The Age Of Odin

Twenty-five

There is a baby.

He gurgles.

He has a teddy. A woollen Rupert the Bear his nan knitted for him. It doesn't look much like the actual Rupert the Bear, but it had the yellow checked scarf and crude red jumper.

He loves that teddy. He sucks one ear so hard, it eventually comes off. Nan sews it back on, and the teddy is never quite the same from then on, but he still loves it.

There is a toddler.

He hates tinned rice pudding.

His mummy is feeding him some. He knows he is going to sick it up. He tries to tell her to stop spooning it into him because it's just going to come straight out again, all over her. He doesn't have the words. She doesn't stop. It does come out.

He never can stand rice pudding after that. Even the smell of it turns his stomach.

There is a little boy.

He has a bike.

It is a BMX, a Mongoose Supergoose with chrome frame and bright red everything else. He rides it over the pavements and through the underpasses and across the railway bridges. His father bought it for him second-hand and it's not in the best of nick, but still, it is the coolest bike ever. Then some neighbours kids steal it. He sees them riding it a few days later, popping wheelies and giving one another backsies. He goes up and challenges them. They punch him and tell him to f-word off. Then they set about smashing up the bike in front of him, in a slow, sadistically methodical manner.

He lies to his parents about his swollen lip, saying he tripped and fell over and did it on a kerb stone. Crying in bed that night, he vows to himself he will never be robbed from or bullied again.

There is a pre-teen at primary school.

He is tall for his age.

But not as tall as Mick McCulloch. Mick McCulloch is bigger than anyone, and knows it, and uses it. Mick picks on everybody in his year, and the year below, and even the year above. One day Mick makes the mistake of picking on the boy. He tries to trip him up in the school dining hall so that he'll drop his tray and people will laugh. He succeeds.

The boy stands straight up and starts whacking Mick in the face with the empty tray. And when the tray breaks, he uses his fists. And he won't stop, no matter how much Mick whimpers and begs. In the end a member of the catering staff pulls him off, and Mick is left sobbing in pain, bleeding, humiliated. But it's the boy who gets the bad reputation there after. No one dares hassle him. Everyone is a little scared of him. Even the teachers.

There is a teenager at secondary school.

He isn't doing well.

His parents are in the throes of getting divorced. It's ugly. The atmosphere at home is sour, like curdled milk. He is failing in his exams. He is having to go and see the headmistress in her office far too often and getting put on report and threatened with exclusion far too often. His teachers are at their wits' end. He is obviously not stupid. He just isn't bothering. And his behaviour is disruptive. The class comedian, he always has a smart answer ready, just not the right kind of smart.

He crashes and burns academically. Further education is not an option. Then the careers advisor suggests the armed forces.

There is a cadet.

He likes being a cadet.

He takes to basic training as though it were made for him. He doesn't mind officers yelling order at him all day long. He doesn't mind having to get out of bed at ridiculous hours, being made to go on full-kit runs for mile after slogging mile, the endless drilling, the live fire exercises, the sleep-depriving night manoeuvres, the petty breaches of conduct or dress code that earn absurdly disproportionate punishments, any of it.

He is away from home. He is being treated like an adult, like a person with value. He feels for the first time that he belongs somewhere.

There is a private.

He experiences his first taste of real combat.

He is in former Yugoslavia, peacekeeping after the NATO bombardments, helping implement the Dayton Accord. His squad comes under fire from a band of Croat guerrillas in Turanj, a suburb of Karlovac. The contact doesn't last more than two minutes — a ferocious storm of being shot at, shooting back, everyone scurrying about yelling their heads off. Two minutes of pure, hellish chaos.

And yet, when it's over, he can't be more exhilarated. His heart is pounding. His entire body tingles as though electrified. He is alive. More than that, he feels alive.

There is a young man.

He is on leave.

He is jogging around the perimeter of Clapham Common. A girl comes jogging the other way. She is short, brunette, cocky-cute, with a marvellous bum which he stares at over his shoulder while he runs on, until he collides with a park bench, nearly unmanning himself. He continues on his way — sore, limping — hoping to encounter the girl again on the far side of the common, but she isn't there.

So he plans it like a military operation. He goes jogging at the exact same time the next day, and the day after that, following the same anticlockwise circuit the girl took. At last the strategy pays off. There she is. He pulls up alongside her. He says hi. Several hundred yards and some precision-targeted flirting later, he's acquired two objectives. One: her name, which is fancy and French-sounding, although she was born in Basildon. Two: her telephone number.

There is a man.

He is getting married.

He stands beside his bride at the civil ceremony in hired rooms above a pub. His head is still spinning and his tongue sandpaper-rough from the stag night to end all stag nights. The celebrant asks him to take this woman, Genevieve Amber d'Aulaire, as his lawful wedded wife and to pledge to share his life openly with her, promise to cherish and care for her, honour and support her, et cetera.

It isn't the hangover that makes him feel as though his legs are going to give way. It's nerves. He thought he knew what fear was, but not until this day, not truly, as he makes his vows before friends and family. Gen's smile keeps him going. She looks hopeful, honoured, happy as can be, and that is his anchor.

There is an expectant father.

He is by his wife's bedside in the maternity ward.

He is saying stuff as she screams, trying to comfort her, insisting that everything is going to be okay. The bones in his hand ache from the crushing grip she is exerting. Her birth agonies make his soul cringe. Why is the miracle of bringing new life into the world such prolonged bloody torment?

Then the baby is placed in his arms, swaddled in a soft white cotton blanket patterned with rabbits. A son. He has huge, watchful, impossibly careworn eyes. He is studying his father's face, scrutinising it, as if to ask, Are you going to look after me? All the new dad can do is promise that he will, even as his vision swims with joy and relief.

There is a corporal.

He is being discharged.

He has acquitted himself well, his superiors say. He has been an exemplary soldier, a credit to his regiment. His record is unblemished. He has given impeccable service to queen and country.

Well, if I'm so fucking big-balls wonderful, he wants to say, why are you kicking me out? But of course he knows why. Half deaf, with several ounces of his brain gone and a tin plate stapled to his skull, he is no use to them any more. He is a rifle no one makes ammunition for, an outmoded tank, an Operational Ration Pack, General Purpose that has passed its use-by date. He is excess to requirements. He is military surplus.

There is a prisoner.

He is serving out his sentence as meekly-mousily as he can.

He gets on with his cellmates, a fraudster and a rapist. The two of them don't much like each other but he plays the middle man and repeatedly defuses the tension between them. He is a dab hand at this, and they all have to remain on good terms, don't they? Cooped up together for hours on end, smelling one anothers' farts and BO, hearing the creak of one another's bedsprings as they wank themselves to sleep at night — they're in a confined space, under pressure, and the last thing anyone needs is a blazing row.

That skanky, red-eyed crackhead, though, he's a different story. The prize arsehole of B Wing. He keeps getting into everyone's faces. Aggression pulses off him. If you don't move out of his way, if you look at him funny, he can flare up, lash out. He doesn't care about himself. He just hates. It doesn't matter who you are, he hates you, although he has a penchant for the weak. Hates the weak most of all. He noses them out and goes for them, viciously. Somebody has to sort him. Somebody eventually does, and forfeits the chance of early parole because of it.

There is an ex-con.

He is an ex-husband.

He is on his way to becoming an ex-father too. He's barely allowed to see his son these days, only on very occasional, heavily supervised visits. His wife has taken up with another woman, and they are providing the stability and nurture the boy needs. Cody is happy living with Gen and Roz. It's far more secure and normal than before, when he was living with a father who drank too much, smoked too much weed, and came home time and again with a bruised face and bloodied knuckles and a sorry tale to tell.

For his own sake the ex-everything stays in touch with Cody, phoning, emailing, keeping tabs on his progress at school, remembering birthdays and such. For Cody's sake, however, he remains as hands-off as possible. The boy will do better if distanced from him. The less he sees of his train wreck of a dad, the less compromised his chances in life will be. Failure is contagious, although hopefully not genetic.

There is a man named Gid Coxall.

He is travelling in a car with a friend named Abortion.

They are heading north through the worst whiteout conditions the UK has ever known. Gid has nodded off in the passenger seat. Abortion steals a sideways glance at him, then produces his battered old rolling tin, the one he bought in Belize City, with the oh-so-subtle cannabis leaf design on it. He thumbs open the lid and starts to -

"Stop!"