‘Not seen you in here for a while,’ said Win Jackson, as Donald sat down with a ginger ale. ‘Someone says to me you’d been done over but I didn’t believe them. I says, “I don’t believe you,” and this chap says, “Honest as I speak, someone’s done Donald Sedge over,” and I says, “I don’t believe you.” Was you, though?’ ‘Dispute,’ said Donald. ‘Over a lady. You should have seen the other bloke.’ He took a sip. The snug was a riot of Venetian mirror-glass and he could see his own face six times over, from every angle. The bruising had gone, but his nose had only recently re-emerged from its cushion of swelling and it was not the nose that he had known before; it wasn’t deformed or grotesque, but there was an angle to the bridge that was unfamiliar. Donald turned his head from side to side, trying to gauge the effect upon his profile, and then he lit a cigarette and watched himself inhale. He tried to blow the smoke out through his nostrils, but they were still partially blocked, and only a thin jet came squirting out of the left one, like steam from a kettle.
