LITMIR.BIZ

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would have to against Cutty.’

      ‘Wait a minute,’ Dan Scoular said. He looked at Frankie White. ‘What did you set me up for here?’

      Matt Mason held up his hands.

      ‘I can explain,’ he said. ‘You want to give me a minute?’

      ‘Ah don’t know.’

      Dan Scoular was trying to work out what had happened to bring him here. He had said ‘Hey!’ and the word had been as mysterious in effect as ‘Open Sesame’. His night had been transformed. The result was slightly dazzling but he didn’t like being dazzled and beyond the surface laughter and brightness he had already glimpsed shadows that troubled him. Frankie White had been standing at the bar when Dan came in but he hadn’t just been standing at the bar. Matt Mason had been sitting with the man Dan hit and now he hadn’t even asked about him. It was as if the man had served the purpose he was brought for. He was expendable. Someone had been waiting in the car to switch on the lights. Dan had thought he had been getting involved in a spontaneous fight but it had only been a controlled experiment. In doing what he had thought was winning for himself and Vince Mabon, Dan had been winning, it seemed, for Matt Mason. It had been a fight Matt Mason couldn’t lose. The rules were strange here.

      ‘Dan,’ Frankie White said. ‘Just listen to the man a minute, will you? Please?’

      Alan had brought the drinks across, rested a stepfatherly hand on Dan’s shoulder as he put down his pint.

      ‘That’s how we used to breed them in these parts,’ he said, staking an early claim to proprietorship of this evening’s legend.

      Dan sipped his pint and waited. Realising Alan had gone off without giving him anything, Eddie Foley passed a pound to Frankie White.

      ‘Get us a whisky and a half pint, Frankie.’

      Dan Scoular watched Frankie White’s receding back with thoughtfulness.

      That was Billy Fleming you saw away there,’ Matt Mason said.

      ‘How is he?’ Dan asked Eddie Foley.

      ‘Beat,’ Matt Mason said. ‘You ever lost a fight?’

      ‘Aye.’

      ‘How many?’

      ‘Just the one. But Ah haven’t had too many.’

      ‘Who was that?’

      ‘Ma feyther.’

      ‘Your father? What age were you?’

      ‘Ah would be nineteen.’

      ‘How did that come about?’

      Dan Scoular looked at him, decided that whatever his reasons for asking were, he had no reasons for not telling.

      ‘Ah was a cocky boy. Ah hit a man for no reason. Just because Ah felt like it. He didny want to fight. Ah broke his jaw. Ma feyther took me out the back door. An’ hammered me.’

      Matt Mason gave the event his expert consideration, offered the balm of his wisdom to the dead wound.

      ‘Maybe you weren’t trying. I mean, fighting your father. That’s bound to put brakes on you.’

      ‘Oh, Ah was tryin’ all right. But Ah was in the wrong. That’s a bad corner to come out of.’

      ‘You superstitious?’

      ‘What’s that got to do wi’ superstition? Ah walk under ladders an’ everythin’.’

      ‘I mean, having less chance if you’re in the wrong?’

      Frankie White had returned from the camaraderie at the bar. He put down Eddie Foley’s two drinks. Eddie held out his hand and Frankie remembered the change. Dan Scoular watched the handing over of the silver. He took a sip of his pint.

      ‘Look,’ he said. ‘Ah just believe in certain things. Like what ma feyther told me that day. If ye can’t fight for the right reasons, keep yer hands in yer pockets.’

      ‘And what are the right reasons?’

      ‘Ah’m not always sure. But he seemed to be.’

      Matt Mason held up his glass and paused before taking a drink. He might have been showing off his rings.

      ‘You want to make some money?’

      Dan Scoular looked slowly round the group at the table. His look separated himself from them, as if they were a conspiracy.

      ‘What?’ he said. ‘Was that an interview for a job?’

      ‘In a way.’

      ‘But, mister, Ah didny apply.’

      ‘All right. But I’m asking you. Do you want to make some money?’

      ‘Who doesny want to make some money? But there’s money and money.’

      Matt Mason looked at Frankie White.

      ‘Does he like talking in riddles?’ he said and looked back at Dan. ‘There’s only one kind of money. The good stuff. Unless it’s home-made. And this won’t be. All right?’

      ‘Ah just mean some money’s dearer than others. Some just costs sweat. Some costs yer self-respect. What do Ah do for it?’

      ‘You do what you’re good at. You fight.’

      ‘For money? You mean in a ring?’

      Matt Mason was enjoying the revelation to come. He took out a leather cigar-case and offered Dan Scoular a cigar. Dan shook his head. Eddie, who had taken out his cigarettes, didn’t seem to notice Frankie White about to take one. He held out the packet to Dan Scoular.

      ‘Ah don’t smoke.’

      ‘Ah told ye,’ Frankie said.

      But he missed the point. It wasn’t a matter of checking on his information. It was improvised stage-business, self-taught management technique for controlling situations. Matt Mason’s timing was a matter of instinct but what he used it to promote was a well-rehearsed performance. He lit Eddie’s cigarette with his gold lighter and then his own cigar. He re-emerged looking at Dan from behind a slowly dissipating cloud of smoke, Merlin of the cigar.

      ‘I’m arranging a bare-knuckle fight,’ he said.

      Dan Scoular looked across towards the others in the bar as if checking his location in normalcy. Having confirmed his fix on where he was, he looked back at these three as if they were somewhere else, maybe inhabiting their own fantasy or just trying to take the mickey out of him. Frankie White was nodding reassuringly.

      ‘What for?’ Dan said.

      ‘It’s a complicated story,’ Matt Mason said. ‘Frankie White’ll tell you. If you agree to do it. If you don’t, you won’t have to know, will you?’

      ‘Ye’re kiddin’.’

      ‘I stopped kidding when I came out of the pram.’

      Dan took a sip of his pint. It seemed to feel strange in his mouth. The idea was so bizarre that he came at it tangentially.

      ‘Ah’ve had a few scuffles,’ he said. ‘But they were always for a reason.’

      ‘Money’s not a reason?’

      ‘A fight in the street’s different.’

      ‘What’s different? You’re doing the same thing, aren’t you? It’s man against man.’

      ‘Naw. It’s different. Ah’ve watched a lot of boxing on the telly. That’s a different game. More complicated. Street fightin’s just two things.’

      ‘What would they be?’

      ‘Suddenness. And meanin’ it. Ye go fast. If ye can, ye go first. An’ ye stop when it’s over. That’s all Ah can do.’

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