Free The Folded Man by Matt Hill Page A

something. God is great, he said. And he smiled – he’s smiling. So when the dust comes over us, coughing, grey, coughing bits of people you realise ­later, I go for him. Feel for his face and take my chances. Twat him between eyes. Bop him on the sweet spot. He goes down and I’m stamping on his head like grapes in ­barrels.
    Jesus, says Brian. That’s –
    Seen buildings levelled, have you? Well this was a ­levelling. Only shame is footage we got came off security grid.
    Brian doesn’t know what to think.
    Ian laughs. Points at Brian’s meat.
    I’m surprised you’re surprised, he says. Weren’t Tinkerbell who did that to you, were it?
    Brian shrugs.
    Plus we’ve always been a racist lot, our country. Dirty words, dirty thoughts. Fearing the unknown, whatever they say. You sit next to a mud on the train back in the days before, and you’re half thinking he’s going blow you out the fucking window. Difference now is, we’ve got balls to say it. Aren’t dirty thoughts when they’re out for all to see. Not after what they did. What they do. ­Riots, whatever else. Nothing unknown about that shower of bastards.
    Media that, though –
    Don’t give me that, Michael. I’m just asking where your head falls at night. How you dream. Fighting your long wars out in that place that took your leg, or back here, with the people who care about your country and where it’s gone. Where it’s going.
    I –
    Ian stands up. Slams his hands on the table and leans, leers. You bloody nothing, he shouts. I’ll ask you one more bastard time. Are you, Michael, a nationalist? Is that why you’re taping my conference? Bribing my door staff with that skinny runt you brought up here with you? Or are you having me on?
    The voice falters. Brian’s. He hears himself cracking up.
    I love this country in spite of this country, he tells Ian –
    Ian smiles. Teeth out. Teeth white. Ian sits down.
    Ian says, Good job an’ all. Because it is men like us who form that bulge out to sea. Because soon that sea will deliver her progeny, and the enemy will find out whether all these rumours about the Anglo-Saxons are true. Men like us – like them back in that room – are the foot-soldiers. Me and you, we are the wave, rushing inland to save all. Because, Michael, they’re winning the war in the maternity wards, and we’ll make sure we win on streets. Crusaders, all of us. Sons of Albion – all of us. And we’ll drive out these craven forces. We’ll build a good future for our lads and lasses. Crosses and not crescents.
    Crosses not crescents, Brian breathes, his ears roaring. Thinking of the Cat Flap and the girls who lie there. Their pigtails and their fingernails. Of Diane and her care. Of Tariq in his taxi.
    Of the riots over whatever the riots were over.
    Man like you’ll help spread the message, says Ian. Show our country what real men think of this government and the trouble it’s lumped us with. ’Cause everybody likes to be part of something, don’t they? People we know, well they’ll fix you up. The man the government stole a leg from. The man our resistance gave a leg back to.
    Brian looking down. Thinking. Torn between vomiting hard and the guilty attraction of it.
    Thinking, Where’s Noah bloody got to?
    Ian flames his cigar. Pulls half a centimetre in and blows a stormcloud back out.
    Now then. Business. Who’s that rat you’re with?
    Brian fidgets and forgets his lines. Can’t remember the name Noah gave himself.
    He’s a friend, Brian says. Looks out for me.
    Seems interested in our business, says notepad of his. Not one of these silly hacks – not an activist, is he?
    Just a good pal. Like I said.
    And your recorder? Thing taped under your chair?
    Saves me carrying it.
    Ian laughs. Ian’s face bloody splits.
    Well look at us, says Ian. A cripple with his