Here's my theory: .
I'm not of the mind that Welsh is passing the scheme off as some sort of code, and that you can crack the theme of this (or any other) novel like a Chinese puzzle box to find the one, true underlying meaning. However, I feel that there is a definite statement being made, whether consciously or unconsciously, about the blue-collar downtrodden and how their lives are defined by the ways in which they are denied certain things, or by how financial and material oppression can warp the family unit. We must, as readers, see these facets of Scottish life as critiques on a larger cycle of working class oppression that reaches into life and its dearest aspects from the outside. The scheme is a metaphor for the lives of people like Roy Strang; " almost as soon as I was aware, [I] was embarrassed and ashamed of my family. I suppose this awareness came from being huddled so close to other households in the ugly rabbit hutch we lived in- (Welsh 19). Roy even comments upon his own coma at one point, making note of the usefulness of his former home: "Thank fuck for a childhood in a large Scottish housing scheme; a wonderful apprenticeship for the boredom that this kind of semi-life entails. Pull the fuckin [sic] plug- (Welsh 51).
The reader comes to think Roy's life changed for the better when the Strang family packs up for South Africa. Things seem to change for the Strangs, and as reader, I'm relieved. Roy begins to do well at school, and things look up. But the molestation by Uncle Gordon comes into play here in the novel, and once again you know something is happening to Roy that is a part of his malignant environment. Roy's voice is most interesting in this section because he seems to make light of the advances of Gordon as a way to get things by extortion. We get a sense of Roy's toughness and intelligence. But at the same time, although we've escaped the scheme with Roy and moved to an altogether different place, the same sense of dread emanates from his new environment.
