Town

Fifteen years ago.

Mum’s kitchen, inlayed ceiling lights, dimmer switch, teak-effect cupboard doors with metal handles, Pendal leaning on the counter with a rollie saying, Let’s go town, come on mate, come on, you know they’re cunts about getting in after twelve, get that stamp thing then we’ll go Pav Gardens, glug glug glug, the smell of weed smoke and fizz-burn of Grolsch at the back of your throat, and what’s that, what’s that, the click of an iPod wheel, scrolling through songs, coming out of your speakers, the iPod big and clunky in Newt’s hands, square window screen, greenish light, because this is a memory, you are remembering this, and all of the details turn into aesthetics, don’t they, just kind of melt until the past feels like a polaroid, then a digital camera with the flash on, then a cameraphone photo with the date in little yellow writing in the bottom right-hand corner, doesn’t it? And was Newt really saying, This, my brother, will melt your face, trust me, get yourself a dark room, good sound, it’s fucking terrifying, was he really talking with one arm around Gary, headphones shared, one ear each? Was he?

Everything in the kitchen comes in a microwave box, black rectangles of warped plastic, smeared with pieces of hardened shepherd’s pie, cardboard sleeves discarded, and these are all over the fucking place, piled on the counter, and how much time did you spend waiting for that bing, easing gloopy lasagne onto IKEA plates or rushing in from the other room because you’d put the beans in for too long and they were starting to pop, and from the speakers comes Your body breaks, your needs consume you forever, some old song even then, and you think juvenilia, melodrama, bunch of kids in the suburbs playing at being depressed, how much of a crisis can you really have in a house with a driveway, and then you think well it is kinda true, right? Right?

Pendal is punching your arm, dancing, feigning across the burnt orange tiles, saying let’s go town, fuck that slaaag, meet her later, his t’s all squashed, lost somewhere in his throat, and you look up from the phone that Millie still hasn’t text, three hours after she said she’d let you know what the score was with meeting by the clock tower and getting shots somewhere and all that, glance again at the letter from the hospital, the horrible letter with its cheerful healthcare-aqua letterhead, and think about your mum staying in London to get the tests, the last chance to find out it’s not what it definitely is, the reason for the free house, how not one of your mates asked where she was, and in the background is the table, sky-lined with beer cans and red lidded vodka bottles and two litre plastic bottles of cider and a foam-smeared bowl of dirty pint that Newt just downed under table-thumping chorus, bits of coke-black liquid dribbling down his chin, and he’s slumped in his hoodie, looking real hard at his hands and trying not to throw up and you know he wants someone to suggest you sack it off and stay in and watch Match of the Day but it’s barely gone nine and if he does then you’ll all call him a larry and a pussy and a little bitch and Gary will literally take an egg out of the fridge and lob it at his face and this barely dormant threat of violence keeps his gob shut for the time being.

Five years later.

Back room of the Duke of York, playing pool, wood paneling, chalk scoreboard, drinking Harvey’s out of a Harvey’s pint glass, logo with the hops, salt and vinegar split on the little round table, Gary chalking his cue and rubbing bits in between his pointer and his thumb for extra grip, and Newt goes, Why do you think there were so many James’ in our year, like, there really were a lot, a real glut, and Gary lines up his shot and stands up again and walks around to check the angle, and says, what, three? You, obviously, Mackenzie, fucking, whathisname. Skinny little shit. James Thomas, you say. Raise a finger in the air. Never trust a man that has two first names.

Gary’s back leaning over the table, eye-level with the white, about to take his shot, saying, I had a sex dream the other day, about Kasia, which in my opinion is a disgrace, but you think this is kind of sweet, kind of romantic, and you say so, and Gary looks at you, stands up from the table and says, Awake, I can only fuck one woman, when I’m asleep, it’s a different game, the woman don’t even need to exist. Zero guilt. I get, maximum, three sex dreams a year. So if I have one about Kasia, that’s my brain being retarded, anyway, and he wellies the white with plenty of screw and the balls are clinking off each other and thudding off the cushion and a red is down and then another and Gary’s arms are in the air but he’s frozen and so are you and Newt as the white concludes this particular movement by slowly rolling towards the centre left pocket, pausing briefly to hover on the edge of the hole, hang there like a rollercoaster at the apex, Gary’s face an absolute picture as the white clunks down the pocket and gets spat back out by the mechanism.

Fuck sake.

It’s not three by the way, says Newt, as you place the white in the semi-circle and take a fancy to the yellow at the far end. So, the crypto thing, Gary says. Talk me through it. The money is getting mined. Not actually mined, you say, like, there’s not men somewhere with pickaxes digging up Bitcoin. They’re more like codebreakers, working out problems that turn into more currency. Gary looks sceptical. And that creates money? That you can buy shit with? Yes, you say, providing that both sides agree to the transaction. It all happens online. So if I wanted to, says Newt, I could just not agree to accept the payment? Yeah, you say. Sounds like a scam to me, says Gary. All fiat currency is based on a shared agreement of value though, you say. That’s what money is, it isn’t actually worth anything, just what we agree it’s worth. Well, says Gary, wearing a smirk, I agree that this twenty pound note I mined from NatWest is worth another round.

Where do these nights go? Headfirst into sea wind, whipping off the Channel, orange streetlight softly wallowing in wet tarmac, televisions flickering on postered walls through upstairs windows, lines of overflowing recycling bins outside mottled terrace houses, Victorian pubs, Edwardian pubs with heavy wooden doors, slaloming between little stools pulled up to tables, picking at candles and feeding the wax back in, lines of whisky bottles glistening, glowing, backlit, barman with a tattoo of a children’s cartoon you can’t place on his bicep, his large bicep, and the beer goes down easy, seems to disappear, Newt drinking a pint of gin and tonic because he’s got some theory about hangovers, taking electrolyte pills in between rounds, a habit that got you kicked out of the last place, none of that shit here lads, go on, scarper, and Gary bitching about his wedding, It’s a scam man, the whole thing, fuckin’ spoons, I’m spending two hundred quid on spoons, and Newt says, My Uncle, he got married, didn’t tell my Aunt, she just comes home and, well, here he stops to take a drink, big gulp, little dribble of tonic in his beard, so she comes home from the post office or whatever and the Vicar’s there in the garden, (Bullshit, you say), swear down, he got it all sorted beforehand because he didn’t want her to invite her parents, (Bullllllllshit), I swear to God that’s how it went down, out to the shops, come back home, canapés and shit all laid out, all his brothers there, Cath was there, that’s her mate, and yeah, married in the garden.

Chance would be a fine thing, says Gary, putting his head in his hands.

At a bar now, with lights in all the worst colours of light, artificial purples and oranges, where shots come in plastic glasses like mouthwash at the dentist, and men circle, white polo shirts done up to the top button, Finnish snipers in the Winter War, placing a hand on a waist as they pass, buying a drink, searching for eye contact or else giving up and staring from the perimeter tables at the women’s bodies as they half-dance, half-chat in groups, and you think what are we doing here anyway, why do the pubs have to close so fucking early, I just want to talk, I just want to hear myself think, and Gary reaches out and grabs your arm and guides you to one side, and you glance behind and realise you were blocking his view of a girl, sucking on a little black straw, purple eye-shadow, chipmunk cheeks, and Newt is back with the drinks saying, They don’t do fresh lime, bird looked at me like I was a right twat, and Gary says, Do you listen to podcasts?, and you shake your head, and he says, Kasia’s right into them. Always puts them on in the van. There’s this one she likes called Men we fucked or Guys we sucked off or something, I don’t know, basically these two American slags talking about sex, does my nut in, and you feel an urge to placate, so you say, Yeah, can you imagine the other way round? Men doing a podcast about women they’d shagged? They’d get slaughtered, and Gary nods knowingly, like you’ve hit upon a deep truth about the universe, but Newt has a gleam in his eye and says, Mate, if you were the host, that would be a fucking short podcast, and Gary laughs and nods at Newt and says, Yeah, better leave that one to me and the Newt-man, and Newt puts an arm on your shoulder and says, Don’t worry mate, I’m sure you could do a spin-off, Women I’ve looked at from across the room, or Girls I thought might have been into me but I never had the balls to find out, hey, you could do a special on Millie Oates, and a sadness rises in you that these are your mates and this is your life and you feel shockingly alone, because last week you slept with a man for the first time, let an older man take you up narrow steps to his flat in Soho, this art gallery owner, let him take you between gin and tonics, made with tonic that came in individual cans, like on an aeroplane, let him take you between strange wooden sculptures of pregnant women he told you were fertility symbols, and you didn’t feel as though you were contributing consciously, just letting him fuck you, as absurd as that sounds, doing him a favour, helping an old man across the road, and you want desperately to talk about this with someone, but you’re staring into Newt’s mocking eyes and laughing because you know you have to laugh at things like this even though the rituals of straightness looks ridiculous to you now, completely empty and unappetising, and you feel sick and want to go home and lie in bed and feel your room spin and scroll through endless porn, getting bolder, more obscure and niche, more hardcore in your searches, learning about yourself, blaming it on the drink, wanking yourself to sleep.

Later on, in the All Night Diner, feeling a bit better now the night has an end, pushing around fried eggs, stabbing chips with a fork and running them through the beans, Gary gone soft, not saying much, glancing with the sad eyes of a fiancée at the girl across the way in the polka-dot dress, Newt discussing the latest discussion, ordering English breakfast ingredients in terms of preference, going straight in with beans, saying they tie the whole thing together, that an English breakfast without beans is like a house without a roof, and you begin to bicker, saying, That’s outrageous, eggs, bacon, sausages, fundamentals, and Gary says, Are we including sauce in this?, to which Newt replies, Brown sauce, has to be, and tea, what about tea does that count as an ingredient?, and the only thing you end up agreeing on is that fried tomatoes are bollocks, some kind of pathetic attempt at making people feel healthy, and a thought comes floating up from the back of your brain like a fart in the bath and you say, Newt, hey, what were you chatting earlier in the Duke? About the James’, something about James’, and he goes, Oh yeah, and swallows a forkful of mushrooms and there’s a second of silence and then he says, Pendal was a James, remember? James Pendal.

Fifteen years ago, you don’t go out straight away at ten like you normally would to catch the 10:18 bus, because Gary’s been paid and said he’d stump up for a cab, since he’s the only one with a real job, carrying furniture with his old man, you and Newt at college, specky cunts, and Pendal on the dole but with connections, mysterious jobs that showed up on a Wednesday afternoon and required jumping trains and rendezvous in Croydon and way too much talk of gak for the yaks and freight being trafficked and boarding the ferry (to Gurnsey, geddit?), and where once he always had weed now he always had a phone call to take, and you found it funny in a cartoonish way because he wasn’t some dealer, he was fucking Pendal and he was sitting in your kitchen clear as day and you’re playing categories and Newt’s thrown up and had a few Pro Plus and a second wind and now you’re arguing about whether Istanbul counts as a European capital, and this is the bit you always remember, the bit you recount ad nauseam on more than one occasion in the chewy hours of the early morning, sitting on a stranger’s sofa, high as fuck, gliding through endless London streets, black wrought-iron fences, dark daggers pointed at the sky, dramatising this important experience, this movie-moment, to impress strangers, to make them want to fuck you more, walking the fine line between presenting it too proudly as a personal exhibit from life’s museum of endless fuckery and bursting into tears.

Because it didn’t have to happen. That’s your frame of understanding. Newt didn’t have to sweep his arm in a grand gesture to represent the expansive mass of Europe, fingertips brushing the Caucasus, saying, Of all the cities in the whole continent, you had to choose the one capital that is technically in Asia, Gary looking bashful like he always did when it came to scholarly discourse, Gary who would say later he only went with Istanbul because his mind blanked and he was embarrassed about going for Barcelona last round and since he’d walked past a kebab shop on the way over called Istanbul Fire it was in his head, and Newt saying, In any case you could have had Copenhagen, or Dublin, fucking Berlin, Jesus I don’t think anyone even said London–
Whatever the case, he certainly didn’t have to finish the admonishment with a final flick, knocking his pint glass of vodka and coke half off the table and onto Pendal’s lap.

There’s a dinner party, now, and you’re there.

Newt’s there too, it’s his party, in his thirties, suddenly old in that way people seem when you only see them intermittently, hairline in retreat, grey in his beard, and Gary with a new woman now he’s left Kasia, Dawn or something, much younger, hopelessly dolled up, and you’re wondering how long it will be until Newt gets too pissed and knocks something over and whether that will happen before or after Gary mentions again the fortune he made on Bitcoin and that he owns two flats now not including his own gaff, all without a handout from his folks, and then catches your eye as if to say I don’t mean you mate, it doesn’t count if your mum dies, and it’s Christmas time and Brighton is beautiful and dark and lit up and flickering and the only things that touched you as you walked the streets to Newt’s house were bottles being opened and people laughing and the smell of cloves and orange peel from steaming pots of mulled wine and the sad fog of a city that is no longer yours in the way it had been and would never be again.

Newt has invited you for dinner but he can’t really cook.

He stands by the cooker, stirring things, chopping things, on occasion rushing to the fridge and frantically rustling plastic, piling ingredients on the counter, and it’s all you can do not to stand up and intervene, because you know the sauce is sticking to the pan and you’ve never seen someone take so long to slice an onion, and you wonder if Newt has forgotten you’re vegetarian now because there seems to be a lot of mince going on, and all the while Dawn keeps saying how nice everything in the kitchen is and how lovely the dinner smells and smiling at you forcefully, and you can tell Gary wants to take the piss and tell her that it’s nice because it belongs to Newt’s parents, who he has moved back in with for nebulous reasons related to getting dumped and saving for a deposit and doing Teach First, but he stays quiet, looking pensively at the glass of lager Newt keeps refilling on the side, the only part of the current operation going smoothly, and you feel a sudden warmth towards Gary, your old friend, because years have to mean something, even if you’ve given up pretending they mean a lot.

Dawn puts her hands on the table, long pink acrylics, two thick silver rings in a Celtic style, and goes, Gary was saying you’re down from London, do you live up there then?, and before you can reply Gary is saying, I’ve always said it, London’s great for a day out, but I’d never want to live there, go up and see a musical or something, go Winter Wonderland, fill your boots, but the thought of living there, and you don’t even bother to say anything because you’ve heard Gary’s London speech a hundred times and you’re not in the mood so you sit there, Gary going, Even when I was looking at the second place, no point, you’re better off down here or even up north, the bottom line is the multiplier’s greater, I’ve got a mate who’s bought three flats in Coventry I think it was and he used to do London but he’ll tell you how much more he’s making now, minimal renovation, new carpets basically and then 50% on the rent, mug off some foreign students, winner winner chicken dinner, and as he talks you tip your glass back and forth and think this may be, genuinely, the last time that you see Gary or Newt again, at least in this kind of context, and you wonder if this is the most complete a person you have ever been, the most confident of your edges, and whether they have crossed the threshold into something else, and if they even know that this has happened, and this sense of overtaking brings you both comfort and shame.

You monumental wanker, says Pendal, standing up and wiping down his coke-sodden jeans, taking a step towards Newt as if to hit him and then slapping his arm, smiling, between anger and embarrassment. You’re standing by the oven at this point, you got up in the middle of the game to check the pizzas, and you shout, How do you know when they’re done, Gary, did you put on a timer?, and he shouts back, By sight, the lad way of making pizza, and in the background Pendal says, I look like I’ve fucking pissed myself, wanker, laughing still, and you throw the roll of paper towel across the room and say, There, use that, and Gary says, Should we do that game with the shots, you know the shots of vodka and water and you don’t know which is which, and Newt says, I’ve got a game if anyone wants to play it, it’s called Drink, and Pendal slaps him on the back and says, Yes my son, you’ve changed your tune, thought you were out of it, look at you now, bringing drinking games, knocking shit over, on it like fucking Sonic.

Shit, says Gary, looking up from his phone, Kasia wants to know if I’m out tonight, and Pendal says, Right I’m calling this right now, you and Kasia are fucking happening whether you like it or not, and Gary says, It’s not going to happen, I just, and Newt says, Keep fucking her and pretending not to like it?, and Gary smiles and says, It’s not that, it’s just she’s always there, you know, like, it’s just easier, and Pendal says, Yeah she’s always there, daily, nightly and ever so rightly, oh you legend, as you come across to the table with the pizza, nudging cans out of the way with your elbows, the crust burning your hand as you try to slice it on the plates and you say, Pizza, drinking game, taxi, and Newt says, Ok, so it’s normally a two player game but we can do teams, basically you take a pint glass and put it in the middle between you like that and the person who goes first fills it up to wherever they like with whatever they like, and has to down it, then the other team has to do the same with the same drink, same amount, and then it’s their turn to decide the type and the amount.
That’s it?, says Gary. How do you win?
You keep playing until one team gives up, says Newt.
I fucking love it, says Pendal.

He dresses like he does something creative, which means he almost certainly doesn’t, and takes a beer from the fridge so causally you think for a moment he must be Newt’s housemate, but then you remember where you are, his parent’s place, and Newt is introducing him as Tristan, a uni mate (with a uni name, you think), and you are lapping him up as he stands at the end of the table, thick hairy arms, seaman’s jumper rolled up to the elbows, quality knitwear, must be cashmere, some kind of wool, taught over a full chest, spreading on a broad neck, and this bigness, this solidity, his big hands, do it for you, and you imagine his arms around you, the back of your head, running through your hair, and you want to delight him, impress him, fellate him, lie in bed and tell him, panting, looking at the ceiling, holding hands, that Pleasure is a wind that blows within pain, that sometimes you feel as though your Heart is a little larger than the entire universe, that Yes, you like poetry, and you think how can I live like this, how can I live so generously that every man I share a room with offers me something I would be willing to pick up with both hands?

Tristan’s eyes, deep lakes of brown syrup you’d happily drown in, sat across the table from you now. A gold watch, a signet ring. Heartbeat in your throat. You imagine him playing tennis. A big bear on the court. Pete Sampras’ fatter, fuckable brother.

Hi, you say. Sixty miles away in north London, you know Lukasz is lying on the bed you share in the flat you bought together, sending you videos of the rescue kittens you have recently adopted and teasing you about spending time with your school friends he never gets introduced to.
Those eyes, though. Damn.

You don’t go straight home after the All Night Diner. Instead you head to the park opposite your dad’s flat, the small gate creaking as you let yourself through, climbing frame like a great spider in the dark, a park you came to as a child, chipped a tooth jumping off the tyre wall in, knee smashing your chin as you hit the sand, and this bit isn’t there any more, too much fun, they’ve turned it into a shallow slide, and you sit on the swings and all you can think of is Pendal, and what happened, and how this shit always comes back to you on nights like this, still nights, holding their breath, quiet nights in loud places surrounded by other people, nights spent waiting at the bar inside your own head, looking at yourself in the mirror behind the bartenders, nights that lead to children’s playparks in the early hours of the morning, when the only sounds in the suburbs are taxis streaking up the arteries of the city, the slamming of car doors, the squeak of the frame as you swing slowly back and forth. You wish you’d bought a can from the twenty four hour off licence and try to remember whether your old man has any in the fridge.

You think again of the man who fucked you the week before, how gentle he was, actually, explaining everything he was doing before he did it, as he was doing it, like a YouTube tutorial, how you appreciated that, whether he knew it or not, and you wonder why giving pleasure to others has such a bad name, because that’s what you liked the most, being useful, having a job, and how, moments after he entered you, you thought of Pendal on the beach when you were fourteen, tearing off his baby pink polo, diving off the end of the groyne with unannounced grace, laughing at you from the water, ear-stud catching the sun, and above, on land, the flab of your belly beneath your clothes transformed into a horrible disfigurement, each individual spot on your back identifiable in a little ripple of pinpricks, worst of all an erection, coming from nowhere and sending terror coursing through your body.

You bring the swing to a standstill. Streetlights cast oak tree shadows that reach across the park towards you from the road. You wonder, not for the first time, where guilt hides in the daytime, and why you keep on tripping over it at night.

See, I’ve got a theory, says Tristan. I’ve got a theory that Queer Eye is basically the acceptable gay face of capitalism. Think about it, you’re not happy? Your girlfriend thinks you should tidy up more? Get a new haircut, some new shoes, do some yoga because someone called you fat when you were twelve. Compartmentalise your failings and then outsource self-improvement. Spend money, feel better. The whole thing is predicated on a view of happiness and success that’s tied up with economic value and respectability. You know what I mean?
I know what you mean, you say.
Do you watch Ru Paul?, says Dawn. The most recent season was so good. Gary pretends he doesn’t like it but by the end he knew all their names, didn’t you babe?
Well if you’ve got it on I’m going to watch it, obviously, says Gary, crossing his arms.
You try to imagine, as you often do with couples, what Dawn and Gary talk about when they are alone.
Ru Paul is great, and there’s a point there about representation being much much much improved from where it was, says Tristan, bringing his large hands together and pausing in thought. He shuffles forward in his chair.
But I tell you what it is. This is it. We’re giving straight people a guilt-free pass to feel good about themselves. Basically it pisses me off the amount of pleasure straight people take from these specific representations, these sort of family-friendly displays of outrageousness. Women in particular love it. But how many of them would celebrate a show about men in perfectly functioning and happy relationships, maybe even with children, who, God forbid, like to visit saunas and suck off strangers on a Friday night, or men that are decades apart, but somehow manage to make it work without anyone bleating about power dynamics and exploitation? Straight morality remains unchallenged, I guess. If anything, it’s on the march. Our worlds are still different. Maybe I should be happy about that.
Dawn laughs nervously. Gary looks bored and slightly annoyed, as he always does when anything relating to homosexuality is being discussed. Newt is at the counter scooping out ice cream into individual bowls. The meal, or at least the parts of it you could eat, was dreadful, but Tristan brought a fantastic potato salad, and the company and wine have filled the rest of your stomach.
Me and my mates have a word for it, you say. We call it having a gay with your chardonnay. It means, maybe this has happened to you, that we get invited to dinner parties as entertainment, basically, because women want to live vicariously, is that how you say it, I can never pronounce it, live vicariously through us.
Yes, yes, absolutely, says Tristan.
What I mean, you continue, is that we can sit there and say, Oh she’s gained a bit of weight, what was she thinking in that dress, or She’s a right slut, you know, all the horrible things that they actually want to say but can’t. It’s like they get off on it. And if you show up and you’re a bit down or just, not in the mood to slay, I swear to God you can actually see the disappointment in their eyes. That is known in the business as gay dismay with your chardonnay.
Tristan laughs and smiles knowingly at you. You feel your dick, hard against your leg. You bring down a hand to adjust the position of your trousers.
It’s funny you say that, he says. Can I ask you a question? Do you read a lot of gay romance?
No, you say. I prefer visual stimulation.
Is that so, he says, holding your eye. He runs his hand obviously through his hair, a single curl evading his grip to remain over his forehead.
Gary shifts in his seat and glances at Dawn, who is leaning forward in her chair. The moment stretches out through the winefog in brown eyes, eyelashes, biceps, until Newt drops a spoon on the floor and Tristan coughs suddenly and looks down at his lap.
Er, well it’s quite interesting, is all, he says, his voice croaking slightly. In the sense that it’s so vanilla. You can get good stuff, of course, but on the whole it’s basically straight women writing two dimensional gay men as fantasies for other straight women. So they come out as these highly emotionally engaged, deeply caring, virtually asexual Adonis’s who spend a lot of time talking compassionately about trauma and very little time fucking. But it’s the same as what you were getting at, straight people using a distortion of gayness to get off, whether socially or erotically or whatever. Incredibly few gay romances involve rimming. A criminally small number.
A tragedy, you say. And the irony of all this is, there’s nothing, genuinely, more off-putting to me than an overtly gay man. I’ll take my men without any whiff of homosexuality whatsoever if possible. Repressed I can take. Take it out on me, in fact. Violent, sure. Just no queens.
That’s interesting, says Tristan. Cause you any problems?
Endless, you say.
I can certainly see the appeal, says Tristan.
Do you think that comes from childhood?, says Dawn, clearly desperate to interrupt.
No, says Tristan, drolly, causing you to laugh and then cover your mouth.
Tell them about that thing that you did, says Gary.
My research?, says Dawn.
She’s an educational psychiatrist, says Gary.
Psychologist, says Dawn.
Was Tristan giving you his gay manifesto?, slurs Newt, setting down the bowls clumsily in front of his guests. Double standard this, double standard that. No-one is stopping you from fucking grandads in alleys. Come on, tuck in before it melts.
Tristan holds up a bottle of wine and motions to your glass. As you put it out for him to fill he leans over the table and grabs your arm so he can whisper in your ear.
Where are you staying tonight? I’ll show you repressed.

You give up trying to vom to relieve your bloated stomach and stand, looking in the mirror at your chubby face. You scruff up your hair at the back and drag it across your forehead, and you’re so drunk the action causes you to stumble two steps back. The chances of getting in anywhere tonight are poised somewhere between non-existent and nil. Cans on the beach maybe, or just go down the park and fuck about. You lean on the wall for support, and through the small window above your head you hear shouting from the street.
No mate, says Gary, don’t be a fucking idiot.
Ten minutes, says Pendal.
We’ve ordered the taxi already, says Newt.
Ten fucking minutes, says Pendal. It looks like I’ve pissed myself. Home, get changed, back here. You can’t even drive, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
There is a pause.
Pendal says, softer, It’s five minutes. I do it all the time, I’ll be fine.
Borrow some jeans off him, says Gary.
That fat fuck? I’ll look like I’m wearing a fucking parachute.
Where is that faggot anyway?, says Newt.
Fuck this, says Pendal.
A door slams. A Peugeot revs.
By the time you emerge from the house, the taxi is pulling up and Pendal has disappeared into the night.