racism can be expressed towards different social groups in the same society. However, the term “racism” at the highest level of abstraction and generality is used to signify social practices (including linguistic practices) which classify and differentiate a group as a distinct ‘race’, presenting that group as lower or inferior, and thus contributing to the exclusion or domination of that group. (Crossley 236)
1.3.1. Racism Awareness
Equal Opportunities is a tongue-in-cheek name of a whole chapter in Welsh’s book, which centres on a racism awareness course designed to combat prejudice and racist views within the police department. Along with racism, numerous instances of gender domination and misogyny can be also found. The police staff are assigned to undertake racism awareness training with “priority given initially to senior staff and all officers involved in cases deemed to be racially sensitive” (34). The members of the police department are unwilling to take this course seriously, seeing it as waste of time as it is delivered by an external female officer of Asian origin and Amanda Drummond.
Ah dinnae see the point ay they modules. Waste ay fucking time if ye ask me…Some silly wee tart goes tae college n gets a degree in fucking sociology and does some Daz Coupon Certificate in Personnel Management and joins the force on this graduate accelerated programme and she’s earning nearly as much fucking dough as you or me…Then she writes this fucking stupid policy document saying: ‘be kind to coons and poofs and silly wee lassies like me’ and everybody gets the fucking hots. (46)
Gus Bain’s statement that “Scotland’s white man’s country. Always has been, always will be.”, emphasises that it is not Robertson alone who holds this view, although he adds that in the Braveheart film he had recently seen there were no “pakis” or “spades”. When another colleague, Andy Clelland, objects that this was a long time ago, Robertson continues; trying to justify his racist attitudes, saying that whites built their
20 country. “Then they want to waltz in here and reap all the benefits and tell us that we should be ashamed ay that!” (47)
The members of the division mock the “coon-loving course” (47) and their female colleagues, who are in positions of power within the context of the training session. As the mandatory participants happen to be all rather young or middle-aged men with racist tendencies, they try to empower themselves by employing the sort of in-jokes only they can understand, as an attempt to undermine the two women.
In spite of numerous disruptions to the training, the tutors manage to keep their professional distance and successfully ignore, at least for the time being, the inappropriate comments. Robertson must settle for a little satisfaction in this game: “At least the hoor seems upset, which is what it’s all about” (47). Another reason for Robertson’s feelings of marginalization is the fact that the ethnic minority tutor may also come from a middle-class background:
The wee chinky bird with the toff’s English-Yank accent. It keeps fucking well changing. Probably been tae posh schools all over the world. I hate those privileged cunts. They think that you’re fuck all, that they can just use you to clean up their shite, and in fact, most of the time they are spot-on…Aye, right ye fucking well are doll, you didnae get an accent like that in any fucking inner city (49).
While most of the detectives including Robertson manage to play their part and do not show any overt racist views, their older colleague Gus adds after a session of brainstorming: “The biggest problem…and youlse’ll no like me for saying this, but it has to be said, the biggest problem is that blacks cause the maist crime…” (48). Although in this moment, racism is being expressed rather explicitly, Gilroy speaks about collective or institutional racism which may be implicit or covert rather than overt. That is to say, the habitual practices of an individual, collective or institution can work in a manner which systematically differentiates and disadvantages specific social groups, without the agent(s) involved necessarily holding an explicit belief about the inferiority of the disadvantaged group (Gilroy xxiii).
21 In the case of alleged institutional racism within the police, for example, it may be that police officers are more likely, through force of habit, to see the activities of black youths as suspicious, without even being aware that they see black youths differently, such that they are then, in good faith, more likely to investigate black youths, more likely to discover crimes and thereby, of course, likely to reinforce their habit of viewing black youths with suspicion. (Crossley 235-236)
Several days following on from the course, the participants receive an internal memo from their Chief Superintendent about the inappropriate attitudes during the classes, and the need to attend individual debriefing sessions. After Gus claims that “ah’m no gaun up their withoot a Fed rep. That’s you, he smiles, looking at me” (58), Robertson questions his own position as rep and Gus as a rival for the promotion both are seeking. His paranoia leads him to believe that Gus is using this as a means to eliminate him from the running for the role. In the end, Bruce manages to get away from his own EO briefing, as he knows exactly what his superiors and equal opportunities tutors want to hear:
Equality is a lot of nonsense…It’s philosophical point. I believe in justifiable inequality. Example: aw that lot we put away. Criminals. Child molesters. They’re no equal with me. No way, I say, as coldly and dispassionately as possible. That struck a chord with Niddrie…I ken he thinks like me. (78) Although Gus Bain may have given away at the training where his sympathies lie, his age and alleged lack of intelligence (54) show that he poses no real threat to Robertson’s quest for his elusive promotion. Rather, another colleague will later pay the price for the racist behaviour of the department. For Robertson’s ‘professional growth’, Gillman is the perfect man to send to the Forum for Racial Equality. “That latent Nazi was the man tae gie it tight tae aw they fucking smart bastards” (262). To Toal’s distaste, Robertson seizes the opportunity to exercise his power and to teach his superiors a lesson – to demonstrate that this course was a bad idea and that things will go wrong every time they try to keep up with the times in the outdated department.
–Why Dougie Gillman? Why did you send him? (... ) I fire out the spiel. –I made a supervisory decision that he could improve in this area by guided exposure to community relations activity, so I got him to liaise with the Forum. –Well, I don’t know what guidance he got, because they’ve only gone and filed a complaint against him (…) it was initiated by the San Yung woman, the one who ran the EO’s course with Amanda Drummond. (262)
22 Gillman, without question, is a racist of the blackest dye and a homophobe. Nonetheless, this is far from being the real reason he is asked by Robertson to get in touch with the forum. Robertson muses about how he, in a way, looks up to Gillman for having a very similar, fascist-oriented mind, and that “he knows that the best place for an instinctive man of violence is on the force, with total state back-up for when things get nasty” (265). He falsely guarantees to his colleague that the internal police disciplinary will not have any impact whatsoever and that he will “get this nonsense sorted out” (265). This contrary to his thoughts, considering his colleague “a worthy scalp” (265) on his list of promotion rivals, continuing to pretend to be Gillman’s ally: “(…) he’s never a Bruce Robertson and he never will be. He thinks I’m his only friend on the force; me, who wound him up like a clockwork toy and sent him into the coons’ den” (265).
1.4. Homophobia and sexual Prejudice
“Too thin for a polisman over thirty is Inglis. Fucking Aids victim if you ask me” (35).
Peter Inglis is another candidate for the Inspector’s promotion. Described by the protagonist as a loser and sad loner (52), he is another character perceived as a threat and must be taken out of the running.
Robertson is well aware of the homophobic attitudes of most of the male members of the police department, as well as some other sections of society at the time. Even if the police force claims “[to] operate a non-discrimination policy on the grounds of sexual orientation” (242). The Equality Act that outlawed discrimination, harassment and victimisation on the basis of sexual orientation in the British workplace was passed only in 2010 (Einarsdóttir et al. 1184). “It might be some equal opportunities cunt’s idea tae turn the force intae a bastion of buggery but old values die hard here, especially in the craft” (203). As May suggests in his article “[t]he idea that people from outside the dominant group are inferior and incapable of working within Scottish institutions is spread through a variety of methods, but most notably through the networks opened up by Freemasonry” (May 2013: 7).
23 Although Welsh lets Robertson’s hatred towards his colleague simmer, and depicts the homophobic attitudes exclusively in his conscious throughout the first two thirds of the novel, in the chapter Worms and Promotions he decides that actions speak louder than words and strikes hard. It might seem like Robertson has been biding his time in persuading his own self of Inglis’ homosexuality. He first plants the idea by writing graffiti in the department’s toilets: “PETER INGLIS IS A FUCKIN HIV SPREADER and INGLIS = SICK, DISEASED QUEER” (247), and immediately announces this unfortunate incident to the concerned colleague, assuring him that “as fucking Fed rep ah’m ([he is]) no having people’s character defamed in this way.” He rushes to his superior’s office, not ceasing his role of an enraged Federation representative who must establish order again, claiming “[he does not] have time to see brother officers being slandered by other members of the service!” (248) After most of the colleagues and Inglis himself who is “torn between trying to make light of it and being genuinely staggered” (248) have seen the writing, the alarmed Toal tries to find out from Robertson if there is any truth to the graffiti. “I walk out as high as a kite. The concepts ‘Inglis’ and ‘poofery’ are now indelibly associated. The concepts ‘Inglis’ and ‘promotion’ not so. Ah, the games, the games” (249).
To make sure that Peter will be eventually removed from the promotion running, Robertson brings his plan to a conclusion by plotting a visit for the team to a gay nightclub. “The graffiti was only a start. Soon everybody’s gaunny ken what kind of nancy-boy’s been sharing their cutlery in the cannie” (255). He bribes a male prostitute who pretends to know Peter and starts to behave very attentively towards him in the rest of the detectives’ presence. After this event, when none of the force’s members questions Peter’s homosexuality any longer, they start to ostracise him and call him names:
—Leave the fucking poof, Gillman says. —Fucking arse-bandit! Ray shouts after him. —BIG FUCKING NANCY BOY (260)!
As always, Robertson’s trap has worked out perfectly and everybody involved has fallen for it. “There’s a bloody Jessie-boy in the hat for the inspector’s post” (263).
24 When the alarmed Toal discusses this disaster with Robertson, he first of all professes to be liberal himself, but that the other policemen would have hard time taking orders from “someone like that” (263). Not to lose face in front of ‘brother’ Robertson, he adds that the issue is rather a professional concern and not personal prejudice, negating his statement immediately by adding: “ …—I won’t pretend that I don’t find the idea of men doing it to each other absolutely disgusting…but that’s by the way” (263).
When Robertson plays the role of a non-discriminating professional in front of his superior, observing that the police force advertises in the gay press in some parts of the country, his boss snaps: “—This isnae some parts ay the country! This is Scotland!” (264) Even though the Scottish police was in the post-Thatcherite era officially a gay friendly employer (compared to the Royal Navy banning homosexuals from serving until 2000) it is obvious that they wanted to keep the status-quo in the northern part of the country: women and non-heterosexual men could not occupy high hierarchical posts, especially ones which exercise authority over people. There is no mention of D.S. Amanda Drummond applying for the inspector’s post in the novel, yet we can suppose a woman inspector was out of question in that era. In an article on anti-homosexuality in the British workplace, the authors explain how homophobia is linked to misogyny:
Negative attitudes toward homosexuality have been correlated with attitudes condoning the inequality of women. This finding is not surprising because both same-sex behaviour and the equality of women disturb the traditional notion of what it means to be male or female. (Einarsdóttir et al. 1184)
Toal appreciates Robertson’s false show of integrity while he pretends to defend Inglis’s sexual choices, but continues to justify his homophobic beliefs and the reasons why he is going to talk Inglis out of applying: “(…) how can you have confidence in a man who’s going to be constantly undressing you with his eyes, masturbating over images of you!” (264)
25 After becoming a victim of the force’s homophobic sentiments, and that are presented as a norm within it, Peter Inglis eventually withdraws his application for the inspector’s post. In one of the last chapters of the novel, Robertson defends this wickedness to himself: “Inglis is basically homosexual. I’m no saying that he’s the sort ay guy who would feel your bum in the lavvy or anything like that, but his psychology is homosexual. It makes sense to expose him. The same rules apply” (304). Herbrechter claims that Bruce’s misogyny and homophobia express themselves in his violence and self-hatred, which represent two angles of the same problem. He sees Filth as a reflection of the cultural evolution of contemporary masculinity. (17)
1.5. Sectarianism
As Welsh concentrated all the character traits and views he hates in his fellow Scots in Robertson’s personage, it goes without saying that the detective is also a hugely bigoted football fan as well - as are the other male members of the police force and the masonic lodge. Although there is much less space dedicated to football in Filth than in Welsh’s other novels, fans of Hibernian’s rivals Heart of Midlothian (Hearts) are continually portrayed as unionist, racist and sectarian within Welsh’s work. “[Welsh] frequently links Hearts to racism and sectarianism, sometimes to an absurdly exaggerated extent” (May 2016:14).
Robertson’s thoughts are sometimes crossed with both sectarianism and homophobia. When his doctor asks him to “drop his trousers”, the patient automatically ponders if the physician is “an arse bandit” and continues his stream of consciousness:
It seems that the bastard can never wait to get my fucking keks off. Rossi, of course. Italian. Pape. These cunts are all shirt-lifters. That’s why the population of Ireland is so fucking low. Tattie famine my hole, it’s cause all these fenian cunts are erse-shaggers. Rossi, well, I ken it’s his job but what a perfect cover for brow-bombers. (129-130)
When Robertson visits his so-called friend Bladesey in custody, a Catholic police officer is heading the investigation, whom he thinks of as “a dirty carrot-topped bastard
26 with a filthy fucking pape name, not in the craft, an odious piece of racial vomit and a Romanistic, anti-abortionist cunt” (321-322). Besides Robertson’s thoughts, the endemic hatred towards people of Catholic descent is encouraged within the police force. During a particular moment when the detectives do a crossword together one of them jokes aloud: “—Short for Patrick. That’s easy: Dirty fucking thick fenian terrorist bog-wog cunt.” (293), as this is a common name given to those of Irish Catholic descent.
Sectarianism and bigotry are also overtly expressed also through representations of freemasons’ lodges:
The Freemasons are presented as a Protestant-only movement in Scotland, and sectarianism is rampant within the lodges that Robertson attends. There is a strong link between Unionism and Protestantism in Scotland, and so the link between Unionism and corruption is also reinforced through Filth’s depiction of Freemasonry. (May 2013: 8)
A referee in the lodge entertains the members by talking openly about favouritism towards Glaswegian club Rangers, known for being a Protestant club with an anti- Catholic agenda (Walker 48). He describes a match at Glasgow’s Ibrox stadium in which he denied the visiting team a clear penalty, allowing Rangers to win the league title; adding that a linesman, equally a freemason and similarly biased, allowed a Rangers goal which was clearly offside:
“—Now, it’s blatant penalty but of course there’s no way I’m going to give that and spoil the party.” He argues that if he had given the penalty, this would have been very negatively received at the lodge. “No way was yours truly going to be a killjoy. Imagine what the boys in the Lodge at Whitburn would have said! My life wouldnae have been worth living. Spoiling a gala day out!” (190)
All the listeners smile and nod approvingly when he goes on describing the “gala atmosphere” with “everyone singing ‘we’re up to our knees in Fenian blood” (190). Welsh, himself a well-known football fan of Edinburgh club Hibernian, often draws parallels between the two Glasgow clubs and the rivalry which exists in the capital.
While Filth is a work of fiction, similar accusations about refereeing bias have
27 been made by other commentators in Scotland. In 1999 the Vice-Chairman of Rangers Donald Findlay was secretly caught on video singing the same lines and other sectarian songs in the aftermath of a match on the 29th of May. This incident led to Findlay’s resignation and the case was featured in the famous and culturally significant speech called ‘Scotland’s Shame’, given in August 1999 at the Edinburgh Festival by the Scottish Catholic composer James MacMillan. MacMillan alleged that anti-Catholic bigotry was ‘endemic’ in Scottish society and argued that the most frequent and glaring expressions of sectarianism can be seen within ‘the activities of [Scotland’s] referees and sporting bodies’ (MacMillan qtd in May 2016: 15). His intervention triggered an outpouring of comment, both favourable and critical, in the Scottish and London media. (Walker 55)
According to Walker, the simplistic model presented in the work of some scholars, namely that Protestant dominance of Scottish society is mainly expressed through support for Rangers, is far more complex than this. (Walker 51)
Welsh further presents anti-Irish (and thus anti-Catholic) and nationalistic sentiments via Robertson’s persona and views. When the protagonist meets some Liverpudlians in Amsterdam, he automatically stereotypes them: “…[they] ooze criminality. The Irish influence, no doubt.” (176) He acts very scornfully towards them, claiming he is not the same as them. Robertson ends up beaten and robbed by these “scousers” after being abusive and touching upon delicate topics like Hillsborough disaster, calling them “a bunch of fucking sad drama queens” and “scouser queers” (177-178). Later in a bar he complaints to an Irish person about his self-inflicted misfortune: “—He just nods in a neutral way. I didn’t expect anything more from a criminal. All the Irish are like that, except the Protestant Northern Irish, our brethren” (180).
Bruce’s resentment towards people of the Catholic denomination can be partly understood, as he blames the church for giving her mother guidance after she has been raped - that as a Catholic her duty was to give life to the assailant’s offspring. “How could she have grown the seed of this scum inside of her for some fucking stupid church run by cunts who dinnae even get their fucking hole?” (381)
28 1.6. Power and Thatcherism
Welsh, a known advocate of socialist values, depicts his distaste towards Thatcherite government by combining the protagonist’s story with several real historical and political events - where it is clear that the protagonist admires the Iron Lady’s ideology. It might seem that the author detests the late-twentieth-century British political establishment and its principles to such extent, that not only does he make Robertson its personification, but also a caricatured product of it.
During his sick leave, recovering from his fall off a building, Robertson watches television at home, changing channels frequently to howl down the numerous intrusive voices in his head. He then comes across a documentary about Margaret Thatcher. The tapeworm, which will be returned to later in this thesis, offers one of his last analyses of his Host’s motivation to control others and to have power over them:
But the impulses are still there. The urge to hurt, demean and control is great in you. To somehow get back at them. You consider politics as a career. How wonderful it would be to start a war. To send thousands of people to their deaths. You idolise Thatcher over the Falklands. You try to imagine the buzz she must have felt when the word ‘rejoice’ came from her lips. While other children fantasised about killing in wars, you wanted to be in the position to send others to their deaths from the safety of an oak-panelled office. (389)
1979 was the year that Margaret Thatcher started her eleven-year term as prime minister. “This was a period in which Scots in general came to feel even more alienated from and oppressed by Britishness as the Tory-led, London-based government passed laws affecting a Scotland represented by fewer and fewer Tory MPs” (Morace 14). As an ideology Thatcherism also aimed to call notions of class into question, encouraging individuals to pursue their own interest in the name of maximising economic efficiency (McGuire 20).
Robertson’s idolisation of the Thatcher regime is one of the key reasons for joining the police - an ideal milieu where he can fully exercise his abusive power. The rejection by his step-father and the pit village community causes injustice and self-hatred that push him towards revenge. “–What made you join the force? –Why did I join the force? I repeat, –Oh I’d have to say that it was due to police oppression. I’d witnessed it within
29 my own community and decided that it was something I wanted to be part of, I smile” (146). Although Robertson makes this sound as a joke when being asked, this is, in fact, exactly the reason he became a ‘law enforcement officer’ shortly before the breakout of the 1984 miners’ strike.
1.6.1. Miners’ Strikes
Compared to the 1970 strike, police treatment of striking miners in 1984-1985 became significantly different under Thatcher’s Conservative Government. Strikers saw a multiplied police presence on picket lines, as well as increase in police aggression: Increasingly oppressive policing throughout the 1980s gave rise to the police being viewed as political agents of the government rather than as public servants. It has been argued that in this period the police were empowered to act with impunity (…) the policing of the miners’ strike came to represent the worst aspects of the Tory government under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher. Strikers and protesters were systematically brutalised by a police force overtly acting as an arm of government. (Coleman 85-6)
Being a participant in police brutality during the strike gave start to the fulfilment of Bruce’s agenda - to get back at all the people he hates, especially members of the working class that so profoundly traumatised him in his early years: “I hate them all, that section of the working class who won’t do as they are told: criminals, spastics, niggers, strikers, thugs, I don’t fucking well care, it all adds up to one thing: something to smash” (160). Robertson raves about how he enjoyed the good old days when repressing the strikers:
It’s that front-line feeling; that rush when you’re at a picket-line (…) and you’ve got your truncheon and shield and the whole force of the state is behind you and you’re hyped up to beat insolent spastic scum who question things with their big mouths and nasty manners into the suffering pulp they so richly deserve to become. It’s a great society we live in. (160)
This reflects upon a society that during this time oppressed and condemned others like him – other working-class people. When his sister-in-law asks why he has to savour all the bad things happening to others, Robertson explains that if only a certain number of
30 bad things can happen at a given moment, it means that those bad things are not happening to him (253). His conscious keeps revealing that the times when bad things happened, stemmed from his ‘weak’ position (in other words his treatment growing up) no longer occur since he joined the “other” side, the side of power:
Power was everything. You understood that. It wasn’t for an end, to achieve anything, to better one’s fellow man, it was there to have and to keep and to enjoy. The important thing was to be on the winning side; if you can’t beat them join them. (261)
The old proverb that ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ rises up in Robertson’s mind again when he comes across a homeless, drunken man and recognises his as an old acquaintance. It is a symbolic moment, a faded reactionary gone alcoholic and homeless, the sad end of the militant mining communities destroyed by Thatcherite government.
The jakey seems to have a kind of fear in his eyes, as if it’s just dawned on him that whatever he’s drank it’s just not been quite enough to blank out the hideous reality of his miserable life. And I know him. Alan. Alan Loughton. Used to be a member of the strike committee, back in the day. How’s it going Al, buddy? How’s it going now that the pits been shut down for over ten years? How’s it going now that you’re no longer seen as a socialist hero back in the village, but as a boring auld pissheid… (318)
In July 1984, Thatcher made the following statement regarding the striking miners: “We had to fight an enemy without in the Falklands. We always have to be aware of the enemy within, which is more difficult to fight and more dangerous to the liberty” (Cited in Kelly 159). The war without, against Argentina, was thus replaced with the war within, which had a direct impact on Northern England and Scotland the most (Morace 15). The personified “enemy within” - Arthur Scargill, president of the National Union of Mineworkers - is of course seen negatively by Robertson, who at one point expressively describes the tapeworm inside of him as “twisting and growing, biding its time, like an Arthur Scargill in the healthy body politic of eighties Britain, the enemy within” (171). Schoene suggests that “Welsh contrives a striking parallel between Margaret Thatcher’s treatment of Arthur Scargill and Scotland’s attitude to homosexuals and the English” (Shoene 136) in the passage where the protagonist
31 describes his supposedly gay colleague Peter Inglis: “The worm called Inglis is being flushed out the system; outed and routed, before further infestation can take hold” (136). Another parallel between the state’s struggle with its subversives and Bruce’s wrestling with what he considers an insidious parasite is made clear when he drinks whisky on the flight to Amsterdam: “If you drink whisky you’ll never get worms. Burn out the enemy within” (152).
During and after the failure of the strike, the miners’ leader Arthur Scargill became the main scapegoat of the British state, and the target of an unparalleled campaign of demonization by the government and the press. The miners' strike needs to be understood as the critical point in late-twentieth-century British history (Herbrechter 18). Welsh ascribes to the Tory regime the need to “punish that goodness as a weakness” and to push through an agenda that is characterised by “cynicism and vileness” in its pursuit of absolute power (260). Robertson is the amalgam of these negative descriptions as he joins the police force and helps to break the left-wing resistance, with personal power being the strongest motivating factor (May 2013: 5). As he finds himself on the winning side, fighting the people from his community that shed him, he believes that he is superior to those who were on the side of losers. Not only is wielding power Bruce’s obsession, but as the tapeworm explains, it is his main objective of being: “Only the winners or those sponsored by them write the history of the times. That history decrees that only the winners have a story worth telling. The worst ever thing to be is on the losing side” (261).
In Filth, Robertson’s exorbitant thirst for absolute power and idealising those who wield it might seem ridiculously over the top. However, Kelly reminds us of real comments made by political analyst and adviser to Thatcher, Alfred Sherman, in January 1984: “if the unemployed get lower benefits, they will be quicker to start looking for work…As for the lumpen proletariat, coloured people and the Irish, let’s face it, the only way to hold them in check is have enough properly trained police” (qtd in Kelly 161).
The political regime provides Robertson with a means of self-aggrandisement, and the denigration of others is an omnipresent feature in his discourse. He speaks with distaste
32 of the tabloid press, which he is a keen consumer of: “It’s a pleb paper, I only buy it for the tits, the telly and the fitba” (200). He feels superior to the “common” readers of the Sun, and the newsagent’s cheerfulness about the copy he has just bought flusters him; immediately assuring himself that he does not make part of the target readership of it: “This disgusts me as I’m not like the rest of the festering plebs who read the Sun. I’m more like somebody who writes the thing, edits it even” (25).
When Robertson and his colleagues discuss politics at work, Amanda Drummond is of the opinion that in a democracy, police officers as the mere enforcers of the law must obey any government or regime and enforce its law appropriately. She is immediately attacked by Robertson: “If you believe that then you’re even thicker than I thought” (245). He then starts to analyse the miners’ strikes, stating that:
Our job then was to crush socialism (…) If unions had never broken the laws, we wouldnae have any democracy (…) But there are people in the unions now who don’t give a fuck about democracy. Maggie sorted them out, but they’re still there, just waiting for that Tony Blair spastic to show signs of weakness and let them back. That was why things got so messed up with the last Labour government. These bastards held sway. Scargill and the likes. That's why we had to sort them out. (245)
It is necessary for Robertson to repress certain personality traits to maintain his hard- shell cop persona: a part that would like to become vulnerable and experience emotions that would be considered as weaknesses in his tough world. According to his estranged wife’s narrative “[Bruce] is a very sensitive man underneath it all. His hard front fools a lot of people…” (42).
An example of Robertson’s ability to hold such sentiments emerges in extreme situations with strong emotions that connect Robertson with his humane self. During Christmas shopping (before his progressive breakdown is set off) he desperately tries to save a dying man, who he comes across in the street when off-duty. Although Bruce does everything he can, the man dies of a heart attack and the newly-widowed wife holds on to Robertson: “—Why…he was a good man…he was a good man…why? At first it feels awkward and invasive, but our bodies settle into a natural convergence (…) Was he? I nod, feeling tears rolling down my cheek and I’m rubbing at my face” (114).
33 A nearby journalist then asks Robertson after his fruitless attempt: “—How did that make you feel” (114), a query that the protagonist repeats throughout the remainder of the novel in a sarcastic manner, parodying the human care and concern that this question can signify. Robertson continues to find it impossibly difficult to empathise with other’s misfortune. When his name appears in a newspaper article and his friends and co-workers contact him to show their recognition, he thinks haughtily without any further humbleness: “I must try to save people more often. It seems to be not a bad device for attracting the fanny” (141).
Robertson’s sister-in-law Shirley, who he has been having sex with on and off with for years, confesses that she may have cancer after the results of a cervical smear. She is alarmed and has nobody to turn to, crying for some kind of support, but Robertson only brushes her away: “—I don’t see what I can do. You’ll have to sort it out” (328). But for a second, when looking at her and her misery, he contemplates: “(…) we wish we were stronger. I wish I was somebody else, the person she’s mistaking me for, the person whom she wants to mistake me for. The person who gives a fuck” (328). Despite Shirley’s pleading and crying, Robertson leaves her all by herself in her misery, justifying his actions in his corrupted mind. “We do not inflict our misfortune on others. We are not made that way” (328). However, later when remembering his relative again, he is thinking: “I can’t Shirley, find somebody strong. This job, this life, it’s drained my strength” (329). This is another rare moment when Bruce briefly admits how fundamentally weak he actually is, and how desensitized, in an emotional sense, he became in his pursuit of power.
1.7. Robertson and Power without a Badge
Clifford Blades is probably the most manipulated character in the novel, and it is nobody else than Robertson who takes full advantage of this. The protagonist claims he “took pity on him, [as] he doesn’t have any mates” (17), but actually the reason he befriended Blades is neither pity nor interest in him; but rather his weakness and naivety. These traits offer Robertson significant potential to exert power and influence,
34 both over Blades and subsequently over his wife. Morace finds this game Bruce plays with Blades particularly interesting:
[he] plays these games not because Bladesey, a fellow Mason, is a rival but because he is weak and therefore like Bruce’s women and like Bruce himself. Nominally trickster to Bladesey’s fallguy, Bruce also resembles the most vulnerable character in a novel loaded with vulnerable characters. (Morace 93)
Yet for Robertson, it is Bladesey who is the poor victim of his own pathetic life:
Hurley’s right. The big problem with being polis is that you can’t help but see people as either potential criminals or potential victims. That way you feel either loathing or a contempt for anyone who isn’t like you, i.e. polis…I have to work hard not to let my contempt for Bladesey show. (73)
Bladesey is in a weak position compared to Robertson who, as a member of the police force, cannot help but use his power and influence over anything and anybody - even in his private life. The reason he decides to wreck his so-called friend’s life is purely to inflate his own ego and to nourish himself with feelings of power and control. Besides sex, drugs and alcohol - which are often consequences of the power Robertson possesses, this is one of the only means in which he can derive any satisfaction.
Clifford is the submissive one in his martial relationship, and quite afraid to upset his wife Bunty in any way. Although Bruce’s assertion that “…she’s walking aw ower ye. That’s why she’s treating ye like shite, cause she can” (72) seems to be reasonably accurate, these are also the beginnings of Bruce exploiting the situation for his own gain. Even Bunty’s son from her previous marriage does not seem to respect his step- father, who aside from his colleagues at the Masonic lodge, does not seem to have any real friends.
While they are having a drink at Robertson’s house, Blades is encouraged to open up about his personal issues. However, Robertson’s disdain for Bladesey is noticeable, believing his English acquaintance isn’t good enough to drink a good quality whisky, a national drink: “I fill a glass with Tesco’s Scotch Whisky out of one of these plastic bottles for Bladesey…” I could have pished in a glass and he wouldnae have kent any better” (39).
Robertson often relates to Bladesey as a “wee (English) cunt” (17) and manipulates him
35 by trying to false counsel him on how to keep his wife satisfied. Bladesey has very little chance to exercise his free will as he seems to be satisfying solely other peoples’ needs and wishes. When Robertson wants him to go out at night and get drunk, he pulls another piece of ‘priceless guidance’ on how to become more attractive for his spouse: “He’s reluctant, but I tell him, if he gets his hole from somebody else (some chance) it’ll make him feel better about himself and he might be more attractive to Bunty. If this had any chance of happening and working, no way would I have told him” (143).
Whenever Bruce smells an opportunity to embarrass his loyal friend in order to boost his shattered ego, he certainly grasps it and then relishes in its consequences: First he steals two hundred pounds from Bladesey’s wallet and invites two women they meet in the street for a meal. Then Robertson’s moment comes: “After the meal I signal for the bill. When it arrives Brother Blades gets a little shock. –I…I…I don’t believe it…my wallet…it’s empty…I….I…(147) Robertson leaves Bladesey to his bewilderment and makes a scene of gesticulating with his money, generously paying for everybody, after which he presents a patronising explanation to his friend in distress “–I telt you about these hoors at the Ritz. Criminals can have vaginas as well as penises Bladesey” (147). Robertson makes material gain in the form of a free meal using his “friend’s” money from the situation. He is also able to impress women with it, who he always regards as potential targets for sexual conquests. As Blades is undermined and ridiculed yet again, his lack of confidence arguably makes it easier to exploit him further in the future.
One of Robertson’s other talents is indisputably identifying the power dynamic in other relationships, noting that “This big piece he married last year. Bunty her name is. He worships the big cow: it’s Bunty this, Bunty that, wi the wee cunt. Of course she seems to treat Brother Clifford Blades like shite.” (39) He decides to psychologically enfeeble Bunty as she has a great deal of power over her husband, forcing Bruce to compete with her in this domain. Robertson starts to make obscene calls to Bunty, pretending to be psychopath with comic persona Frank Sidebottom’s funny voice in Mancunian accent. “This hoor is an A1 baw-buster. Cool as ye like. No wonder poor auld Bladesey’s on personal hand jobs with the old newsprint. This is going to be a challenge” (97). Bruce then offers to pay a visit to the Blades offering the professional perspective of an experienced law enforcement officer on this harassment case. According to his internal
36 monologue, the detective gets sexually aroused from the feeling of power: “Bunty might be a tough nut to crack on the blower, but Bladesey’s told me that it’s all been getting to her. This is as it should be. Right now there’s a lump in my flannels and I feel charged up with a sense of my own power over her” (101). He proficiently suggests his distressed victim to play along and open up about herself in order to get the psychopath caught. He assures the couple about the efficiency of this method and confidently promises to accomplish his mission.
Bruce and Bladesey leave for pre-Christmas holidays to Amsterdam to do some “hooring” (157) and drug-taking for the detective - while his friend only joins him on rather accompanying basis and is actually far more interested in local galleries and museums. Even while on holidays, Robertson does not abandon his long-term plan with Bladesey’s wife and calls her from Amsterdam, yet this piece of his game almost turns against him as Bunty’s dominance gets in the way: “We get out on the pish and I make the mistake of letting Bladesey Bell Bunty. I was intrigued as how my heat from across the street had affected her. Bad move” (163). Robertson’s power to manipulate Bladesey is so potent that he is actually able to decide on most of his friend’s actions. When the Englishman wants to return home to be there for this wife who is a bundle of nerves after the ‘psychopath’s’ calls, Robertson manages to convince him to stay. Although Bladesey feels torn between his two puppet masters, Robertson’s physical presence alongside him gives him significant opportunity to emotionally blackmail and play to Blades’ weaknesses, questioning his masculinity and alleged inability to satisfy his wife sexually.
—Bladesey, listen. Ah’m yir mate, and mates back each other up (…) –You and I, I smile, –are going oot hooring. You are gaunny git that fucking pole working again and when you swagger back intae that hoose in Corstorphine, the first thing you dae is git a hud ay her and gie her. (164)
Towards the end of their stay, Robertson even physically attacks his friend after drinking and taking a good deal of different drugs. Once again, his inner monologue shows his true attitudes: “(…) I know it’s him and I want to choke the living shite out of the cunt, just turn off his gas for good cause I detest the bastard and he’s just one of the cunts who got it in for me” (173). Straight after the attack, Robertson’s mind turns lucid
37 for an instance as he contemplates: “I don’t believe I attacked Bladesey. My mate. My travelling companion. Brother Blades. A stalwart in the craft. A brother” (173). However, shortly after this isolated thought of self-reflexion, he continues to regard his friend as “[a] sad little cunt who needs very little and who can’t understand what a grievous rage his attitude and manner induces in the rest of us for whom everything in the world could never, ever, be anything like enough…” (173). Herbrechter, who regards the Bladesey - Robertson relationship from the point of view of gender crisis, suggests:
Filth can be read as a negotiation of repressive oedipal masculine identity. Bruce's raison d'être is his role as Don Juan, ‘playing at being man’. He undertakes the sexual re-education of his ‘effeminate’ mate Bladesey, who is something like a New Man, deeply insecure of his manhood and the relationship with his wife. The not entirely altruistic plan is to teach his friend/rival a lesson in ‘strong’ masculinity by seducing his wife. (Herbrechter 11)
It can be contradicted that Robertson’s seducing Bounty has nothing to do with giving lessons of masculinity to her husband. Bunty, as a powerful element in her martial relationship, needs to be divested of her potential, and Robertson does this by harassing her on the phone. Bladesey, in his naivety, is considerably easy prey for Robertson to take down in order to empower himself and feel superior. It is not really clear if Clifford ever finds out about his wife’s affair with Robertson, as it might become clear that he has been framed by the detective.
Upon returning from his holiday, Bruce pays a visit to Clifford’s wife Bunty, first pretending to be loyal to his friend and thinking highly of him and subsequently duping her into believing he has deep feelings for her:
I look up at her and let a tremble come into my voice. —Just tell me that you don’t feel anything for me, just call me a creep, no better than the scumbag who phones you up (…) I do know my own mind, Bruce! I want to be with you! (299)
Robertson continues having an affair with Clifford’s anguished wife in order to accomplish his diabolical plan. After having sex with Bunty, he introduces her to the
38 truth when he casually checks his voicemail and Bunty recognises her caller in Bladesey’s jocular tone. “–It’s him! It’s him! I’m calling the police! That sad little bastard! I should have known! Living with a pervert!” (311).
To perfect the image of Bladesey as a deviant to perfection, he tells Bunty that the tapes her husband mentioned in his voicemail are pornographic ones from a farmer in the Lodge, and shows her a sample of the material which makes Bunty vomit. After Bunty’s departre, Robertson is certain she will call the police to make a complaint against her husband. “I kept half-heartedly trying to talk her out of it (…) and all the insincere bullshit under the sun, but I knew that her mind was made up” (312).
After Blades’s inevitable arrest, the detective goes to see his ‘friend’ in the detention room and starts to confront him with the crime he has not committed. Bladesey falls to pieces, and to Robertson’s disdain, starts to weep. “It’s pathetic watching a grown man cry in that manner. No fucking pride. Do you see me break down like a fucking wee tart, and all the shite I’ve had to contend with as well? We cope” (323). The detective finds Bladesey’s reaction, to whom life has been treating much better than him, not adequate. The fact is that Bladesdey’s breakdown is a common type of reaction most people would have in such a situation; whereas Bruce, since his childhood, has been used to repressing any form of emotion regarded as ‘weak’.
Upon his departure, the detective muses sadistically: “He deserves to die, to be forced into committing suicide and dying. Like Clell. Aye, if I had my way that would happen with the fucked up: a sort of psychic natural selection” (282). Correspondingly, when paying a visit to a detective colleague Andy Clelland, who attempted to commit suicide after having left the Serious Crimes unit for Traffic (and suddenly having time to think again about the horror he has witnessed while doing the job), the protagonist philosophises: “natural selection, mate, natural selection. The twisted, broken people go to the wall and you are one of them my friend. Clell was always a weak, sensitive, commie poof under that jokey exterior” (282). The paradox of such thinking is that it
39 actually presages Bruce’s own disintegration and demise, as he eventually chooses to naturally select himself too.
1.8. Matter of Size
Robertson and his male colleagues attribute great importance to the size of male genitalia and the symbolic power of those who are well-endowed. There is an internal rumour in the department that their attractive female colleague, internally referred as the Size Queen, is of the same mindset.
Ride thon, eh Ray? –No half. –Any luck? Ah saw you sniffin roond it doon the cannie this morning. –Nah, she shags on recommendation only. Ah heard that she’s a size freak. She finds oot fae the other lassies likes ay Karen Fulton n that crowd, who the guys wi the really big packets are and she’ll only fuck them. – That’s you oot the runnin then, eh? I laugh, thinking about the time we had a session with my sister-in-law Shirley. (78)
The protagonist and his young colleague Ray had a threesome with another of Robertson’s family members in the past, and that is how he is aware about Ray’s Achilles heel - an under-average sized penis. “Ray could never give any bird enough. The mouth department and the trouser department are well out of synchronisation in the not-so-superstore that is Ray Lennox, I kid you not” (18). Robertson keeps cultivating feelings of inadequacy in the young detective, constantly working on undermining his self-esteem by making jocular remarks about Ray’s petty genitalia. Robertson is a master in noting all weak spots of his associates - “something that crushes their self- image to a pulp. Yes, it’s all stored for future reference” (20).
As today’s society likes to make men believe, Bruce is persuaded about the direct correlation between genitalia size and feelings of power. Researchers have shown that the size of a man’s penis has historically had a significant impact on his self-esteem. “In society, boys and men receive the message, subtle or otherwise, that masculinity, virility, potency, and even self-worth are related to penis size” (Lee 134).
At the department’s Christmas party he first has Ray make a losing bet:
That big civvy piece, the Size Queen, she’s around. Lennox is smarming and getting nowhere. He’s smarming, but he’s no thinking. I am. We made a fifty-
40 quid bet on who’d be the first yin to get into the Size Queen’s knickers, and the dosh is going in the Robertson coffers. I kid you not. (202)
Then he lures everybody into his party game. “I watch what I’m drinking and bide my time until every cunt’s three sheets. Then I start shifting the conversation round to the topic of a gentleman’s size, watching Lennox go all nervy and trying to change the subject” (202).
Robertson then explains the rules of the game. The men go into the photocopier room one by one and make a copy of their ‘wedding tackle’ and write their names on the back, before putting them into an envelope. “ –Get away Bruce! Lennox scoffs, but to the cunt’s embarrassment, everyone else seems captivated” (203).
Robertson’s dirty mission is his own empowerment: having sex with his luscious colleague, acquainting his co-workers with his oversized phallus, and embarrassing his friend for the exact opposite reason.
Not only is the function of the penis critical to the construction of masculine identity and hegemonic masculine sexual subjectivity, its positive value as a symbol of power is reflected throughout popular culture both currently and historically. Psychoanalytic, postmodern and feminist scholars have addressed the equation of the penis or phallus with power. (Brubaker and Johnson 135)
However, Robertson is only creating the illusion of the over-average size of his penis. He uses the enlarging function on the photocopier to make everybody believe that the resulting copy is the actual size of his manhood. The treacherous detective is, however, truly impressed by his older colleague’s real size: “It turns out that Gus’s is almost as big as my enlarged one. Nae wonder the sly auld fuck was rarin tae gie it a go! (204)”. This makes Robertson think of Gus’s wife Edith. “Nae wonder the auld hag’s always got a dopey smile on her face. Any hoor gitting that length ay Gus’s fucking well would.” However, he remembers that ‘mister big-cock Gus’ advocates monogamy and apparently has an old, ugly wife, so this is a total waste to Robertson. “I almost feel sorry for auld Gus. It’s nae good huvin the biggest widdin spoon in the kitchen if you’re only using it tae stir the same auld fusty pot ay broth that has long since gone off the boil” (274).
41 Lindsay and Boyle regard penises not as anatomical, but rather as the conceptual penis which men use to move themselves from powerless subject positions to powerful ones.
Many cisgendered hypermasculine males, for instance, seem to identify those aspects of their masculinity upon which they most obviously depend with the notion that they carry their penis as a symbol of male power, domination, control, capability, desirability, and aggression… (Lindsay and Boyle 2)
Robertson’s orchestrated victory bears the expected fruit: “After the disclosure, everybody’s giving me loads of attention. I catch the Size Queen’s flirtatious eye…I’m playing it cool: just flirty enough to keep the cow on the boil, making her suffer, always the best way…I want the Size Queen off her high horse, I want her to proposition me. Which, after a while and more drink, she does. She sidles up to me and vampishly announces, –The winner deserves a prize” (205).
1.9. The Tapeworm and Childhood Trauma
Filth is told from the perspective of a first-person narrator and two other voices; typed in different fonts and styles which constantly interrupt the main narrative. The reader eventually learns that these are aspects of the protagonist’s unconscious personality that he develops as a result of his schizophrenia. The voice of Carole, far less disruptive that the one of the tapeworm, is presented in several short chapters dissociated from the main narrative by being typed in bold.
The second, far more interruptive, voice is in the graphic shape of a worm, which is presented over the main body of the text. This gives the impression that it is ‘consuming’ the main narrative, which them becomes unreadable. As the novel progresses, the tapeworm representing the voice of Bruce’s conscience dubs himself “the Self” (108), calling Robertson “mine Host” and starts to take up more and more space on the pages. This serves to reveal the protagonist’s traumatizing past and the events that moulded his sociopathic character, letting the reader in on numerous dark secrets. These three narrative threads come together at the end of the novel as the narrator is dying.
42
The tapeworm is a result of Bruce’s bad hygiene and dietary habits and makes its first appearance in the fourth chapter while he sleeps. In the chapter Coarse Briefings, the tapeworm starts to take control of the narrative for longer periods of the text. Kelly sees the analogy of the parasite’s urge to eat as endorsing Bruce unthinking Thatcherite sentiments: “This consumption, all this chomping and chewing, it provides me with more evidence of act with the environmental I am in” (70). The worm becomes aware of having a soul which calls for contact with something beyond the self (Kelly 160).
As it turns out, the tapeworm provides insight into Robertson’s character and a psychological analysis - attempts of which Bruce categorically refuses. When general practitioner Rossi, who treats Robertson for eczema and subsequently tapeworms, asks him about what might be causing “a persistent nervous condition” (243), he inwardly rages at the doctor; thinking that “Rossi evidently wants to be a psychologist” and that he should just “dae yir fuckin job ya cunt” (243). During an isolated moment of Bruce’s meltdown, when a female co-worker (who is constantly being belittled by her male colleagues), cares, out of pure empathy, about Robertson’s psychological well-being, he blows up on her: “GET ON WITH YOUR FUCKIN JOB AND STOP PLAYING THE AMATEUR PSYCHOLOGIST” (340).
As the parasite grows, its simplistic comments on consumption and encouragements to eat more develop gradually to become a sophisticated narrative. It starts gathering information about its “Host” being motivated by boredom:
To be quite honest, here is not that much to do around here (…) Mine Host, you continue to fascinate me. You must be leading a far more interesting life than myself I will sift through the food the Host ingests, probe the cells of the skin that I’m so attached to, assimilate all the bonnie data from the braw yin’s consumption patterns and physical condition. To do this means I need to eat and eat and eat. (139)
As the intervening worm begins to think for itself, providing an insight into the protagonist’s character and his working-class background, it starts speaking about Robertson and complains about his host’s eating habits and food choices. “Maybe we
43 can postulate that the laddie has grown up in a world of privation and although he has been able to accumulate more resources he has not quite been able to shed himself of all those proletarian habits” (192). One of the instances when Robertson blames his profession for taking its toll on his mental and physical health is when the doctor confirms his suspicions of Bruce having worms. Robertson, in a state of a slight shock, thinks for himself: “I can’t believe it. This is another price I have to pay for hanging around with schemies and criminals” (243). The physician assures Roberson of the tapeworms’ harmlessness and recommends taking a solution to treat them. The worm realises that his host is now aware of having parasites, as well as not being alone in the policeman’s intestines, and starts to refer to the second worm as The Other. “I am not alone. My soulmate is here (…) we are bombarded with corrosive chemicals” (230-231). In the chapter titled Worms and Promotions “The Self” begins to dig deeper into Robertson’s past, saying: “I can feel all your ghosts. You’ve internalised them Bruce” (242). At first it is only implying about a person who used to make little Bruce simply eat, “one that looms large in [his] life (…) Ian Robertson was his name” (242).
1.9.1. Ian Robertson
The tapeworm reveals Robertson’s childhood frustrations and adolescent traumas, commencing with an insight into the obscure relationship towards his father Ian Robertson. Although he yearned for his father’s love, the mine worker never used to give any affections or warmth to young Bruce.
When you did try to go to him, he brushed you away Sometimes you would see him looking at you…looking into you, beyond you. […] You would turn and smile because you were a good wee boy and you wanted to please your father, really wanted him to love you, but he would wince and look away. You stopped trying to go to him. The look was enough. Then he started doing the things to you. With the coal. (315)
Bruce failed to comprehend why his father was doing this to him or what he did to deserve such treatment. While his parasite keeps urging him to eat within its narrative, it uncovers his abusive father’s methods: whenever Robertson‘s feeling of neglect manifested itself as a refusal to eat food, this exasperated Ian to the point that he forced
44 the child to eat coal. “Eat! He’d roar. […] —Ah’ve been fucking digging this shite aw day for you! Eat! But you still couldn’t eat the food. Then he’d pick up a lump of coal and make you eat it” (292). Bruce’s mother, who witnessed the mistreatment, would just weep silently or look away, coming to see him at night to comfort her son while crying. “You could sense the pity in her love. You knew right from the start that there was something wrong with you” (316).
Molly Robertson, Bruce’s mother, then gave birth to a boy who immediately assumes the place of a beloved baby in the family “…they all loved the child. You thought that if you loved him too, they would see that you were a good boy and they might love you” (316). To his father’s discontent, Robertson spent a lot of time playing with his younger brother and they were inseparable as children, yet he never understood the distance and contempt from his family and the community. “Outside, the people in the village seemed to glance at you as if you were a freak. Parents would tell their children not to play with you” (355). Bruce used to hear his parents arguing at nights, his mother crying; and although he wanted to make it stop at first, he soon began to observe the tools of power his father would use during the quarrels: “At first it was daunting. He seemed an impregnable fortress of power, of fearful omnipotence in your child’s world. You learned what got to him, although you knew that you could never exercise the knowledge. Yet” (336). Already in his early age, Robertson discovered the symbiotic complicity between power and knowledge. As Foucault illustrates: “We should admit that power produces knowledge (…) that power and knowledge directly imply one another; that there is no power relation without the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute power relations.” (Cited in Kelly 2005: 114) Similarly, when years later he burns his boss’s unfinished screenplay, Robertson laments: (…) I should have read that script. Knowledge is power, or so they say” (334).
During the first great miners’ strike (1972-1974), the boys are sent out by their father to steal some coal in order to heat the house. The enthusiastic Stevie climbs a huge pile of coal faster than his brother and starts to boast jokingly, which after all Robertson’s
45 marginalisation and feelings of being always the strange one, is like adding fuel to the flame. It is another reminder that even without all the disdainful adults and children from the pit village in sight, he is still the “Other Laddie” as the villagers used to refer to him. Anger takes over Robertson and he pushes his little brother back down the hill, which triggers a landslide: “You don’t mean to move the coal, buy you still experience a strange elation as well as a crushing fear as it starts shifting and comes sliding down on Stevie, sealing him in.” (354). The young boy ends up buried under the mass of coal, and despite Robertson’s efforts to save him and call for help, his brother does not survive.
Time passes. Your father arrives. He arrives as they pull Stevie out, battered, broken, lifeless and black…This thing killed him, your father screams, this bastard spawn ay the fucking devil killed ma laddie! You look straight at him. You want to deny and affirm his assertions all at once. You’re no ma son! You’ve never been ma fuckin son! You’re filth! (355)
The murder passes off as an accident and Bruce, who is sent to live with his alcoholic grandmother, stops seeing Ian: who he thinks of as Mister Robertson from then on. Kelly notices the typographical arrangement of Robertson’s interjection at the end of the chapter that suggests a psychological shift within his consciousness, from denial to an acceptance of the truth of the worm’s account (Kelly 2005: 168):
Now Stevie is gone. You can’t feel a thing for him
That is not true
That is not
true. (355)
Even though Molly Robertson, who later has other two children after Stevie’s death, pays Bruce and her mother occasional visits, he progressively loses touch with that part of the family. His grandmother confirms that Ian is not his biological father, but asserts that his real one had not been well and is now dead. It is much later when one of the old woman’s partners named Crawford Douglas tells Bruce the truth about his blood father while intoxicated.
46 1.9.2. The Face of a Beast
Another secret The Self reveals is that of Robertson’s biological father. Molly Hanlon (later Robertson) was already seeing Ian, who out of love for her fiancée agreed to have their wedding in a Catholic church, then came upon a tragic event:
[she] was attacked by a man. She was beaten and raped. Molly gave a description and the man was apprehended. He was tried and convicted of a number of rapes and sexual assaults on women and men. It was revealed at his trial that this man suffered from mental problems: acute schizophrenia, depression, anxiety attacks. (381)
Bruce becomes the child of this harsh sexual assault as Molly follows the guidance of her local church’s priest to not abort the foetus for religious reasons. Ian Robertson, standing by his love, marries her and thus saves her from both the sin of terminating the pregnancy and the shame of giving birth unmarried. In spite of both being determined to bring the child up as their own, Ian is not able to come to terms with their horrendous fate. When the repeated sex-offender is apprehended, his picture appears on the front page of the Daily Record with the caption ‘THE FACE OF A BEAST’; and he becomes known both in the community and beyond as the Beast. Ian projects the tremendous grudge he holds against the rapist onto the baby and later young boy, in the same way the people from the pit villages do.
The tapeworm talks briefly about Miss Hunter - Robertson’s primary school teacher - whose resentment towards him seemed very personal, as she would “take [him] aside and shake [him] and hiss softly in [his] ear, --I know who you are Robertson. I know everything about you, you nasty, evil little man” (382). It is obvious that either herself or someone close to her are one of the Beast’s former victims.
After finishing school, Robertson starts working in the mines and learns the truth about his biological father. He develops an obsession with the idea of any personality resemblance with the Beast. He takes time off from work and makes numerous trips to a Glasgow library, scrutinising the press cuttings just to look at his face. First, the parasite’s voice repeatedly assures Bruce that he is nothing like his father. “But the women. You wanted them. But so did all the young men. It was normal” (382). Shortly
47 before the 1984 miners’ strike, Bruce leaves for London and joins the police force, gets married and has a child. “You were normal” goes on the worm. “Only, there came the anxiety attacks. The depressions. The desires” (386). In the very last chapter, it almost repeats the same pattern of reassuring Robertson of his dissimilarity to the monster:
Listen to me Bruce, you’re different to him (…) You chose to protect people from predators like him. You chose to uphold the law. You are too hard on yourself (…) They wanted you to be the same, right from the start, you were the one thing an isolated, terrorised people could kick out at. That was the role you took on. But you’re different Bruce… (388)
Towards the very end of the novel, Robertson’s inner voice narrates the memory of his cathartic visit to the prison where his father was held. Although the biological father has never done anything wrong to Robertson (except passing his monstrous reputation on him), he is still the one the policeman hates most. When he enters the cell, Bruce is surprised by his looks, not like “the most evil thing [he] had ever seen” (387), with his eyes looking rather like those of an old lady. Although the Beast looks nothing like his younger version in the newspaper photographs, strong feelings of rage and loathing arise in Bruce when he faces the monster; and he wants “to stomp on his head, to crush the life out of him, to take his just like he’d given [him his]” (388). After less than five minutes, the warden has to haul Robertson off his father before he kills him. It might, for a short moment, seem that there is an allusion of satisfaction for the reader - as the hero protecting society takes justice into his own hands and avenges his mother, himself and all the other preys of the killer. However, this does not happen in Filth, as “the Beast still rots away in the psychiatric prison. He is used to being assaulted by prison staff, but I hoped that he remembered that one as a little bit special. But probably not” (388).
The mining village community’s belief that Robertson has inherited genes from his mentally ill father has a profoundly negative effect and leaves scars on his soul for the rest of his life. One of the reasons he thrives so much on power games during adulthood is to shake off his greatest fear - to be same as his perverted father.
48 1.9.3. Rhona
To exacerbate the protagonist’s trauma that might later cause his emotional impairment, “the Self” also tells the story of Bruce’s first love, Rhona - thanks to whom he finds brief salvation in his dismal adolescence. Going out with Rhona, according to Bruce the most beautiful girl in the school, not only satiates Bruce’s sexual desires but also makes him feel strong. This is in spite of her having a “gammy leg” (372). For the first time in his life, Bruce tastes the feeling of superiority, feeding off the jealousy of other schoolboys who falsely brag about having plenty of girls.
You confronted them with that inadequacy, that you strutted around with Rhona. After a while you fed off their outrage. You felt yourself getting stronger and them getting weaker. It was satisfying. You started to thrive on this difference. You had always felt different but inferior, but now you were coming to feel yourself to be different but superior. This was how you were coming to be seen as well. All you needed to do was to assert that difference and accept the consequences. (370)
The couple is referred to as The Son of the Beast and The Spastic, and is constantly taunted by other adolescents. Bruce knows it is normal since the other teenagers are only jealous of him having a gorgeous girlfriend, and on one occasion he decides to avoid them in order to spare Rhona their insults. “She doesn’t deserve it, and you love her” (373). When Bruce suggests a detour through a golf course, his girlfriend understands immediately what he means without any further explications, but this option causes negative emotions at first. “Your heart feels heavy and you wish that you were strong enough to destroy them all, to destroy anybody who would hurt her” (373). Despite Bruce’s symbolic empowerment, which is represented within his first romantic relationship, he is still aware that he does not possess the power to physically hurt or confront anybody; a frustration he will be fully free from in his future profession.
It is during their shortcut through the golf course where Bruce, euphoric that they managed to escape humiliation, picks up a pin from the green and throws it like a javelin. In doing this, young Robertson inadvertently causes another tragedy; as his girlfriend is killed by a bolt of lightning which strikes her metallic calliper.
49 Later, unlike most of the adults he has known so far, the police are understanding and kind to Bruce. Even though they confirm this misfortunate event as an accident, he feels responsible for Rhona’s death. This kind of sympathetic behaviour from the police’s side might be also an additional motivation for the protagonist to join the force in the future.
She was your first love but you never really knew her as well as you wanted to. She liked music and she looked and smelt nice and she wore a caliper and your heart used to and still does break, if you're honest with yourself, every time you think of her. (376)
In an interview from 1998, Welsh says in that he included such details to help explain why Robertson has turned out the way he has: “The challenge was to try and write a character that represented everything that I detest in a way, and then to try and empathise with him” (Cavenett, cited in Kydd, 133).
1.10. Carole
As mentioned in the section dedicated to the Tapeworm, there are three parallel narratives in Filth and thus three different perspectives of reality and the events the narrators present. The first intervening voice is presented in separate chapters titled Carole, Carole Again, More Carole, Carole Remembers Australia and More Carole?. Towards the end of the novel, when the narrative of Bruce’s estranged wife starts to become a little too unrealistic, the reader learns Robertson’s first secret through this voice: it has been himself the whole time dressed in women’s clothes, conjuring his delusional visions of a perfect wife, himself and their rock-solid relationship:
I’m thinking about Bruce all the time (…) I feel a need and an aching for him, I’ll have to get back to him soon. (…) In a sense we are together because nothing, space, time, distance whatever, can break the delicious communion between us. (43)
Bruce chokes down his “weak” or not masculine enough feelings from the abandonment of his wife, who, as he tells some of his colleagues, has left to visit and take care of her ill mother at Aviemore (38). The fact that he is hurting dearly is revealed for the first
50 time in one of the early chapters of the novel: “I sense the space beside me and I grab at her dressing gown and hold it tightly. It still has her smell” (24).
Robertson even projects his political beliefs onto this part of his personality as he has Carole interpret his trauma from the renouncement of his own family:
[W]hen I first met Bruce's parents... They were good people, from a mining village in Midlothian. This was before they were corrupted by that Scargill, who split up families and turned everyone against each other. Bruce doesn't bear any grudges though, even though they were cruel to him and rejected him, their own son. That's what these people want though: to split up the family. It's not important to them but the way I see it, if you haven't got family then you haven't got anything. (165)
At this point, Welsh is still making the reader believe that this is the actual Carole telling Bruce’s life story. Later on, not only does it become obvious that she never had the chance to meet Ian and Molly Robertson (as they had abandoned their (step)son long before he became an adult and the family never reunited again), but also that it would be too easy to blame Scargill for the split; and that not holding any grudges is only a wishful thinking on the part of the main protagonist.
It might be Bruce’s own feelings of guilt from turning against his own community, family and the people he has grown up with, that he blames his family separation on the strike once again. When he breaks down in front of his colleague Amanda, he starts to pour out his delusional thoughts:
…my family don’t talk to me…cause of the strike…they’re a mining family…Newtongrange…Monktonhall…they don’t talk to me. They don’t let us in the house. My father. It was my brother. It was the coal, the dirt, the filth. The darkness. I hate it all. They won’t let us in the hoose. Our ain fucking hoose (…) ah wis only daein ma fucking job…polis eh. It was only the strike. (339)
In the chapter Private Lessons, in which Robertson is having sex with a prostitute and carries out his masochistic fantasies, he starts to refer to himself as ‘we’. “We are compelled to obey” We? Me. I” (223). It becomes clear that Robertson has developed a split personality and that Carole is the alter ego of an understanding, docile and
51 submissive wife who would happily take any blame on herself; and who cannot wait to get back to her masculine, dominant half. Robertson uses this caricature of a ‘real woman’ to indulge the fantasy that he is a good, loving husband and a dedicated father with a functional family life. Her presents Carole as a loyal, sexually attractive and very feminine “femme fatale” of Bruce’s life, and someone he has absolute control over.
Robertson blames his wife for his professional stagnation, as she wanted to go to live in Australia in the past to be closer to her mother, and he is persuaded that “it’s a promotion [he] should have had long ago but for their stupid fucking rules and Carole’s idiocy” (21). ‘She’ admits that leaving was a mistake: “I know that I was selfish and that I didn’t really think of Bruce’s career (…) I think it’s diabolical that he had to return to Scotland on a lower grade than the one he was on in Australia” (211). In the chapter, Carole Remembers Australia, he justifies his numerous serial infidelities he was having there. “He explained to me why he went with that prostitute back in Australia. He needed to be with someone. It meant nothing. I failed Bruce by not being there for him. I was with my mum” (239). The narrative of ‘Carole’ is so credible that the reader might really believe that, in a way, Robertson is the victim here. Any nascent sympathy vanishes in the very next chapter, in which Robertson mischievously recalls the lies he used to feed to his wife:
Carole always believed every world I told her. She was happy in the own world with the kid. Always a domestic type, old Carole. Give the meat and the dosh, and she’d accept anything. It was all the dyke politics that fucked up her heid, when I slapped her after she’d overstepped the mark and she freaked and went to the refuge. I apologised for that but she overreacted. (243)
Carole's last intervention in the novel entitled More Carole? is in fact Bruce's narrative of going out as Carole, him being dressed as a woman and using the schizophrenic pronoun ‘we’. The typological bold form used for Carole’s parts switches into regular font without any interruption to the storyline. Robertson, while in drag, is then assaulted and kidnapped by the gang members who he tries to frame for the murder of Wurie. “It’s strange but we never thought of reacting: resisting or running off, although we had time to do both. This seems the right way” (342). It might be that Robertson in this state
52 of breakdown actually wants to be physically hurt and punished to cover up his mental anguish. When one of the thugs punches him hard in the nose when driving him away, Bruce contemplates: “The only thing we can react to is pain. We can see or feel nothing else” (343). When they put a plastic bag over his head, he recalls how he ended up in his compensatory transvestite state:
We're remembering how this all started: that when Carole first left with the bairn we used to set the table for two and then we started wearing her clothes and it was like she was still with us but no really... Carole... Carole, why did you dae it, with that fucking nigger, those whores they meant nothing tae me... you're fucking big-moothed hoor ay a sister...(…) and the bairn... oh God... God... God... we want to live... all we're asking for is some law and order... it's the job... (343)
1.10.1. Domestic Violence
It becomes clear that Robertson has assaulted his wife on several occasions before she became strong enough to leave him. It is common knowledge that it is not easy for the victim to escape from an abusive relationship, and that women will often keep suffering and stay with a violent perpetrator:
Common power and control strategies that make it difficult for women to leave include: threats to kill women and/or children; intimidatory tactics such as destruction of women and children’ s possessions; threats and harm to pets; increased use of sexual violence; isolation, humiliation, constant surveillance, and virtual imprisonment (Harne and Radford 46)
The reason Robertson does not use any of these tactics is the fact that he is persuaded his wife has only left temporarily - repeating this frequently both throughout his own narrative: “She’ll be back soon. She knows what side her bread’s buttered on” (23). In the narrative of him as Carole, he further states that: “I’m thinking about Bruce all the time, about how we play these break-up/make up games with each other, how these wee absences we take from each other are just a tease, which only make our hearts grow fonder…I’ll have to get back to him soon” (43). Welsh does not provide any
53 explanation as to where Carole gains the confidence to leave her abusive husband and to save their daughter from this ill relationship, being one of the few characters in the novel who openly stands up to the protagonist without him even realising it. Her absence is one of the causes of Robertson’s mental and physical decline, and the contradictory sentiments about her imply a split personality. He often relates to the absence of his estranged wife with a profound grief: “I think of Carole and a crushing pain almost rips me apart. It’s only a reaction to my loss” (181). On the other hand, her leaving is repeatedly taken lightly: “Most Importantly, that daft cow Carole should get her act together and get hooked up to the Starship Bruce Robertson, because that vessel is going places” (143). In certain parts of the novel, Carole’s absence is simply reduced to Robertson’s inconvenience - as the only person in household to do any chores, the family home becomes filthy and unkept: “It took me ages to get ready this morning because I couldnae think what to wear. It’s Carole’s fault; if she was going to shoot off, she could at least have arranged a fucking laundry service before she went” (44). As Morace points out, “her departure leaves Bruce at a disadvantage in defining himself as a man in the hothouse of patriarchal society that is canteen culture” (95). Morace also compares ‘Carole’ to being the same sort of male fantasy as the Sun’s page three girls that Robertson uses for his sexual imaginations and masturbation. Together they represent opposing views of women which the neurotic Robertson cannot reconcile, and the same virgin-whore duality reappears in the protagonist’s relationship with Carole and her sister Shirley (Morace 95).
Domestic violence is not restricted exclusively to Robertson in the novel. Other male members of the outdated department happily approve of it:
I go over to the kettle, where Gillman and Ray Lennox are in conference. – Gascoigne was right, and Best even said it as well. Thir’s never been a man, a real man, who hasnae slapped his missus. Aw that liberal airy-fairy bullshit. She steps oot ay line, she gits a bat in the mooth, that’s it. (327)
The youngest member of the force, Ray Lennox, is slightly shocked at this and objects: – We investigate crimes ay domestic violence. That’s assault and it’s against the law ay
54 the land. – Phah, Gillman sneers…– [a]h git enough fucking mooth oan the job withoot takin it fi some cunt in the hoose. (Ibid)
There is a strong implication, repeated several times in the narratives of Bruce and Carole, about the sexual abuse of Robertson’s daughter Stacey. He hints at this at the beginning of his narrative: “– …There was a wee incident…she was caught telling lies, silly wee lies, it was nothing major, it’s all behind us now…” (40). Robertson even uses his Carole persona to repress this fact in two different chapters:
It’s so unfortunate that Stacey’s said those horrible things, but we don’t blame our little girl, all children go through a phase when they tell silly wee lies (…) I’m looking forward to seeing Bruce again, so we’ll be back together as a family; me, Bruce and our little girl Stacey. She has to accept the wrong she’s done and the hurt she’s caused everyone with her silly little lies…it’s important for her to know that Bruce and I forgive her. (166 and 211)
1.10.2. The Revenge
Towards his mental breakdown at the end of the novel, Robertson’s paranoid assumptions reach so far that he even believes his alienated wife is trying to set their daughter against him. After Shirley’s news that Carole and his daughter have left for good, he also attempts to talk his sister-in-law into thinking that it is actually his wife suffering from the mental condition, using his professional background to support his reasoning.
She’s unstable: I personally think that she’s had some sort of breakdown. I worry about her (…) –Believe you me Shirley, the game I’m in, you become something of an expert on human nature. She’s obviously had some kind of breakdown that’s gone undetected. She’s telling lies; lies to poison you against me (251).
What Robertson is doing here is giving a perfect description of his own personal derangement and mental state, that has not been detected just yet.
In the very last chapter, the protagonist becomes lucid again, admitting that even though he had a loving and devoted wife, he would have sex with any woman at any
55 opportunity; ranging from workmates through to prostitutes and family members. He then adds that Carole was unfaithful to him only once, with a black man. “Carole got back at us through shagging that coon. She said she loved him” (390). At this moment, Robertson explicitly admits to the reader that he killed Wurie, using him as a suitable proxy for Carole’s black lover, while he was dressed in women’s clothes. The murder that ‘Carole’ commits is carried out as revenge not only on the man she left Bruce for, but on several other injustices his life has perpetrated on him, notable the stigma of his rapist father and the community’s disdain, as well as his stepfather’s disfavour. In the prologue while talking to his victim, Robertson alludes to his younger brother, who, through Bruce’s fault, suffocated under a pile of black coal when they were children: “I’ve seen you before. Long ago, just lying there as you are now. Black, broken, dying. I was glad then and I’m glad now” (1). Feelings of rage then take over Robertson, when he continues to think about himself as being unable to be anything different than what he is, and also about Carole: “She thinks that she can do what she likes (…) the festering hoor (…) she has to be shown, has to be made tae pey…” (391). Persuaded that his anger should be followed and act upon, he calls Carole at her mother’s house to tell her that he would like to see Stacey again and sort out the divorce. In reality, he is ready to carry out his devilish plan to hang himself in front of Carole once she enters the door, wearing a tee shirt he has specially made with “YOU CAUSED THIS” written on it. “We’ll land right in front of her in the hallway, so she’ll have that on her conscience for the rest of her fucking life the fucking whore and liar” (392). The moment he jumps and hangs himself, he beholds his daughter behind the door’s frosted glass. Until this moment, Bruce’s biggest fear so far was that he becomes like his biological father, and while preparing his suicide he was thinking “I only care about me and about why I don’t care about anything else” (391). When realising his daughter will be witness to his death, he suddenly cares, but he is unable to let out his inaudible inner cry: “STACEY PLEASE GOD BE SOMETHING ELSE SOMEONE ELSE…” (393). He cares that his daughter does not become like him unable to come to terms with her trauma, hating everybody in her life and herself the most.
56 2. Corruption
“Since the creation of the first law agencies, police have engaged in misconduct…To study the history of police is to study police deviance, corruption and misconduct.” (Kappeler, Sluder, and Alpert cited in Corsianos 4)
Different authors define police corruption from many different angles. Corsianos summarises the definition as following: “Police corruption/misconduct should be understood as the abuse of police powers for personal and/or organizational gain where the gain is financial, social, psychological, and/or emotional” (4). What needs to be acknowledged is the role of police organizations, which maintain police corruption as justifiable, and which are associated with largely masculine self-identities and organizational identities.
The protagonist’s character has a strong yearning to possess power in all his social relations, and this is presented as the cause of his poor physical condition and the consequence of a mental breakdown. “The need for power becomes an obsession for Robertson, and the novel presents power as a corrupting force which warps behaviour and causes injustice on both the personal and societal levels” (May 2013: 3).
2.1. The Freemason’s Code
Freemasonry is perceived as a secret society where everybody has each other’s back, and is therefore portrayed as rotten to the core in the novel. Martin Short in his 1989 publication Inside the Brotherhood tries to weigh all the “good effects against the cost of [the] enduring prostitution” of Freemasonry, to explore the complex issue of whether the organisation deserves the bad public image it has had for centuries (Short 1). As depicted in Filth, “a brother can pursue his ‘Craft’ selflessly” as in the case of Clifford Blades, or “for crooked or corrupt ends of any kind” (Short 2). The socially awkward Englishman seeks friendships he would have difficulty finding outside of the brotherhood. “—I suppose I’ve actually, eh, always been a bit of a loner…always had difficulty in making friends…that’s why the craft’s actually been so good for me…everybody’s accepted” (40). On the other hand, Robertson and many others only
57 attend the masonic lodges to drink, take drugs and obtain clandestine pornographic recordings from Hector the Farmer. “Hector crushes my hand in a masonic grip, his alcohol-flushed face beaming at me” (22). Robertson has always been a Freemason ever since he joined the Metropolitan police in London, which is clear from his comparison of Scottish and English lodges: “It’s different up here tae down in England. There are, of course, some fat cats and professional types, like down south, but in the Lodges up here, it’s mainly tradesmen” (56).
As Short explains, “Other men find the rituals tedious but enjoy the bonhomie of the all- male eating and drinking sessions when the ceremonies are over” (3). Yet because Freemasonry claims above all to be a ‘system of morality’, it lays itself open to justifiable attack when well-publicized events show members engaging with corruption. Robertson points out his own motivations to visit the lodges in his inner monologue:
The masons is the only place that you can go to meet cunts that arnae polis. I personally think that aprons are for silly wee lassies to wear in the kitchen and no for grown men on a night out. The ritualism of the Lodge has its uses however; it made me far more sexually inventive. This helps with the games. (56)
Bunty, Bladesey’s wife, wishes she had such loyal friends and understands that one can make these in the masonic brotherhood: “It sounds intriguing though, a secret society” (297). Robertson interposes jokingly that it is rather a society of secrets, and in order to have an honest air he tries to denigrate the Craft, adding “(…) I do know one thing about the craft: it’s basically now a glorified drinking club for silly wee laddies if the truth be told (…) It’s really just something that you get into on the force” (297). All the members of the serious crimes unit are freemasons, including their direct supervisor and the Chief Superintendent. For Robertson, “Playing the Craft card” (59) means asking for favours by addressing other masons by the ‘brother’ title and their surname. He does that out of false respect in Bladesey’s case, and whenever he needs favours from his bosses. When all leave is suspended for those in the serious crimes unit, with Robertson already planning is annual trip to Amsterdam, he employs this rhetoric: “—I’m on leave in nine days’ time Brother Toal, I tell him” (15). To make certain that he leaves for his winter vacation, Robertson gives a call to a Grand Master at the Lodge to “put a bite
58 into that cunt Toal […] One thing about Crozier though: he hates to see wide cunts like Toal who put little in think that they can use the craft when it suits them” (138). Bruce’s leave is eventually approved under the unique circumstances. “[…] As if I don’t know what’s changed the fucker’s mind. Eureka. That wee talk with grand Master Frank Crozier has paid dividends. […] He must’ve put Toal in the bigger picture” (142).
It is evident from Robertson’s description that the Craft is an organisation where everybody needs to cover up for each other; and as Toal mentions later, the exchange of favours is interchangeable and works in all directions. When the elderly Craft stalwart realises one of his personal documents has been stolen (and all the computer files have been deleted), he makes an apt metaphor while talking to Robertson: “—That’s computer files for ye. They’re bit like brother freemasons in the craft: it doesn’t matter how full of shit they are, you have to remember to back them up”. He then adds a short remark that confuses Robertson’s split personality: “— Often brothers are being supported in ways which they cannot imagine” (232). Although Toal says this with no particular intentions, it is obvious what he is hinting at - he has been aware of Robertson’s problems since the beginning of the novel, and of the identity of Wurie’s murderer. It is then revealed that the whole department keeps covering up for him until the novel’s conclusion, and probably beyond.
It is not clear whether Toal does this enormous favour out of the Craft’s unwritten duty this time, or whether he uses the case of Robertson as inspiration for the crime drama he is writing. He might be also too sick and tired with the job that he doesn’t care less anymore - and sees the case as a good inspiration for his script - so he actually watches Robertson cope with the cause that gives him some continuity for his composition.
—I’m fed up on the force (…) Clell’s right. The law spends too much time demonising ordinary people who’re just trying to get on with their lives. Society’s changed and the law hasn’t kept pace; so it’s us the mugs, who have to enforce them, who get it all in the neck. I’m sick of it (366).
As Short explains in his publication, The United Grand Lodge of England insists that Masons are governed by the principles of Brotherly Love, Relief and Truth; but it is common knowledge that Freemasonry does not often practice what it preaches. He
59 explains that even honest Masons might find themselves under social pressure to complain about criminal or immoral conduct of their brothers (4).
You see Bruce, I was writing a screenplay based on the case of a racist murder. I based it loosely on the Wurie murder, with my own fictive embellishments of course. In my screenplay, the murder is being covered up by a racist cop who has a motive…not to solve the crime (366).
When Robertson asks about the end of the plot, Toal gives him the scenario, the detective is already familiar with: “—Oh, we fit up some thugs. A happy-ever-after story” (366).
Robertson also receives a letter from Tony Cresby from Chelmsford, a man he used to organise sexual orgies with during his marriage, declining his presence at their forthcoming event without Carole. This insults him and he immediately thinks of using his Craft connections to get back at Tony: “I think about phoning Geoff Nicholson of the Essex police, and telling him about this sordid little club. Solid in the craft, is Geoff” (206). This example shows how great this network functions, that the freemasons are always able to find someone who they can trust all over the country.
Welsh depicts petty corruption, favours and turning a blind eye among law enforcement officers who are members of masonic lodges as a norm in the novel. An example would be an officer letting Robertson in the cell with his biological father when he pays him a visit: “It’s against regulations for a prisoner in this category to be left alone with one officer, let alone a visiting cop, but the screw was a craft stalwart. He gave me time alone” (388).
2.2. Drugs
Drug abuse was one of the main themes in Welsh’s earlier work. Although the self- declared poster boy for drug consumption did not drop the theme of drug abuse in Filth completely, he leaves the cheap and affordable ones such as cannabis and ecstasy to schemies and other scum Robertson disdains; and treats his detectives to more exclusive ones, notably cocaine.
60
Besides Robertson’s main goal - gaining the promotion - another, less prominent objective in the novel is to construct a clearly guarded boundary between himself and the supposed criminal working class that he so diabolises. His efforts at repudiation are most succinctly summed up when he comments after snorting cocaine: “This is washed down by Glenmorangie to get the taste of diseased druggy scum out of our tonsils” (238). Welsh explains this particular worldview of Robertson’s in one of his interviews:
There are two kinds of working class philosophies, a radical or revolutionary one that sees the middle and upper classes as enemies; and another more individualistic desire to escape from the working class and assimilate into the upper classes. That antagonism is always going on in a working-class head. It's wanting to be in a different situation. (Berman 57)
In post-Thatcherite Britain, the 1990s marked an era of drug policy changes with regard to illegal drug use. This was set in motion by two government publications with a multi- agency approach: Tackling Drugs Together published in May 1995, and Tackling Drugs to Build a Better Britain from 1998. The idea was to fit together the three elements of present British drugs policy - prevention, treatment and law enforcement. This strategy was based on the principles of both national and local partnerships involving agencies and local communities in dealing with drug misuse. (Kalunta-Crumpton 45)
When the members of the serious crimes department are casually discussing the new controlled substances, Ray pleasantly comments that this will mean more violence and thus more police. Robertson then rubs his hands: – “And, mair promoted posts” (244). The police force’s mindset is to support the consumption of alcohol in preference to drugs like ecstasy, whose effects are less marked by violent behaviour.
“All sorts of things can make you high” says Welsh in a recent interview (Stuff.co.nz). It is not that Robertson would deprive himself of any illegal substances or alcohol, but he surely gets his kicks from other things than drugs; notably feelings of control and superiority, humiliating and putting others in moments of distress and referring to it as sport. Robertson and Ray Lennox pay a visit to a police informant and psychologically terrorise him by using the Beast routine (85), describing a fictitious but well-known
61 perverted prisoner that makes his inmates go suicidal. “The wee cunt sits there shivering. He’s ours, he always has been” (92). After several moments of dread and emotional intimidation, Robertson contemplates: “Poor Ocky; it was a bit of large hammer for such a small nut, but it’s the sport that counts and it passes the time of the day” (95). Robertson’s need for the empowering sport high seems as strong as the need for other drugs: “I turn away briefly, but then the need for sport takes over, as it always does, and I glare at him” (323).
Ecstasy, the ‘dancing’ drug to which Welsh dedicated a whole novel in 1996, is virtually absent from the book due to its rather disempowering effects. As Ray explains after seizing several MDMA pills from his informant’s flat, they are not compatible with the nature of the detectives’ hard-shell masculinity: “—Ye should leave the pills alaine. I never touch them. Tried them once, but they didnae go with the job. Made me feel too good aboot everybody. Nae use in my game. The Charlie but, that’s another story (…) (95).
As a colleague, young force and Craft member Ray is a dream come true for Robertson. He keeps his head down and toes the line, permitting Robertson to play his games to the fullest, and is (seemingly) as corrupt as the protagonist. The fact that he earned his Detective Sergeant grade only recently, and is not very experienced, gives Robertson feelings of superiority. “Sound cunt Ray Lennox. If every fucker on the force was like him, the job would be so much easier” (96).
Ray is officially assigned to the drug squad, so he gets easy access to the confiscated illicit substances - especially his favourite, cocaine. “Anything other than posh is a waste of time for that cunt. But I can see his point. What’s the point of being on D.S. duty if ye cannae get access tae any decent collies?” (77) He willingly shares this with his colleague Bruce when on duty to empower themselves:
…Want a line? —Right, I nod, looking around as Ray puts some posh on the corner of his credit card and takes a rough hit up that hooter (…)
62 —It’s okay, this is good. It’s as fine as fuck, Ray says, his eyes watering as he sniffs. I take a whack, and it is a good stuff; that sweet smell in my head, my face numbing, a surge of power flowing through me. (85-86)
He also regularly supplies him whenever his older colleague is in need of posh. They spend quite a lot of time outside work together, and snorting charlie through their nostrils is their favourite leisure activity. Robertson even brings a present for Ray from his Amsterdam trip contemplating whether it was a good idea (or not): “It was a moment of weakness giving Lennox a present, even if I only gave him it in order to encourage him to sort me out with posh” (193).
The fact that the young policeman can easily keep a hold of the seized substances (although there is a mention of an official procedure for this) manifests the level of corruption of the whole force. “–The last sniff I got off these morons I busted, I’m telling you Robbo, what a total waste ay time. There was so little coke in it, I should’ve just left the spastics to it and saved myself the fucking paperwork” (193). It might seem that the protagonist is almost jealous of his colleague’s employee benefits: “Lennox returns and chops out some lines. He’s been on D.S. duty and has nabbled quite a bit of high grade, lucky bastard. […] The perks of the job. Okay for some. What about me? What perks do you get on topped coons?” (193)
Robertson’s remark that his colleague “doesnae let the grass grow under his feet as far as the posh goes (317)” suggests that Ray can practically get this narcotic whenever he comes across any on the job. The young detective fosters a ‘Bad Lieutenant’-style image of a constantly high policeman addicted to cocaine which he always has handy. In the rare situations where he is short of cocaine, he uses other substitutes and happily offers them to his partner: “–Listen Robbo, he whispers, –I’m on these benzedrines. They’ll do the biz in the meantime. They’ll keep you going when you’re a bit fucked. Want a couple? (…) He slides me a plastic packet of pills. –I got them on a bust. The Charlie situ should improve tonight” (78).
Even if in the early parts of the novel, Robertson takes drugs to empower himself; and they do the service for him most of the time. Gradually there are more and more
63 moments when they start to take their toll on him, but he still considers himself stronger than Ray:
–I’m back in the office early this morning but I’m totally fucked with that cocaine. I was wired. My sinuses are shrivelled and my nose is running constantly. My nerves are jangling. We’ll have to be stronger. That’s what makes me better than the scum, than the weak Ray Lennoxes of tis world. I can laugh at all that shite. (196)
In spite of the impression he is making, Ray has his cocaine addiction under control throughout the whole novel. The concluding pages of the novel feature a visit to Bruce after his breakdown, and he knocks the door ‘polis-style’ with his newly acquired authority, just like Bruce used to do when he would come to Ray’s house for more posh. “Now I ken that we’ve pulled some shit in the past, but that’s finito now, all the coke and that shit” (380). It might seem that Ray was either really fast and flexible to “learn [the] new script” (379) expected from both the new post and society, or he has been standing by and pretending to be Bruce’s literal ‘partner in crime’ as part of a bigger plan.
In Filth, Welsh focuses upon the legal substances and their abuse, which he depicts as a wider issue in British society. The purple tin, Tennents Super Strength Lager with 9 per cent alcohol level never needed any publicity, as according to Robertson, the “hard drugs like those” (356) are responsible for a significant amount of destructive and anti- social behaviours:
The purple tin will destroy America once they import it over there…those Russian jakeys begging in the streets under capitalism, we’ll do those cunts as well. Obliterate surplus labour! Obliterate them with the old purple tin! Don’t give them Ecstasy! We don’t want them dancing! Keep them dulled, staggering and incoherent as they die! Make it glamorous. Put it on celluloid, put it on hoardings. Just keep the real thing as far away from us as possible. (357)
Whisky is portrayed as a national drink for real men, while ‘super lagers’ are for ‘jakeys’. It is common for the members of the Edinburg force to drink on duty: “It’ll be an early start the day alright; I want the first bevvy sank before midday (…)” (255).
64
Towards the end of the novel, the protagonist does however obliterate himself by becoming addicted to the ‘purple tin’, and is no longer able to function normally within society. Robertson’s tendency to say one thing and behave the complete opposite is picked up on by May, who observes that “Robertson arrests other people for being drunk or for possession of drugs, while he himself engages in substance abuse; Robertson’s hypocrisy is a clear example of his corruption” (May 2013: 7).
The protagonist sees the ridiculous drug laws as having been designed and aimed for weak people, serving a purpose that “keeps the cunts in a constant state of terror and alienation and reminds them that this world was not made for them, it was made for us” (140). His superior, who admits being fed up of the force and sick of the laws it is required to enforce, adds to their account:
There’s enough genuine bad guys to lock up without sending some daft kids on a H.M.P. University of Crime course for smoking weed or selling pills. You can’t criminalise people for a consumer preference. Might as well jail them for preferring Cornflakes tae All Bran. A load of fucking nonsense, he shakes his head. (366)
In an interview for the Independent from 1996, Welsh, who is himself known for recreational drug use and having troubles with the law in the past, blames the society that we live in for creating the need for people to take drugs :
I genuinely would like for there to be absolutely no drugs at all - tobacco, alcohol, Ecstasy, cannabis, whatever we need to get us into some kind of spiritual relationship. I really would like it if we could get there without needing any of that, but I think the kind of world we live in [by this, Welsh elucidates later, he means “Western consumer capitalism”] makes it very difficult for that to happen. (Thompson qtd. in Kelly 131)
2.3. Prostitution
Prostitution itself is legal under current and then British legislation, however the solicitation of sex and the running of brothels is not. Because of this, brothels in the UK
65 are often disguised as massage parlours or saunas (Pitcher 96). This alluded to in the novel, as “The fish factory is our name for a Leigh sauna which operates as a sauna, or is it a Leigh sauna which operates as a brothel? No matter” (214). Robertson and his colleagues pay regular visits to the business, mostly for private reasons. The owner of one such place, an ex-prostitute named Maisie, knows she needs butter the detective up. “—Maisie’s new hoor is a class act who has split from her murderous bastard of a pimp in Aberdeen and she’s into doing good turns for the polis in order to get some level of protection” (219). Besides “wee dates for the night” (219), the detective later ‘casts’ this willing young prostitute when he and Hector the Farmer attempt to make an illegal pornographic film involving bestiality (308). Robertson also offers unofficial protection to street-based sex workers: “I know most of the girls through working on vice. I looked after them and they looked after me. The best pimp those hoors had ever fucking well had” (223).
2.4. The Job
The trouble with people like him is that they think that they can brush off people like me. Like I was nothing (…) You pushed me away mister. You rejected me. You tricked me and spoiled things between me and my true love. I reach into my bag and I pull out my claw hammer. Part of me is elsewhere as I’m bringing it down on his head. He can’t resist my blows. (1)
“It’s just a job that had to be done” (2), adds the protagonist at the end of the prologue, after he bludgeons his victim to death. His next ‘job’ then is to investigate the murder he committed while dressed as his estranged wife.
Another narrative line later unravels his love-hate relationship with his police career: “You need the job; hating, yet at the same time thriving on, its petty concerns” (260). The tapeworm also outlines how Robertson tries to deal with his trauma and his life with the actual help of the job, which apparently, as mentioned above, “drained [his] strength” (329) - a catch-22 situation. The tapeworm’s narrative offers an explanation of how this process works:
66 You must accept the language of power as your currency, but you must also pay a price. Your desperate sneering and mocking only illustrates how high the price has been and how fully it has been paid. The price is your soul. You came to lose this soul. You came not to feel. Your life, your circumstances and your job demanded that price. (262)
Although Robertson’s occupation is not very time consuming under usual conditions - and the detectives waste a great deal of the business hours in the canteen, a nearby bar or a bakery - Bruce spends most of his life officially at work; and when that is finished, he works constant overtime. This is an elegant way to exploit the system: “I’m too tired to go in today. Tuesday is a shite day and I’ve been doing too much OT anyway. Never dae on a Monday or Tuesday what ye can dae on a Saturday or Sunday at double time” (137).
Robertson’s mental condition prevents him from falling asleep naturally, and he uses different means, most often alcohol and television, to doze off: “Too many anxiety attacks at night. I wish it was daylight for twenty-four hours” (274). When his overtime hours are later cut for budgetary reasons, he resorts to sex:
These cunts are trying tae kill us with this OT cutback because they know we cannae kip during the fuckin night, never could. They know we need very little sleep and that all we do in darkness is think and think and think. In order to stop thinking we have to fuck and then you get complications; financial in the case of hoors, social in the case of slags. (254)
Schoene suggests that although Bruce’s membership in the police force induces feelings of power and autonomy in him, he is at the same time well aware of being a mere instrument of power - a means to an end where he is expected to renounce whatever personal ambitions he might have in favour of the law. (Schoene, 134)
As Melig argues, power and corruption are inextricably linked – and more precisely, corruption cannot exist without power: “Corruption is present when there is lots of power associated with the role given to an individual. This is the case for many instances of corruption in police departments, and the cause is mainly a consequence of ungoverned, self - regulated power” (5). However, the power of the whole police department is unrestricted and it is never held accountable for any of its actions, even
67 for covering up a racially motivated murder. Welsh’s narrative, therefore, seems to argue that it is not very difficult to cover up such a murder within an institutionally racist department in a racist society.
68 Conclusions
As outlined in the introduction, the aim of this thesis was to analyse the themes of power and corruption within the novel Filth. Interestingly, the analysis has demonstrated that British, and specifically Scottish, society of that time of the novel is progressing in several ways (socially, economically and politically) but it is clear that the concept of progress is not something which is universal. Rather, certain institutions such as the police force are stuck in the past, reluctant to introduce and accept any changes – and it can be argued that the police and those within it almost feel threatened by the development of post-Thatcherite society. This is exemplified through the examples of the main protagonist, Bruce Robertson.
In the first part of the thesis, we identified several themes demonstrating this claim: homophobic attitudes, institutional racism, a whole range of less than enlightened approaches towards women, starting from sexism up to rape. We could also see how the protagonist is able to exploit and manipulate internally through this position as a federation rep. He wields a certain amount of power which his co-workers do not – for example, representing colleagues at disciplinary hearings, or communicating grievances more effectively to higher management. In the case of homophobia, Robertson willingly stirs anti-gay sentiments as he knows his colleagues too well, and thus is able to predict their attitudes towards a supposedly homosexual co-worker. Not only is he aware of his colleagues’ Achilles heels, but he knows very well their ‘old-school’ mind-set. He thus manages to wield influence over colleagues, which he should not have in a normal environment.
Besides homophobia, Robertson uses another social ill to his advantage – racism. He is aware of the strong racist opinions of a colleague of his, who he sends as police representative to the Lothian Forum of Racial Equality, which easily removes a potential rival from being considered for the much-coveted promotion. Not only is this exploited, but reflected in Robertson’s deep-seated personal views towards race – a catalyst for the murder he commits, and reflects that the protagonist is unable to separate his work life from his personal life. He cannot leave his prejudices, or his
69 manipulation, at the police station; these are longstanding compulsions which dominate his everyday interactions with other characters.
Examples of bigotry and sectarianism and its link with corruption, especially within the masonic lodges, are described in the following chapter. Robertson’s motives for joining the police and thus legitimately wielding a huge amount of power are depicted in the subchapter dedicated to Thatcherism and miners’ strikes, in addition to details of how he has developed into the person he is today. The fact that the protagonist never idles in empowering himself in various ways is demonstrated in the following two subchapters, in which he destroys the marriage of his apparent friend and makes his co-workers believe in his false over average sized phallus. The childhood trauma and possible reasons for the protagonist’s hunger for power and mental derangements are depicted in the last two subchapters of the power section.
In the second chapter of our analysis which is dedicated to corruption, it was argued that Welsh believes Scottish institutions such as the police and masonic lodges were massively corrupted in the post-Thatcherite period. This was discussed through several examples, specifically by the police’s use of the Freemason’s network for personal gains and favours, keeping seized narcotics and their use both on and off duty along with heavy drinking, covering and supporting prostitution.
Many of the analysed themes in the thesis involve both power and corruption, showing the unaccountability of the police, even their ability to easily cover up a murder of a citizen of a racial minority and continuing to tolerate (or doing the very minimum to change) all the above-mentioned vices. Each of these is actually not only an example of being stuck in the past and of being prejudiced, but that social ills are also being used by the police and Bruce Robertson to wield power. The themes are deliberately employed by the author to show his despair at certain ills happening in Scotland at the time the novel was issued, but ultimately reveal that power, and who controls it, form the very building blocks upon which a society is built.
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