The Ritual

apologize,’ Hutch said. ‘Now can we drop it?’
    ‘Not you. You’ve done nothing, H. I’m not talking about you. It’s this pair.’
    Dom shook his head. ‘Ever thought about some of the things you’ve said that just might piss us off?’
    Luke raised both hands. ‘Like? An example?’
    Dom leaned further out of the tent. ‘Who do you actually think you are? You can’t help reminding us of what a free spirit you are. No family. No wife. You don’t believe in
monogamy. You won’t take any shit from anyone at work. Don’t want to be trapped by responsibility. You’re bloody thirty-six, mate. You work in a shop. You are a shop assistant.
You are not eighteen. But you never changed and it’s hard to take you seriously. Because you still get excited by the fact that Lynyrd Skynyrd have a new record out.’
    Phil and Hutch sniggered. Luke looked at all three of them and then dropped his head back to laugh derisively. ‘So that’s it.’
    ‘Do you think your philosophy impresses anyone with any responsibility in their lives? You said back in Stockholm that you have made other choices. What choices? What have you done with
your life? Really? What have you got to show for yourself?’
    Luke leaned forward, his voice raised, until he became too conscious of it and lowered it. ‘It’s not a competition. I don’t want what you have. I genuinely don’t. And
because I haven’t bought into it, you try and make me feel like some kind of loser. True enough, I’ve made my life difficult for myself, with the record shop that went tits-up. With
London. But I’m not some aimless loser. I work in a shop now to get by. It’s not a career choice. It’s an occupation to pay my rent. Something I am doing now. And that’s
all. It’s not who I am.’
    Phil sniggered and Luke could tell he was looking at Dom. Would he like a fucking slap too? He stared at Phil. ‘But it bothers you. It pisses you off that I’m not crippled
with debt or saddled with some moody bitch. Instead, you P.R. your lives and act like I’m supposed to envy you. Who would want it, boys? Look how bloody old you look. Both of you. Fucking fat
and grey and you’re not even forty yet. Is this what a family does? And marriage? Am I supposed to aspire to it? Envy it? And if I don’t, I should be excluded? Why? I’ll tell you
why, because I remind you of everything you can’t do. Yes, can’t do. Because you are not allowed to.’
    Dom just shook his head.
    Phil quietly said, ‘Twat.’
    Dom looked up at Luke again, trying to hold his mirth back. ‘Which is something you try and rub our noses in every time we see you, because it’s all you have. Arrested development is
hardly a way of life I aspire to.’
    ‘What? Following your heart. Not compromising. You can’t see it as anything but failure and avoidance.’
    ‘Listen to him,’ Phil said, quietly, but it was the most engaged he seemed to have been with anything since his cries of distress chilled them all that afternoon outside the church.
‘And he earns two pounds fifty an hour and lives in the sort of shit-hole you were supposed to leave behind in your second year at university.’
    ‘But it still pisses you off,’ Luke said. ‘It really does. It’s all that regret and resentment you carry around. It’s not my fault you’re both terrified of
your own fucking wives.’
    Dom snorted. ‘Shagging those scabby tarts and living like a bum. Oh, I’d swap places in a heartbeat. And where has selling CDs and that music journalism course got you, eh?
Finsbury-fucking-Park.’
    ‘Why is it that any woman I go out with is a scabby tart? Whereas the uptight bitches you got shacked up with are somehow what . . . desirable? Respectable?’
    Hutch was shaking his head, but it was too hard to tell in the gloom if he was smiling or nervous. ‘Fellas, you’re all getting way out of line here.’
    But no one was listening to Hutch. Even he was irritating Luke now, trying to protect Dom as usual. Always babying him. Did they know how they looked together? ‘Money,’ Luke
continued. ‘That’s the only worth anyone has, is it? What they earn?’
    ‘Well it’s a start and better than nothing.’
    ‘The only criteria with which you judge anyone these days. What they own, acquire, have. What a sad fucker you turned into. And don’t pretend you’re happy, mate. Don’t
kid yourself because I am not fooled. I saw you at Hutch’s wedding. How many arguments did you have