Useless. Useless, and a chicken, just like Nicks always said, even though the diving had got loads better. Matty took the road homewards around the top of the Heath, thinking of how Nicks would have just distracted the guard, or shrugged and run under the gate anyway. It was easier with Dad around. No chicken-feelings then. Matty knew how to punch a person, at least with gloves on.

‘You’re going to be my little tough nut,’ said Dad once, walking from the bus stop to the boxing club. ‘Barry McGuigan of Golders Green. You’ll get to the Olympics yet.’

‘I’m not going to get in the Olympics,’ said Matty. ‘And anyway, he’s a pro.’

‘He fought in Moscow, smart-arse. 1980.’ Dad tapped his temple. ‘I know my onions. Anyway, you never know.’ A wink as he looked over. ‘I live in hope.’

They went to East Finchley every other Saturday morning in term time. Dad had sweet-talked Freddie, who ran the club, into it. Matty had learnt everything – the soft-kneed stance, guard, cross, hook. Bag work, throwing jabs, ignoring the blank, gum-chewing amusement of the tall teenage boy holding the pads. It was wicked.

Mamma never even knew about the boxing. Dad would just say they were off to the Underhill Stadium, going early to get a good place, though in truth the terraces at Barnet were never that busy. ‘A white lie,’ he’d say, touching his nose and winking. ‘Those ones are allowed.’ White lies, Matty would think, changing Grandmaster Flash’s words. Blowing through my mind.

Matty would never get to go now.

***

That evening, Matty stood in the lounge, lifting a tin of baked beans with one hand and a tin of peach slices with the other, imagining the biceps bulging like the muscly men at the Pond. Playing one of Dad’s tapes.

Gegsy’s tape, though it hissed a lot, was pretty good. Matty had spent the later part of the afternoon sitting cross-legged on the carpet, rewinding it over and over again, scribbling the lyrics down on paper. The second song was best, with a cool bassline and the swish-swish of the record being scratched. It had girls behind the rapper on the chorus, shouting like the bikini girls from St George’s. Words, rattled out fast. Matty always mumbled, got things stuck, felt shy. Dad was the one who was always talking. Learning more lyrics meant having more words, clever-rhyming sentences that could be stored up, repeated like prayers, like responses. Rapped in secret.