Trainspotting

Chapter 20 opens with Mark, Simon, Danny, and Frank drinking at a bar. Simon, ever the womanizer, is boasting about the afternoon he spent having a threesome with two girls before going on to find another. Frank likewise picks up a girl; the reader learns that his girlfriend June is currently in the hospital giving birth to their child.

Mark and Danny are both off heroin at this point and have rediscovered their sex drive. This is in a way stressful to them. Mark is jealous as he sees Simon, and even the psychopathic Frank, picking up girls. He says: “Thing is though, Spud, whin yir intae skag, that’s it. That’s aw yuv goat tae worry aboot” (132).

Mark eventually works up the nerve to approach a young woman after seeing her dismiss an overweight man; he’s described as having “a cheerfully undisguised prejudice against overweight people” (135). Mark and the girl, Dianne, start talking about music, disagreeing on their tastes. He ends up going home with Dianne, but she tells him he has to be quiet. He wonders what kind of roommates she has that might demand she sneak in guys at night. Dianne and Mark have sex; he finishes very quickly, being not accustomed to any activity for some time due to the heroin use.

In the morning, Mark realizes why Dianne insisted that he be quiet and that he fell sleep on the couch fully clothed. Her “roommates” are her parents, and she’s only 14. Seeing her without makeup for the first time, Mark notes she looks about 10. He stays for breakfast with Dianne and her parents, lying to them about a government job he doesn’t have: “He had developed the junky’s skill of lying with conviction and could now lie more convincingly than he told the truth” (144).

Throughout breakfast, he spirals internally, thinking he’ll end up in jail as a “Child Rapist.” When he leaves her parents’ house, Dianne comes with him. They go to a record store together, where they run into Johnny Swan’s brother. Before they part ways, Dianne asks Mark for his address. Mark is conflicted, disgusted by having had sex with her and by the fact that he mustn’t again. That night, Dianne shows up on his doorstep, and he invites her in.