Mr. In-Between Read Online Free PDF Page A

that you’ve made. I’d do anything for her. I made her alive, like. Me and Cath made her alive. That’s a smart feeling. S’amazing if you think about it. But it’s not having a proper mate, is it? It’s not like having a mate.’
    â€˜I don’t know,’ Jon said.
    â€˜You will,’ said Andy with assurance. If he could have known how much, in that second, in that tone of voice, in that expression, he resembled his father, he would have been filled with something like hatred. Then he laughed out loud and said, ‘There must be somebody who’d have you.’
    â€˜I don’t know about that.’
    â€˜Don’t be daft. Of course there is. There’s someone for everyone somewhere. Having someone,’ he regarded the smoked-out stub of his cigarette with disdain, and lit another, ‘who knows everything about you. That’s smart.’
    Jon thought of the Tattooed Man. ‘I suppose it must be.’
    â€˜Someone you can really talk to, like. I’m not just talking about someone you can fart in bed next to. Someone you can talk to.’
    â€˜You’re a lucky man.’ Once it was said, it sounded absurdly adult and paternal. Andy didn’t seem to notice.
    â€˜Am I fuck,’ he said, with resignation. ‘I’m skint. I’ve got a kid being brought up on the social and a car that packs up every fucking fortnight. I’m losing my fucking hair and I’m getting fat.’
    â€˜You’ve got Cathy Reynolds from the year below.’
    Andy pressed his lips together and hung his head. ‘How long for, though? That’s the question, innit? How can you keep it going when you’re in each other’s way twenty-four hours a day and you haven’t even got the cash to nip out for a pint? Cath gets all her clothes handed down from her sister. I’d kill for a few quid in the bank. Kirsty needs new clothes every other day. How can I keep it going when it’s like that?’
    Jon knew nothing of such things. The people with whom he fraternised spoke of their wives seldom and, if at all, disparagingly.
    Suddenly he was possessed by a memory so powerful and immediate as to verge on the tactile. A school corridor, a pulsating crowd pressing claustrophobically close as he curled on the floor around the savage boot of Christopher Aitken. The crowd parting. Andy, broad-shouldered and tall, the fashionable shoes he was so proud of, the skinny tie, the blue blazer with the unravelling school badge. He looked first at Jon, grazed and dishevelled on the floor, then at Christopher Aitken. Christopher Aitken, two years their senior, never knew what hit him. This vivid image of his friend began gradually to fade until once more Jon saw him as he had become. His blond hair was cut short, and was thinning at the temples. At the crown, the pink skin of his scalp was visible. Once effortlessly athletic, he was now heavy-set with pasty skin and the beginnings of a gut hanging in small rolls over the edge of his jeans.
    Jon had loved this person, or the person this man had been, more than he had ever loved another human being.
    â€˜I’m sorry,’ he said.
    â€˜Fuck it,’ said Andy. ‘I think I must be a bit pissed. I shouldn’t go on like that.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Christ. Look at the time. She’ll be thinking I’ve run off with a stripper.’ He stood and picked up his jacket.
    â€˜Well, it was good to see you,’ Jon said, for lack of anything better. ‘Take care, mate. Look after yourself.’
    With the jacket half on his shoulders, Andy paused. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’ll give you my address. Why don’t you come round for tea tomorrow?’
    Jon shifted in his seat. This is what people did. What mates who had grown up together did. He doubted his capacity to function in such a context. The world in which he moved had become so familiar he had almost