Free I Hate Martin Amis et al. by Peter Barry Page A

immediately around the corner from where we used to go to school. He was still red haired and ruddy cheeked, just as he had been sitting next to me in class, but now he totally filled the space in front of me, a giant presence, awkward and silent. He was wearing an open checked shirt – even though the weather was cold – and big boots. He looked like he did as a kid, only bigger, as if he’d been pumped up. He was still self-effacing and shy, almost embarrassed, dancing around on the pavement in front of me, grinning awkwardly. The reason we became friends at school was because he was so quiet: I could boss him around. Andy always did exactly what I told him. He wasn’t simple, like Steinbeck’s Lennie, just eager to please, as if his life depended on helping people. He was a little in awe of me, that’s what it amounted to: despite the fact he towered over me, he looked up to me. When I saw him in the High Street all those years later, so shy I think he’d have tried to walk past unless I’d stepped in front of him and blocked his path, we reverted immediately to our old relationship.
    Standing outside the same newsagent we used to visit as kids every Saturday morning with our pocket money, I could once again have grabbed the coins from his podgy hands, prised open the sausage fingers, and told him which sweets and comics we were going to buy with his money. I don’t believe he’d have objected.
    It was in our early teens that I became tired of him. It was boredom, I think, the fact we had so little in common. He was dull and tedious, too kind and decent. He wasn’t interesting or fun to be with. And I could see now, more than twenty years later, that I’d been right: he hadn’t moved on at all. His dreams – if he’d ever had any – had stopped at his property’s boundary fence.
    Originally, I hung around with Andy because he gave me access to rifles. I don’t think he ever realised this. I’m good at fooling people when I want to. I can lead them right up the garden path while they’re still under the impression they’re standing at the front gate. So he never had any idea it was the rifles that kept me knocking on his farm door, none at all.
    I could even claim that Andy’s dad is responsible for me being here today: he taught me to shoot. I liked Mr Sinclair; he was always laughing. ‘Come here, lad,’ he said to me one morning. ‘Let me show you the proper way to hold a rifle.’ We were standing in the courtyard outside the kitchen, and Mrs Sinclair was watching us through the window. She was smiling. I can remember still to this day how I felt they were a real family, not like mine.
    â€˜Keep the butt tight against your shoulder. Pull it in here, that’s it. But keep breathing. Breathe regularly.’
    He moved around in front of me. ‘You have to be relaxed when you’re holding a rifle, Milan. Don’t get tense. When you’re nice and ready, as you breathe out, hold your breath, then squeeze the trigger. Don’t pull it, squeeze it.’
    I squeezed the trigger and there was a click.
    â€˜You’re a natural.’ He laughed, taking the rifle off me. ‘Did you see that, Andy? Steady as a rock. If you’re not careful, he’ll be as good as you one day.’ Andy grinned. He looked genuinely pleased.
    â€˜The rifle has to be a part of you, lad, an extension, like an extra limb. Remember that and you’ll be right.’
    Mr Sinclair also taught me how to clean a rifle and how to be safe and responsible – opening the rifle when carrying it. When he trusted me enough and felt I knew what I was doing, we were allowed to go out and shoot rabbits by ourselves. There were plenty of them around. We’d sneak up to the brow of this hill, overlooking a small field – the Norfolk coast and its slither of sea in the distance – and there were so many rabbits hopping