Free Shadow Play by Frances Fyfield

old now, twitching in their wisdom to remind him not to sit with his small store of belly flesh curled into him, but always to stand proud, like a tin soldier who cannot bend. The barman made a mock punch in the direction of the old wound. No injury was meant – it was a playful gesture to underline a point and occupy the idleness – it was supposed to be friendly. But the reaction was absurd: Logo doubled up as if to pretend the punch was real, cried out in pain and lurched against the wall behind the now clean table. His arms were crossed over his abdomen and he wailed like a child. ‘Aagh, aah, aah, please, please, don’t.
Aagh!
’
    The barman was unmoved. He did not care for the ulcerous pains of anyone who ate his pies; nor did he have to take hysterics from a little Bible-pushing creep like this.
    â€˜Oh go home, fuck off. I never touched you. Get out! Go on, get out, get out, get out!’
    Logo, clutching his stomach, went out into the gloom without a backward glance. It had been warm in there, the pie inside him was warm enough and he had enough cash for another drink, but he went anyway. He took his litter trolley and its brushes inside from where he had parked it outside the door: it gave him stability as well as music as they went down the silent streets. Rumble rumble, wheels of worn rubber going round and round as if, in their bad design, they were as bewildered as he was himself, though he wouldn’t have changed them for the world. The big trolley was good for a scavenger.
    Home, don’t spare the horses.
    â€˜â€œHis roots shall be dried up from beneath, and above shall his branch be cut off,”’ murmured Logo to himself, thinking of the barman, and then, self-pityingly of himself. “‘His remembrance shall perish from the earth and he shall have no name in the street.”’
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    T here was a great, sore-throated roar from the stadium as he passed; the streets were full of cars without people. Logo clutched the handle of his barrow and moved on, listening to the sound of thousands singing, ‘Walk On! Walk On! You’ll never walk alone!’ feeling his Bible thump against his pocket, his feet warm now, as long as he kept moving. Which he did faster and faster, as far as the distant doors of his own house, no singing, no carrying on, nothing of the kind. He’d been a good boy, a very, very good boy; it was still early, so he wouldn’t go in and see dear old Mother in case she was still trying to tire out that little blond brat playing hide and seek. Then he stopped, suddenly sober and cold.
    Hide and seek inside his house as well as Granny Mellors’, that’s what it looked like. The lights were lit on his own ground floor, pouring from the frosted pane of his kitchen into the alley. He could not believe that Margaret had sent the child, that blond, naughty little thing, to play in his house, but that was the only explanation that sprang to mind. Unless the child had gone there alone, pushed the door open, entered to plunder and explore. He knew he was not expected home before eight: he rarely was, but for Margaret, for both of them, especially the child, to assume his absence, felt like a violation. He quietly laid down the trolley and tiptoed to his door.
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    L ittle Sylvie’s mother was further up the road, trying to fight her way through a barrier of parked cars, three deep, no room for a leg in between. She was late to begin with, stopped at the Tube because of a football fight, then the bus stopped for the same reason. All transport became coy on football nights. She was panicking a bit but not greatly until now. She knew Margaret would take care of Sylvie but everything seemed to take longer and longer, and the child was in Margaret’s house. She had tried to phone, but there had been a queue, so she hadn’t done and now it was half-past eight. Never mind. She click-clacked down the road, on the long walk from