"...So you've no live-in Sheila then like the rest of them? Thought even you would have stumbled into something nice and safe by now..." Hando said as he set down another bottle of beer in front of me. I looked up at him and gave him a stare. You can never tell with him when he's going to rake you over with one of his cutting insults or if he's about to reveal a glimmer of sensitivity.

I hunched my shoulders, nodded my thanks for the beer and took a drink. "Yeah, there've been a few women here and there but nothing stuck, ya know? Story of my life..."

Except it wasn't. The story of my life, I mean. There had been someone and she was gone. Somehow I never really got the urge to revisit that place again where she'd taken me. I had this weird sort of notion that I was bad news for any woman.

And I can't think of many of the women I've met in the past who'd argue with that. 

"So, how'd you get here then?" Hando was digging. I guessed he was feeling pretty much adrift himself and I wasn't surprised that he was trying to open me up. Of all the guys, he was one of the only ones to share my unique reincarnation. And the only other one was sitting at the next table. He wasn't saying anything but I could see he was listening.

And I had the distinct impression that Hando was trying his damndest to bring him into the conversation too.

I'm not sure what made me start to talk just then unless, like Hando, something inside me was crying out to be heard and I knew that the present company might be the only one that would ever even get close to understanding what was going on in my head. Whatever motivated it that night, I started the ball rolling and began to tell the two of them something of myself since I had found myself in this new land.

'... I've had a few girlfriends since I started drinking at this pub. Nothing serious, though. Nice girls, but nothing that went deep, at least on my part. I've been a bit of a bastard recently, ya know? Mostly I needed a place to stay and just sort of fell into relationships. Moved in my stuff and had it easy for a time until they kicked me out again when I failed to convince as the love of their life. I was expecting the outcome even as I went into it. I knew it would end in tears and sometimes I got this feeling that I wished they'd hurry up and tell me to bugger off. But typically I didn't make any move to take the lead on that. The sex, regular meals and company usually kept me in there.

To be fair, at the time I arrived, I was really down on my luck. I hadn't held down a proper job since I crossed and just drifted around doing casual work, a bit here, a bit there, more often than not unemployed. I was skint and living on handouts, sleeping on the floor at Johnny's or Dom's when they didn't have girls round. Some nights I just kipped in the car. Uma and Heather kept an eye on me - they let me shower and shave at the pub, use the washing machine and, when I was really on my uppers, gave me a bed for a couple of nights.

Frankly I was on a downward spiral. I'd given up. What did I have left anyway? My Dad gone. Lost touch with the rest of my family. Midori dead. Police record. And pretty much all of it was my fault. Some of my mates tried to talk me round; Uma and Heather were always trying to push me into doing something positive but I've never been much good at taking direct action. I tend to just coast and let things slide.

This time things were hurtling away from me and I'm not sure I really knew how bad I had let things go - or if I had enough will to make them stop.

Chili changed everything. I know not everyone liked him much when he arrived and I also know he can be an arrogant bastard when he wants to be, but he's a good sort underneath. He saw where I was heading and he did something for me that he didn't have to. He offered me my pride back.  Gave me a chance to work again. Be my own boss. Look after some of the young ones who had their own problems and needed a mate as well. Johnny and Dom haven't had an easy ride either. It's funny how when you start looking at the problems other people have then it makes your own seem less important.

So I opened the shop and it's doing well now. We're good at what we do. The three of us get on well as mates, even if we fight and argue half the time. But that's just blokes, ya know? We'd go a long way for each other. And it's a long time since I've had mates like that.

 So there I was back a year last January. Suddenly with my own business, a staff of two and a place of my own. I felt like the tide was turning. Like I was getting a new start.

But I was still alone. My current girl had got fed up when she realized I wasn't quite so dependent on her favour any more. Which was fine by me. I'd been looking for a way out anyway.

I never mentioned anything about Midori to anyone. Never talked about her apart from the odd few comments I'd made to Uma in the early days. She hadn't pushed me even then. I think she knew I wasn't ready to talk. But she always let me know that she would be there if I ever needed an ear. Except she wasn't any more. Life had moved on for her too and her priorities had changed. I always saw Uma as this woman who would always be there for me and one day I turned around and she wasn't. She had her own life, her own plans, her own man. And he wasn't particularly sympathetic to seeing her with other men crying on her shoulder. That made me sit up and think about my life. I wasn't moving on, you see. Everyone else had begun to rebuild their lives and soon they were settling down and breeding, talking about marriage and buying houses, becoming couples. But I was still stuck in some half way house between the place I had come from and the new reality I was now in. What's that word they use for when you aren't in heaven or hell? Yeah, that's it. I was in Limbo.

It all seemed to revolve around the fact that the ending of my film had truly been an ending. To all intents and purposes I had just risen from the dead.  And that has royally screwed up my head.

You see, I tried to find out about Midori when I first crossed. If I'd made it somewhere, then maybe she had too? Perhaps she was waiting somewhere for me to turn up and we could go ahead and have that life after all? But everyone just thought I was crazy every time I brought the whole story up - so in time, I gave up. I even began to think maybe I was. Crazy, I mean. Until I saw the film. I was in a video store one night and there it was in a bin full of cheap B films they were selling off. My face. The story of my life. They called it Heaven's Burning. What the fuck they call it that for?

I didn't have a video player. Didn't have anything really. At the time I was renting a room above a shop; it was just somewhere to doss. But I lifted the video and begged a girl I knew vaguely to let me come round again. When she was asleep, I got up and went into her lounge and watched the bloody film. Christ, I don't know how I kept it together then.

Who was I?

Or more to the point - what was I?

It went downhill from there.

Anyway, to cut a pretty long and boring story short, I soon learnt to stop asking questions about Midori, and bank robberies and Afghani crimes bosses...all that crap had never actually happened. It was a fictional piece of celluloid. Except it had happened. To me. In my head.

Well, more than that really. I still had the scars on my hands. They looked like the nail marks to me. And to other people. A bloke once asked me in a repair shop where I got a bit of work what I'd done. I just said I'd fallen off my bike. He took to calling me Jesus. He didn't know how close he was. Both of us had risen from the dead, eh? Well, it makes a fucking change from Elvis.

I still get angry as hell at times. What the fuck had I ever done to deserve what happened to me? Okay, I wasn't an angel, and I was prepared to help rob a bank...but I've never done more than skirt the edges of the law. I was never a real gangster. Just a bit of shoplifting when I was down on my luck, hotwired a car now and again for kicks, got into a few fights, sold a bit of hash, handled a few stolen cars. Not really bad stuff. Never hurt anyone. Probably broke a few hearts, or more like drove a few women insane with my fucking about. But there were many a lot worse than me, I can tell you.

But I was desperate when I robbed that bank. Really desperate. Owed shitloads of money and had some dangerous bastards on my back. But take a hostage? Kill a girl? I wouldn't let it happen, not even to a fucking dog, never mind a human being. I was raised with morals. Maybe I'd forgotten them somewhere along the way. But they were there when it counted.

And in the end what good did they do me? Midori died anyway. And I got away scot free. Try working out the morale in that cautionary tale.

Uma used to tell us when we crossed that we were getting another chance now so it was up to us to make it count. Was I getting another chance? A clean slate?

Or was I merely being set up for more tragedy again...?'

"Didn't know you knew that many words..." Hando observed as my account tailed away. I smiled wryly and gave him a helpless look. To be fair to him, he didn't have that mocking smirk on his face that you so often see. He had been listening and it was all going in.

"I got words. Just didn't expect anyone wants to hear them..."

"I'm listening. So what happened when you crossed?"

I took a deep breath and let my mind slipped back to the moment when I found myself in this reality.  I try not to think about it normally. Every time I do the events come flooding back in a vivid flashback. I can almost smell and taste those last dying seconds. Cold seeping through me. Couldn't speak because my lungs were full of blood, metallic and frothy. I was so cold. I couldn't see her. The light was fading. But I could smell burning. And I could recognise the sea. It was in front of me. Nothingness.

I juddered myself back to the bar, aware my hands were shaking. I sat for a while with my face in my hands. I'd had plenty of dreams like that about it. Sometimes they were so bad that I was scared to go to sleep. It was like dying.

I had died.  I know I died. I had felt death. The cold of the grave. I had been unable to feel the pain any more. I had faded away.

But if that were true how could I be here? That was what had never stopped bothering me. Was I a ghost? I felt like flesh and blood. But how can you be if you started your existence as a fictional creation - and even died in that reality?

Hando was still waiting for me to speak. I lifted up my head and  thought I saw a flicker of compassion in his eyes. Just for a moment. As soon as he realised I was observing him, he closed that down. But I'd seen it. There's humanity left in him somewhere. Down deep.

'...I had died and for a time there was nothingness. It could have been seconds or years. I've no idea of how much time had passed. The next thing I was aware of,  I was shambling along a street in Sydney. I thought maybe I was dreaming or it was some near death experience but if it had been I've never woken up from it.

In that state I stumbled around for a few days sleeping rough and then got beaten up by some roughs one night. Ended up in hospital. No one could find any record of who I was. I gave my name; they said I didn't exist. The police questioned me. I told them what had happened. They informed me that there had been no such robbery and that there was no record that my family had ever existed. Midori and her husband had never visited Australia. The date was ten years on anyway from what I had imagined it to be. Naturally they thought I was a looney and sent me for psychiatric counselling.  I escaped from the hospital. Didn't have a clue what I was going to do next. Wondered if maybe I'd just been on some bad trip and imagined it all. Maybe they were right about my state of mind?

 But if it wasn't true, who was I? 

That's when I had my first stroke of luck in a very long time. Bumped into Jeff Mitchell. Walked right in front of his van and nearly got run over. He stopped, jumped out and said "Hey, mate, you okay...?" and then he shut up as he realised who I was. I took one look at him and thought: "Fuck, he looks like me..."

He took me home. Fancy that, going home with a poofta ? From his place, he called Uma...That night I met Uma and Heather and they introduced me to some of the other guys. Terry Thorne took me aside and gave me a pep talk. He's a very nice bloke. It was weird though looking at a guy who looked like me but was smart and clever and sophisticated -but was a bit of a stiff. He filled me in, promised to arrange ID and official records. I would exist now. Officially, anyway. I remember asking him were we freaks. He laughed and said," Speak for yourself, Colin. I'm for real, mate," in that tough guy way he has - and I suddenly felt safe.

But it was a long time before I really began to deal with it. Maybe I'm only just really starting to now. I can't get away from the fact that I died. The others didn't. I was really dead. And I remember it. And so was everyone I cared about. Imagine how that feels when you know you caused it? How to deal with that?'

I opened my shirt and pointed to the scar from my wound. It was still there, the mark of the bullet that killed me. "Why am I not dead then? How did I heal? One minute I was there, cold, dying, choking in my own blood - and the next I was walking about fine..."

"You don't seem to deal well with this dead one minute, alive the next shit, do you?" Hando remarked coldly. I noticed he was fingering the ugly scar on his neck.

"Does anyone?" It was the first time Maximus had spoken or given any sign that he was even following what had been said. From the next table, he had sat reading a newspaper throughout, occasionally sipping on a glass of red wine. At his deep and authoritative tone, we both looked over in surprise. He gave us a half smile, almost an apology.

"The three of us have experienced a singular miracle and I doubt any of us is unaffected by it. It sets us apart from the rest. They were all in a period of resolution by the end of their films where the mistakes of their lives had been partially at least overcome - or at least they had achieved some self knowledge through catharsis or a triumph over adversity. Most of those roles were very mythic in their journey from one place to another. We feel that they will take what they have learnt and benefit from it. That applies to all of them...Jack Corbett, Dominic Maloney, Johnny Ryan, Andy, Egan Trask, Jeff Mitchell, Lachlan Curry, Zach Grant, Cort, Bud White, Jeffrey Wigand, John Biebe, Terry Thorne, John Nash, Jack Aubrey, James Braddock...I leave out SID. He isn't human or rational..."

"What about Driscoll?"

Maximus shrugged. "He learnt a lesson - a very hard one - but he did not die. I don't think he remembers much past leaving the dance dead drunk. He is thus spared the experience that we had to face. He got drunk - and woke up sober in a new place. Viewing his film later taught him about his lucky escape. But I doubt that he feels the confusion that is haunting us..."

"Us? It haunts you? Are you saying you found it hard to deal with as well?" I asked. It was hard to think this man of steel was affected by anything.

To that Maximus merely smiled and gave a resigned shrug. "Did people really watch my film? When I see it, all that I see is a man who found everything hard to deal with. The only moment of peace I had was when I closed my eyes in the dying moments. But they even took that away from me too. It was the hardest strike of all..."

Perhaps our faces showed that we were bewildered by his comment. Perhaps he had a need for confession too - or perhaps he saw that we were reaching out, searching for answers and might just find some in the lesson of his experience. Or maybe even all three. But suddenly he opened up to us in a way that stunned even Hando, never mind me. I have never expected Maximus to be the kind of man who would choose to chat with men like us.

But we were wrong. After all he was an ex-soldier and gladiator. The dregs of society were hardly unknown to him now, were they?

'...At the beginning of my film I was a man totally sure of myself and the place I inhabited in the world. I was successful in my chosen path, respected, arrogant, used to deference from other men, the controller of my own destiny. I strode my world full of certainty in my own pre-eminence. I was a powerful leader, a wealthy landowner, a settled husband and father with a whole estate of dependants. I was a confidant and friend to the emperor, I mixed freely with the most influential senators of Rome. I had status and privilege and believed it was my right for I was an honourable man who served the gods, loved his family and obeyed my emperor.  That was what counted in a man's life - or so I thought.

Then on one night the whole edifice of my self belief and life philosophy was swept away like a proud city brought low by some force of nature. And I learnt many things about myself and my world that revealed to me that every certainty I had was founded on shaky ground. The status that I had won could be just as easily lost. My honour and reputation were no guarantees to my fate. Acquaintances and friends - no matter what we had shared - could turn from me and shun me if the tide changed. But most of all I learnt that I was not quite the man that I had thought myself to be. I was instead a flawed man too proud to act with caution and restraint. My sense of dignity was more important than the lives of those who needed me. Where is the hero in that?

From that point on I become a broken man who failed to deal with the situation in which he found himself. I retired from the world to lick my wounds, incapable of accepting my fate with courage. When I fought in the arena - it was anger and bitterness that drove me. I was no longer in control. I could no longer die with honour. I was incapable of being the Stoic. The man of integrity soon became a dark and twisted killing machine, full of revenge and hatred.

In the end, I found a way to challenge that desire to avenge the loss of all I held dear. To you it is the hero rising. To me it is the last cry of a desperate man who has no further use for the world. Without all he once had, he cannot face the future. With belief in the empire for which he sacrificed it all now trampled in the bloody sand of the arena, what can he grasp on which to re-build his life? And so he longs for death. A true hero would have embraced life and found a new philosophy.

Maximus ultimately fails. But he does so in a spectacular way that wins the crowd. He is hailed as the Saviour because he has fulfilled the archetypal role of the epic hero, falling tragically on the scene of his greatest victory. It is a very Roman story. But I was no longer a Roman. Nor did I have a single remaining allegiance to that world that I had once owned. So, unlike so many of my brothers here, at the end of my film there is no sense that the protagonist has overcome or is ready to face life renewed. All that is left is nothingness and the futile emptiness of revenge...'

There was a stunned silence as the two of us took in Maximus' own criticism of himself. Not for one moment was I buying it but that doesn't really matter, does it? It's what a person thinks of themselves inside, right or wrong, that shapes their ability to cope.

"What happened then?" I muttered. "You died. Then you opened your eyes and were here. Why do you think it happened? Was it punishment or was it because your lesson had only just begun?"

Maximus smiled. "Ah...now there's the rub. Why are we here? Why indeed? What have I learnt since I arrived? Many things...but not everything. Perhaps the most important lesson of all was that it is not over until it is over. There is no such thing as knowing it all. The very moment when we feel that arrogant sense of completion or omniscience...then that is when we are most in need of the next lesson..."

"I don't understand you. Stop talking in fucking riddles. What do you mean?" Hando asked him directly. Maximus considered his answer for a while. In a way I was grateful to H. for calling him out. It's hard to follow his style of talking. It's not like the way we talk today, even if the words are the same.

"What happened when you crossed? Tell me..." Hando spoke again but this time his appeal had the tone of a command. Maximus raised an eyebrow in wry amusement at being spoken to like that. But he didn't seem offended. The opposite seemed to be the case in fact. He rather liked Hando's style.

'...I closed my eyes. I opened them. My head was thick and confused, my throat was dry and parched. My belly was churning and I was struggling with waves of nausea. But the pain was gone. I felt weak - but it was not the life-sapping debility of death that had seeped into my bones as I had lain helpless on the floor of the Colosseum. I moved my body. I had flexibility. There was no sign of bloodflow. Each moment was bringing me to a greater awareness of my surroundings.

But where was I?

I found myself slumped against a stone wall in a narrow alley way. It was an odd place for although it appeared to be outside, there was no sky above me. The stones on which I leaned were not cold nor were they solid. The air was warm but it wasn't from the sun. The lighting was dimmed but it was not candle or flame. My clothes were typical but the fabric was soft. Nothing was quite as it should be.

Was this Elysium?

I suppose I must have been sitting there some time, rubbing my sore head and trying to clear my blurred vision. Suddenly I was aware of being watched and looked up. Two children, dressed in odd clothing, were staring at me.

"Is he real or a statue? I think he's moving..." One said, as if I was not there.

"They have waxwork dummies that can move - or he might be one of those actors who walk around dressed as soldiers or gladiators..." The other replied. I tried to speak but all that I managed was a groan. That made them back off.

"I'm gonna tell Miss. I think there's something wrong with him..." I saw them turn and shout down the narrow space. "Miss.......!!!"

That's when I heard the woman's voice. The first time I ever heard her. Even then I felt safe somehow. "You shouldn't be down here! It has a sign saying 'No Entry'! You'll get me shot...! Who's he?"

I stared at her. She was young and lovely, slender and pretty with thick dark hair pulled back in a messy tail. Her clothes were strange to me. I now know she was clad in a track suit and training pants with a thick scarf wound round her neck. She stared back.

"Are you all right?"

I tried again to speak but somehow my lips were still having difficulty forming speech. Another bizarre fact was that this conversation was taking place in an alien language but somehow I understood it perfectly. I was not so sure I could reply in it though.

"Should I get someone? Did you have an accident? A dizzy spell? Are you one of the gladiators?"

"Yes....gladiator....Maximus..."

At that she crouched down and gave me a closer look. Her face seemed to register disbelief and shock. "What did you say? Is this some kind of a joke? Some gimmick? Am I on Candid Camera? If this is that bloody Jon Culshaw show..."

I had no idea what she was talking about so I let her ramble on. When she finally stopped for air, I muttered: "Ubi sum?"

"What? That's Latin. You said 'Where am I?'! Why are you talking in Latin? Are you sure this isn't some sideshow?"

"Where am I?" I repeated her words.

"Deva. Chester. The Roman experience virtual museum....You must have had a blow to your head..." She reached out a hand and raised my face to hers. Again there seemed to be a jolt of recognition. "Can I ask you a really daft question...are you Russell Crowe?"

I shook my head. "I am...Maximus..."

"Bloody hell...!" She sank back on her haunches. "Either you are delusional or I am having the best dream of my life or..." But she didn't seem able to finish the sentence. "...I have to get the management...you need help..."

I grasped her hand and held it firm. "No! Need help. You help. Hide me...please..."

I have no idea why but I knew instinctively that I was at risk if I was discovered. In my confused state, I wondered if my enemies might still be around waiting for me. This woman - this completely unknown woman was my only chance. I had to trust her. She seemed intelligent. I was aware that women usually look upon me favourably - and for once I had to take advantage of that. But there was something else. I had an uncanny sense that she had not stumbled upon me by accident. I knew that she had been meant to find me and that she was to play some important role in my life...'

"Who was she?" Hando interrupted.

"Uma."

Hando hunched his shoulders. "Who's Uma?"

At that we both smiled. "You had to know her, mate..." I replied. "You just had to know her..."

"So she helped you?"

Maximus nodded and looked away. He swallowed deep and I suddenly realised he was emotionally overcome. And he wasn't ashamed to let us see it.

'...She helped me. It was the beginning of a long journey for both of us. Without her, I would have surely killed myself at the discovery of where I was - and more to the point, what I was. Can you imagine how much I needed to learn, even to function, let alone live? It was as if I was a babe just born and she was my mother. She had to teach me everything. Support me. Hide me. Clothe me. Feed me. Keep me safe... Until she introduced me to her friend, Heather, and then they both took care of me...'

Again Hando interrupted. It was as if he was drinking in every detail and storing it away. "Heather?"

"Yes, Heather. She was there from the beginning."

"Where is she now?"

"With her man."

"And this Uma.... What happened between you two?" Hando had recognised that something other than maternal care had taken place between them. You could see it from the way Maximus said her name and the faraway look that came into his eye when he recalled those days.

"What happened between us? Everything happened...everything..." was his cryptic reply.

"Well, where is she now, this Wonderwoman?" Hando retorted, the mocking sneer back. His defence mechanism.

Maximus fixed him a solemn gaze. "She is with her man."

"Must be some specimen if she threw you over for him..."

Maximus chuckled. "Indeed." But he offered no more to either of us on the subject of Uma - and certainly said nothing about Andy. I laughed to myself. Hando would get a shock if he met the 'man' in question. It might throw a few spanners in the Skin's philosophy of life. The alpha dog losing out to the gentle soul?

For a while the conversation petered out. I went over and got another round in. Back at the table, I found Hando quizzing Maximus. "So, you messed up your first life and you got a second chance. What have you learnt? You getting it right this time?"

No one speaks to Maximus like that. No one. Maybe we should. He seemed more than eager to answer the question. Perhaps he likes being treated like one of the boys instead of an iconic superman. "What I have learnt is that I needed a new allegiance. One that truly offered me the light that I needed in my life to be whole again. No political system, no profession, no philosophy seemed enough for me. They always prove wanting in the end. If the solution involves hatred and violence - as it invariably does with man-made constructs - then it is not the solution. It is merely the cause of future problems. Now I believe the provenance of the future begins at home. There is no enemy outside ever as dangerous as the one who attacks the heart of our family. This I have learnt..."

"...That how you live now? Like a fucking pussy?" Hando sneered. "The modern equivalent of Maximus the farmer? Mucking out the stables on your nice little spread...? Fuck me if that doesn't sound like selling out....you mean, you lost your fucking nerve, hey? That what second chances mean to you? Play it safe from now on...? I'd rather be dead..."

"...Yes, and so I thought when I was where you are now. This new life did not appear to me to be a gift. It was a curse. The final act in my destruction. I was denied even the release of death...but I have been here long enough to see past that. I have learnt to live again. But even in my newfound happiness, there were lessons waiting for me..."

"Example?" Hando was taunting him now, still eager to listen, but showing a disdain for the message.

"You want answers? I can't give you answers. Most of this you have to experience for yourself. But I can tell you this cautionary tale. You would be well to pay attention to it. The security of my family came under threat some months ago. This time the enemy was nature. But the danger was no less pressing. What did I do this time? Rush to the side of those who loved me? Or fulfil my duty to the state?"

Hando hunched his shoulders but his eyes were engaged. The answer interested him. Maximus continued. "I abandoned my wife to fend for herself, her mother and our home. I stayed behind and did my job. When the worst was over and I made my frantic race home to be with them, I suddenly realised that history was in danger of repeating itself. Under threat I had again returned to the man I had once been. I had crept back into learned behaviour that was second nature to me, despite all that I had suffered. There would have been no forgiveness had I made that same mistake again. This time I was fortunate - they were safe. But I have heeded the warning. So my advice - to both of you - is be alert to the errors that brought you to the end in your old life. There is no guarantee that without vigilance in the right - or wrong circumstances - you will not revert again. This existence could be as foul as your first...It is a second chance, not a free pass..."

Hando shrugged. He didn't seem to think all this had anything to do with his life. "I know you lost your family. You lost you way of life and freedom. Shit happens. But, mate, most people I know, they never had anything to begin with. Crappy parents, broken families, squalid little lives, no opportunities...what the fuck's your life got to do with mine? Or Colin's, either? You didn't have it so bad. So your boss gets wasted and the next big man was pissed at you? Your own fucking fault. You should have played him and taken it all..."

Maximus chuckled and took a drink. "In your own parlance, you are not wrong. I did indeed make mistakes - as did both of you. I know my life and times are alien to you, but not everything changes. Take O'Brien. He's not a bad man. Given the difficult choice, he took the right one. He saved the life of a young woman. From that one act of altruism, his life spiralled out of control. He died knowing that he had ruined his own life and that of everyone he cared about, namely his father and his lover. What a bleak and despairing reward for his endeavour!  I can see many parallels there with my story."

Again Hando looked unimpressed, lighting up a cigarette and blowing out smoke, his eyes narrowing. "I never had a family. My mother was a drugged up whore. My father was some John she didn't even remember. I never loved anyone. No one ever loved me.  I never did anything for anyone. Most people would say I deserved what I got..."

"...I am not most people. I do not come from these safe and law-abiding times or yours. Compared to the men who walked my streets you are a socialised and educated human being. You can read. You have a belief system - even if it is at odds with the main stream culture. You drew disadvantaged youths to yourself and took care of them, making decisions, leading, providing, teaching...who is to say that you were not fulfilling a necessary role? Would anyone else have bothered to look after them?"

Hando looked down and frowned. Maximus had touched a nerve. He was lost here. Those boys had been his life.  They had given him status, a function in life. Now he was just a man apart - and completely alone.

"...And I disagree that you never loved anyone. You loved your boys. And they loved you, even if they were cowed and afraid of you. But they trusted you; you taught them loyalty and gave them a cause to champion, however misguided it might have been. You died knowing that in the end you had failed in your duty to them -and that the one you loved best had betrayed you with a woman you had taken in. You are not a savoury character by any means - but nor were you lost, by my estimation. I have met men many times worse than you - and they found humanity within when they needed it. There is still a kernel of hope in you. Find a new allegiance, Hando. Draw new friends to you. Learn again to be a leader. Love. This time you have what you never had before - a ready made family. Support. Friendship. A place to belong. The old life is gone. Stop clinging to it..."

"What do you want from me? Why are you telling me all this?" Hando interrupted. I think he was almost convinced. I think that frightened him. He was having an experience alien to him - for once he was the pupil, not the puppet master. Maximus was the leader and he a mere foot soldier.

"I want nothing from you. I have nothing to gain or lose from the choices you make. But when I was lost, someone reached out to me. It costs me nothing to reach out to you.  If you reject me, then that is your business. However, I warn you - there is no shame in accepting the charity and goodwill of others. It does not un-man you to ask and take help when you need it. That was the greatest lesson I had to learn. Just because no one in our other lives ever showed us that generosity, does not mean we should spurn it when someone does in this. The past is another country, boys, even perhaps another life. Cut the chains that bind you to the dead and the lost. And then live fully - for them. For how else can you do their sacrifice justice?"

Maximus was right. There was more in common between us than you might at first realise. He, however, had been here the longest and had surmounted the greatest handicaps. He was showing us that it was possible even for him to rise up from the ashes. There was hope for both if us.

We might never know why we were given this great gift. But we are here and it is up to us to use this - or the ones we left behind died for nothing. I thought about my own life recently. I had begun to hold my head up. For all the mess I'd made at the start, I was now well on the way to standing on my own two feet and living a decent life. Hando was now the poor bastard just setting out on that road. But he was lucky that there were men here who had been through this same ordeal before him and he had their example to guide him. If he bothered to listen, that is.

I hadn't contributed hardly a word so far but there were questions I wanted to ask Maximus too. "Uma found you. Without her, you would have been really fucked. Heather played her part. So did other women. None of them held you for long, though. Until you met Ann..."

"What is your point?" Maximus did not seem entirely happy with the question. He doesn't like any mention of his personal life. But I did have a point and I thought he ought to hear it.

"Same thing happened to me. I mean, Jeff and Terry were pretty cool but without the support I got from women, I'd have gone under. I pissed them around. I wasn't ready for all that commitment crap...I'm still not ready...but, do you think that's where this is heading? All the guys are settling down. Is that how it ends?"

It was Maximus' turn to shrug. "I have no idea. But why should this life be any different than the life we were born into? Men sow their wild oats until they are ready - and then invariably look for a woman to take care of them. It is the way of every world. Like you, when I arrived, I was not ready for love. I was too damaged. I pity the women who meet such men. But in the end we learn, if we have any sense..."

"...Do you think the women we know here are learning too? Is there a reason why they turn up here?"

"Assuredly. This place is not an accident. These women are not random choices. They have as much need for growth as we do. They help us to realise our fate...and we help them to find theirs. Your turn will come again, Colin. There will be one for you....so make sure you are paying attention - and don't let her slip you by when she does appear. That will be the time for direct action. Do not fear the consequences. Enjoy the ride... But stay away from banks and guns this time, hey?"

It's a bit scary when Maximus makes a joke. You're afraid to laugh in case it wasn't actually a joke. Then he grins and you feel like a right tit. I was still trying to deal with that when Hando piped up...

'...I woke up on a beach. It was early morning. I don't know how long I'd been there. I was cold and wet, but I was alive. Fucking crazy, but that was the truth of it. Eventually I stumbled up the cliff to the road. Managed to get a ride on a long distance truck; the bloke dropped me off in Melbourne. I went back to Footscray but they were all gone. Not exactly gone. They'd never existed. It was like a waking nightmare. For weeks I just hung about like a fucking zombie, stealing what I needed, scavenging, living rough and then I met a girl. She took me home and I squatted there with her for a couple of months. Cleaned myself up, got a job on a building site, earned a bit of money...she kicked me out after I cheated on her once too often but I know I owe her. First woman I ever met I can say that about..."

Hando gave Maximus a knowing look. There was always a woman who saved you. Hando looked like he'd just discovered the meaning of life.

"What happened then?" I asked. How had he got from there to here?

"Went for a drink one night...."

"Found the pub?"

"Yeah....and met this bloke who gave me a job..." He smiled an embarrassed grin as if he was ashamed that his lips could make such an expression.

"Find a new allegiance....the old ones are discredited....only the future matters...the past is gone..." Maximus philosophised - but this time we understood him.

Hando gave him one of his implacable stares back. "So...what's your new allegiance, mate? We know Colin here is aiming to bring sexual fulfilment to the women of the world...but what about you? Who's your master now? Or is it mistress....?" I held my breath as Hando glibly referred to Maximus' wife in mockery.

Again Maximus did not rise to the bait. "My allegiances are my concern and none of your business. We may share some common problems but my answers and yours lie in very different paths. I have no idea how you can find salvation but this much I can tell you. You will find it in this place. When you least expect it. And every bond you make from now until then will take you closer to your goal. If you are wise..." Maximus picked up his glass and drained the last of the wine. "And now I bid you goodnight, gentlemen. I have a wife waiting for me. And I shudder to think what she will say if I am late for dinner...!" He made a feigned shuddering motion as if he was truly scared of Ann. It made us both smile.

As the doors of the pub closed behind him, I turned back to Hando. "What he means is this, mate. Time to get a new Fuehrer. Throw away the Nazi bible and memorise the sayings of General Maximus...he's got all the bits you like...with all the bits everyone else likes as well..."

I received another of Hando's inscrutable looks, but he did mutter back: "Well, it beats worshipping at the shrine of The King..." He stood up and hitched up his pants. "I'm off...got a woman waiting for me too as it happens...and she is dinner..." His tongue lolled crudely out of his mouth but I wasn't fooled. Maybe he did have a girl somewhere but he was leaving because he wanted to go and have a quiet think. There's a hell of a lot more going on in his head than he'll ever let anyone know.

As for me, well, I had a lot of thinking to do as well. Things were beginning to fall into place in my head too. I felt pretty sorted that night when I went to bed. Slept like a baby. Woke up feeling positive for the first time in a hell of a long time. No shadows. Something to look forward to. Leaving the past behind.

Not many people in this life get another chance to get it right. Even less are given  a second chance at life itself. 

Just Jesus and us three as far as I know.

Now that's a scary thought....