The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries

STEPPING UP by Mark Billingham

I was never cut out to be the centre of attention. I never asked for it. I never enjoyed it.

Some people love all that though, don’t they? They need to be the ones having their heads swelled and their arses licked; pawed at and fawned over. Some people are idiots, to be fair, and don’t know what to do with themselves if they aren’t smack in the middle of the fucking action.

Of course, there were times when I did get the attention, whether I wanted it or not. When things were going well and I won a title or two. I got it from men and women then, and you won’t hear me say there was anything wrong with that. Blokes wanting to shake your hand and tarts queuing up to shake your other bits and pieces, well nobody’s complaining about that kind of carry on, are they?

But this, though…?

The doctor had been banging on about exercise, especially as I was having such a hard time giving up the fags. It would help to get the old ticker pumping a bit, he said. Get your cholesterol down and shift some of that weight which isn’t exactly helping matters, let’s face it. You used to box a bit, didn’t you, he said, so you shouldn’t find it too difficult to get back in the swing of it. To shape up a little.

Piece of piss, I told him, then corrected myself when he smiled and straightened his tie.

“Cake, I meant. Sorry, Doc. Piece of cake.”

I don’t know which one of us I was kidding more.

I got Maggie’s husband, Phil, to give me a hand and fetch some of my old gear out of the loft. We scraped the muck off the skipping rope and hung the heavy bag up in the garage. I thought I would be able to ease myself back into it, you know? Stop when it hurt and build things up slowly. Trouble was it hurt all the time, and the more I tried, the more angry I got that I’d let myself go to shit so badly; that I’d smoked so many fags and eaten so much crap and put so much booze away down the years.

“It was mum’s fault for spoiling you,” Maggie said. “If she hadn’t laid on meat and two veg for you every day of her life, you might have learned to do a bit more than boil a bleeding egg. You wouldn’t have had to eat so many take-aways after she’d gone…”

Once my eldest gets a bee in her bonnet, that’s it for everyone. It was her that had nagged me into going to the doctor’s in the first place, getting some exercise or what have you. So, even though the boxing training hadn’t worked out, the silly mare had no intention of letting the subject drop.

One day, in the pub with Phil, I found out that I wasn’t the only one getting it in the neck.

“Help me out, for Christ’s sake,” he said. “She won’t shut up about it, how she thinks you’re going to drop dead any bloody second. Just do something.”

“Snooker?”

“Funny.”

“Fucked if I know, Phil. There’s nothing I fancy.”

I’d told Mags I wouldn’t go jogging and that was all there was to it. I’ve been there, so I know how that game works; shift a few pounds and fuck up your knee joints at the same time. Tennis wasn’t for the likes of me and the same went double for golf, even though a couple of blokes in the pub had the odd game now and again. The truth is, I know you have to stick at these kind of things, and that’s never been my strong suit. I had a talent in the ring, so I didn’t mind putting the hours in, and besides, I had more… drive back then, you know? Day after day on a golf course or a sodding tennis court, just so I wouldn’t look like a twat every time I turned out, didn’t sound much fun.

Plus, there weren’t that many people I could think of to play with, tell you the truth…

“There’s a class,” Phil said. “Down our local leisure centre. One night a week, that’s all.”

“Class?”

“Just general fitness, you know. Look it’s only an hour and there’s a bit of a drink afterwards. You’ll be doing me a favour.”

“Hmmm.” I swallowed what was left of a pint and rolled my eyes, and that was it. That’s how easily a misunderstanding happens and you get yourself shafted.

I should have twigged a couple of weeks later when Maggie came by to pick me up. On the way there I asked her where Phil was, was he coming along later and all that, and she looked at me like I’d lost the plot. See, I thought it was his class, didn’t I? A few lads jumping about, maybe a quick game of five-a-side and then a couple of beers afterwards. When I walked out of that changing room in my baggy shorts and an old West Ham shirt, I felt like I’d been majorly stitched up. There was Maggie, beaming at me, and a dozen or so other women, and all of them limbering up in front of these little plastic steps.

A fucking step class. Jesus H…

And not just women, either, which didn’t help a great deal. There were a couple of men there to witness the humiliation, which always makes it worse, right? You know what I’m talking about. There were three other fellas standing about, looking like each of them had gone through what I was going through right then. An old boy, a few years on me, who looked like he’d have trouble carrying his step. A skinny young bloke in a tight top, who I figured was queer straight away, and a fit-looking sort who I guessed was there to pull something a bit older and desperate.

Looking around, trying my hardest to manage a smile, I could see that most of the women were definitely in that category. Buses, back-ends, you see what I’m getting at? I swear to God, you wouldn’t have looked twice at any of them.

Except for Zoe.

I met her forty-odd years back, when I was twenty-something and I’d won a few fights; one night when I was introduced to some people at a nightclub in Tottenham. Frank Sparks was doing pretty well himself at that time, and there were all sorts of faces hanging about. I wasn’t stupid. I knew full well what was paying for Frank’s Savile Row suit and what have you, and to tell you the truth, it never bothered me.

There weren’t many saints knocking around anywhere back then.

Frank was friendly enough, and for the five or ten minutes I sat at his table, it was like we were best friends. He was one of those blokes with a knack for that, you know? Told me he was following my career, how he’d won a few quid betting on me, that kind of thing. He said there were always jobs going with him. All sorts of bits and pieces, you know, if things didn’t work out or I jacked the fight game in or whatever.

I can still remember how shiny his hair was that night. And his teeth, and the stink of Aramis on him.

She was the sister of this bloke I used to spar with, and I’d seen her waiting for him at the back of the gym a few times, but it wasn’t until that night in Tottenham that I started to pay attention. She was all dressed up, with different hair, and I thought she was an actress or a stripper. Then we got talking by the bar and she laughed and told me she was just Billy’s sister. I said she was better looking than any of the actresses or strippers that were there guzzling Frank’s champagne, and she went redder than the frock she was wearing, but I knew she liked it.

I saw her quite a bit after that in various places. She started going out with one of Frank Sparks’ boys and wearing a lot of fancy dresses. I remember once, I’d just knocked this black lad over in the fourth round at Harringay. I glanced down, sweating like a pig, and she was sitting a few rows back smiling up at me, and the referee’s count seemed to take forever.

You just get on the thing, then off again; up and down, up and down, one foot or both of them, in time to the fucking music. Simple as that. You can get back down the same way you went up, or sometimes you turn and come down on the other side, and now and again there’s a bit of dancing around the thing, but basically… you climb on and off a plastic step.

I swear to God, that’s it.

Maybe, that first time, I should have just turned and gone straight back in that changing room. Caught a bus home. Maggie had that look on her face though, and I thought walking out would be even more embarrassing than staying.

So, I decided to do it just the once, for Mags, and actually, it didn’t turn out to be as bad as I expected. It was a laugh as it goes, and at least I could do it without feeling like it was going to kill me. It was a damn sight harder than it looked, mind you, make no fucking mistake about that. I was knackered after ten minutes, but what with there being so many women in the class, I didn’t feel like I had to compete with anyone, you know what I mean?

Ruth, the woman in charge, seemed genuinely pleased to see me when I showed up again the second week and the week after that. She teased me a bit, and I took the piss because she had one of those microphone things on her ear like that singer with the pointy tits. They were all quite nice, to be honest. A pretty decent bunch. I’d pretend to flirt a bit with one or two of the women, and I’d have a laugh with Anthony, who didn’t bang on about being gay like a lot of them do, you know?

Even Craig seemed all right, to begin with.

The pair of us ended up next to each other more often than not, on the end of the line behind Zoe. Him barely out of breath after half an hour; me, puffing and blowing like I was about to keel over. The pair of us looking one way and one way only, while she moved, easy and sweet, in front of us.

One time, he took his eyes off her arse and glanced across at me. I did likewise, and while Ruth was shouting encouragement to one of the older ladies, the cheeky fucker winked, and I felt the blood rising to my neck.

I remember an evening in the pub with Maggie and Phil, a few weeks in, and me telling Maggie not to be late picking me up for the class. To take the traffic into account. She plastered on a smart-arse smile, like she thought she’d cottoned on to something, but just said she was pleased I was enjoying myself.

It only took one lucky punch from a jammy Spaniard for everything to go tits up as far as the fighting was concerned. I had a few more bouts, but once the jaw’s been broken, you’re never quite as fearless. Never quite as stupid as you need to be.

Stupid as I had been, spending every penny I’d ever made, quick as I’d earned it.

With the place I was renting in Archway, the payments on a brand new Cortina, and sweet FA put by, it wasn’t like I had a lot of choice when it came to doing door work for Frank Sparks. Besides, it was easy money, as it went. A damn sight less stressful than the ring anyway, and I certainly didn’t miss the training. Your average Friday-night drunk goes down a lot easier than a journeyman light-heavyweight, but the fact is, I couldn’t have thrown more than half a dozen punches in nearly a year of it. I was there to look as if I was useful, see, and that was fine. Like I said before, I was happier in the background and I think Frank was pretty pleased with the way I was handling things, because he asked me if I fancied doing a spot of driving.

And that’s when I started seeing a lot more of her.

She wasn’t married yet, but I’d heard it was on the cards. Her boyfriend had moved up through the ranks smartish, and was in charge of a lot of Frank’s gambling clubs. Classy places in Knights-bridge and Victoria with cigarette girls and what have you. She used to go along and just sit in the corner drinking and looking tasty, but some of these sessions went on all night, and she’d always leave before her old man did.

So, I started to drive her.

I started to ask to drive her; volunteering quietly, you know? There were a couple of motors on call and we took it in turns at first. Then, after a few weeks, she asked for me, and it sort of became an arrangement.

In the image I still have of her, she’s standing on a pavement, putting on a scarf as I indicate and drift across towards the curb. She’s clutching a handbag. She waves as I pull up, then all but falls into the back of the Jag; tired, but happy as Larry to be on the way home.

In reality of course she was thinner, and drunker. Her eyes got flatter and the bleach made her hair brittle, and she was always popping some pill or other. That crocodile handbag rattled with them. The smile was still there though; lighting up what was left of her. The same as it was when I looked down through the ropes that time and saw her clapping.

When I felt as though I was the one who’d had the breath punched out of me.

How bloody old am I?

It’s a fair question, but I don’t suppose it really matters. Too old, that’s the point, isn’t it? Too old to smoke and not worry about it; to put on a pair of socks without sitting down; to think about running for a bus.

Too old to feel immortal…

Like you’d expect, it was mostly Diet Coke and fizzy water in the pub afterwards. I had orange juice and lemonade myself, for the first week anyway, but Zoe drank beer from the off.

Ruth didn’t give a monkey’s what anyone did once the class was over, but there was one woman who didn’t approve; who clearly enjoyed having another reason to dislike Zoe. She was glaring across at her from an adjoining table, one night a few weeks in, and I was giving it the old cow back with bells on.

“Maybe she’s jealous because she secretly fancies you,” Zoe whispered.

I pulled a face. “Christ, don’t put me off me pint!”

She really enjoyed that one. Her laugh was low and dirty, and it still amazes me really, to think of it coming out of a mouth like hers. A face like that.

“She’s just dried-up and bitter,” I said. “Hates it that she’s doing this to try and change how she looks, or what have you, while others don’t really have to.”

Zoe smiled, leaned a shoulder against mine. “Some people just don’t know how to have fun, you know? Think their bodies are temples and all that.”

“My body’s more of a slaughterhouse these days,” I said.

She enjoyed that one too. It felt fantastic to make her laugh. We shared a big packet of crisps, which really wound up the old bag on the next table. She left early, while Zoe and me and a few of the others stayed until they rang the bell, same as always. Ruth and Anthony were giggling by the jukebox, and Maggie kept an eye on me from a table near the door, where she sat clutching her mobile phone, waiting for Phil to come and pick the pair of us up.

“Why do you come?” I asked her. “It’s not like you need to lose weight or anything. You seem pretty fit…”

She leaned a shoulder into mine. “You’re sweet.”

“I’m just saying.”

She took another swig from her bottle. “I’m lazy,” she said. “I need to make myself do things, get out and do something a bit off the wall, you know? Anyway, it’s a laugh, don’t you reckon?”

I did reckon, and I told her.

“I work in a stupid office,” she said. “The people there are all right I suppose, but I don’t want to see them after work or whatever. I think it’s good to meet people who aren’t anything like you are. People with different lives, you know? I tried a French class, but it was too hard, and the teacher was a bit stuck-up. This is much better. Much.”

She had a voice it was easy to listen to. She certainly wasn’t posh, but there wasn’t really an accent either. Just soft and simple, you know?

“What about you?” she asked.

I said I was basically there to keep Maggie happy, and to try and get at least some of the old fitness back. I mentioned that I used to box a bit and she said that she could see it. That it was in the way I carried myself.

I had to hide my face in my glass, and I’d all but downed the rest of the pint by the time the blush had gone away.

“Someone needed a drink,” she said.

There was a burst of high-pitched laughter from Ruth and Anthony, and when I looked across, I could see that Maggie had gone from a smartarse smile to something that looked like concern.

I went up to get the two of us refills, and exchanged nods with Craig who was deep in conversation with the woman behind the bar. He was smoking which made me deeply fucking envious. If Maggie hadn’t been sitting by the door, I might well have ponced one.

“Enjoying yourself?” he said.

When the barmaid went to fetch the drinks, Craig span slowly round and leaned back against the bar. He looked across at Zoe for a minute, more maybe, then turned to me. His face said “I know, I couldn’t agree more, mate. But look at me and look at you.”

Or he might just have been asking me to pass the ashtray.

Oh fuck it, who knows?

Her old man had a place in Battersea, on the edge of the park. There was a night I was driving her back from one of Frank’s casinos, down through Chelsea towards Albert Bridge, when she started asking me all manner of funny questions.

“Do you actually like any of them, though? Are any of them really your mates if you think about it?”

The gin had slowed her up a little. Thickened her voice, you know?

“Any of who?” I said.

She jerked a thumb back towards where we’d come from. “That lot. The boys. They’re just people you work with, aren’t they? Just blokes you knock around with, right, and I don’t suppose any of them give a toss about you, either. Wouldn’t you say?”

I shrugged and watched the road. It wasn’t like I’d never heard her talking bollocks before. Next time she spoke, her voice had more breath in it, and she kept saying my name, but that’s something else people do when they’ve had a couple, isn’t it?

“It’s just London, right?” she said. “Frank doesn’t own stuff anywhere else, does he?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“I don’t think so either.”

“He’s been up north on business, definitely. Manchester…”

“It was only a few times,” she said. “Just to meet people.”

“Birmingham as well. I drove him to the station.”

“He was just looking, though, that’s what I heard. Nothing came of it. It’s all here really, don’t you reckon?” She said my name again, slow with a question in it. Wanting me to agree with her. “Everyone’s here, aren’t they?”

I heard a song I knew she liked come on the radio and I turned it up for her. That girl who did Eurovision without any shoes on. I was waiting for her to start singing along, but when I looked in the rear-view I could see that her eyes were closed.

Her head was tipped back and her mascara was starting to run.

Things really started to go pear-shaped the time Zoe turned up looking like she did and Craig didn’t turn up at all.

I hadn’t admitted it to myself, not really, that the two of them were seeing each other outside the class, but I had to stop being stupid and face facts when I saw her walk in like that. It was like I suddenly knew all sorts of things at once. I knew that they’d got together, that everyone else had probably sussed it a damn sight faster than me, and I knew exactly what had happened to her face.

In class, I stepped that bit faster than usual. I stamped on and off that bastard thing, and it was automatic, like I could do it all day and I wasn’t even thinking. Ruth said how well I was doing and when Zoe smiled at me, encouraging, I had to look away.

Afterwards, she didn’t turn towards the pub with the rest of us, and when I saw that she was heading for the car-park, I moved to go after her. Maggie took hold of my arm and said something about getting a table. I told her I’d be there in a minute, to get one in for me, but she didn’t look very happy.

I tried to get a laugh out of Zoe when I caught her up; made out like I was knackered, you know, from chasing after her, but she didn’t seem to really go for it. “Do you not fancy it tonight then?” I said. “Not even a swift half?”

She was fetching her car-keys from her bag. Digging around for them and keeping her head down. “I’ve got an early start in the morning,” she said. “New boss, you know?”

I nodded, told her that one wasn’t going to hurt.

She caught me looking, not that I was trying particularly hard not to. It was like a plum that someone had stepped on around her cheek, and the ragged edges of it were the color of a tea-stain. There was a half-moon of blood in her eye.

“I didn’t know there was a cupboard open and I turned round into it,” she said. “Clumsy bitch…”

“Shush…”

“I actually knocked myself out for a few seconds.”

“Listen, it’s all right,” I said.

“What is?”

“Come and have one quick drink,” I said. “Who am I going to share my salt and vinegar crisps with if you don’t?”

It was as though she suddenly noticed that my hand was on her wrist, and she looked down and took half a step back. “I’ll see you next week.”

“Look after yourself.” It came out as a whisper. I didn’t really know what else to say.

She pressed the button on her car-keys and when the lights flashed and the alarm squawked, I saw her jump slightly.

In the pub, I couldn’t blame Maggie for being off with me. I sat there with a face like a smacked arse, and I couldn’t have said more than three words to anyone. After half an hour I’d had enough, and I asked her to call Phil, get him to fetch us early. That didn’t go down too well either because she was having a laugh with Anthony, but I just wasn’t in the mood for it.

As we were leaving, Ruth raised her glass and said something about me being her star pupil.

Zoe didn’t turn up at all the following week.

We were driving, same as always. Seemed like, when it came to being close or what have you, that was the only time we ever really saw each other. Me in the front, her in the back.

“Go slowly, will you?” she’d said when she got in.

Obviously I was going to do what she wanted, right, and it was raining like a bastard anyway, so it wasn’t like I could have put my foot down. Still, I wanted to get back to her place as quickly as I could. Don’t get me wrong, I hated it when she got out of the car, hated it, but lately I’d taken to stopping somewhere after I’d dropped her off; soon as I’d got round the corner sometimes.

I’d pull over in the dark and sit quiet for a minute. Reach for a handkerchief. Throw one off the wrist, while I could still smell her in the car.

Sounds disgusting, I know, but it didn’t feel like it back then.

I drove, slow like she wanted, along the Brompton Road and down Sydney Street. Staring at the jaguar leaping from the end of the bonnet; the road slick, sucked up beneath it.

When I turned up the radio to drown out the squeak of the wipers, she leaned forward and asked me to switch it off.

Pissing down now. Clattering on the roof like tacks.

“There’s people been talking to me,” she said.

“What people?”

“They’ve been going over my options, you know?”

“What options?”

“The choices I’ve got.”

I looked in the mirror. Watched her take a deep breath when she saw that I didn’t understand.

“Billy’s fucked up,” she said. “Silly bugger’s really gone and dropped himself in it.”

Her brother. My ex-sparring partner. Always had been a bit of a tearaway.

“What’s he done?” I asked. Prickles on my neck.

“He went for some flash Maltese fucker with a knife…”

“Jesus.”

“Didn’t really do him too much harm, but they’ll happily bump it up to attempted murder. Put him away for a few years unless I decide to help.”

I knew who she was talking about now. Coppers were the same as anyone else at the end of the day. There were plenty of stupid ones, but enough of them with brains to make life interesting.

“There’s only Billy and me,” she said. “The bastards know how close we are.”

She started to cry just a little bit then. I went inside my jacket for the handkerchief I’d be using later on, but she’d already pulled one out from her handbag. I’d heard the pills rattling as she rummaged for it.

I was taking us over the bridge by now. Gliding across it. The lights swung like a necklace up ahead and the rain was churning up the water on either side of me.

“It’s not like I know a fat lot.”

“Fat lot about what?” I said, but it was obvious what she was banging on about.

“Frank. Frank’s business. All that.”

All that.

“Obviously they think I know something.” She raised her hands, let them drop down with a slap on to the leather seat. “Maybe I know enough.”

Course she did; she wasn’t stupid, was she? Enough to get her little brother out of the shit and herself slap bang in it.

I wanted to slam on the anchors and stop the car right there on the bridge. To reach into the back and shake her until her fillings came loose. I wanted to tell her that her brother was a pissy little waster, and that she shouldn’t be such a daft bitch, and to say absolutely fuck all to anyone about fuck all.

I was the one that kept my mouth shut, though, wasn’t I? The one who just gripped the wheel that little bit tighter and manoeuvered the car like I was on my driving test. Checking the wing mirrors, hands at ten to two, watching my speed.

“I need to go away,” she said.

Ten to two. Both eyes on the road…

“Somewhere abroad might be best. Somewhere hot, near the sea if I get a choice, but it might not have to be that far. Maybe Scotland or somewhere. I’ve tucked a bit away and I’m sure I can make a few bob later on. I can type for a kick-off.”

Slowing for lights. No more than a mile away from the flat on the edge of the park. Checking the mirror and feathering the brake; moving down through the gears.

“I just don’t feel like I can do it on my own, you know? That’s the only bit I’m scared of, if I’m honest. It’s pathetic I know, relying on someone like that, but the thought of nobody being there with me makes me feel sick, like I’m looking over the edge of something. I don’t mean sex or whatever, but that’s not out of the question either. It’s mostly about having someone around who gives a toss, do you know what I mean?”

Waiting for the amber, willing that fucker to change.

“Someone who worries…”

She said my name, and it felt like I had something thick and bitter in my gullet.

Neither of us said anything else after that, but we were only five minutes away from the flat by then. The silence was horrible, make no mistake about that, but it just lay there until it sort of flattened out into something we were both willing to live with. Until she asked me to turn the radio back up.

When we pulled up, I got out to open her door, then climbed back in again quick without saying much of anything. When I looked up she was standing there by my door. She had an umbrella, but she never even bothered getting it out; just stood there getting pissed on, with the rain bringing her hair down, until thick strands of it were dead and dark against her face.

She was saying something. I couldn’t hear, but I was looking at her mouth, same as always.

I thought she said: “It doesn’t matter, Jimmy.”

Then she put the tips of two fingers to her lips and pressed them against my window. They went white where she pressed, and I could still see the mark for a few minutes after I drove away.

I didn’t stop the car where I normally did. Just kept going for a bit, trying to swallow and think straight. I drove up through Nine Elms and pulled in a mile or so past the power station.

Sat there and stared out across the shitty black river until it started to get light.

Craig looked confused as much as anything when I walked round the corner. Grinned at him. It was half way through the morning, and him and a couple of older women in blouses and grey skirts had come out the back entrance of the bank for a crafty smoke.

“All right, mate?”

“Ticking along,” I said. “You?”

It must have been there in my face or the way I spoke, because I saw the women stubbing out pretty long fag-ends, making themselves scarce. Neither of them so much as looked at him before they buggered off.

Craig watched his colleagues go, seemed to find something about it quite funny. He turned back to me, taking a drag. Shook his head.

“Sorry, mate. It’s just a bit strange you turning up here, that’s all. How d’you know where I worked?”

“Zoe must have said, last time she came to the class, you know?”

Something in his face that I couldn’t read, but I didn’t much care.

“How’s she doing, anyway?” I said.

“Er, she’s good, yeah.”

“It was a shame she stopped coming, really. We were all saying how she made the rest of us work a bit harder, trying to keep up.”

“She just lost interest I think. Me an’ all, to be honest.” Then a look that seemed to say they were getting their exercise in other ways, and one back from me that tried and failed to wipe it off his face.

It was warm and he was in shirt-sleeves. I was sweating underneath my jacket so I slipped it off, threw it across my arm.

“Are you feeling OK?”

“I’m fine,” I said.

“You’ve gone a bit red.”

I nodded, looked at the sweat patches under his arm and the pattern on his poxy tie.

He flicked his fag-end away. “Listen, I’ve got to get back to work…”

“Right.”

“I’ll say hello to Zoe, shall I?”

“How’s her face?”

That took the smile off the fucker quick enough. Put that confused look back again, like he didn’t know his arse from his elbow.

“It’s fine now,” he said. “She’s all gorgeous again.”

“Nasty, that was. Not seen many shiners worse than that one. Door wasn’t it?”

“Cupboard door.”

“Yeah, that’s what’s she said.”

“She forgot it was open and turned round fast, you know? Listen-”

I was just looking at him by now.

“What?”

I knew I still had that. You never lose the look.

“What’s your problem?”

Breathing heavily, a wheeze in it. For real some of it, like the red face, but I’d bunged a bit extra on top, you know. Laid it on thick just to get his guard down.

“I think maybe you ought to piss off now,” he said.

I bent over, suddenly; dropped the jacket like I might be in some trouble. He stepped across to pick it up, like I wanted him to, which was when I swung a good hard right at his fat, flappy mouth.

I never had her in the car again after that night. Only saw her a couple of times as it goes, and even then, when she looked over, I always found something fascinating in the pattern on the carpet or counted the bits of chewing gum squashed onto the pavement.

Spineless cunt.

She went away some time after. I suppose I should say I was told she went away. It’s an important distinction, right? Told like there was actually nothing to tell, but also like there wasn’t much point me asking about it again or wasting any money on postcards.

A few years ago we were having a meal, me and one of the lads I used to knock about with back then. You have a curry and a few pints and you talk about the old days, don’t you? You have a laugh.

Until her name came up.

He was talking about what he thought had happened and why. Wanted to know what I thought had gone on; fancied getting my take on it. You used to know her pretty well, didn’t you, he said. That’s what I heard, anyway. You used to be quite close to her is what somebody told me.

I had a mouthful of ulcers at that time. It was when my old girl was suffering, you know, and the doctor reckoned it was the stress of her illness that was causing it. Ulcers and boils, I had.

When he mentioned her name the first time, I started to chew on a couple of those ulcers. Gnawing into those bastards so hard it was making my eyes water, though my mate probably thought it was the vindaloo.

You used to be quite close to her, he said.

I bit the fuckers clean out then, two or three of them. I remember the noise I made, people in the restaurant turning round. I bent down over the table, coughing, and I spat them out into a serviette.

That more or less put the tin lid on our conversation, which was all right by me. My mate didn’t say too much of anything after that. Well, we’d been talking about what was happening with me and my old lady before, and when he saw the blood in the napkin, maybe he was confused, you know, thought I was the one with the lung cancer.

It wasn’t the best punch I ever threw, but it made contact and I concentrated on the blood that was running down his shirt-front as he swung me round and pushed me against the wall.

“What the fuck’s your game, you silly old bastard?”

I tried to nut him and he leaned back, his arms out straight, holding me hard against the bricks.

“Take it easy.”

I thought I felt something crack in his shin when I kicked out at him. I tried to bring my leg up fast towards his bollocks, but the pain in his leg must have fired him right up and his fists were flying at me.

It was no more than a few seconds. Just flailing really like kids, but Christ, I’d forgotten how much it hurts.

Every blow rang and tore and made the sick rise up. I felt something catch me and rip behind the ear; a ring maybe. Stung like fuck.

I swore, and kept kicking. I shut my eyes.

My fists were up, but it was all I could do to protect my face, so I can’t have been doing him a lot of damage.

But I was trying.

When the gaps between the punches got a bit longer, I tried to get a dig or two in, just to keep my fucking end up, you know? That was when the background went blurry, and his face started to swim in front of me, but as far as I’m concerned that was down to the pain in my arm. It had bugger all to do with any punishment I might have taken.

The fucker hit me one more time, when I dropped my fists to clutch at my arm. It was all over then, more or less. But it was the pain in my chest that put me down, and not that punch.

Not the punch.

There’s always a something that gets you from one place to the next, right? That you’re chasing after in some way, shape or form. Granted, some people are happy enough to let themselves get pissed along like a fag-end in a urinal, and yes, I know that some poor bastards are plain unlucky, but still…

OK, then, to be fair there’s usually a something. For me, anyway, is all I’m saying. If I’m centre of attention right now, for all the wrong reasons, it isn’t really down to anyone else, and I’m not going to feel sorry for myself.

That’s more or less what I tried to say to Maggie and Phil when they came in, but they were in no fit state to listen, and I don’t think I made myself very clear.

Fuck, they’re at me again…

Loads of them, and I thought there was supposed to be a shortage. Poking and prodding. Talking over me like I’m deaf as well as everything else.

It’s not pain exactly.

It’s warm and wet and spreading through my arms and legs like I’m sinking into a bath or something. They’ve got those things you see on the TV out again, like a pair of irons on my chest. Like they’re going to iron out my wrinkles.

Now they’re going blurry either side of me, same as that fucker did when I was punching him. The sound’s gone funny too.

And clear as you like, I can see her face. The stain around her eye and the purple bruise. The hair lying dead against her cheek in the rain.

Music as I step up and step up. Some tuneless disco rubbish while I’m sneaking looks at her in that tight leotard thing and Ruth bawls at me through her stupid microphone.

As I step up off the beach. With the sea coming up on to the sand behind me. Noisy, like the sigh of someone who’s sick of waiting for something.

Stepping up on to the hot pavement, where she’s stood waiting with a drink. That mouth, and her hair darker now and she looks magnificent. And we lean against each other and drink sangria at one of them places where you can sit outside.

The music’s still getting louder, so I ask them to turn it up.

That song she likes on the radio.

The bird with the bare feet.

“I wonder if one day that, you’ll say that you care.

If you say you love me madly, I’ll gladly be there…”