Stonemouth

But his voice has really gone up now, and he’s staring, wide-eyed and spitting, as he rants in a way that suddenly has no hint of the synthetic or fake about it, and beneath all the aggression and the flash-hate I can see something hurt and pathetic and raging, and I just know that this poor, fucked-up wee numpty has probably been called daft and stupid and useless and educationally subnormal or whatever by every adult he’s ever known and probably all his mates too.

Good nerve to hit, Stewart. There probably wasn’t a cool way out of this from the start; there definitely isn’t now.

‘Ya fuckin shitehead dick,’ he’s screaming at me. ‘Ya fuckin cunt, who you fuckin callin—’

‘Aye, callt you daft, so he did,’ the other heavy-set guy says, like the signal’s only just reached whatever he uses for a brain, or he thinks his wee pal might have forgotten in the meantime. No sense in even trying to appeal to them. These guys look like they have one consolation vocational qualification between them but they’re exactly the sort of wit-free stumpies who turn out to have all their brains in their fists and feet and whichever bit of your average ned’s central nervous system that handles fighting in general and kicking the living shit out of much cleverer people in particular.

BB’s useless, I haven’t even been near a fight in nearly ten years, the staff here would appear to be pals of D-Cup and his chums, and I now don’t even have my phone, which has been picked up by Pool Hall Heavy-set Guy Number 2 and is being pawed at like he’s never seen an iPhone before.

‘Look, I talked with Don Murston just yes—’

‘Ah don’t fuckin care who ye fuckin talked to! You fuckin talk to me like—’

‘I’m not—’ I begin.

‘Don’t fuckin interrupt me!’ D-Cup screams.

This time spittle definitely hits me on the cheek. Loud voice for a wee guy. I think I hear an echo. There’s silence in the place for a moment. Not a fucking sound. Then there’s a murmur of distant conversation, and the sound of a ball being hit, all of it almost too casual; the sound of people showing they’re not intimidated by other people being intimidated.

This isn’t supposed to happen, I want to wail. Mr M said it was okay for me to be here. The word’s supposed to have gone out, for fuck’s sake. Except this little shite, this diminutive wannabe-sub-gangsta probably only knows very vaguely that I’ve been on the receiving end of Murston ire and thinks he’ll gain kudos for vicariously upholding Mr M’s honour and pre-empting the punishment that he’s quite sure is doubtlessly and rightfully coming my way in any case.

Then there’s a hint of movement in the darkness to one side of me and suddenly I’m the wide-eyed one, trying to see from the corner of my eye — without letting my gaze stray a millimetre from D-Cup’s eyes — what’s happening, worrying that one of his mates is trying to outflank me or something, but the three of them are still standing where they were, very still.

‘Problem here, ladies?’

The flicker of movement resolves into Powell Imrie, appearing as though out of a fucking trapdoor, right beside me and D-Cup. Ah: that might have been the real reason the place went so quiet. A slightly hysterical — and, in the current situation, arguably unhelpful — part of me suddenly thinks that being Powell Imrie must be a bit like being the Queen: she thinks everywhere smells of new paint and he thinks the world is mostly composed of a respectful, terrified silence as people wait to hear the sound of bones getting crunched. Powell is dressed like he was yesterday afternoon, in jeans and a padded shirt, earbuds dangling from his breast pocket again.

D-Cup registers who it is, there’s a single nanosecond flicker of probably heavily conditioned panic, then he’s instantly back into well-lookee-boys-what-have-we-here? mode.

‘Aye, Mr Imrie,’ he says, voice a little slower and more controlled, now that the heavy weaponry’s arrived, ‘this cunt is being a cunt, that’s whit the fuckin problem is.’

There’s the briefest pause here, before Powell says smoothly, quite quietly, addressing only D-Cup: ‘That really what you think the problem is here?’

D-Cup freezes, staring from me to Powell and back again.

Powell looks down at his own chest, notices the earbuds hanging from his breast pocket and gently taps them back inside with one finger, until they disappear. It’s delicately done, but it absolutely has the look of preparing for battle. He looks at me and smiles. ‘Hello again, Stewart,’ he says pleasantly. ‘You all right?’

‘I’m fine, Powell,’ I tell him.