'So why d'you want Innes?' said Baz. He had his mouth hanging open.

'Why do I want Innes?' My eyes fuckin' hurt, like they'd dried out. And I wanted a weapon, anything, wanted to slam the pair of cunts in the nose with it, whatever it was. A double whap and have 'em screaming blood all over. Why did I want Innes? 'Cause he's a cunt, like the pair of youse. He thinks he can take care of this, he's out of his fuckin' league. He don't know the first fuckin' thing what's going on here. And I want him out the picture, you hear me? I want him in the fuckin' hospital and away from us. He cocks it up and we're sorted.'

Rossie shook his head.

'Nah, you don't get it. Dad's got shit planned for us. Planned. Big stuff, know what I mean? We'll be working for the man. We'll be fuckin' untouchable.'

'Mo, you was ready to kill him before.'

I leaned in close to Rossie and said, 'Whatever it fuckin' takes, Rossie. Whatever it fuckin' takes. You lads, you can go through life just getting fucked up and nobody gives a shit, am I right? Me, I got plans, I got ambitions. And they don't need to be fuckin' scuppered by some jailbird. You know why Dad got him in on this? He did it to piss me off. Because he don't think that a bunch of scallies like us can carry summat like this off. And we can. As long as you bastards don't bottle it the first chance you get. Which is what you're doing right now.'

'What d'you want us to do, Mo?' said Baz. He looked tired.

I want more than just fucking up his car. I want him fucked up. I want a message sent out to him. You don't step on Mo Tiernan's toes.'

'Then what you got planned?'

I clicked me teeth together, looked for some gum. 'I'll tell you what I got planned. And you bottle this, I'll cut you both up.'

THIRTY-EIGHT

I walk away from Alison's flat on aching legs. Feels like I've accomplished something and when I get to the garage, it looks like I'm not the only one. I fork out for the new tyres, turn down the offer of new paint, and call Donna.

I ask her if she wants to meet up before I head back to Manchester. She agrees because, according to her, there's something we have to talk about. She tells me to meet her in the Egypt Cottage. Not her flat, and I get the feeling I'm about to be brushed off. It was bound to happen. A woman gets drunk, invites a bloke back to her place and she maybe thinks she said something she didn't mean, and sometimes it's easier to cut these things short before they get a chance to take root. The quiet fear of the blackout drunk.

Just another loose end to tie up.

Donna's already there by the time I step through the door. She's got a gin on the go and a cigarette in her mouth. When she sees me, she attempts a smile, but it doesn't register in her eyes. Yeah, this is going to be a bad one.

I grab a pint, sit next to her. She shifts position.

'I thought you'd be back in Manchester by now,' she says. 'That's what you said, right?'

Straight in with it. 'I'm not going back until tonight.'

'So it's all finished, then.'

'A couple of wee things to tie up. But, yeah, I'm pretty much done here.'

'Huh.'

We drink. I stare at the pictures on the wall. When I glance back at her, she looks like she's about to say something. Staring into her gin like the answer's at the bottom of her glass. Her mouth is open. Then she says, 'I was drunk the other night, okay?'

'Okay.' Setting myself up now, preparing for the kick into touch.

I don't normally do that. I don't normally bring people back to my flat, y'know? It's not what I do. But I'd had a really bad morning, and sometimes you just want a drink. Some- times that's the only thing on your mind and fuck respon- sibility. I was in one of those moods.'

'That's okay,' I say. I think I know where this is going.'

When she looks at me, her eyes are glassy. Gin'll do that to the best. It's industrial-strength mascara-thinner. 'Let me finish, Cal. This isn't easy.'

'Okay.'

'So when you don't call me the next day, and all I've got is like a few snapshots of the night, I get to wondering, like, how far did I go? And I remember you leaving, but I don't remember why you left. And I don't want you to think I'm some sort of slag, y'know?'

I know.'

'Because I'm not, Cal. I'm really fucking not.'

I never thought you were.'

'So… did we?'

'No, we didn't. I had to leave.'

Donna laughs to her,self, but she catches the sound in the back of her throat. She dabs at one eye, smudging her make- up. I do have some pride left, you know.'

'It's me, Donna. Don't worry about it.'

'So what do you want to do?' she says.

I drink my pint, swallow and sit back in my seat. "What do you want to do?'

'I like you, Cal. I just think we got off on the wrong foot. Bad first impressions and that.'

'Maybe.'

'I don't know how it can work.'

'You don't know how what can work?'

'Us,' she says.

'You want to chalk it up.'

'Pretty much.'

You can prepare yourself all you want, be as hard as you want. But at the end of the day, rejection is still a kick in the neck.

This is absolutely fine, I tell myself. This is just spot on. Tickety-fuckin'-boo. I don't hang around much after that first pint, make my excuses and leave, because I can't rationalise being dumped before a relationship begins.

Behind the wheel of the Micra, I stick in a tape and let it play out. I want to scream 'bitch', I want to call her and yell spiteful things down the phone, but that won't make much of a difference.

Chalk it up.

And if I'd slept with her? Maybe that would have been different. Or maybe she would have felt worse and not answered the phone. Depending on what she remembered. Christ, she gets drunk and I pay the price because I'm too much of a gentleman.

Like anything could have come from it. The age difference, the distance between Manchester and Newcastle, a million different reasons why it wouldn't work. Like the sex issue.

Fuck's sake, it always comes down to that. The sex is the thing, another Marie Claire myth. It doesn't matter that the guys who handed a scalding to James Figgis thought they'd teach me a lesson too. It doesn't matter that they bitched me. That kind of truth isn't first-date material, but then neither's sex. At least it wasn't when I was growing up. I feel like I've been out of the game so long, they changed the rules on me.

I stop by a chippy and sit with my dinner wrapped in newspaper. I stop by an off-licence, grab a half-bottle of cheap vodka and stick it in the glove compartment. It's a tic, an unconscious action. Something I do when I don't know what to do. The world just pissed on you? Buy booze. A nice little defence mechanism. I can't touch it, though. Not when I'm supposed to be driving Alison back to Manchester to- night. Give it three and a bit hours on the motorway, though, and I'll be gagging for a decent drink.

And a hot shower, my own bed. Some decent music on the CD player. Then back to my old life, for what it's worth.

I eat most of the chips; sling the rest out of the window. By the time I reach Alison's flat again, it's quarter to eight and I'm early enough to sit for a while and stare through the windscreen. Trying to be calm. Knowing that it's just a matter of time before I'm back home and all of this is memory.

Johnny Cash sings 'Solitary Man' as rain spots the glass. I click him off. I don't need to be reminded.

And I can't wait any longer. I get out of the Micra, hunch my shoulders to the rain, and trot across the road towards the block of flats. The place is dead, the way it should be. When I get to the front door, I press the buzzer for thirty-five.