Ordinary.’
6
I n 1982, the week after your father’s funeral, you are in town, early in a spring evening, going for a drink in the Lime Kiln with your brother.
Laraine has stayed home with Mum, but you both feel the need to get out of the memory-permeated house. James went into the army at sixteen and you haven’t seen much of him in the last few years. You remember him as the kid who wet himself when you left him to Robert and Reg; now he’s a tattooed squaddie, decorated for valour on the streets of Belfast. You’re afraid to ask what ‘valour’ means. Calmly, without malice, he has said he’d like to be sent to the Falklands. You think he wants a chance to kill an Argie, just to see what it would be like.
The Lime Kiln is full, packed with drinkers whose dads are still alive or have been dead for so long that it doesn’t matter. You think about James. Your younger brother seems to have taken on the job of Man of the Family. His eyes didn’t water at the funeral, like yours did. He’s willing to defend himself, his mates, his family, the country. You know you’d still crawl off to the classroom, shirking your responsibility, losing yourself in the abstractions of arithmetic.
As you force your way through to the bar, a cheer goes up. You wonder why, then remember James is in uniform. There’s a drunken wave of patriotism going on in the aftermath of the invasion of the Falkland Islands, a frenzy of kill-the-Argies war-hunger. The barman is Max Lewis, with whom you were at school though he was never a special friend. James orders a couple of pints of bitter. A man claps him on the shoulder and offers to pay for the drinks.
James, flinching from the touch, turns to accept… and freezes. Pressed close to James by the crowd, you sense the tension which draws your brother tight as a bowstring an instant before you recognise the man with the money.
It’s Robert Hackwill, grown up.
The Ash Grove School Bully has done well for himself. He wears a sheepskin coat and a trilby hat. His property business is flourishing and he is in line for a council seat. He has a flash car, a Jag. His smile splits the world horizontally in half.
Hackwill repeats his offer.
You look around for Jessup, never far from Hackwill, and spot him in a corner. Reg’s smirk is still there, shaped by the fat in his face. He’s still a sidekick.
What will James do? It’s fifteen years later and Hackwill is off his guard. James thinks he could kill a stranger, and this is someone he hates. You know your brother must be thinking of breaking a glass in the grown-up bully’s face.
You remember that day. When James wet himself while being given the worst Chinese burn in history and you ran off. You don’t really know what they did to him then, and have tried not to imagine what it must have been like. For the first time, it occurs to you that it probably didn’t go much beyond a bit of a shove and a few thumps. Robert and Reg were only twelve, James just six. Until now, you’d imagined infernal tortures and unspeakable atrocities. That night, at home safe, James looked accusations at you. He never told your parents how he came by his bruises, and you didn’t speak up either. Telling on Robert Hackwill was an invitation to pain.
You have never talked about it with James. You wonder if it wasn’t what led to you and your brother growing apart, living through your teens in a state of armed neutrality. Because you left him to Hackwill, he’s never trusted you. He has found in himself the strength to look after himself.
Max puts two pints on the bar. James picks his up carefully, getting a good grip.
You can
see
the pint smashing against Hackwill’s smile, glass exploding, blood and froth drenching him.
But James just takes a deep draught and swallows. Hackwill, smile fixed, eyes hardening, repeats his offer, as if James had not heard him over the din. Somehow, the noise of the pub dies down. You know everyone is paying
6
I n 1982, the week after your father’s funeral, you are in town, early in a spring evening, going for a drink in the Lime Kiln with your brother.
Laraine has stayed home with Mum, but you both feel the need to get out of the memory-permeated house. James went into the army at sixteen and you haven’t seen much of him in the last few years. You remember him as the kid who wet himself when you left him to Robert and Reg; now he’s a tattooed squaddie, decorated for valour on the streets of Belfast. You’re afraid to ask what ‘valour’ means. Calmly, without malice, he has said he’d like to be sent to the Falklands. You think he wants a chance to kill an Argie, just to see what it would be like.
The Lime Kiln is full, packed with drinkers whose dads are still alive or have been dead for so long that it doesn’t matter. You think about James. Your younger brother seems to have taken on the job of Man of the Family. His eyes didn’t water at the funeral, like yours did. He’s willing to defend himself, his mates, his family, the country. You know you’d still crawl off to the classroom, shirking your responsibility, losing yourself in the abstractions of arithmetic.
As you force your way through to the bar, a cheer goes up. You wonder why, then remember James is in uniform. There’s a drunken wave of patriotism going on in the aftermath of the invasion of the Falkland Islands, a frenzy of kill-the-Argies war-hunger. The barman is Max Lewis, with whom you were at school though he was never a special friend. James orders a couple of pints of bitter. A man claps him on the shoulder and offers to pay for the drinks.
James, flinching from the touch, turns to accept… and freezes. Pressed close to James by the crowd, you sense the tension which draws your brother tight as a bowstring an instant before you recognise the man with the money.
It’s Robert Hackwill, grown up.
The Ash Grove School Bully has done well for himself. He wears a sheepskin coat and a trilby hat. His property business is flourishing and he is in line for a council seat. He has a flash car, a Jag. His smile splits the world horizontally in half.
Hackwill repeats his offer.
You look around for Jessup, never far from Hackwill, and spot him in a corner. Reg’s smirk is still there, shaped by the fat in his face. He’s still a sidekick.
What will James do? It’s fifteen years later and Hackwill is off his guard. James thinks he could kill a stranger, and this is someone he hates. You know your brother must be thinking of breaking a glass in the grown-up bully’s face.
You remember that day. When James wet himself while being given the worst Chinese burn in history and you ran off. You don’t really know what they did to him then, and have tried not to imagine what it must have been like. For the first time, it occurs to you that it probably didn’t go much beyond a bit of a shove and a few thumps. Robert and Reg were only twelve, James just six. Until now, you’d imagined infernal tortures and unspeakable atrocities. That night, at home safe, James looked accusations at you. He never told your parents how he came by his bruises, and you didn’t speak up either. Telling on Robert Hackwill was an invitation to pain.
You have never talked about it with James. You wonder if it wasn’t what led to you and your brother growing apart, living through your teens in a state of armed neutrality. Because you left him to Hackwill, he’s never trusted you. He has found in himself the strength to look after himself.
Max puts two pints on the bar. James picks his up carefully, getting a good grip.
You can
see
the pint smashing against Hackwill’s smile, glass exploding, blood and froth drenching him.
But James just takes a deep draught and swallows. Hackwill, smile fixed, eyes hardening, repeats his offer, as if James had not heard him over the din. Somehow, the noise of the pub dies down. You know everyone is paying
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