Twenty-One 4 страница

It was a simple spread, hearty and plain. There were thick cheese sandwiches, in which the cheese was cut in a width equal to the bread, a whole farmer’s punnet of large red strawberries, and a catering-size tub of sausages he had grilled at home. What it lacked in flair it made up for in bulk; he had prepared enough food for an entire shift of miners.

“How much did your wife used to eat? ” she asked.

“Aye, I suppose she had a fair appetite. ” He let her laugh at him, and Agnes was reminded again of his goodness. Eugene pulled a noose of lager from his sports bag. “You don’t mind, do ye? ”

She picked mud from her skirt. “Please. Be my guest. ”

He offered her a choice between a pint of milk that looked warmed through and a party-size bottle of fizzy juice. She pointed at the fizzy ginger, and he decanted it into a thermos cup. “What do you drink when you dinnae drink alcohol? ” He looked truly perplexed. It was a general question, not meant just for her.

But Agnes took it the other way. “Mostly the tears of my enemies, and when I can’t get that, tea or tap water. ”

At that, they had a high-spirited slà inte! From where she sat, she could tell the lager smelled that familiar loamy, curdled smell, and she suddenly regretted letting Eugene sit upwind. She picked at a cheese sandwich; the cheese was good, a bright tangy cheddar. Agnes had to pick at it in birdlike pieces in case the thick butter would lodge the bread behind her dentures.

“Is it no good? ”

“No, it’s delicious, ” she said. “I was just thinking, I can’t remember the last time anyone made me something to eat. ”

“Oh, my, how they’ve been neglecting ye. ”

She held her arms out wide and laughed. “Dear God. Thank you. That’s what I’ve been saying! ”

“Well, I can make cheese pieces, and ham with salad, when ye have it in. I can open a tin by maself, and ah can even boil a soft egg. ” He tilted his chin with boyish pride.

Agnes crossed her heart and swooned. “Mister McNamara, where have you been hiding all this time? ”

Maybe later he would tell her how he had snuck the food for their picnic into his own house like a teenager with a bag full of contraband. He would tell her some other time how that morning he had made the thick sandwiches on a cutting board he had taken into the locked bathroom. He would tell her about his daughter Bernie and her prying ways, but later, much later. It could all wait, he didn’t want to spoil her lovely day.

Agnes covered her mouth with the back of her hand and yawned. Eugene laughed, and then he did the same. “Aye, the night shift’ll get ye like that. ”

“Look at us in the daylight. Creeping about like a pair of nocturnal creatures. ”

Eugene took a mouthful of lager. “Well. Ah’m just glad of the work. Even if ah have to stoat about like a, like a …”

“Well, like a stoat, ” Agnes offered.

“Missus, did ye just call me a weasel? ”

“Other men, yes. But no, never you. Mind you, I absolutely love ermine. You can probably make a lovely coat out of stoat fur. ” Agnes yawned again and turned to face Glasgow. It seemed far away now, a clustered grey mass sitting in a verdant valley. They watched the afternoon sun rake the city from between low clouds. “Can we stay out here long enough to see the lights? ”

“If ye don’t freeze, aye, why not. ”

As if the weather had been listening, a cold wind blew over the fells then, and it made her wince as it buffeted her hair. Eugene opened the wall of his body and patted his big chest like it was where she belonged. She was too elegant to crawl. So Agnes stood, teetering on her black heels, and crossed the blanket to lie against him.

She closed her eyes as he folded his arms around her and held her safe. They sat that way for a very long time, not speaking, as they watched the slow gloam fall over the city. She was warm in his embrace, and she leaned back and trusted in the solidness of him. He rubbed the coldness from her shins, and she watched the freckles on his fingers as they slowly traced the sharp bone in her knee.

When he kissed her neck gently, she closed her eyes again and happily forgot all about the promise not to show him her underwear.

“Wake up! ” She shook him violently. The boy peeled his eyes open. She stood over him with an armful of dark clothes. She leaned in and whispered excitedly, “Get dressed! We are going on a grand adventure. ”

He was still half-asleep as Agnes dragged him along the Pit Road and out of the scheme. Here, in the middle of the night, the peatbogs were pitch-black, and everything was silent but for the low gurgle of burn water and the song of bog toads. Since Eugene, it all seemed less ominous to her now, less of a sucking black hole meant to keep her stuck. Now she laughed as Shuggie whined, and she marched, cajoled, and dragged him along in the darkness, never breaking her happy song: Ah beg yar parhdun, ah never promis’t yo-hoo a rose garh-dun. In her spare hand she swung a half dozen black bin bags. In one of them something metal and heavy clanged noisily about, something like tinned lager.

When they reached the fast road to Glasgow they snuck past the petrol station until they were under the shadows of the oak trees that lined the motorway. She watched the wide road for a break in the traffic, and then they darted out to the island in the middle of the carriageway. Like fugitives they crouched under the cover of some thick, jagged bushes. Agnes was giggling as she tipped up the black bin bags and out fell a shovel and a set of small gardening spades.

“Right, we have to be quick, ” she whispered, hacking at the soft mulch with the little spade. “We are not leaving till we get Every. Single. One. ”

Shuggie lay on top of his bed still dressed in his burglar’s best. He chewed his lip as he thought about the red-headed man who had been kissing his mother and had put a song back on her lips. He wanted to ask Leek about it, but his brother had disappeared under the hillock of his bed sheets and the boy knew better than to rip him from his dreams. He padded across the carpet and pulled back a flap of curtain.

What he saw made no sense at first. Outside the window the grubby council garden had been transformed. The small plot that was once brown dirt and waist-high grass was a waving ocean of colour. Dozens of healthy, fat flowers waved in the breeze: peach, cream, and scarlet roses, all dancing and bobbing like happy balloons.

He went outside into the clear morning and gathered up any petals that had already fallen from the roses. When he stood up, the five McAvennie children were already hung on the wooden fence like windblown carrier bags. They gawped, slack-jawed, at the sea of pretty flowers, breathing heavy through open mouths. “Where’d ye get them? ” screeched Dirty Mouse, the middle of the girls.

“I don’t know, ” Shuggie lied.

“Well, they wurny there last night. ” A ring of chocolate cereal scum already framed her mouth. Her mousey hair was matted at the sides and pointed westwards down the road like it was giving directions on a windy day.

“Maybe they just popped up, ” he answered. “Like magic. ”

The mouth-breathers laughed, a deep slow laugh. Francis, the eldest, stuck his hand over the fence and plucked a whole head off a white rose.

“Hey! ” shrieked Shuggie, sounding more like a shrew than he would’ve liked. “Please, don’t do that. ”

The boy climbed higher up the fence, until the topmost railing stuck in his thin belly. “Who’s gonnae fuckin’ stop me? ” he threatened.

“It’s just, they’re not yours to ruin! ”

“They’re no yours either, fuckwit, ” spat Dirty Mouse, giddy with the promise of a fight. She was half Shuggie’s age and already had the better of him.

“Ye think they just grew overnight? ” asked Francis.

“Maybe. ”

“Jesus Christ, you’re a wee poofy dafty, ” said Dirty Mouse, baring her sharp baby teeth in a grin. The McAvennies laughed and bounced on the fence, shouting in chorus, “Wee poofy daft-eee, Wee poo-oofy dafty. ” Their voices rang down the quiet street louder than any ice cream van chime.

“Ye like willies and bums, ” said Francis. “Ma mammy said to stay away fae ye, in case ye try and put yer finger up my arse! ” The children bounced violently on the fence and clawed at him. They took turns spitting into the garden, arching high and spraying the boy and the plump flowers. One by one, they peeled off the fence and laughed all the way back across the street. Once inside their gate, Dirty Mouse turned and then waved quite happily.

Shuggie watched them soldier in through the front door. He pulled the arm of his black jumper over his knuckles and wiped the spit from his face. As soon as he did, he regretted it. Colleen McAvennie was at the window smoking, her arms folded across her thin body and a sharp smile plastered across her sunken, tea-coloured face.

All the windows were thrown open, and the cassette deck played on the sill. Agnes stood amongst her roses in cut-off denims and an old cotton top, whose straps she had pushed down so as not to ruin the lines of her sunburn. That summer had been unusually hot, with a series of long, dry days all strung together and a clear sun that rewarded enthusiasm with the threat of heatstroke and blisters.

Agnes whirled as though dancing with an imaginary partner. “Get your wee arse outside and dance with your mother, ” she called too loudly, her voice bouncing off the miners’ houses.

Inside, in the shade of the cool bedroom, Shuggie scowled on the edge of his bed. He had been skulking since that morning. “Look, you can’t sit inside all day, ” Agnes had coaxed. “The sun will soon be away for another year, and then you’ll be sorry. ” She’d spun around, swinging a trowel, like she was mental. She’d looked as happy as he could ever remember, and he was surprised how this hurt. It was all for the red-headed man. He had done what Shuggie had been unable to do.

Agnes looked like the goddess of all roses. Her shoulders and face were flushed bright pink from the summer sun. Her rosy spider veins, from the years of winters and drink, shone on her happy cheeks. It was like Disney himself had coloured her and brought her to life, a fleshier, smokier Snow White.

Agnes pushed the top half of her body through his window and rested her melting boobs on the window frame. At least this was mildly better, he thought, for at least she wasn’t spinning and dancing like a maddie for all to see. He had never been embarrassed by the sober her before. It was a new and unwelcome feeling.

Shuggie sat on his hands to keep himself from clenching his fists. He dreamt of throwing frustrated punches. Some were for the stupid roses, some for the stupid McAvennies, but most were because he had waited so long for this happiness and now he couldn’t seem to enjoy it.

He looked up, and she was still smiling, dementedly, but it was contagious all the same. Her arms had been scratched by rose thorns but she didn’t seem to mind. “You can’t sit inside like an auld wummin. Meet me round the back garden. ”

Agnes disappeared from view, and Shuggie sulked for a while longer. A single white hand appeared from the cocoon of Leek’s bed sheets. It pointed threateningly at Shuggie and then, with a jerk of the thumb, pointed threateningly towards the back garden. Shuggie knew his brother had been staying up later now that their mother was sober. He had been drawing, on large rolls of graph paper, schematics of woodwork cabinets he planned to build for his side of the bedroom. The first was a complicated unit to hold his stereo and LPs. Next to that he planned a low pine desk with covered shelves, so that he had somewhere comfortable to draw and a place to lock his imaginings away from his brother. Shuggie had spent hours poring over the drawings while Leek was at his apprenticeship. The units screwed directly into the stone walls. Shuggie ran his hands over the drawings and liked the sense of permanence.

Shuggie could still hear his mother singing. There was a loud metal clang that made Leek kick at his bed sheets and turn over violently. Shuggie took the warning and moped out of the dark house and into the sunlight. He turned the corner into the back garden and found her bent over with a garden hose in her hand, filling a white metal box with water.

She had pushed the Donnelly’s worn out fridge-freezer over on to its side. For a year it had sat dirty and mouldy in the shadows of the house, waiting for the council to cart it away. The council wouldn’t take it till it was put on the front kerb, and despite the four strapping teenage boys in Bridie’s house, the fridge had sat and sat and sat. It smelled sour and milky in the summer and dank and foustie in the winter. Agnes had pulled out all the wire drawers and was filling it with water. The heavy metal door swung open like the lid to a coffin.

There was a tangle of emotion. The desire to jump into the cold fridge and shut the lid on himself wrestled with the need to tell her he loved her and that he was glad she was better. He wanted to crush her with his secrets the way she had once done him with hers.

“What’s wrong with me, Mammy? ” he asked quietly.

Agnes crossed the garden and wiped his hot face with a cool hand. “Feel that? You are burning up. Ten, it’s just a funny age. I think mibbe you just have a bad case of growing up. ” Without any negotiation she slipped the black jumper over his head and pulled his trousers down. “Underpants or no underpants? ” she asked.

“Underpants, obviously, ” he tutted and folded his arms. “We’re not all in Africa. ”

The inside of the fridge was full to the top with cool, running water. Once on its side it was a topsy-turvy world of knobs and vegetable compartments. With all the wire shelves removed it was as big as a bathtub but twice as deep, with a flat bottom and straight sides. He sank slowly into the cold water and it ran over the sides. He shot to his feet again and looked at Agnes with panic.

“Are you getting my grass wet? ” she laughed.

Shuggie pulled up his legs and dropped like a stone into the cool water. With a loud slosh it cascaded over the side and on to the grass. Under the water the world stopped. A wrinkly face appeared above the surface and smiled down on him. The tangle of anger inside him vanished, and he farted big bubbles.

He sat in the fridge for most of the afternoon, long after his skin looked like the top of old porridge. Agnes sat on the edge, smoking her cigarettes, drinking actual cold tea from the mug that used to house the secret drink. The overflowing water made the denim of her shorts turn a deep wet blue. He liked that she didn’t get angry about it.

She stroked his inky hair as he made faces like a little fish for her. “What kind of man are you going to be when you grow up? ”

“What do you want me to be? ”

Agnes thought for a moment. “Peaceful. ” She pushed at his wet hair again. “Less worried-looking. ”

His face screwed up in a thoughtful knot. “I dunno. I just want to be with you. I want to take you away somewhere we can be brand-new. ” Shuggie slid down into the water, sending another wave over the edge. He reappeared, and his mouth was at water level. “Do you love that big ginger man? ” he asked suddenly, sinking lower. “Is he to be my new father? ”

She didn’t answer.

“He’s a McAvennie, and they’re a bunch of dirty bastards. ”

Agnes drew in through her teeth, “Well. They’re not all bad. ”

“They bloody are. ” He relaxed and let out another bubbly fart. It wasn’t that funny, but they both tried to laugh.

She had been smiling, but then the clouds came back over her face. “It’s been me and you too long. ”

Shuggie watched her mouth stiffen. She exhaled deeply as she stood up and gathered her cigarettes and lighter. She didn’t look down into the fridge but out over the brown peat fields. “It’s been me and you too long, ” she sighed again. “It’s not right. ”

Agnes ripped open the envelope meant to pay the catalogue. Flush with petrol-station wages, she handed him a big blue note and let him take the whole crisp fiver out to the ice cream van. Across the scheme gas meters were cracked open, bronze pennies were counted, and all of Pithead spilt out into the street, trying to be first in line for a mouthful of sugar. Dirty, happy weans ran at a gallop, and housewives did a funny rolling speedwalk.

The ice cream van made it through one jangly round of “Flower o’ Scotland” before there was a jostling crowd threatening to tip it over. It was a big, white tin trap of a box, and it looked like it had been home-made from a toddler’s drawing of what a van should look like. It had seen better days: holes had been smashed in the side and later covered with bits of tin and wood that had been flat-screwed in place. It was set high on its wheels, and children stretched on tiptoes to reach the sliding-glass window. If sweeties weren’t pushed up against the glass they could never see what was for offer. Gino, the Italian who drove it, liked it that way. It was braw for looking down young lassies’ tops.

Shuggie stood at the back of the jittery queue. He stood behind Shona Donnelly, who lived above them, Bridie’s youngest and her only girl. She turned and winked at him and pulled her top lower to reveal the rosy bow that lay in the centre of her training bra. When you had four brothers you were made sharp to the ways of men, and when you were the only girl you always got sent to Gino’s ice cream van. Shona made a funny face like a gurgling toad and rolled her eyes.

Jinty McClinchy was an age ordering her rolling tobacco and peppermint chocolate. The weans after her had no money but a good stash of old ginger bottles that were each worth ten pence. They hoisted them up to the window with a clatter and then took their time spending their winnings. Penny chews and sherbet dabs, cheap chocolate mice and pink marshmallow mushrooms—all counted out one by one. At the back of the queue Shuggie stood with his hands on his hips; he silently corrected Gino’s arithmetic every time he deliberately short-changed someone.

They spent the evening sitting on the couch watching soaps, eating their way through all the chocolate bars. They finished one and instantly opened another, carelessly ripping the shiny wrapping paper with happy moans. It felt nice, like they were suddenly millionaires. Shuggie lay on his back, stuffing chocolate into his mouth and looking up into his mother’s face, watching the telly reflected in her big hexagonal glasses. Agnes was sucking the chocolate off the mint-fondant centre, making judgy faces at the drama on the telly. To Agnes, Sue Ellen Ewing was like her reflection but maybe in a funhouse mirror. She could relate to the alcoholic character, and every time she was drunk on the screen Agnes would make a tutting noise and say to Leek, “Oh, that’s just like me, isn’t it! ” Then she would giggle through chocolatey false teeth. The fake glamour of Sue Ellen’s tragedy made it look almost enviable. Agnes would tell the TV, “It’s a disease, you know, ” and “The poor lassie cannae help it. ” Shuggie watched the actress tremble her bottom lip with fake emotion. The whole thing was a pile of lies. Where was the head in the oven and the house full of gas? Where were the tears and the half-dressed uncles and the sister who would never come home?

The curtains lay open, and the orange lights came on all over the scheme. Dallas finished, and the street began to empty of weans. The chocolate ran out, and they sat in silence, feeling sick and rotten and only half watching the adverts with talking chimpanzees on them.

“Dance for me, Hugh, ” said Agnes, out of the blue.

“Eh? ” answered Shuggie, rolling over on the carpet.

Leek groaned, he didn’t like it when she made a pet of his brother. What good was a soft boy in a hard world? He left them to their nonsense. They listened to him slam his bedroom door and knew he would be hunched over, his heavy headphones on, drawing again in the black book.

“Go on, dance for me. I want you to show me how the kids today dance. ” Agnes put a cassette in the deck of the rented stereo. As she pulled her beaded jumper down over her thighs, he could see her mind was elsewhere.

“Well, you stand a bit like this. ” He opened his feet to hip-width apart. “And then …” He started to wiggle his bum.

Agnes copied him. “Like this? ” It looked more natural on her, on a woman.

“Then you have to shake your shoulders and move your hands just a little bit. ” He began a jerky shoulder shimmy, like one he had seen on the telly, done by a black singer with shoulder pads and a pineapple-shaped mohawk. “Then do this a little bit, ” he said, moving faster and faster, swinging his palms wide in opposite rotation to his hips, a bit like a skier, a bit like an epileptic.

“Like this? ” she asked, looking like she was having a stroke.

“Well. Mibbe. ” He was not entirely convinced. “Do this next, ” he jerked like a robot and jumped forward and back like he was stamping out a fire.

Agnes tried it, and all the glass ornaments in the cabinet tinkled. “Are you sure this is how the young ones dance the day? ” she said, already flushed from the routine.

“Oh, aye, ” said Shuggie, shimmying his shoulders lower to the ground, placing his hands on either side of his head, like he had a headache. He had just taught her the routine to Janet Jackson’s “Control. ”

“I’m needing to rest for a wee minute. ” She collapsed on to the settee and picked up her cigarettes. “You keep dancing though, and I’ll keep watching. I want to be a good dancer when I go uptown with Eugene. ”

Shuggie felt tricked. If he’d have known that, he would have taught her the zombie dance to “Thriller” instead. That would have shown her. The song changed, and Shuggie kept dancing. It was a self-conscious shimmy now, his hands burst open like fireworks, and his head flicked as if he had long sexy hair. He dipped and popped, using his hips too much for a boy. He emoted along with the song like it was a grand opera, not a three-bar pop-factory hit for thirteen-year-old girls.

“Brilliant! What a smooth mover! ” she said. “I’m going to do all this up the dancing next week. Eugene’ll just die. Just you wait. ”

He was enjoying her attention. Something inside him flowered, and he started popping his body like he’d seen the black boys on telly do. The self-consciousness left him, and he spun and shimmied and shook in all the telly ways. He was mid Cats leap when he let out a sharp scream. It was high-pitched and womanly, the same shriek he let loose when Leek leapt out of the dark at him. Shuggie stood with fingers outstretched, frozen in time. He hadn’t seen them at first, and he would never know how long they had been there. Across the street, in the window of their front room, stood the McAvennies. They pressed against the large glass window, and they were gutting themselves with laughter. The window throbbed as they beat their hands against it with glee. Dirty Mouse did a little sexy, girlish pirouette, and Shuggie realized that was him.

He looked at his mother; when had she noticed? She only looked up at him and took a draw on her fag. Without looking out the window she spoke through clenched teeth. “If I were you, I would keep dancing. ”

“I can’t. ” The tears were coming.

“You know they only win if you let them. ”

“I can’t. ” His arms and fingers were still outstretched and frozen, like a dead tree.

“Don’t give them the satisfaction. ”

“Mammy, help. I can’t. ”

“Yes. You. Can. ” She was still smiling through her open teeth. “Just hold your head up high and Gie. It. Laldy. ”

She was no use at maths homework, and some days you could starve rather than get a hot meal from her, but Shuggie looked at her now and understood this was where she excelled. Everyday with the make-up on and her hair done, she climbed out of her grave and held her head high. When she had disgraced herself with drink, she got up the next day, put on her best coat, and faced the world. When her belly was empty and her weans were hungry, she did her hair and let the world think otherwise.

It was hard at first to start moving again, to feel the music, to go to that other place in your head where you keep your confidence. It didn’t go together, the shuffling feet and the jangly limbs, but like a slow train it caught speed and soon he was flying again. He tried to tone down the big showy moves, the shaking hips and the big sweeping arms. But it was in him, and as it poured out, he found he was helpless to stop it.

Twenty-One

Standing blue-legged in the middle of the football field, he was picked last, as was usual. He had expected that, but it never hurt any less. The fat boy, the asthmatic boy, the gammy-legged boy, and Lachlan McKay, with his love for toads, were all picked before him. In the November smirr they made his team take off their shirts. He walked up and down the pitch, rubbing at his chest, unsure whether it was frozen or scalding hot from the wind.

The teacher yelled that if he was cold, he should move more. His thin plimsolls squeaked in the wet grass, while wiry blue-legged boys tore patches of sod up as they flew past with their studded football boots. He made the lazy effort to be following the general direction of the ball but never made the mistake to come near it. The teacher gave up yelling encouragement and tried insults instead. He was an old man but a fit, flinty one, a Scottish shinty champion in his day. When they banned the cane a few years before he thought he might give up teaching altogether. In the end it made little difference; after all the years of peering into the dark corners of little boys’ souls, he knew where real pain and motivation lay.

He cupped a hand over his mouth and shouted up the pitch. “Move IT, Bain! You little bender. ” It got a cackling laugh from the other boys. They were winded and tired but kept just enough breath to stop and to laugh at that one.

Shuggie hadn’t expected Lachlan McKay to laugh, but he did. The day would have passed slowly like any other, but the dirty blond boy had laughed too. The snot and dirt around his mouth cracked, and he had laughed, open-faced with glee. Shuggie picked up his cold legs and ran up the pitch. Lachlan stood at the back, near his own goal, waiting for the ball. “Why did you just laugh? ”

“Whit? ”

“I said. Why did you laugh? ”

“Cos I felt like it. ” He was picking some mud from his leg. The boy’s clothes were well worn and fit badly. It was his brother’s old shirt turned inside out and some borrowed gym shorts, the ones they gave you when you forgot your kit and tried to stay back and read a book instead. His legs were dirty, several layers deep, and his socks were black dress socks instead of name-brand sports ones.

“But … but, ” Shuggie stammered, drawing his eyes up and down the length of him.

“But fucking what? ” The boy opened himself wide and squared around to Shuggie, moving his head like a fighting ferret.

“But what makes you think you can laugh at me? ”

The ball sailed over them, and the other boys tore up the field like Shetland ponies, cantering as one and giving the impression they were scared to be separated. The teacher stopped at a trot. “Oi, you two ladies, when you are done having tea, how about you play some bloody fitba, ” he barked.

Shuggie might have said something back, might just have said something really cheeky, if the fist hadn’t caught him in the side of the face first. He fell back, into the torn-up grass, the mud splattering up his bare back.

“McKay! ” exhaled the teacher half-heartedly. “What have I telt you? ” he said. The blond boy stood over Shuggie. Shuggie waited for the sweet revenge of punishment, the only true hope of the weakling. “Never. Hit. Girls. Now get back to the game. ” The pitch roared with laughter.

Lachlan had been shaking with anger. “Ye think ye ur better then me, fancy boy? ” he spat. “Youse and me after school, square go. ” The excitement of the threat rippled up and down the pitch.

For the duration of the match, other boys would slow to be near Shuggie and tell him, “Oooh. Aaah. Ye’re dead meat. ” One or two told him that they couldn’t wait, how they wished it was three o’clock already. The McAvennie boys told him they were on his side and then ran over to the blond boy to stir the shit even more.

Lessons for the afternoon passed by in a sea of hairy eyeballs. No one was looking at the teacher, but instead all eyes turned and looked at the dead meat sat at the back of the class. Some of the girls smiled with real sympathy, but most were giddy with the glee of the spectacle. He had barely noticed the big clock above the blackboard before; now all he could do was watch the hands slide round much too fast. Even they looked excited.

The dirty blond boy was emerging unsteadily from a cocoon. He was intoxicated by the worship of his peers. The week before they had told him he smelled like he had shat himself. The week before that they asked whether his mother’s benefit book covered the cost of plastic surgery. Now he sat in their false adoration as they jostled him around, and he grinned like a happy pet. He almost forgot what he was fighting for.

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