He says, ‘We’re gonna do it Cam.’ He is serious and solemn. ‘We’re gonna get there, and for once, we’re gonna win. We’re not leavin’ without winning.’ He’s leaning on the gate. He crouches. He buries his face into the horizontal paling. Fingers in the wire. Then, a shock, because when he turns his head back up to look at me, there’s a tear dangling from his eye. It edges down his face and his voice is smothered with his hunger. He says, ‘We can’t accept bein’ just us any more. We’ve gotta lift. Gotta be more … I mean, check Mum out. Killin’ herself. Dad down and out. Steve just about moved and gone. Sarah gettin’ called a slut.’ He tightens his fist in the wire and explains it through half-clenched teeth. ‘So now it’s us. It’s simple. We’ve gotta lift. Gotta get our self-bloody-respect back.’

‘Can we?’ I ask.

‘We’ve gotta. We will.’ He stands and grabs me by the front of my jersey, right at my heart. He says, ‘I’m Ruben Wolfe,’ and he says it hard. He throws the words into my face. ‘And you’re Cameron Wolfe. That’s gotta start meaning somethin’ boy. That’s gotta start churnin’ inside us, making us wanna be someone for those names, and not be just another couple of guys who amounted to nothin’ but what people said we would. No way. We’re gettin’ out of that. We have to. We’re gonna crawl and moan and fight and bite and bark at anything that gets in our way or tries to hunt us down and shoot us. All right?’

‘Okay.’ I nod.

‘Good,’ and to my dismay, Rube leans on my shoulder with his forearm and we stare on to the morning street of black light and glinting cars. I feel that we’re together to face whatever falls down around us, and it staggers me for a moment that Rube has grown up (even though he’s a year older than me). It staggers me that he wants and aches so hard. His final words are, ‘If we fail, we’re gonna blame us.’

We walk inside soon after, knowing he’s right. The only people we want to blame are ourselves, because it will be ourselves that we rely upon. We’re aware of it, and the knowing will always walk beside us, at the edge of each day, on the outskirts of each pulse in each heartbeat. We eat breakfast, but our hunger is not fed. It’s growing.

It grows even more when we meet Perry at the park, just like he told us. Four o’clock.

‘Lads,’ he greets us down the Avenue. He carries a small suitcase.

‘Perry.’

‘Hi Perry.’