В Thicker Than Water, каждое ново открывается шрамом более глубокой связи между людьми. Главные герои — это два близнеца, чья жизнь разбита одной коварной встречей. Начинается с простых моментов и остается неизменным мрачно-сюрреалистическим тоном, привлекающим внимание и заставляющим ждать следующего шага....
His mum died when he was eight - of what my mum and dad, when they talked about it at all, called ‘the big C’ - and the rest of his growing-up followed a template of his own making. His dad worked at the Metal Box, then at Dunlop, then at Mother’s Pride, racing ahead of the bowwave of industrial collapse and chasing the work wherever it could be found. He turned his three sons over to his elderly mother to look after when he was away, but she was too old and they were too wayward, so they did their own thing and she lied to cover their tracks.
Kenny was the toughest of a tough brood - only two years older than me if we’re talking strict chronology, but he was the kind of kid who seems to go straight from infancy to adolescence, becoming big and muscular and intractable and getting into the kind of fights that leave blood on the pavement while his peers were still making the difficult transition to lace-up shoes.
He was a bully’s bully, ruthless and arbitrary to a fault, and he brought fear and pain into my life on a number of occasions.
Another time he pushed me out of an apple tree that we were both scrumping from, in the high-walled cider orchard behind Walton hospital.
None of this was personal, though: Kenny terrorised everyone with equal enthusiasm, including his own two kid brothers, Ronnie and Steven.
