I had barely got my hands up when I took a one-two and my head jerked back. Adrian pulled away, circling. He jumped in with another one-two.
The next time I saw his right coming and leant to my left, but he anticipated and his glove glanced across my brow. He was hitting hard but not as hard as I knew he could. I circled, jogging backwards, but Adrian cut me off, one-two-three, the last one to my body, hard enough to make a good sound but not enough to wind me. Adrian was a complete boxer, I thought, as he caught me again and again.
The corporal blew his whistle and we stopped. Panting, I stared at the grass. Longbone addressed me. ‘You fucking clown. If you don’t hit back, I’m going to put you on a fucking charge.’ He blew the whistle again.
I launched myself at Adrian, my arms flailing wildly. He stepped to one side and I stumbled past him into the surrounding circle of men. Half blind with sweat, I felt the hands of a recruit push me back into the middle. I could hear encouragement and obscenities. This, I thought, as I saw again the boy with the gentle face, is a scene from Dax’s murder. Rubbing the sweat from my eyes, I refocused on Adrian. He was smiling. His feet were no longer dancing. Instead, he was walking about, circling me with a swagger. It was the swagger of the skinheads outside the Mash Tun pub. He leant in once or twice, as though to throw a punch. He was teasing me. I could see the other men yelling, but the blows had now rendered me deaf, with only a loud, incessant buzzing in my ears. Adrian stepped forward again; this time he punched me neatly, a right cross in the face. Temporarily blinded, I saw a black background with horizontally moving stars, and it was silent, almost pleasing, like falling asleep. He stepped back and with a rolling haymaker, one I could see coming but do nothing to avoid, socked me in the belly. I doubled over, winded.
Longbone blew his whistle and looked at his watch. I panted, my eyes appealing to his wrist. He looked back up at me. ‘Khan, you’ve got one minute to make an impression, otherwise I’m going to fucking have you on a charge.’ I knew the minimum charge would be cancelled Sunday leave. ‘Hartley, you’re holding back — if you don’t fucking finish him off you will be offering him your arse in the jailhouse.’ He blew his whistle.
I looked at Adrian. He wore a sly grin and his eyes, colder than ever, reminded me of his father’s. I could see a chain swinging from his hips and the silhouetted figures of my mother and father in the street, defiant but helpless. With a roar I swung a left at Adrian. He turned on his toes and slipped to one side, raising his hands in the air, gloating to his audience. He wouldn’t knock me out. He’d take the charge instead. I knew that. Or did I? I swung again, only to miss and receive two to the head. I circled back around quickly, behind Adrian. He turned to look at me. He smiled, his nostrils flared. I could see his right, about shoulder height, tucked behind his left which guarded his face; the right trembled as it readied for a knockout blow.
I looked upwards, fixing momentarily on a patch of sky. ‘Bismillah.’ He raised his eyes, looking for what I had seen. For a split second his neck was extended and I landed my best right, what Adrian would have called a straight right cross. I felt something buckle under my glove. He fell to the ground, clutching at his throat, his legs jerking like an epileptic.
Repeatedly the corporal blew hard on his whistle. I bent over Adrian. ‘Cunt, you let me win?’
‘I told you,’ he wheezed, ‘you could have Longbone.’
I turned to face the corporal and glared at him. Putting a glove to my mouth, I licked it, tasting leather, sweat, and the iron in Adrian’s blood.
*
Gripping the steering wheel, Dawn stared at the road ahead. With a hand casually placed against my chin, I tried to conceal the worst of the bruising around my mouth. I looked across at her, hypnotized by her silver dangly earrings. She turned briefly and smiled, the freckles on her nose illuminated by a shaft of light through the trees.
‘You been beaten up?’ she said. ‘Told you to be careful.’
I put both hands across my mouth, picking at a scab. ‘Funfair arrived?’
She nodded. ‘Spoke to Lucy Burnham. She’s at college and popped into the chemist’s. I’m an assistant there.’
‘Lucy Burnham? I assumed Burnham’s fields was a place name.’
‘It is, sort of,’ said Dawn.
‘You needn’t worry, when you tell me to be careful.’
‘How did you meet this Dax? Great name, by the way, fun.’
‘I can handle myself.’
‘Wendy said you could have made up the whole thing just to get me to—’
‘He’s dead,’ I interrupted.
She was silent for a moment. ‘I’m sorry.’ I could see her reflection in the windscreen, confused and sort of panicked. It disappeared abruptly as we passed into a shaded part of the road. When we motored back into the sunshine, Dawn seemed somehow different. Her grip on the steering wheel had loosened, and her face in profile was less determined, as though she no longer knew the destination.
‘I figured you were going to see him?’ Her voice trembled.
‘I’m sorry, I’ve upset you.’
‘I just feel a bit put upon. Misled.’
I shook my head. ‘Do you think you can truly be happy only once in your life, at one time, in one place?’
She glanced at me uncertainly. It was the same look as she’d worn in the pub when her friend cajoled her to go out with me. ‘Was your friend Dax happy here?’
‘He was in love with a girl who brought him eggs.’
She laughed. ‘That could have been Lucy!’
‘I don’t expect she will remember him,’ I said. ‘Strange, how things join up.’
‘She might,’ she said. ‘We could stop by the farmhouse. If she’s home we could mention it?’
I said, ‘His soul, and I know there is such a thing, it’s here.’
Dawn put her hand on my wrist and squeezed gently. Her touch no longer felt exciting the way it had in the pub. ‘You’ve got gentle eyes. You must be kind.’ She smiled, an enigmatic smile, the way only a girl could, with plumped, soft cheeks and narrowed, translucent eyes.
‘I’m not up to meeting Lucy.’ The view outside was of an undulating road blanketed deep inside a lush green. ‘This place is as good as anywhere. Why don’t we stop here?’
She pulled into a layby and without a word I stepped out and walked along the verge. She followed. ‘You’re hard work, you,’ she called, catching me up.
‘Can we just find a spot?’ I looked around. We were in a narrow lane bordered by hedges and forest on both sides. Slipping through a gap in the trees, we emerged into a field of long grass.
‘And a bit daft for a tough soldier type,’ she added.
We sat down on the grass. ‘How come this field isn’t ploughed?’ I said.
‘Resting,’ said Dawn.
I said nervously, ‘I’ve never had a girlfriend.’
‘This could be a Burnham field,’ said Dawn. ‘They’ve got land all over.’
‘How can you tell?’
‘Usually, you can spot the cut of someone’s field.’ She looked out into the distance. The field sloped steeply downwards, ending abruptly like the edge of a cliff.
‘Can we imagine it’s the field Dax knew?’ I said.
Dawn nodded. We sat, listening to the occasional call of a bird and the rustle of small mammals in the hedge.
Focusing on a patch of white sky, I raised my hands to my face and said a prayer for Dax, followed by the incantation ‘Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim’. I finished by swiping my hands down from my forehead to my chin.
‘Strangest date I’ve ever been on,’ said Dawn. ‘You’re not right, you soldier types. I’ve seen it before.’