The Bullet Trick. Louise Welsh

words came out harsher than I’d meant. The barman glanced back at us, maybe wondering if he’d pegged Johnny wrong and there was going to be a fight after all. The drink cleared a little from Johnny’s eyes and he seemed to see me properly for the first time.

      ‘What’s the problem?’

      ‘I’ve got to be somewhere.’

      He glanced up at the hands of the bar-room clock ticking beyond a quarter past ten. His voice grew less insistent.

      ‘Aye, well spare me ten minutes. We’ve not seen each other in an age. How long has it been? Six years?’

      ‘Something like that.’

      ‘Mebbe longer.’ Johnny picked up his pint of heavy and sucked the head off it. A rim of foam stuck to his upper lip; he wiped it away and took another pull looking at me over the brim of the glass. ‘So what’ve you been up to?’

      ‘Nothing much.’

      ‘Still practising the black arts?’

      ‘No, I gave that up. It’s a mug’s game.’

      ‘Never thought I’d hear you say that, Billy boy.’

      I raised my drink to my lips, hiding my expression behind the glass and taking a long gulping swig, all the quicker to finish and get out of there.

      ‘Aye, well, it’s true.’

      Johnny seemed to have forgotten he had a round of drinks to deliver. He stood there waiting for me to tell him why I’d given up my calling. I let him wait. Johnny Mac had never been good at silences.

      ‘I ran into your mum in the town the other week.’ Johnny hesitated waiting for me to say something then broke the pause again. ‘She said you’d been not well.’

      ‘I don’t know where she got that from.’

      ‘You’re all right then?’

      I held my arms out.

      ‘See for yourself.’

      Johnny looked dubious.

      ‘That’s good.’

      I forced my face into a smile.

      ‘I’m doing fine, you know what my old dear’s like. I get a cold and she thinks I’m on my bloody deathbed. She’s aye been like that.’ I strained the smile wider. ‘Like the man said, reports of my death were much exaggerated.’

      Johnny nodded, his eyes still on my face.

      ‘Glad to hear it.’

      From across the room I caught sight of a slim, dark-haired woman in her late twenties. Even before she started making her way towards us I knew she was with Johnny. Johnny’s dark curls and quick smile had given him his pick of women, but he’d always gone for good Catholic girls, fresh-faced Madonnas who refused to sleep with him. Johnny had left his faith at the schoolhouse gates, but in those days it seemed that the tenets of the church were destined to rule his sex life. Johnny’s girl was clear-skinned and sober, but her eyes were amused. She slid her hand round his waist, his grin reappeared and I reckoned that after a certain age even good Catholic girls started to put out.