1986

I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it.

About a year ago we had been rolling back from the pub when we bumped into him – a twat with a big reputation - in the vennel between our houses and he had shoulder-butted my mate and they had got into a scrap. He was really drunk but was on top of my mate so he couldn’t get up. I hauled him off and threw him across the road, then got my mate up and we were walking off when I swear he got up again and ordered us to fight. This time was easier; my mate got him a couple of times and he went down, then I sunk the boot a few times as well. I can remember him spitting out teeth and groaning a lot, the rolling over on his back. We had really fucked him good. He was going nowhere. I really hit him hard.

I lived in fear of meeting him from that moment onwards.

I eventually came upon him on the night bus home from the east end of the town. I was sitting back a bit from the front and he got on and sat right in the front seats. I almost pissed myself with fear. His reputation now seemed justified. If he saw me he’d kill me – no doubt about it.

I got up about four stops too early and stepped off, with my back awkwardly to him at all times. As the doors shut behind me I saw his face at the window, now knowing who I was. He jumped to his feet to get the bus stopped, but I was running away by now – fast. I heard the brakes of the bus screeching and knew he would be out to look for me. God knows what he said to the driver.

I jumped the brick wall round the corner from where I stood and hid in the nook between the garden shed there and the brick wall, not even breathing. It was a cold night. If felt as though the plumes from my mouth could be seen from a mile away. I reached out and grabbed a set of shears, as though that was going to help me at all.

Footsteps running. Muttered threats. Close. My breath was held. My muscles taught. I was no fighter. I was a coward who kicked in the faces of silly drunk people who didn’t know better and then ran away from them for the rest of his life. I was a pathetic little man and now I was going to pay for that dearly. Someone who knew was coming to get me.

He is going to find me. I am going to die. Tonight. I am going to die tonight. Soon. So very soon. The one moment about my life I have spent all my days trying to work out or guess was now a cast iron certainty.

I can hear footsteps close by me. Breathing. Muttering. This is it. He is in the garden and he is going to find me. I’ve never been so frightened in my life.

The light from the streetlamp is momentarily obscured by a figure in front of me, standing no more than three feet away. Fight or flight. Now or never. I jump up screaming with the shears in my hand and catch him under the ribs with the tip of one blade. With an awful exhalation he falls backwards and lands in the garden, exposed under the street light. My surprise turns to a twisted elation in the knowledge that I’ve just flattened him. Squint in the dark.

He’s wearing a bathrobe, now flapping wide open in the night winds. His back door is open. His blood is all over me. He’s not moving of his own volition. Jesus Christ…it’s not him. I forget everything about why I hid there and let out a short but loud cry in the dark. No thought. Over the wall. Hurriedly drop the shears in a bin. Run home quickly, heart hammering and lungs burning, through the dark streets with dark blood on my white shirt. Get there via my back wall, dart through the close and get to my front door through gardens, open the door and slam it behind me. Sitting alone in my room. Waiting for another person to surprise me with bad news.

Always looking over my shoulder. Him. Relatives. Police. Demons. All quiet so far. Someone who knows may come and get me. No one knows so far. My secret. Keep quiet about it. Get my head down for ten years. Save some money. Move out. Find a girl. Marry. Settle down. Do all the things I hate. Live a peaceful life somewhere else with a driveway and a car to wash and kids to take out on Sundays. A quiet life. I can say that it’s all I have ever wanted. I can always say that I didn’t mean it. Counting days from now on. One. Two comes around tomorrow. Then three. Double figures by next week. They’ll be wrapping fish in the story by then. Home clear. Home clear. This is how big changes are made in life. Not by huge decisions made after weeks of thought, but by hurried actions after accidents that we cannot have avoided. Just get me past today and I’ll be home clear.