LITMIR.BIZ

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hadn’t knocked. Eddie Foley cut his sentence dead. It was less polite than talking on and ignoring Vince’s presence would have been.

      ‘Excuse me, Dan,’ Vince Mabon said. ‘Ah want to thank you for what you did there.’

      ‘Any time, Vince. We’ve got to protect the nation’s intellectuals.’

      But the demon of sloganising that was in Vince had to climb on to even his gratitude like a soap-box.

      ‘But I still don’t agree with that kind of violence. That wasn’t the kind of violence I was talking about.’

      ‘Maybe,’ Matt Mason said, ‘he should’ve left you to explain that to Big Billy. In the dummy alphabet.’

      Perhaps Vince was learning from humiliation but this second time around he found a response. With a slightly unsteady hand, he put his partly drunk pint on their table.

      ‘I don’t think I want your drink, mister,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t taste right.’

      Matt Mason looked as if he was going to get up. Dan took hold of Vince’s arm with his left hand and held up his right, palm towards Mason.

      ‘Okay, Vince,’ he said. ‘Cheers.’

      He let go of Vince’s arm and Vince walked straight out of the pub.

      ‘He’s only a boy,’ Dan said.

      ‘He’s only a shitehead.’

      ‘He’s only a boy. You’re maybe big where you come from, sir. But this is his pub.’

      ‘His pub?’ Matt Mason smiled. ‘Does he own it? Mind you, who would want to? It’s your pub when you own it. Not when you buy a couple of beers in it. I should know. I own more than one.’

      ‘Matt,’ Eddie Foley said. ‘Anyway, we came for a reason. Listen, Dan. As Ah wis sayin’. Ye’re wrong about all it is that ye can do. Suddenness and meanin’ it? Against Big Billy, Ah could be just as sudden and mean it more. And it wouldn’t do me a lotta good. It would still be a short-cut to the blood bank. You’ve got somethin’ special. Ah’m tellin’ ye. Ah’ve seen a few. It’s just that ye haven’t explored it yet. And you’re a mug if ye don’t. A mug! It’s a talent like anythin’ else. Maybe the only one ye’ve got. It might amaze ye what ye can do with it. It might amaze ye the money it could get ye. You never considered that?’

      He had, of course. He had wondered about how good he really was many times. It would have been strange if he hadn’t. Whoever hasn’t dreamt of uniqueness must have achieved it by that. Dan Scoular, when he was younger, had had his share of ridiculous dreams, those adolescent imaginings that thrive on impossibility till they overdose on it. But he had come quickly to understand how few his real choices were.

      By the time his early physical prime was passing, he knew there was only one thing he was especially good at. He didn’t pretend to himself that it was a talent that mattered much. But he didn’t have intellectual contempt for it either. It was for him related to pride and some kind of integrity. Not the use of it but the sense of himself it gave him meant a kind of wholeness. He couldn’t understand politics too well or carve out an impressive career or say things that reduced other people to silence. But he had something that was quietly and relaxedly his own.

      Lately, it had felt like all he had. With his job gone and no prospect of another and his marriage baffled, he had been forced to look steadily at the dwindling possibilities in his life. Faced with the blankness of the future, he had taken to wondering about the past. He had wondered if he could have been a boxer, if that would have changed their lives and made things better.

      Eddie Foley had, without knowing it, opened a door on Dan Scoular’s small, pathetic cache of hope. He had put a light on there and said that it was maybe more than he had thought, that it might not be too late. They were now talking to a different man, had activated something in him, like accidentally giving a drink to an alcoholic on the wagon. It meant so much to him that he didn’t want to let them know.

      ‘Ah don’t think so,’ he said. ‘Ah need to mean it. Why would Ah fight another man without a reason?’

      ‘You fought Billy fast enough,’ Matt Mason said.

      ‘He was claiming Vince, wasn’t he?’

      ‘So what?’

      ‘So Ah know Vince. That woulda been a liberty. The only damage Vince could do ye would be give ye cauliflower ears with talkin’.’

      ‘So imagine the man you’re fighting insulted Vince. Shouldn’t be hard. Most people would.’

      Dan moved another way.

      ‘Anyway, Ah’m thirty-three. What do Ah need with this?’

      Matt Mason shrugged and took a sip of his drink, as if it might be the end of the interview.

      ‘What ye workin’ at just now?’ Eddie Foley asked.

      ‘Not at answerin’ questions you know the answer to already.’

      ‘How d’ye mean?’

      ‘Ye don’t have to enter for Mastermind to know that Frankie here put ye up to this. An’ if he did, he would’ve told ye certain things. Like Ah’m idle.’

      ‘For a man that’s unemployed, ye’ve still got a taste for luxuries.’

      ‘Ye mean what Ah think ye mean?’

      ‘Ah mean it’s a luxury to want to fight for a reason.’

      ‘Ah would’ve thought it was a luxury tae dae anythin’ else.’

      But Dan was talking automatically, as if from a script he had learned a long time ago. Matt Mason leaned forward suddenly and took a wad of money from his inside pocket. He started carefully to count tenners on to the table. He stopped at twenty and put the rest of the money back in his pocket.

      ‘Two hundred quid,’ he said. ‘Tax free. Just to train for two weeks. Where are you going to get a better offer?’

      Dan Scoular looked at the money. It was fanned out on the table so that each separate note was at least partly visible.

      ‘What would be the rules of this fight?’

      ‘Bare knuckles. No feet, no butting, no weapons. A knockdown ends a round. You get thirty seconds’ rest – to be back at the line. First man to fail to make it loses. Last man standing at the line’s the winner.’

      ‘Who made the rules?’

      ‘That’s not your business. You get paid for obeying them. You take it or leave it. They’re just the rules.’

      ‘When would this be?’

      ‘Three weeks today. He’s got his man. I’ve got to get mine in a hurry. Have I got him?’

      Dan Scoular waited.

      ‘Why me?’ he said. ‘Ah’m just a boy from the country. A man like you must know a lotta harder men than me.’

      ‘Oh, I do,’ Matt Mason said. ‘Don’t worry about it. I know men could take you out while you were still wondering if there was something wrong. But we need fresh blood for this one. Somebody who only knows how to fight fair. That way we won’t get disqualified. There’ll be people watching. We’ve got to make it look right.’

      ‘Where would this fight be?’

      ‘In a place. You don’t worry about that. In a safe place.’

      ‘But this isn’t legal.’

      Matt Mason overdid his expression of horror.

      ‘Away you go. I’ll have to fire that lawyer of mine. He’s misled me again. Look, if I want a holy text, I’ll go to a wayside pulpit. You’re not being asked to pass judgment on the thing. Just to participate.’

      Dan Scoular thoughtfully

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