Rule of Night by Trevor Hoyle

covered in lipstick. Her face is heavy, over-ripe, with the powder settling into the cracks and lines that radiate from her eyes and mouth and down either side of her nose: too many late nights and too much Guinness have robbed the skin of its bloom and tautness, and the dragging inertia of approaching middle-age is pulling wearily at her features so that it requires constant animation to keep the truth from showing. Her body is packed solid, like an overstuffed cushion: she seems constrained inside the clothes she wears as though at any moment something is going to burst and spill its contents over the rug. And yet you wouldn’t describe her as fat; well-built, ample, a shade overblown perhaps. Janice comes into the room, a slip of nothing in her school blouse and grey pleated skirt. ‘Do you want a drink?’ she asks Kenny quietly.
    â€˜Not bothered,’ Kenny says, looking straight at Janice, whose colour deepens as her eyes meet his. Kenny gnaws at his fingernails and his eyes flick back and forth from her face to the passage leading to her bedroom. Janice frowns and shakes her head slightly, and behind her mother’s chair motions him to be patient. In the middle of this Mrs Singleton turns round.
    Janice blushes and clears her throat. She says, ‘Do you want a drink, mum?’
    â€˜What’s up with you?’ Mrs Singleton says. She looks annoyed. ‘I can make my own drink, thank you.’ There is a brief silence. ‘Well?’ she says. ‘You haven’t brought the lad back at this time of night for a cup of cocoa.’

MATCH
    AT THE ROCHDALE V BLACKBURN ROVERS MATCH ON THE 8th December there was a crowd of 5,116, the largest gate of the season so far. Kenny and Janice and the others had been in position behind the goal since two-thirty – half an hour before the kick-off. Kenny wore his blue-and-white striped scarf knotted onto his belt so that it hung down nearly to the ground. At the other end of the pitch the Blackburn Rovers supporters in their striped scarves and bob-caps were massing: a sea of heads and upraised arms spilling out of the low stand and down the concrete terrace. Already the police had been in and removed three of them, to a chant of ‘Ani-mals! Ani-mals! Ani-mals!’ from the home crowd.
    It was a clear blue brilliant day, a sharpness in the air, perfect for football, the green turf stretching smooth and neatly trimmed in the sunshine, and the breeze ruffling the corner flags. Queues formed at the refreshment stands, waiting for Oxo and sweetish coffee in plastic cups and hot meat pies wrapped in soft absorbent squares of paper. Under the metal gantry in the main stand the directors filed into the box, muffled to the chin in bulky suede jackets lined with sheepskin and double-breasted camel-hair coats. With ten minutes to go the police had stationed themselves in front of and amongst the crowd, nodding to one another while they kept a careful watch on the pockets of potential aggression; the Rochdale and Blackburn supporters were known to hate each other’s guts, having clashed at previous games both on the ground and in the streets of the town.
    â€˜We hate Nottingham Forest.
    We hate Liverpool too.
    We hate Man. United…
    But Rochdale we love you!’ sang the crowd to the tune of ‘Land of Hope and Glory’, followed by the chant and counter-chant:
    â€˜Rochdale…’
    â€˜SHIT!’
    â€˜Rochdale…’
    â€˜SHIT!’
    â€˜Rochdale…’
    Kenny and Janice were in the centre of a tight swaying mob about fifty in number, stabbing their arms upwards in time with the chants, an action that was dismissive of the away supporters and at the same time an overt threat. Fester, in-between surges, was drinking from a pint can of Long Life, the pale liquid gushing from the triangular slot – some of it, due to greed, missing his mouth and running down his chin and soaking into his crewneck