The Comfort of Chaos
By the time Wilbur had restrained his brother, it was chaos.
Tommy was on the floor following Dougie’s punches. His quiff was now a mess, and blood was coming out of his nose and onto his hand, a broken pint glass and a puddle of beer beside him.
‘Jesus bloody Christ, Dougie! Leave it!’ Wilbur was shouting in his brother’s ear.
‘Get off me, Wilbur. I swear. Get off me, lad, for fuck’s sake!’
Tommy’s mates were crowding round. One of them punched Wilbur hard on the jaw, causing him to lose hold of Dougie.
‘It wasn’t him!’ shouted Maggie.
And as they started laying into Dougie, the Ghost noticed a kind of demonic smile on his brother’s face for a second or two, even as a beer glass was thrown hard onto the back of his head. Which became almost a laugh, even as Dougie fell to the floor.
And just as Wilbur was hauling one of the lads off his brother, Dougie was up on his feet again, pulling a knife from his pocket and flicking the blade.
Dougie’s eyes became those of a mad defender.
He swiped at one of them, the tallest and drunkest, the blade ripping his shirt and flinging a button into the air.
There was a moment of shock while the lad checked to see if he was wounded.
And he was – the tip of the blade had cut him just enough to bleed.
This – the fight, the knife incident – had all happened within a few seconds. Much of the surrounding crowd was oblivious but some were noticing. And it was like a second show was happening right in the middle of the floor.
Dougie looked at Wilbur and nodded to the side exit near the bar at the back of the hall.
‘Leg it!’
So Wilbur followed Dougie, who was holding the knife out to clear a path ahead of him. The Ghost knew where they were going to end up, so he just walked a more direct route through the dancing and bouncing and jerking bodies, and then through the wall of the hall itself. Out into the night.