the eyes of some of the men at those parties, what some of them had asked him to do. Some part of him had enjoyed the danger. He had taken all the chances and laughed when Rahim had talked about playing it safe.
‘That’s what nice Indian boys like us are meant to do,’ he had said.
Yeah, well, Rahim thought, the anger rising up in him suddenly. Which of us is still here? Which of us has all this? He looked around at his expensive furniture, listened to the jazz whispering from his expensive speakers. The things that caution had bought him.
The drugs. The knife in his hand.
Amin had been the one that night, after it had all happened, who had come up with the story about the party. Rahim had been hysterical, had wanted to tell the police everything, but Amin had told him that they would be all right, that they just needed to stick to their story.
To stick together.
Rahim had never visited him in Barndale, never written him a letter. At the funeral, he had sat in the corner with some of the other boys they had met at the ‘parties’ and laughed at half-remembered stories. He had eaten samosas and drunk Kingfisher like a big man and had not been able to look Nadira or Javed Akhtar in the eye.
One of these men might have killed Amin.
The music finished and, in the few seconds of silence before the next track, Thorne’s words came back to him.
Rahim turned the knife over in his hand, the wooden handle slick against his palm. He placed the edge of the blade against his wrist and began to press.
He cried out and jerked the knife away the instant it broke the skin. He pushed his wrist against his mouth and sucked. Why had he thought, for even one second, that he would have the courage? He stared down at his wrist and watched the scarlet line rise up again through the skin and begin to run.
He reached across the table for a banknote and rolled it, then when he lowered his head towards the first line of cocaine, he watched a drop of blood splash down into the white powder. He angled his wrist so that more would follow.
Rahim remembered his friend slipping as he bent to pick up the knife that Lee Slater had dropped, and screaming as he lunged. He remembered sitting on the ground and watching it all happen, his own arse wet and cold, and safe.
He stared down at the table, remembered blood on the snow.
FORTY
No ‘birds’ whatsoever had proved to be even remotely ‘up for it’ by the time Allen and Bridges left their fourth pub of the evening. They had tried their luck gamely in each place and Bridges called the latest woman to reject their advances a ‘fat lesbian’ before the pair of them stumbled out on to the Lower Clapton Road. Allen said, ‘She wasn’t fat,’ which reduced Bridges to fits of hysterics and they were both still laughing fifteen minutes later when they arrived at Allen’s front door.
‘Nice place, pal,’ Bridges said, when they got inside. He walked across to the stereo and whistled. ‘Where did you get all this gear, then? It’s like one of them shops on Tottenham Court Road or something.’
‘Came into some money, didn’t I.’
‘Where from?’
Pissed as he was, and tempted to show off, Allen knew better than to say any more. He shrugged.
Bridges did not seem bothered. ‘We could have had a major party in here if your ugly mug hadn’t put all the slags off.’
‘I think that was you, mate.’
‘Bollocks!’
They both started laughing again. Allen’s dog came running in from another room and they both made a fuss of it for a while.
‘Beers?’
‘In the fridge.’
‘Go on then,’ Bridges said.
Allen collected four cans from the kitchen, and by the time he came back in, Bridges had selected a CD and turned the volume up good and loud. They opened cans and stood grinning at one another, heads nodding in time to the music and fingers moving against the tins as though they were the necks of Fender Strats.
‘Slayer,’ Bridges shouted above the squeal of a guitar. ‘Fucking excellent.’
Allen nodded. ‘Top band.’ He moved to nudge the volume down. Said, ‘Neighbours can get a bit arsey.’
‘Leave it.’ Bridges sat on the floor and leaned back against the sofa. The dog jumped up and lay down behind him. ‘Fuck ’em.’
Allen turned the volume down just a little, then joined Bridges on the floor and they sat and smoked and drank a couple each. They talked about their time at Barndale and other places. The screws they had hated, the scraps and the war stories.
‘Like a holiday camp,’ Bridges said. ‘Barndale. Compared to some, you know?’
‘No holiday camp I’m ever going to visit,’ Allen said.
‘They all get easier after a while.’
‘Not going back, mate.’
‘Right.’
‘Straight up,’ Allen said. ‘Got a bit of dosh now, going to get things sorted out.’ He picked up the empty cans and carried them towards the kitchen.
‘Don’t be such an old woman,’ Bridges said.
Allen turned in the doorway, the empties clutched to his chest. ‘Spent too much time in a pigsty,’ he said. ‘My place stays nice and tidy from now on.’ He walked into the kitchen, dumped the cans into the bin and pressed his forehead to the cool glass in the back door. He stared at the outline of the plastic chairs on the dark patio outside and hoped that Bridges was not planning on staying too much longer. Allen was one more beer from slaughtered now and struggling to think straight. He just wanted to crash out, to curl up with his dog and get some sleep.
When he came back into the living room, Bridges was taking his works out of a battered metal tobacco tin. A syringe and a needle, a crooked and blackened tablespoon, a wrap of paper.
‘Get us some water, would you, pal?’
Allen turned and walked back towards the kitchen.
‘Got any lemon juice?’
‘Who d’you think I am, Jamie fucking Oliver?’
‘Vinegar?’
‘Yeah, somewhere.’
‘That’ll do.’
He came back with a glass of water and a Sarsons bottle, sat and watched Bridges tip the drug carefully out into the spoon and drizzle a few drops of vinegar on it. Bridges filled the syringe with water, added it to the spoon, then heated the mixture over a lighter. He broke off the filter from a cigarette, dropped it into the bubbling brown mess and drew the liquid up through it into the syringe. Then he fixed the needle, the movements small and sure. He told Allen to take off his belt and once Allen had handed it over, he tied it around his arm, tapped up a vein and injected himself. His head nodded a few times and when he finally looked up and across at Allen, he looked as though he’d just come in his pants.
‘Beautiful,’ he said.
‘How you getting home?’ Allen asked.
Bridges held up the syringe, shook what liquid was still left inside. ‘Come on, we’ll do half each,’ he said. ‘Seeing as I’m feeling generous.’
‘I’m fine, mate,’ Allen said. ‘You do the lot.’
‘You scared?’ Bridges showed as many ratty-looking teeth as he had left. ‘You never shot up before?’
‘Course I have. Just too pissed to enjoy it, that’s all.’
