‘Busy in here tonight,’ I observed. ‘Hello, stranger!’ she said. ‘We’ve got a band on later. Didn’t you know?’ I didn’t. Eight pints of Foster’s, ten Silk Cut, and a game of pool had been the upper limit of my ambition for the evening when I looked in the mirror before coming out. I told Candice to make hers a large one.
‘And have you heard?’ she said over her shoulder as she pressed the glass up against the optic. ‘I’ve got a fella.’ ‘No!’ I said. Candice hadn’t had a bloke to call her own for ages and she couldn’t quite believe it herself. More good news. We both laughed. ‘Poor bloke,’ I said. ‘Anyone we know?’ ‘He’ll be in later,’ she said. ‘I’ll point him out. If you see a lad who looks like he needs a good night’s sleep, that’ll be him.’
I was going to ask her whether Trev was in yet, but I could already hear him crowing like a cockerel and yelling, ‘Who’s the Daddy!’ in the pool room. I took my drink over. Trev was cueing up a long red and sighted me over his bridging hand. ‘Look what the cat dragged in!’ he yelled, smashing the ball into the top corner pocket.
His cueing hand was covered with a plaster cast. I asked him what had happened to it. He managed to look both sheepish and proud. He’d been in a fight down at the King Bill, he said, and he’d hit this creep over the head with a crate of beer. And as the bloke had gone down, he’d stupidly punched him on the top of his head as hard as he could and broken a bone in his hand.
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