A Song for the Dying

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‘Now I’m no’ saying he’s gay — I’m no’ saying he’s ho-mo-sexual — I’m saying he’s a big Jessie. No’ the same thing.’

‘Not this again…’ A crescent moon makes a scar in the clouds, glowering down at them as Kevin picks his way through the frost-crisped grass, breath streaming out behind him. Nipples like little points of fire. Fingers aching where they stick out past the end of his sleeve, wrapped around the torch. The legs of his glasses cold against his temples.

Behind him, the ambulance’s blue and white lights make lazy search beams, sending shadows creeping through the trees at the side of the road. The headlights glint back from a bus shelter, the Perspex blistered and blackened where someone’s tried to set fire to it.

Nick clunks the ambulance door shut. ‘I mean, seriously, look at him: could he be any more of a Jessie?’

‘Will you shut up and help me?’

‘Don’t know what you’re so worked up about.’ Nick has a scratch at his beard, really going at it, like a dog with fleas. Tiny flakes of white fall from the face-fungus, caught in the glow of his torch like dying fireflies. ‘Just going to be another sodding crank call, like all the rest of them. Tell you: ever since they found that woman with her innards all ripped up in Kingsmeath, every time-wasting tosser in the city’s been on the phone reporting gutted women. Listen to them, the bloody place should be knee-deep in dead tarts.’

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