Hemispheres Read Online Free PDF Page A

him.
    Now mate, he said to Decko. Never knew you were a fucking brawler.
    Not just a fucking brawler, roared Magoo. He was the fucking best. In the upstairs rooms and the backlots. Put any cunt on
     his back for half a crown, eh? Every gold-toothed pikey bastard, every plastic hardman in Boro.
    Kurt grinned, turned and scanned the bar, one of his unearthly blue eyes squinting off to one side.
    D’y’ever kill a man Decko?
    Decko shook his head.
    Aye he did, yelled Magoo. Some gadge who swallowed his own tongue. Me dad said he was on his back with foam coming out of
     his gob, eh? But his feet kept tapdancing for a full twenty minutes. Twenty fucking minutes.
    Decko shook his head again.
    Ow Michelle, said Kurt. Get the man a pint in, eh? On the house, like.
    She turned and looked at Decko.
    Mild, he said.
    Jonah swirled his glass round.
    You were born with a caul Danny, he said. You know what that is?
    Aye.
    It’s the sac you’re inside. In the womb. Keeps you from drowning in there. Most times it breaks up during the birth, but you
     were born with it right over your head. They had to strip it off so you could start breathing.
    Aye, I know.
    Jonah dropped his voice.
    I kept it, he said. Asked Kate if I could. I’ve still got it.
    Why?
    Michelle plonked the pint down in front of Decko but Kurt lifted it up from the bartowel and had a good gulp.
    Away then champ, he said, tapping his chin. Let’s fucking go. Let’s fucking ’ave you.
    He started to bob and weave and throw imaginary punches. Magoo roared with laughter.
    It’s a powerful talisman, that’s why, said Jonah. Against drowning.
    I snorted.
    Been a merchant navy cook twenty year, Jonah went on. Hard as nails, been called all the names under the sun for the state
     of my food. But what fucking terrifies me Dan, is going down with a ship.
    I watched the creases dance around his eyes, the way his nose bobbed up and down when he was animated. He reached across the
     table and gripped my forearm. I looked into his eyes, steady and brown.
    It keeps the terror down, he said. Just having it tucked away, stowed in my kitbag. I know it’s just a barmy old superstition.
    But.
    Aye. But.
    He laughed.
    Franco leaned back against the bar with his cue. He had these deep hungry eyes like wormholes, sunken cheeks you could measure
     between thumb and forefinger.
    Makes you think, he said. The old hardmen, they’re all coffin dodgers now.
    Magoo leaned back next to him, tee-shirt riding up his kite.
    Back then like, said Franco. It was all white, eh? None of your monkey men over here. Coons.
    He was looking at Jonah.
    *
    Did you ever try to find out what really happened to your dad?
    His voice was low and urgent.
    I shrugged. The army just told us the bare bones, I said, flatly. He was in action at Mount Longdon, not long before the surrender.
     It was a mess, close quarters and that. Afterwards, well, he’d just gone. Never seen again. No body, no nothing.
    Spoken to anyone who was actually there?
    Jonah’s eyes were focused on me, large and dark like an owl’s.
    Nah. I never tried. Look, if he was alive, he’d have been in touch, wouldn’t he?
    Jonah studied me. I used to have a map of the Falklands up on my bedroom wall, when the war was on. All them little islands
     round the coast, Keppel and Pebble and Carcass and Sedge. North Fur and South Fur. Elephant Jason, Flat Jason, Grand Jason,
     Steeple Jason. I looked at that map every day, those long weeks while they were crawling south, wondering where Yan would
     be, which of those names would become real places. And then some of them did. And then I took the map down and folded it up
     and put it in the bin.
    It was a premature ejaculation, that war, Jonah smiled. Too much foreplay and not enough action. The sabre-rattling from Maggie
     after the Argies invaded, the Task Force crawling down the Atlantic. Weeks and weeks of it. But when they landed it was over
     in a flash. Wham bam thank you ma’am and we’re lying