‘Where do you—’

‘What’s your game, then?’ he said.

Wrong. ‘What?’

‘I said, what’s your game?’ Almost theatrical. He was drunk.

Matty’s blood went cold. ‘Dunno what you mean.’ The assessing of how far away Shifty was, of getting round to the driver’s seat. Having to get past him first. The location of the keys.

He let out a strange, gull-like laugh.

A careful voice. ‘I think—’

No. Already too much time had been lost. ‘Your game, you little … you little bitch,’ Dale said. ‘Or a – what’s with you, playing a bloke? I thought you were—’ He moved, fast, clutching at a shoulder. ‘What have yous got down there, anyway? Are you a fannyballs or what?’ He made a grabbing movement, lower, and Matty wrenched free just in time, able only to get closer to the water, the wrong direction.

He lurched forward.

‘You just plastic down there? Like a proper little doll?’ There was a shade of something vulnerable in his voice. ‘Ken mixed with fucking Barbie?’

Matty sidestepped. ‘Just go home, mate, all right?’ Keep it calm, smooth, neutral. Not too much boy. Not too much girl. A person, barely there. ‘It’s all fine.’

There was a moment in which Dale seemed to consider it. A moment in which the reeds quivered, the water lifted itself. A moment like a prayer. Then he lunged, gave a forceful push to Matty’s chest.

Stumble. One foot slipped on the moss, a knee meeting rock, the sudden pain of a jarred wrist on stone, and something popping. A noisy splash into water, before Matty was hauled up. They were staggering forwards, further into the lough. Calves soaked. Shins.

‘You made a fool of me,’ he was saying, holding tight onto the shoulder of the hoodie, Matty half-bent, the water too close. ‘Do you hear me?’

His knee thundered into Matty’s ribs. And again.

An inward howl of pain. His grip was inescapable – shoulder, neck, the skin chafing – and then Matty’s head was in the water.

The sudden sub-bass of everything. You are going to die. Laryngospasm. Hypoxia. You are going to die here. You can hold your breath for longer underwater. The Guinness Book of Records.

Into the air, and down again, not enough time to inhale properly. The force of his whole body behind his arm. Matty coughed underwater, took in a mouthful.

Up. Matty pushed blindly with the heel of a throbbing hand against his chest, choking, dizzy. Everything swayed.

‘A fool of me,’ he was saying. ‘In front of my friend.’ He let go, his arm dripping.

It was over. Maybe it was over. He’d had enough, was seeing sense, the cold water sloughing off some of the alcohol.

Matty carefully waded backwards out of the water. Ears hissing and ringing. ‘Just go home. Sleep it off.’ A hand out, looking for something to balance on, finding nothing. Wrist not working properly.