-‘Listen,’ Will said. ‘That’s right. We’re friends. That’s why I can’t do anything about your mum.’
-‘How d’you work that out?’
-‘I said it was a joke that we’re different heights, but maybe it’s not. Maybe that’s how you should look at it. I’m your mate and I’m about a foot taller than you, and that’s it.’
-‘I’m sorry,’ Marcus said. ‘I’m not getting you.’
-‘I had a mate at school who was about a foot taller than me. He was enormous. He was six foot one when we were in the second year.’
-‘We don’t have second years.’
-‘Year whatever it is. Year eight.’
-‘So what?’
-‘I’d never have asked him to help if my mum was depressed. We used to talk about football and Mission Impossible and that was it. Say we were talking about whether, I don’t know, Peter Osgood should be playing for England, and then I said, "Oi, Phil, will you talk to my mum because she’s in tears all the time," he’d have looked at me as if I were nuts. He was twelve. What’s he going to say to my mum? "Hello, Mrs Freeman, have you thought of tranquillizers?" ’
-‘I don’t know who Peter Osgood is. I don’t know about football.’
-‘Oh, Marcus, stop being so bloody obtuse. What I’m saying is, OK, I’m your friend. I’m not your uncle, I’m not your dad, I’m not your big brother. I can tell you who Kurt Cobain is and what trainers to get, and that’s it. Understood?’
-‘Yes.’
-‘Good.’
But on the way home Marcus remembered the end of the conversation, the way Will had said ‘Understood?’ in a way that was supposed to tell him that the conversation was over, and he wondered whether friends did that. He didn’t think they did. He knew teachers who said that, and parents who said that, but he didn’t know any friends who said that, no matter how tall they were.
