Justin walked straight up to me and said for me to put it
down. He said: ‘You shouldn’t carry bad objects around’. I said: ‘Yes, Justin –
I’ll put it down’. ‘Why have you still got it anyhow?’, he asked, eyes hard and
mean. ‘I don’t know’, I said, ‘in case they come back’. ‘They isn’t coming back’,
Justin said, and took the bottle from my hand, I let him have it. ‘Stay out of
it’, he said, and went away to talk to the people in the kitchen. The lights were
off in the bar. I let my hands fall to my sides and thought about following
Justin into the kitchen, but Jim was still in there and I didn’t want to see
Jim after he shouted at me. Besides Jim was bigger than me – even bigger,
Justin said. ‘You big lummox’, Jim said. And together they dragged the man away
who was causing trouble. The man had blood all over his face and his shirt was soaked
with blood, and there was blood on the floor of the bar. ‘Don’t worry’, said
Justin, ‘we’ll sort this’. The man was sleeping with blood all over him. ‘Where
did he get that bottle from?’, Chef asked, meaning me. Jim shouted at Chef too, and he nearly went for Chef, but Justin held Jim back, and the man kept on sleeping. And I kept a
tight grip on the bottle in case the man waked up and went for me again. Then
Justin came back and asked why I still had the bottle. I let him have it and
waited while Justin and Jim and Chef and the others talked in the kitchen. I
wondered where the man who caused the trouble was sleeping. There were harsh
voices coming from the kitchen. And yellow light spilling out into the bar
where I waited. And some more men came around and threw a rock at the
windows of the bar, one of the windows smashed, and there was lots of shouting
and glass, and Justin, Jim and Chef called for the police. And they came with
their blue lights and big, square faces and clubs and heavy black boots and
they wanted to talk to me as well as Justin but Justin wouldn’t let them, said
I couldn’t talk anyway and so I didn’t say anything, and when they went Jim came
over, pulled my cheek and said I done well. I asked him if the man who
caused trouble was still asleep, and Justin said to Jim they had better go and
check and Chef gave me a glass of water and waited with me until it got light
and Justin and Jim came back with long, tired faces – and Chef started crying
and saying he never meant to get into this game, and saying what about Elaine? And what about the baby?
No comments:
Post a Comment