I glimpse Alan.

Alan Raov.

He’s sitting, no, slumping, on his his seat on the Piccadilly line service to Cockfosters. It is half past six on a Friday morning and he is studying the ceiling, legs crumpled apart, arms folded.

I don’t know Alan.

He grew up in an unsympathetic southern town, born to an indifferent father and an absentee mother. School disagreed with Alan from an early age. He didn’t necessarily disagree with it, but regardless it wasn’t a caring relationship. They parted ways at his tender age of sixteen, in that awkward limbo between child and adult.

At eighteen, Alan left the home counties for London. Suddenly surrounded by less familiar faces, he withdrew into himself, creating a tracksuit shell, earning minimal pay behind a mask of tightly meshed loneliness showing only a smiling snarl, a challenge to defy his self-confessed worthlessness, a painter-decorator with a passion.

A passion for random acts of violence.

At twenty-five, he is in his third dysfunctional relationship in the last two years, though this isn’t a defining feature of Alan. The defining feature is the relationships he hasn’t had: Mum, Dad, Sadie.

He’s desperate for something to happen.

At least, I think.

I don’t know Alan.

Part One

The man lay on the floor as they kicked him, trying desperately to block the blows of his assailants. The pavement below him was as cold and unrelenting as the attack, he could feel it even through the thick clothes he was wearing to protect against the chill of the nighttime sea breeze. The pain he was in made no odds to the hooded faces above him, with their orange halos and shadowed faces, donated by a cruel street lamp above, mocking him.

    The attack ended as abruptly as it had begun. The victim heard the scurrying of trainers on concrete and the approach of heavier footsteps from the opposite directions. He held his eyes closed, fearing what might be coming after scaring off his attackers. The footsteps drew closer and stopped about a foot from him. Silence. All he could hear were the waves on the shingle, a single, primordial, soothing sound, like a mother telling her child to hush as it drifts off to sleep. The victim was calmed by this. This and the fact that he wasn’t being attacked any longer.

    “You alright mate? Can you hear me?” Came a smooth, calm voice from above.

    The man opened his eyes and saw looking down on him a giant. Or at least he seemed gigantic from the floor. He was in fact tall, around six foot four, his arm appearing to extend forever as it offered the poor guy on the floor a hand up.

    The victim took his saviour’s hand with a wincing smile and slowly took to his feet. 
    “Cheers,” the victim gasped, it hurt to speak. He tenderly prodded and poked his ribs to see if one was broken.

    “Here, let me have a look,” his guardian offered and before he could answer, the giant was running his hand delicately but thoroughly over his ribcage.

    “Ah, there you go, not broken, but heavily bruised. It’ll kill in the morning,” he said, before adding “I’m a doctor, by the way, not just some pervert.”

    The victim smiled at this and offered his thanks once again. His head was beginning to clear a little now, in the orange glow of the streetlight. He could feel the concrete beneath his feet and the sea breeze in his tussled and matted hair. Before him the victim could now make out something oh his saviour, his short blonde hair and almost designer spectacles framing a youthful face atop a well toned and quite frankly out of place body, compared to what sat upon its neck.

    “I’m Hugo,” the victim said, offering his hand to the Doctor, who took it in a firm handshake.

    “John,”

    “Now tell me John, what does one do for someone who has possibly just saved his life?” Hugo asked, wincing with each word. He pulled up his shirt and could see a trainer shaped bruise rising out of his chest, like a grotesque purple tattoo, another sick and twisted advertising method for mass produced footwear and global corporations.

    John erred but before he could respond,

    “He buys him a drink,” Hugo replied, answering his own question and covering himself once more.

    This Hugo insisted, with John attempting at great pains to say that he was just doing what any decent person would do in the same situation. Hugo laughed at this. Most people who saw three or four guys in hoodies kicking another would have ignored it like they do inconvenient truths such as global warming.

    John relented and Hugo professed to knowing a good pub not too far away and that they’d just stop in for one drink to say thanks and celebrate the continuation of Hugo’s life. They walked in silence broken only by “it’s just around here” and “not too far now” from still in pain Hugo and the sound of the sea, just the other side of a row of houses.

    The Ship, as the pub was called, loomed out of the night at them on an otherwise darkened street. The hush of the waves was distant now. The building was not old or new, of a somewhat indescribable nature, simply whitewashed walls, black window frames and a couple of old men sat outside with nearly finished pints and pipes on the go, not talking, just appreciating the company in the cold night. A sign depicting a rapidly sinking ship dangled above the door, which John glanced at and almost took to be a bad omen, before noticing where he was. He mumbled something about living nearby, but Hugo ignored him and ploughed straight in through the door.

    The few people in the pub glanced round at them as they entered, but did nothing more, going back to there drinks and insignificant conversations, the kind you can only have at a quarter to eleven after a few pints in a quiet pub, ever so meaningful at the time, but a haze of alcohol and weariness reduce them to spectral memories at the back of a hungover. The lights were low and the soft sound of classic rock music drifted smokily through the air. Hugo bought them each a pint, not asking John what he wanted. He’d assumed ale, which was fine though John preferred a lager, to tell the truth. Hugo said the barman’s name was Sid, was a ‘top bloke’ and hadn’t ID’d him since he was sixteen, almost eight years ago now. They sat in the corner, beneath a photo of The Clash, amongst other pictures of bands, some of which had obviously been taken in The Ship. The pub might have been the place to be once upon a time, in this desolate, forgotten coastal town, but cheap flights to Spain and cheap drink in supermarkets had dealt that its final death blows.

    “Now, Dr. John, to your health and mine,” Hugo exclaimed and drained his pint in three gulps. John felt obliged to follow suit, though struggled to stop the bittersweet ale from coming up through his nose.

    “Nice, no?” Hugo asked.

    “Alright I suppose,” was the reply, John holding it up to the light and wondering if he could see the earth in it that he could taste.

    “I’ve been drinking it since I was a wee one, always been a bit partial to the particular brew, made locally you know,” spoke Hugo, putting on what he thought a  scottish accent sounded like.

    “Whats it called?”

    “Crow’s Arse Ale,”

    Hugo chuckled at this, at John’s slightly shocked look, but after a second he laughed too.

    “Best have another then,” John said, grinning.

    They drank the next round a bit slower, talking in between sips.

    “So you’re a doctor?” Hugo enquired.

    “Yup, just started in my first proper placement,”

    “Nearby?”

    “Not far, St. Andrew’s Naval Hospital, just around the coast,”

    “Ah I know it, not very big though, is it?”

    “No not particularly, but it pays well since its private. What do you do?”

    Hugo grinned,

    “I’m a writer. Well, I’m trying to be a writer I suppose. I don’t have what most people call a ‘real’ job, but I write the occasional thing for the local papers freelance,”

    “What do you live off of then? That can’t pay well,”

    “Inheritance, mostly, my parents died a few years ago and left me some money. Not much, but its been enough so far,”

    They talked about where they’d come from and what they’d done for another half hour or so. John explained that he was from a very middle class family which had bankrolled him through his education but that now he was pretty much on his own, his father was self-made and wanted his son to be the same. Hugo was the opposite, in many respects. He came from a poor upbringing where it didn’t matter about how clever you were but how good you were at football. Hugo had always been a disappointment in his dad’s eyes since he couldn’t play for peanuts. His mother had spoilt him rotten, though.

    During this time they’d had another couple of pints each and midnight rolled round and rolled on. Time didn’t really matter to either of them at this point, as they discovered that neither of them had any particular place to be. Both seemed to enjoy the release of actually talking to someone other than a simple, brief ‘hello’ in the street. The sticky table on which they sat their drinks saw more than its fair share of spillages that night as they spoke and spoke, drank and drank. The pub began to gently empty, but yet they continued.