There was a terrible cracking noise as someone smacked him round the head from behind. Those following on had caught up. Andy slumped into the church railings.
Vince watched him buckle, head forced between his knees. He gave a grunt of surprise. Then he saw three men in heavy hooded tops and loose tracksuit bottoms. Closest to him, one with lank hair, green in this light, had his car keys bunched across his knuckles.
Andy groaned, shaking his head from side to side. It’s all right for you, Vince thought. You’ve already been hit. You’re exempt from responsibility. You don’t have to do anything now. He bunched his fists by his sides.
‘What was that for?’
The two behind Car Keys had been shuffling away. They had seen the dark trickle running from behind Andy’s ear, shocking as a split in his white collar bone. They snorted at Vince and moved in close again. ‘Fucking queers!’ Car Keys grinned.
‘How can you tell?’ Vince asked.
Car Keys smacked him across the mouth with his empty hand and Vince fell, taking the kick to the stomach surprisingly well. He hooked his fingers into a pavement crack, as if trying to see down it.
‘Cocky little bastard, inne, lads?’
Vince let his forehead rest on the concrete. God, this is so banal, he thought. What’s the matter with them? It’s not even as if we’re getting beaten up by interesting people. Why doesn’t Andy bloody well do something?
Car Keys kicked him again, in the groin, and Vince sent his stomach splashing into the road. He was hoisted up by the armpits against the railings and slumped there, his body below gut-level making no sense at all.
‘We don’t want him choking on his own spew, do we?’
Andy was trying to speak.
‘What’s that one saying?’
He was holding out his palms.
‘Fucking cocksucker!’ They laughed. ‘He’s begging for it.’
Car Keys went over to Andy, gripped his head and pulled it into his own crotch. Andy twisted his head aside. There was a crack, then an acrid smell, the sharp ozone scent of pain and pissy tracksuit. ‘Suck it. Go on.’ They laughed again, then Car Keys pushed him away. He fell into Vince.
‘Come on, lads!’ Having exhausted their range of possibilities, the little gang went away.
‘Vince?’
Vince had been pretending to be dead. He was thoroughly ashamed of himself. ‘Yeah?’
‘For a while there, I couldn’t see.’
‘Shit!’
‘It’s OK now.’ He shifted his weight on to Vince’s legs. He had to whisper. The whole road was rocking from side to side for both of them. Vince whispered back, breathing with difficulty.
‘We’d better move. If the police find us lying like this, they’ll fucking beat us up.’
‘Right.’ But Andy put his bleeding neck down on Vince’s stomach. He too was suddenly fascinated by the weedy cracks in the ground. ‘When I could see again, there were things crawling out of the pavement.’
‘Yeah?’ Vince sounded as if he was trying to sleep. ‘Glowing things. With arms and legs and heads.’
‘He hit you round the head.’ Vince’s hand reached up, touching his shoulder, and Andy gave a sob. ‘Sorry.’
Andy reached the worried hand with his own. ‘Little animals. When I could see again, I saw little animals. They were climbing into my hands.’
‘I’m sorry, Andy. I’m sorry.’
Vince curled over and was sick again.
Having left Jane sprawled on her bed in her best green dress, Fran at last went home. Before passing out, the younger woman had looked around the almost bare room and said, ‘It feels strange without Peter here. Even though he’s asleep through the night and I usually get lonely. I can hear him breathe through the walls. The house seems alive.’ Then her head hit the pillows. Peter was with her mother Rose and, presumably, the man with the wooden leg.
Fran left her breathing coarsely through alcohol fumes. One arm hung limply off the bed. It had dislodged a stack of paperbacks. Their golden titles and authors gleamed under the streetlight poking under the blind. Fran left quietly.
The street was nearly silent. No trouble tonight. But there was that odd tension in the air. It had been around since midsummer, the time of the riots in North Shields. Here there was an air of expectancy. Fran felt the whole town was asking for trouble. She shivered as she passed the bus shelter, but there was no one in there.
She unlocked her kitchen door in a rush of panic and stepped into the dark warmth, wondering how Penny felt. Her kitchen’s slatted light was still glowing. She was up and worrying about Liz. Fran recalled that image of Liz and the bus driver, kissing, pressed close, on the dance floor. Liz had been leading the dance. Was that because she was taller?
With her door securely locked behind her, Fran went about turning lights on. An expensive night. She’d had a good time, though. Not too bad. She was a bit tipsy and not very disappointed and she still looked great to boot. Great-ish.
In the living room, basked by the light from the hall, there was Frank flat out on the settee. The two youngest, Lyndsey and Jeff, were crooked under his arms. All three slumbered peacefully, wrapped up in each other. The carpet was littered with empty beer cans and storybooks.
She frowned at him. She wasn’t drunk. Keeping pace with him had increased her tolerance. His tolerance was beginning to disappear altogether, whereas she was going from strength to strength. She picked up Lyndsey to carry her upstairs.
Frank woke and smiled. She said to him, Thanks for looking after the bairns. You look like an Athena poster, all lying there. Help me with these two.’
He struggled to sit up without disturbing them. He remembered something. ‘Oh, yeah. We set the gerbils free by mistake.’
Via Phoenix Court, Serpentine Walk, Guthrum Place and finally Sid Chaplin Close, Penny was striding purposefully out of the
