We’re both pushing back from the table. Tommy lets out a shout. What the fuck. But Blackie is just sitting there, looking at The Swan, who has this knife sunk up to the hilt in his forearm, and The Swan isn’t even reacting, he’s just staring at me and Tommy with a look of sadness and contempt and he says to us, you fucking stupid arseholes, he says, you fucking useless bastards, he says to us, and he shakes his head and he starts laughing, and then Blackie’s off, and Blackie’s laughing too, and the owner of the cafe comes over and he says to The Swan, what the fuck have I told you about ruining my cutlery, and now the owner’s laughing as well, and The Swan takes hold of the knife and draws it, slowly, out of his arm, staring at the two of us the whole time, and he hands the knife back to the owner, it’s bent, with the fucking force it is bent that he stuck it into himself, and he holds out his hand to the owner and it is Christ displaying his wounds which are like beautiful delicate labias who grabs him by the wrist and pulls his entire fucking arm off. The Swan has a prosthetic limb. The owner holds it up for us to see. It’s punctured and cut and discoloured at the end. It’s missing a finger. You think you know about pain, The Swan says to us, you think you are capable of suffering, he says, but do you think they make plastic fucking hearts? Fuck this, Tommy says, I’m sticking with a bacon roll.

*

Did you ever hear of lagging? Lagging. It’s a musical thing. Rebel Songs, is what The Swan says to us. Tonight, my friends, we’re going to get us some right old Rebel Songs, he says, and he tells us about the basement of this pub run by The Boys (God’s Boys, he calls them, and he winks at us), where they play this new style of song, this new style of music that came out of The Maze and Her Majesty’s pleasure, and that was sung into bowls, into drainpipes and toilets and along echoing corridors, late at night, this music of longing and of sad sufferation, The Swan says to us, this music of fading and of lagging, he says, sure you’ll love it, he says to Tommy, did you never hear the Irish psalm-singing, he says to him, but Tommy says that he just cannot imagine singing Como down a toilet bowl.