If you could save someone's life, would you? Anyone's? Ali's older brother has a swastika tattooed on his knuckles, a prison ID number for nearly beating an immigrant to death, and spent his teenage years ruthlessly persecuting Ali for being gay. Blood may be thicker than water, but Ali has spent most of his life desperate to prove he is nothing like Tony. A committed vegetarian, charity-supporter, and blood donor, Ali would do anything for anyone. Ali may share parentage with Tony, but he’s determined not to share anything else if he can help it. So when Tony contracts leukaemia, and Ali is the only match for the urgently-needed bone marrow transplant, Ali is caught between two equally awful choices: to refuse and condemn a man to death, or to donate. And in donating, save the life of the man who nearly murdered Ali's Iraqi boyfriend?

Thicker Than Bone

“Not in the street, you fucking queers!” someone shouted.


“Why don’t you fuck off and get your old man to bang you!” Yazid bellowed back, his soft voice suddenly tearing back into the ruthless Bradford accent of his youth.


The shouter, a cabbie smoking in the open doorway of his vehicle, scowled back and made a rude gesture but decided—probably in the wake of Yazid’s volatile reaction—to stay where he was.


“God,” Ali muttered. “And we were making progress with making you not sound like a coal miner’s son.”


Yazid just grinned, and Ali rolled his eyes.


“Come on, you,” he said. “Let’s get you fed and watered—and I won’t throw the coffee on you, promise—and then up to the hospital. Sound good?”


Yazid laughed, dropping his hand to squeeze Ali’s before letting go. “Sounds great.”


Ali wished this was as complicated as his life ever got.4thJuly 2009


Yazid wished this was as complicated as his life ever got: bus timetables and working out how to look smart without dressing up posh.


Chapter 8