‘Now listen, Cuntface,’ Denzil was saying in an easy, conversational manner. Brian assumed an expression of unearthly alertness. ‘See this?’
Denzil clenched his fist and the blue dots in the loose crinkly skin of his knuckles stretched themselves to read ‘GT BTN’.
‘Now you know,’ quavered Brian, ‘violence doesn’t solve anything.’
‘Don’t see how you make that out,’ argued Denzil. ‘You mess with his sister. We screw you to the wall. You leave her alone. Problem solved.’
‘But you can’t live like that,’ cried Brian, who would have been charmed by such disreputable logic had it surfaced in an improvisation.
‘You know a better way?’ asked Collar, with apparently genuine curiosity.
Brian stared around the ring of severe young faces and recognised his cause was hopeless. No point in searching for a flicker of sympathy or a weak link. As a last resort he started to whine.
‘What have I ever done to you?’ Silence. ‘Except to try and open up your pathetic lives a bit.’ The silence became slightly unpleasant. ‘Show you a more glamorous world. Introduce you to—’
Tom cut Brian short by raising his own right hand in a formal and very serious manner. He looked implacable and right and deeply authoritative.
‘There’s nothing else to say. We want half now, by which I mean tomorrow afternoon. And half Friday.’
‘And suppose I get it,’ said Brian, knowing he supposed the impossible.
‘We give you the tape.’
A tape! Of course. That explained the blurred prints and funny paper. Then, understanding this, various other incidents suddenly became significant. Her refusal to put the lights off. The music, which he had thought so romantic, was probably necessary to cover any sound from the camcorder. Oh! Edie of the sweet ginger ruff. Snake of my bosom. Viperette.
Hang about. Brian recalled the day, two terms ago now, when he had brought his brand-new Sanyo along to video rehearsals and it had disappeared. Could this possibly . . . ?
‘What machine did you—’
‘We got a contact in Slough.’ Denzil had a nasty habit of running the tip of his tongue over the palm of his hand then stroking his scalp, repeating the movement over and over again. Brian had often wondered what his hand must taste like at the end of it.
‘He runs a little business.’ Collar took up the story. ‘Educational films.’
They all looked at each other and then at Brian in a way that made it clear the meeting was at an end. Brian got up and prepared once more to travel that vast Sahara of sand-coloured interlocking blocks of wood. He had finally reached the door when Edie called his name.
‘Yes.’ Brian wheeled around and began to hurry back, suddenly light of foot. ‘Yes, Edie - what is it?’
Edie, who had been fishing inside her Green Bay Packers jacket, now produced what looked like a piece of rag but was Brian’s underpants. She threw them on to the floor. They were inside out and a thin, brown smear was clearly visible. The idea came to Brian that he would turn and walk away. Show his contempt by leaving them. Then he wondered if the group might tell everyone. Perhaps even pass them round. He bent and picked them up.
This time he had barely reached the halfway mark when the call came. He didn’t turn round. Just stayed quite still, heart pounding with premonitory fright, stuffing his Y-fronts into his trouser pocket.
The voices started again. All of them at once. Not harsh and sneering as they had been before, but wheedling, seeming to beckon in a friendly way. Joshing him.
Brian, finding himself as he thought on the cutting edge of mass ridicule, almost ran the last few steps. Grabbing the handle, he swung the door open.
‘Don’t,’ Edie cried. ‘Brian? Don’t go.’
Now she was hurrying towards him, seizing his arm, persuading him towards her. Brian sensed rather than saw the rest of them, approaching in a clump behind her. Within seconds they were all about him too, urging him back into the centre of the room in a vigorous but jovial manner, little Bor actually tugging at his hand.
‘Whatcha think, Bri?’
‘Was it good?’
‘He really fell for it - didn’t you?’
‘He was in a recruitment mode in every sphere.’
‘In every cocking sphere.’
‘Can’t see it in the play, though. Can you, Bri?’
‘Nah. Can’t see this . . .’ Suddenly Denzil had in his hand a flat black shining case. He started throwing it up into the air, spinning it, catching it again. Winking at Brian. ‘Actually in what you might call “the play”.’
‘You’re not mad are you, love?’ Edie linked up just as she had when they were drinking the Thunderbirds Mixed and smiled into Brian’s face. An open, guileless smile, full of confidence, expecting praise. ‘It was only an impro.’