Ivor’s heart really races then, a roar in his ears. Not wanting the words to come out his friend’s mouth. Thinking of how you can know someone your entire life and never even think of telling them your worst secrets or what has been done to you or by whom. And how if he’d taken those tablets, no one really would have had any idea why he’d done it.

– Joanne’s been battering ye, Ivor, fir decades, since we were teenagers.

– Get the fuck out of here, Jake!

– She says yer allergic tae light like, that aw the boys calling ye a scab dinnae ken what they are talking about – ye only kept going down the pit cos ye hink yer gonnae die in fucking daylight.

– What a load ay shite!

– For once in your entire fucking life, Ivor, let me in!

The emotion rising up in him, if Ivor had to name it, would be shame and it feels like it goes all the way down inside him, deeper than the coal mine, that he had it even earlier than lifting up a cardboard box to put on his head and feeling like a freak, earlier than when he got married thinking it was better him taking the blame than Joanne.

– I hate you, Jake.

– I know, man. I fucking hate me too and I deserve it. Just dinnae shut me out! I’m not having them say yer a scab any more, Ivor, and I’m not having yer kids think it is you lifting yer hands when it is her! I uhmnay! You are the nicest guy in the whole fucking world and it’s not fair! It’s time, mate.

– Time to what?

– Tell the truth!

– Get fucked.

Ivor reaches into his pal’s top front pocket, where his fags always are. He takes out a Regal King Size. Sparks it. Offers the pack to Jake and he takes one out and lights it, too. Ivor feels as sick as he has done every morning. He doesn’t know how to explain that getting up every morning feels like facing a dinosaur – one that is pounding down the streets looking only for him. The two men lay beside each other, awkwardly silent on a single bunk. The tips of their fags glow red – like a sun on the horizon.

1999

Flat 9F9

Dot (27) the long walk home