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the ice, reached down an arm, and pulled Peter out of the water.
    “Stupid,” Peter spat, shivering as they walked home together, he soaked and freezing. “You could have gone through the ice, too.”
    “Yeh.”
    “You pulled me out.”
    “Yeh.”
    “We both could have died.”
    “Yeh.”
    “Stupid.”
    “Yeh.”
    Two years after that Peter repaid him. One beautiful summer evening, with the air smelling of sweet, new-mown grass, they were playing cricket on the playground along with some younger kids. Two older boys appeared, strangers, their faces creased with mischief. One of them had a stick with a rope noose at the end of it. Just for fun, just for meanness, the boy with the stick strolled right up to Richie and hooked the noose tight round Richie’s neck. Richie was brought to his knees, his face puce, struggling to breathe.
    Peter was holding the cricket bat. Without hesitation he stepped up to the mean youth as casually as if he were moving to the wicket and going to bat. He swung the bat hard and struck the boy across the ear. The boy’s head made exactly the same pleasing sound as a cricket ball on a bat, leather on willow. The boy went down as if he’d been shot.
    The second aggressor turned pale. “You’re fuckin’ mad,” he said. “You coulda killed ’im!”
    “You want some?” said Peter.
    Richie, still purple in the face, tore the noose from around his neck and used the attached stick to thrash at his tormentor, who lay on the ground, guarding his head. The second boy chose to say no more.
    “It’s enough. Leave it,” said Peter.
    The cricket game was over. They walked home without a word, leaving the assailant lying on the ground.
    They shared a lot of history and a lot of hurt.
    Peter was startled from his reveries when his passenger door was suddenly snatched open by a man in a gray hoodie. The man had serious need of a shave. He looked at Peter with unblinking bloodshot eyes.
    “How long you gonna sit here without coming in?”
    “DO YOU WANT BEER or whisky?” Richie said.
    “I’ll have a beer.”
    Richie seemed not to hear Peter, because he splashed two measures of whisky into glass tumblers and handed one to Peter. “Quite a surprise. You showing up.”
    Peter took a slurp of the whisky. Supermarket special. He settled back on the leather sofa and glanced round the room. There were three electric guitars lying around, and a couple of small amps. One expensive-looking jumbo acoustic guitar. The place was tidy but dusty. No sign of a woman’s touch. Peter had heard over the years that Richie was living with this or that woman, was supposed to have fathered a child by one of them, but there was no sign of children or family.
    “Fag?” Richie sparked up a cigarette.
    “No. Gave up. No one smokes indoors anymore, anyway.”
    “They do in this house.” He blew a plume of smoke to advertise the point.
    Richie wore his hair very close cropped. He once had beautiful long hair, and girls fell in love with its soft waves; some did, anyway, and Tara once said that it was his hair that made her fall in love with him. If the severe crop was to disguise the salt-and-pepper color the years had given over, it only drew attention to the bony shape of his head. His pale skin seemed stretched and taut over the skull it covered. The veins on his forehead were a little too prominent and a little too blue.
    These days Richie wore round John Lennon old-style glasses. He pushed them up the bridge of his nose. “I hear you’re a blacksmith now.”
    “Farrier.”
    “What’s the difference?”
    “Horses. Horseshoes.”
    Richie wrinkled his nose and took another sip of whisky. “Never have been on the back of a horse.”
    “Sensible. Flighty creatures. You’ve got to watch they don’t kick you in the head.” Peter pointed at the guitars. “I see you’ve kept the faith.”
    Richie grunted.
    “Does it make you a living?” As far as Peter knew, Richie did the pubs circuit, was in and out