James Lovegrove - The Age Of Odin by James Lovegrove Page B

prison or the army."
    "Bingo." Cy grinned. "You too, man?"
    "Not quite. Me, it was army or what the fuck else are you going to do with shitty qualifications like those?"
    "Nothing? No GCSEs?"
    "Failed them all. I'm not thick. I just don't get on with writing essays or working out equations or remembering who signed the Magna fucking Carta. One look at an exam paper and I freeze."
    "Snap."
    "South London, yeah?"
    "Bermondsey. You?"
    "Wandsworth. And I've got a scar too, we've got that in common as well. Right big fuck-off one, only you can't really see it because my hair's grown over."
    "Give us a look."
    "All right. As you insist." Like I needed asking twice.
    I pushed up the hair on the left side of my head. Cy peered, then whistled. It always impressed people, my scar, once it was exposed. A rough hexagon shape, about the diameter of a ping-pong ball, with straggly lines forking off it in various directions. I tapped it with a finger. "Ding-ding. Titanium underneath. Sets off airport scanners everywhere I go. Which, of course, plays havoc with my millionaire jet-set lifestyle."
    "Where'd you get it?"
    "Afghanistan. Gift from the Taliban. One of the 'roadside flowers' they planted for us."
    "Shit, bruv," Cy said, with feeling. "Harsh."
    Some of the other guys around us nodded in sympathy.
    "Tell you what I heard about you, though," Cy went on. "I heard you gave Thor a run for his money. After he'd knocked seven shades out of me, you went all psycho on his arse."
    "You missed a treat, Cy," said the guy opposite. Spud-faced Irishman with a nose flattened sideways and a big black monobrow. "Yer man here had him down on the floor. Got him in the nads as well. The big fella was all a-whimpering and a-groaning. Honestly, it was a joy to behold, Thor getting his comeuppance. Even if it didn't last."
    "I take it nobody likes Thor then?" I said.
    "Oh, I wouldn't go so far as to say nobody likes him," the Irishman replied. "He's a harsh taskmaster, that's all, and he enjoys throwing his weight around. You cross him, he lets you know about it. All in the name of maintaining discipline, to be sure, but he can carry it too far. Like with young Cyrus here. Who, all he did was suggest our unit had practised this outflanking manoeuvre one too many times and maybe we should try something else for a bit of variety, and Thor came down on him like a ton of bricks."
    "To be honest," said Cy, "I was itching to take a swing at him. He'd been riding me all week, calling me lazy and sloppy and slow. Finally I cracked... and Thor schooled me, like I knew he would. But not before I got in a few good licks."
    "Yeah, you looked pretty tasty from what I saw," I said, miming jabs.
    "Learned to box down the youth centre when I was a kid. Won a couple of junior amateur belts. Coach reckoned I had what it takes to turn pro. Would have too, if I'd been able to keep out of trouble back home."
    "Trouble?"
    "Only 'cause the gangstas on our estate kept getting all up in my face, giving me shit, dissing my mum and that. Fucker that cut me up, he fancied himself this big ghetto drug-lord, had all the bling, the pimped car, everything, and he'd been after this girl who was my girl, Tanya, and Tanya wasn't having none of it, so he blamed me for that and went for me one morning. Lay in wait in the stairwell outside my mum's flat and hacked me with a machete as I came out to go to school. I wasn't carrying or nothing. Still, I learned him never to do that again."
    "You got the better of a guy with a machete, and you were unarmed?" Cy kept going up and up in my estimation.
    "Yeah, well, funnily enough the fuzz didn't see it that way, did they? On account of all I got was a slashed-open face, whereas him - he doesn't look anything like he used to any more, and doesn't think straight or talk so good any more either."
    "Fair's fair," I said. "He asked for it. I'm Gid, by the way. Gid Coxall."
    "Yeah. Cy. Cy Fearon."
    Other introductions followed. The Irishman was Colm