‘Teedge, it was for your own good, like!’

‘Thomas John your brother is absolutely right!’

Tee-J had the lip out and was on the dramatic side.

‘I ain’t got no brud no more,’ he said.

‘Teedge get out into the fuckin’ van, would ya?’

He hadn’t much choice, Tee-J, except if he was going to walk the dual carriageway, and by and by he slugged along out to the car park beside Patrick, with the polo shirt waving at them, all emotional, from the doorway. Tee-J didn’t talk for a good ten minutes in the van but Mullaneys wouldn’t by their nature be able to keep the silent treatment going for long.

‘Fuckin’ badger.’

‘Tell me about it, Teedge.’

True that Patrick was near enough to fully grey at thirty-six – that ran in Mullaneys as well – and in the six months of his brother’s detention it was greyer he was after getting. He wouldn’t have been a bad-looking lad, he felt himself, if it wasn’t for the weak chin. The chin gave him an unreliable look he was told once by a priest. Thanks very much, he said to the priest.

‘What way was it inside, Teedge?’

A sullen shrug from Tee-J.

‘Heard they had a head doctor at you and all?’

A raising of the eyebrows from Tee-J.

‘What’d he say?’

‘That I’m mad as a box of frogs. You can drop me off in Boyle.’

‘Fuck off, Teedge. You money?’

‘Do I look as if I have money?’

‘Doggie Mannion’s we’ve to hit so.’

‘Ah fuckin’ hell Patcho!’

Tee-J got a good sulk on then. Tee-J was being all seventeen as he sat there in the passenger seat of the Hitachi. Herds of fuckwads roamed the earth, was Tee-J’s opinion. He reached for the dash-mounted MP3 system and he played a bit of Slayer to blank them out. Patrick drummed his fingertips on the wheel to the white-noise squall. He gave the Hitachi a nice bit of pep and Tee-J smiled despite himself. He was a kid still really. He had no patience whatsoever and after half a song’s worth of Slayer, he was belting away at the search function and putting on Carcass. The MP3 system was worth more than the van, not that it was paid for.

‘Gettin’ the nosebleed again,’ said Tee-J. ‘You watchin’?’

He raised a palm to feel for the bleed and it had come sure enough. He looked at the smear on his palm and licked it. Patrick was as always disgusted by this.

‘You wouldn’t get it in a fuckin’ kennel,’ he said.

Tee-J reached for a Kleenex and wadded it and tamped it to his nostrils and he programmed the MP3 by genre, death metal on random play, and something good and fuzzy by Decimator kicked in.

‘Doctor said I got wet-brain thinkin’,’ said Tee-J. ‘Said I’d be as well staying clear of the juice.’