Josh Lawton [antikvár]

They could be seen together almost every evening of that spring on the high-fell road, and people would look out for them making their way back in the dusk, Cedric 'the trainer' leading on his motor-bike, the bright blob of his headlight a shifting beacon on the hillside, and behind him Josh, heavy boots tugging on the síim bare legs, intent on being trained. 'Breathe through your nose! Through your bloody nose to get cleaner air! Your nose strains it for you. Shut your effing mouth and breathe in; then open and blow. That's how they do it.' Cedric would cut off the engine when they passed by cottages and farms, wanting his voice to be heard just as he gloried in being seen on his big motor-bike, black leather jacket, black boots and black gauntlets, preceding Josh along the bare hill road as special security police ride ahead of kings and presidents. He took all the care he could to keep an unvarying distance ahead of Josh, believing that in this gap lay somé of his crediblity as a trainer of athletes. It was difficult to do on that road which cut along the fellside: he had to swerve with the incline or against it and sometimes run up the verge, tack like a small yacht on a laké and then again press forward uphill at all but impossibly low speeds. No one appreciated the efforts he had to make. Josh was easy to admire. Everyone knew he'd already done a day's work on the farm and when Wilson was your boss you worked. Yet here he was striding out, those big working boots hitting the road as if they had springs inside them, and always a smile if he passed you; a nice smile, no showing off about him. Cedric of course was painful the way he put it on, the way he played up, the way he acted big: and all he did was put his bum on that motor-bike! He could never run, couldn't run a raffle, but that didn't stop him shouting at poor Josh: all mouth -the Army hadn't knocked that out of him in twenty-five years.