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It was after a show. Long after, judging by the number of empty pint glasses littering the tables the lot of them were dispersed around. Miles was ensconced at the end of a booth pressed in between Al and a plank of old oak from hip to shoulder. The night was frigid but sitting there he felt almost drowsy with warmth, like putting on clothes right out the dryer.
Mostly they’d been chatting shite all the while. Him and Al, their bands, their friends, friends of friends, plus a few kids from the show who seemed cool to hang or hung around anyway. Each topic of conversation dissolved as quickly as beer down their gullets.
Case in point was the present subject which Miles followed as it pin-balled across the table: How much would you do it for?—What, up the arse?—Mouth’s a mouth—Johnno’d do it for free—You’d have to pay someone to suck him off—Who’d want any of you ugly bastards anyway. Then suddenly they were on to the next thing passed along from the table over, a story involving a pair of twins and a leather recliner one of the lads swore up and down the truth of.
Miles was poised to call it bollocks when he felt Al mutter close to his ear about stepping out for a fag. For a moment he barely caught the words, too focused on the nice tingly sensation down his side, until Al nudged him and he got to his feet.
“Where’r you two off to?” Jamie said.
“Just goin’ for a fag,” Al replied, shoving on his jacket. His hands restlessly moved in and out his pockets, likely looking for a pack Miles knew well he didn’t have.
“Hold on, I’ll come.”
Jaimie’s words caused a ripple effect and soon enough a bunch of them were huddled on the pavement pretending the cold didn’t bother them.
“You ever think about stuff like what they were talking about in there? I mean doing it with someone like that,” Al said later between puffs of the camel light he pinched from him, the cheapo. They were stood alone; everyone else had gone back in or drifted off by then but Miles took his cue from Al who stayed next to the decorative flower boxes on the pub window sill left barren in the winter-time, asking for another. Back-to-back fags didn’t well suit Miles, still he had waved Joe off and lit two more.
“Sounds a bit dangerous. What if one of yous hit the lever? Sayonara,” Miles laughed. “‘Sides, a bit weird, innit really? Sisters.”
“No—I didn’t mean… the other thing, y’know, if you got 50 quid…”
“Oh that. Can’t say I have mate. Why, you been offered?”
Al’s eyes grew so wide Miles wished he could photograph it. Caption: innocence lost. Not a bad name for an album and his face was an even better cover.
“‘Course not, imagine that. I heard the Libertines did it, y’know. Probably just a load of shite, but,” Al shrugged.
“Yeah, well, you’d do a lot of things for a bit of smack, do you know what I mean? And on it. Bit sad if you think about it.”
“Yeah, Roxanne and that,” Al nodded solemnly.
Reading one another’s minds they simultaneously burst out their best Sting impression and wailed the titular line at each other: Roooooooxanne! Their breaths came out white in the cool night air as if they just pulled on a cigarette each. He could smell the bitter and tobacco from Al’s mouth. It wasn’t a nice smell—only Camden hipsters would turn it into a candle—but it was a familiar one. Without thinking his nose followed the scent and was rewarded by a hot puff before Al fell against the brick wall with a grin plastered on his face. Miles stepped in closer.
“Okay,” Al sighed, regaining his breath. “Okay, but if you weren’t on smack or anythin’ like that.”
The cherry of Al’s fag end glowed in the dark as he took a drag. Miles thought the ciggies were sobering him up some but a feel-good buzz coursed beneath his skin.
“If I were bent?”
“Ah, you can’t call ‘em that.” Al gave him a light shove. His hand hung around for a moment to squeeze at his shoulder almost painfully, though it didn’t feel like a reproach.
“Sorry. If I were—“ Miles tried a fey pose and said, “a dedicated follower of fashion?”
“That’s you definitely,” he amusedly replied.
Miles resumed his regular slouch and stuck his cigarette in his mouth for a considering drag. His dark brows drew together. “Wouldn’t get me 50 quid then, would I? I’d be handing it out for nowt.”
“That all you can think of? Pay day?”
“What should I be thinkin’ of?” His voice came out more low and even than he intended, far off the mark of hammy.
They subsequently fell into the sort of faltering silence that envelops a crowd when the punchline flops. The humour on Al’s face fuzzed; his gaze dropped to the ground and his mouth, often so quick with a riposte, clamped into a thin line. It should have been funny, or at least not awkward, either way Miles would normally have cut his losses, filled the dead air, and got the stone rolling again. Instead, his eyes simply fixed on Al’s lowered face. Waiting, he guessed, for the boy to say it. Whatever it was. A joke, probably. Something they could laugh about.
Watching him, Miles realized he was experiencing a sensation similar to that of Deja vu. He’d been here once before, maybe twice, standing on the precipice with Al and neither willing to jump. Sometimes he couldn’t tell if he had dreamt it all those times. There was a weird familiarity to the memories common in dreams, where the oddest stuff made the most sense. What you sort of wanted to try with a pal you wouldn’t with another. Bowie, like.
The strangest thing, what really freaked him out, was not knowing if Al thought the same.
Al’s gaze drew to the left and Miles followed. A few pub-goers stood around gabbing with one another, lingering in their coats and scarves before they had to part. One, a girl Miles could tell was pretty from where he stood, clamped a hand to her mouth to stifle giggles at something the man with his arm around her waist had said. Her fingers were frost-bitten pink against her lipsticked mouth.
“Bloody freezing out here, let’s head back in.”
“Yeah,” Al said, meeting his eyes for what felt like the first time in ages though it couldn’t have been more than a minute. He seemed relieved. “I can’t feel my bollocks.”
Having his smile returned made whatever just passed between them seep into the ink blotted edges of the night. If anyone asked, he couldn’t say with certainty what it was they had been talking about out here and suspected that neither could Al.
When he stepped back and out of Al’s space he felt the chill in his bones for the first time. It really was fucking cold. For a bit of warmth he took one last desperate pull from his cigarette before chucking it underfoot. Al stood in place savouring the last dregs of his own. He looked an Artful Dodger sort, Miles thought, standing there with his pale cheeks ruddy from the harsh weather and his slender hand poised in vice. Little sneak thief, him.
“C’mon, Dodger,” Miles called.
Al exhaled. Dropped the cigarette. Covered the distance Miles put between them. “What’s that make you? Oliver?”
“Nah, he’s a prig.”
“Knew you’d say that. Who do you wanna be then?”
“Fagin. Corruptor of Brittania’s youth,” said Miles. “And the boss of you,” he added as he slung an arm tightly around Al’s neck.
Al squirmed in his grip and yelped, “I thought we were equals! Brothers!”
The pair half-heartedly wrestled on the pavement till sweat formed on their cool brows and their chests heaved beneath their jackets and they sprung apart gasping, grinning, neither winners except in their own particular way.