The Folded Man Read Online Free Page A

hat hanging off his head. Brian who looks surprised and shocked and angry and lost. Who’s all wet and tired and seems confused.
    Tariq heaves Brian up, rights the wrongs. Big lad, Tariq is. Thick round the top half. He says, Good night, was it pal?
    Brian murmurs.
    Get you home shall we?
    Tariq drives an old Vauxhall with a big boot and a heavy foot. Like most things in their city, it only works to a point. Inside, the windows steam up quickly. Brian feels baffled. Numb by the arse. He looks out to low cloud and back to worn seat fabric. Draws three stickmen, two legs apiece, on the windows. Then, he rubs them out.
    Fact is, there aren’t many Asians with curfew licences, so Brian’s surprised to meet Tariq. It’s rarer still that he’s gone unchecked by the local lads. They strung a guy from a lamp post the month before – called the police and said we don’t pay fares to their type. But he doesn’t ask. Doesn’t care. This is getting home. This is going to bed.
    The taxi stops at the house. Tariq looks out at the sharp­line fence, the cameras, the floodlamps, the wrought-iron gates.
    Tariq passes him a business card. I’m around and about. Could do with some more regulars.
    Brian takes the card. Grunts. Looks out at the purple Transit, parked on his side of the road.
    The house where Brian rots.

3.
    Saturday. First light is a fresh yolk dashed across the Pennines – an orange line that turns the edges of morning pink. But there’s always fragility to sunshine over the moors – a pregnancy. Because for everyone here, everyone nearby, warm weather on these hills is just weather waiting to relapse.
    Brian is falling through the morning – falling and burning through. He’s been drinking and smoking since four. By seven, he’s still numb but somehow focused, scratching hard from toe to hip, trying harder to roll a thin joint for later. At eight, he calls for a cab and waits in his porch, locking and unlocking and relocking the deadbolts.
    Brian smells of burnt hair and yesterday’s clothes. He hasn’t noticed the sick on his coat sleeves, and definitely hasn’t clocked the bent spokes on the left wheel.
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    The taxi runs hot, running reds. You don’t stop on this road. Not for porn shops or bookies; the gold exchange or the social clubs. Not by the boarded-up terraces with their lights still on inside. Not for the fresh flowers on railings; not for the wet red sand beneath them. Not even for some kid’s body in a shattered bus stop, head spread over a metre in long red ribbons. The party from the night before.
    By Noah’s shop, Ancoats, bordering town, Brian pays for the cab. Another ten pounds to cross about ten minutes of hell. The driver says nothing; he just gets out, opens the boot, and unfolds the wheelchair.
    Brian shuffles himself across the backseat.
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    A shoe shop was never the most imaginative front, but Noah’s drugs factory is getting so close to legit he’s taken to handing out business cards with his bribes. There’s isn’t a bastard missing on his books – pigs through pimps, councils through ex-cons. He’s the go-to man. The shop’s just there so he isn’t rubbing important noses in his success. A kind of upright hobby to hide the plants and the pills.
    Brian rolls through puddles and up kerbs. He clips the doorframe, clatters the entry bell.
    In one aisle, Noah’s holding a pair of school shoes to a little girl’s feet. Her mother is thumbing some catalogue, licking fingers, pulling corners. Brian recognises her. It’s the young woman who knocked on about donations and animals.
    Very early, pal, Noah says, not looking up. Having a bad do this morning – mind waiting?
    The little girl stares at Brian, at the hat and the beard, the clothes, the blanket. The woman turns, smiles thinly, not really noticing, not really listening.
    Brian shakes his head, holds up his