Life's Lottery by Kim Newman Read Free Book Online

pints go down and your bladder fills, you assume you were wrong. James is friendly with Hackwill, even exchanges names with him. He must have forgotten the whole thing. You’ve carried the guilt for fifteen years and he’s wiped the copse from his mind.
    This realisation, combined with the drink, makes you light-headed.
    Finally, Hackwill eases off the sturdy bar-stool and mutters about ‘pointing Percy at the porcelain’.
    ‘You sure your mate’s all right?’ James asks Jessup as soon as Hackwill has tottered off. ‘He’s had one too many. Shouldn’t you see if he’s okay?’
    Bewildered, Jessup agrees and follows Hackwill into the bog.
    Lightning-sober, James tells Max not to let anyone use the Gents for five minutes.
    ‘Come on,’ he tells you. ‘This is for the copse.’
    James remembers. He has always remembered.
    The barman comes out, on his break, and guards the Gents door as James slips in. You follow.
    * * *
    Hackwill stands at the white wall, urinating loudly. Jessup is wheedling, asking if he’s all right, annoying him.
    James springs across the room and catches Hackwill with his cock out, shoving him against the wet enamel. He rains blows on Hackwill’s head, driving him into the urine-trickling runnel, scattering disinfectant cakes. The smell is strong. James, grunting with each of his well-aimed punches, dances back and forth, jabbing and kicking. Blood trickles in with the piss.
    James pauses and looks back. ‘You do fat boy, Keith.’
    He kicks the whining Hackwill in the side and starts a boot ballet, as if trying to cram the sodden bully into the plug-holes of the urinal.
    You look at Jessup, who backs into a stall. You remember the fat face snickering as James wet himself, calling to you.
    ‘It’s all right,’ you tell him. ‘I won’t hurt you…’
    Relief sweats out of the fat face.
    ‘Much.’
    From inside, violent rage erupts. You didn’t know that you were still so angry, that you carried the hurt.
    * * *
    You leave Hackwill and Jessup bloodied on the stinking floor of the Gents. Max has lined up fresh, on-the-house pints on the bar. Everybody remembers their school bully. No one ever forgives.
    People gather round. You buy them all drinks. You buy a roomful of witnesses. Hackwill and Jessup slink out by a side door.
    Drinking your pint, you catch James’s eye. As one, you make fists in the air and roar. The Marion brothers are back in business!
    * * *
    In the Falklands, James is severely wounded. He loses his left leg below the knee and is mustered out on a disability allowance. The medal citation commends his ‘initiative and conspicuous bravery’ in holding a position while someone else went to summon reinforcements. You wonder whether you taught him (by example) that he had to bear the brunt of the attack while others took the problem to a higher authority. James comes home changed but not obviously embittered. He is still self-reliant, even if he has to hobble around on a prosthesis. After a few months, he refuses to use a crutch.
    The family regroups around James. With Dad gone and you in London, he becomes the fulcrum. You talk with him every week on the phone, and he updates you on what’s happening with Mum – who has a boyfriend, Phil Parslowe – and Laraine.
    Wounds heal. Disabilities are coped with.
    It’s all been taken out of your hands.
    * * *
    You work as a technical journalist in the daytime but struggle in the evenings with
Freebooter
, a historical novel. You live with Christina Temple, your girlfriend since university. You sell
Freebooter
and are contracted to write two sequels,
Buccaneer
and
Privateer
. You follow your hero, Kenneth Merriam, through a career of piracy from stowaway cabin boy to governor of Jamaica. Once you’ve used that up, you write about Merriam’s ancestors, in
Gallant, Galleon
and
Galliass
. You and Christina marry, and have two children, Jasper and Jessamyn. You write about Merriam’s descendants