TWO lives, nearing their end, are wrapped in unspoken friendship and ingrained habit.

Ray Cruddas is a once-famous light entertainer withdrawing from the limelight with as much dignity as he can muster; Jackie Mabe, a boxer denied greatness by injury, is his "butler, gofer, personal assistant and wife".

Ray has an actual wife, his third, but Jackie, lent to Ray for protection 30 years ago, fulfils many of the marital roles, aside from the sexual.

Retiring to the north east town of his youth, Ray fronts a nostalgia club, where punters dress in flat caps and the rest, resuscitating the working-class Geordie past in the name of having a laugh.

Burn traces these two men, past and present, against the coarsening story of England. The modern element has the foot and mouth crisis as a shabby backdrop, while excursions into the past paint a vivid picture of post-war London, a place peopled thickly by spivs, showgirls and newly-arrived immigrants.

This is a tale of great force, tender and poetic in its portrayal of male friendship and loneliness. It resonates with a potent sense of summing up: trying to make sense of how life turned out, seeking acceptance amid the puzzlement.

A short work of powerful eloquence, this closely-observed novel doesn't waste a word. The lives of these two men are seen, in a way, as an elegy for a sort of Britain that doesn't exist any more, and Burn's forensic skills of observation slice away at what he sees as a loss of community.

Updated: 10:00 Wednesday, May 12, 2004