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don’t want to ruin his …’
    ‘Week, perhaps? Month, maybe? His type always bounces back. Look over there.’
    Arthur followed where her finger was pointing. Two nine-year-old boys were bent over a rain puddle in the cracked concrete. They should have been at school. Instead they were mindlessly, repetitively, picking up pieces of rubbish, setting them on fire with a lighter and dropping them in the water.
    ‘You don’t have long,’ said Lynne. Arthur watched the two boys for a moment more.
    ‘But I …’ He turned round. In the darkness of the car park, Lynne had gone.
    Ross was sitting alone in the canteen, a place made up of hideous plastic furniture that somebody believed would be made to look like the Dorchester by the addition of some wickerwork and some pathetically touching pot plants. He was rocking on the edge of his chair and prodding a pencil at a glutinous piece of Danish pastry. Arthur stood in the doorway and looked at him. Suddenly, he didn’t look much of a tosspot any more. He looked like an ordinary young man, already running to fat, anxious and insecure.
    ‘Ross,’ said Arthur softly. He’d felt nervous about doing this, but seeing him, he couldn’t be.
    Ross blinked and let his chair fall back to the table with a start. He couldn’t quite look at Arthur but stared straight ahead.
    ‘Hey Art!’ he said, forcing the jocularity into his voice.
    ‘Do you want a coffee or something?’ As soon as he’d said that, Arthur realized it was cruel. Why prolong the uncertainty while he buggered about getting a cup of coffee? He might as well have said, ‘Would you like an extra four and a half minutes of excruciating torture?’
    ‘No, thanks,’ said Ross.
    ‘Ross …’
    ‘Yeah? What? Good news, is it?’ He coughed a cynical laugh.
    ‘No,’ said Arthur. He wondered if Ross would punch him, but he still felt all right; quite under control.
    ‘Ross, they’re doing something different. I’m afraid you’re going to have to leave.’
    Ross stood up, as if he couldn’t bear to be any closer in airspace to Arthur. ‘God, God, I bloody knew it.’
    ‘I understand you’ll be feeling upset …’
    ‘Might have known they’d get some namby pamby PC non-car bloody saddo who just happens to be good at fucking poofter tests …’
    ‘Okay … maybe not quite that upset.’
    ‘I told ’em. Sort out the roads. Build more. Don’t hire some soft wanker who can’t even get laid.’
    ‘Yes, well, we seem to be moving from upset to offensive …’
    ‘And now they’ve got you running the whole bloody town! Well, God help them, that’s all I can say.’
    Ross stood up and kicked his plastic chair crossly, his heavily gelled ginger hair sticking straight up from his forehead. He advanced on Arthur.
    ‘I don’t give a fuck, you know. You’re not the first guy in here. Some bloke walked in and offered me a job in Slough. You just bloody watch me. I’ll sort out that place and we’ll be using your fucking pedestrianized precincts as car parks.’
    Arthur got riled. ‘That will be great. Why have just one town hating you when there are so many more opportunities out there?’
    Ross leaned into him menacingly. The room was eerily silent, it still being out of lunch-hour time. Arthur suddenly found himself thinking back to his first and only fight ever. He was ten years old and, after kicking the shit out of everyone in the class in ascending order of size, McGuire had finally got round to him. The time had been pre-ordained. The class had encircled them. Arthur had taken a deep breath, trying to remember what his stepfather had told him – ‘Don’t worry, son, you only have to square up to the bullies once, then they’ll leave you alone. Run at him as fast as you can and try and hit him on the nose.’ Of course McGuire had held out one arm, held him by the forehead and pounded him into the ground – on that day and so many days after that, it long ceased to be a spectator sport.