The lift was still broken. I climbed the stairs, stopping now and then to catch my breath. I passed a group of teenagers on one of the levels. They watched me go by in silence. One of them said something and the others laughed. This was their world and they were watching it crawl past, spitting at it as it went. I felt a million years old. I felt like I was always slowly climbing towards my own death; tabbing towards dug-in Argentinean troops, stepping into the ring with pain already pounding in my head, doing another blag for another vicious bastard, always heading towards another destruction. ‘Poor old Joe,’ she used to say to me. ‘Poor old Joe, heading for the breaker’s yard.’ But this time it wasn’t my own doom I was trudging towards. It was hers. Maybe that’s what had made me stop on the stairs. The door to the flat had been painted since I’d last been here. It was blood red now, the paint thick and uneven. I banged on it and waited. I didn’t know what time it was.
