See, I’d just been to the pub with Daz and Phil and a couple of other lads. People always ask how me and Larry met, and Larry tells this really complicated story how he thought he was going to be mugged or raped or something, and then I came along, and everyone always laughs, but it wasn’t like that, really. Larry says that’s just as well, ‘cause I’m scary enough already. So I started going to a gym instead and sparring around with the lads, but I never took it serious or nothing. I was dead surprised when he got sacked for being a kiddie-fiddler. She said from what she’d heard, boxing wouldn’t be the only thing he’d be teaching me, but she never said what she meant, even when I asked her. He wanted to give me private lessons and not charge for them or nothing, but my mum wouldn’t let me.

My PE teacher, Mr Sanders, said I should get into boxing. Steve Hunter used to have a laugh about that, saying I’d make someone a lovely wife one day, until I got fed up with it and hit him, and after that he never said nothing about me no more. Art was the only thing I could do at school, that and cookery. He works at the University, teaching people about paintings.

It doesn’t matter what they say about me, just as long as they’re nice to Larry. That’s what all his mates at college say, only they say it fancy, like “Well, quite clearly it’s not his brains Lawrence goes for,” and “God, when is he going to tire of slumming it with this moron?” I just smile at them, ‘cause they’re his mates, and it’s all right.

Muscling Through by J.L. Merrow