I had a bath, and slowly got back into the clean clothes that Phyllis had brought. It felt like a different me inside them now, warier and more fragile. If I breathed too deeply or bent over, my ribs shot out a suffocating strand of pain. I began to understand why Titch had refused to leave the house for all those weeks. It was as if the memory of the beating had sunk into my bones. I moved around like a much older man, as though even the breeze was hiding a knife.

I looked different, too. The scars set me apart, although the nurses had given me cream to put on them and told me they would fade with time. People see your damage and aren’t sure how you got it, whether for being a bully or a victim. Either way, it makes them a little uneasy. Their eyes climb aboard the scars and travel down the tram lines.

Gerard was lying in bed, staring into the plastic curtain. I went over to him and said, ‘Forget that racing driver crap, Gerard, they all burn out eventually. Get into the DJ-ing. You’ll make a packet at it, and all the women will go mad for you.’

He smiled and shook my hand. I waved to the old man down the ward: he raised his hand in reply. I said goodbye and thank-you to the nurses, backing away like a retreating vaudeville entertainer. Then I got into the big, clanking lift, specially designed for wheelchairs and trolleys, and pressed the button to descend into the rest of my life.

Phyllis and Murdie were waiting to pick me up. They had got a bit more money together for me and bought me a new plane ticket. Phyllis had packed my cases all over again. Murdie gave me a lift to the airport straight from the hospital. He even had an address for me to go to in London, a cousin who he said would put me up for as long as I needed (‘A decent fella. My side of the family,’ he stressed. Gavin, he said, had finally departed after Mrs Murdie told him bluntly that a sick friend was moving in and required the room in two days’ time.)

The fields looked very green as we drove up to Aldergrove airport, a deep bright green. It seemed calm here outside Belfast. I wondered if one day I could maybe just live somewhere round here, in a secluded house away from the road.

The rain clouds were pewter, but the sunlight was coming down between them, falling on to the quiet fields. The light was oddly intense, like a pale yellow stone set in dark granite. I used to think that this kind of light could be found everywhere. It was only when I went away that I realised it can’t.

Part Two

13

London