But sometimes you had to make a stand …
James straightened up, and the man with the tattoo looked him up and down. James could almost watch him think: now it was four against three, although Ang barely counted. James wasn’t big, but he was an extra pair of fists, while Pavel was tall and unafraid, and Mikey looked like an enthusiast, even with the leg of his jeans rolled up.
James felt relief in his gut. Nothing was going to happen.
And nothing would have, if Ang had held his nerve.
But he made a sudden break for it – twisting off his chair and diving into the Friday-night crowd.
It stopped him like a wall and in a second they were on him, and James and Pavel and Mikey were on them, and a dozen lads who’d been preparing all night for a fight – any fight – joined in on any side that would have them.
It was the first fight James had been in for years, but by the time someone shouted that the police were coming, he had cleared a space around himself and a circle of people were regarding him warily. The three young men were nowhere to be seen.
Someone tugged at his sleeve and he knocked them away and turned to fight, whoever it was.
‘Whoa there!’ It was Mikey, ducking a bit. ‘Come on,’ he added urgently, ‘let’s go out the back.’
‘Where’s Ang?’ said James, and Ang and Pavel appeared as if by magic. They were all a little dishevelled, and Ang’s lip was split, but they were all in one piece.
‘Thanks a bunch,’ Ang panted sincerely. ‘Thanks a fucking bunch.’
They started laughing then. Partly Ang’s words and partly the adrenaline high of having fought and won.
James led them giggling around the bar, starting to jog. By the time they passed the toilets, they were running full pelt and laughing, and he hit the back door so hard he almost took it off its hinges.
It was raining outside but nothing could dampen their spirits – not even the kegs that Pavel knocked over, or the rusted nail that dug into Ang’s hand. All of it was just hilarious, now they weren’t dead.
Looking down the alleyway alongside the pub, they could see the flickering lights of a police car, so they turned round, following the high wall along the back of the yard. A train passed under the bridge and James pulled himself up the wall high enough to watch its curved, wet roof disappear into the darkness.
‘Yahhhhh!’ he shouted after it. ‘Yahhhhhhhh!’
‘Nutter,’ laughed Mikey.
‘Motherfucker,’ laughed Ang, and the other three looked at each other in surprise. Then James said, ‘More tea, vicar?’ and they all laughed so hard that Mikey actually cried and they all had to shush each other constantly so the police wouldn’t find them here behind the bins that smelled of chip fat and gangrene.
When they stepped out of the alleyway, it was into the crowd that had emptied from the front door of the King’s Arms, illuminated in slow blue flickers by the lights of the police cars.
Mikey whistled for a taxi, and he and Pavel climbed into it. They lived in the other direction from the garage.
‘You OK?’ said Mikey.
‘Yeah, mate,’ said James. ‘Bloody brilliant.’
‘You’re a nutter,’ said Mikey, in a voice that sobered James up, because it didn’t sound like Mikey was joking. He was looking at him hard, and James wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, in case he had blood there – or food, even though he hadn’t eaten a thing.
‘What?’ he said.
‘Nothing,’ said Mikey. ‘Maybe get some peas for your hands.’
‘Yeah, I will,’ said James, although he didn’t know what the hell Mikey was talking about. Mikey was the nutter; everyone knew that.
They all said goodnight and fuck off and up yours, and then Mikey saw the two girls from earlier in the pub and called them over, and James and Ang watched as – somehow – he charmed them both into the cab and drove off across Bickley Bridge.
‘Unbelievable,’ said James.
‘Shit,’ said Ang.
They walked the short way to the garage together, both hunched against the rain.
Ang peeled off and started patting his pockets.
‘Got the keys?’ James hoped he did, because otherwise he would have to take him home with him, and Anna would be angry. They used to have Ang up for supper all the time, and on cold nights he would stay on the sofa. But now Anna wouldn’t have anyone in the flat because of the germs. James suspected that even he wouldn’t be welcome, if he wasn’t the one paying the rent. Ang never said anything about it, and the only time James had tried to explain, he’d just nodded and smiled and said, Is good –as if he had never wanted a decent meal or a warm sofa in the first place.
Ang took the garage keys from his pocket and dangled them at James.
James opened his own front door just a few yards away, and they both raised a hand in goodbye.
James closed the door behind him—
never without thinking of Daniel
—and took off his boots.
He winced as his knuckles protested at being asked to perform intricate manoeuvres like pulling on a lace. Only then did he remember what Mikey had said about the peas. Frozen peas to take the swelling down.
He went up the stairs and opened the door of the freezer compartment. It was small, and made smaller by the overgrowth of ice around its entrance.
There were no frozen peas – just an empty ice tray and half a box of fish fingers.
James took them out and stared at the box. Fish fingers were Daniel’s favourite. He put them back.
‘Anna! he said loudly. ‘We got any peas?’
She didn’t answer. It didn’t matter. Where would they be if they weren’t in the freezer? And if they were anywhere but the freezer, they were no good to him.
He shook his head.