Thicker Than Water

He managed to hook a thumb into Kenny’s eye socket and force his head back so that Kenny couldn’t butt him, and he landed a sucker punch to Kenny’s stomach when the opportunity presented itself. Kenny retaliated by slamming his fist into Matt’s jaw - a solid punch with all his weight behind it that made Matt’s ou made Mhead rock back and then forward again like one of those dogs in the backs of cars whose oversized craniums are mounted on springs. But Matt kept his guard up and blocked the vicious low blows and crotch kicks that would have ended the fight in one go.

"Then there were a few moments when the two of them were so tightly pressed together that they couldn’t really punch or kick at all: they just swayed backwards and forwards, struggling for leverage. I could see a few people in the group - Kenny’s brother Steven, who was my age, and his best mate Davey Barlow who was red-haired and rangy and almost as big a psychopath as Kenny - looking doubtful and unhappy, as if they weren’t sure whether or not to intervene.

Then Kenny broke free, got in another devastating punch to Matt’s face but jumped back, not pressing his advantage. The two of them stood panting, dishevelled, Matt’s nose and Kenny’s lip bleeding.

It couldn’t end in a stand-off. Kenny’s status in the gang, however vaguely it was defined, wouldn’t allow it. I was expecting him to wade in again at once and finish what he’d started: then, when he hesitated, I thought he’d decided to throw the fight open to his brothers, to Davey, and to anyone else who wanted to earn his doubtful and short-lived favour.

But he didn’t lower his head and charge, and he didn’t shout ‘Twat him!’ He just stood for a second or two, on the balls of his feet, breathing like a bellows. And then fate intervened, in the shape of a policeman coming down the gravel bank towards us, shouting a challenge that we couldn’t hear at this distance.