Last Orders (28 page)

But he doesn't mention June. He mentions Vince, who isn't, who wasn't ever ours. He says, 'Vince'll look after you. He's a good boy. He aint such a bad job.' He says that I'll be all right, I'll be looked after, but he doesn't say how he never looked after June, he doesn't say, 'And give June my love.'

So I think, Then I won't mention Ray, I won't say a thing about Ray. Though it's my last chance, and it's the time for it, at the bedside, now or never.

He won't mention June so I won't mention Ray. Fair dos. What you don't know can't hurt. But he looks at me with that unflinching, unblinking look, so I have to dart my eyes away again. I look at the next bed which, just for now, is empty, the sheets and covers stripped off, and when I look back, his own eyes haven't budged an inch, they're looking into me and beyond, like he'd like to step right through me and go on then turn round and come back and hug me. And he says, like it's his last word on everything, on why he's lying there and why I'm sitting there holding his hand, and why it had to be him, why I was saddled with him and not a thousand others, luck of a summer night, 'All a gamble, aint it? Ask Raysy. But you'll be all right.'

It doesn't look like journey's end, it doesn't look like a final resting-place, where you'd want to come to finish your days and find peace and contentment for ever and ever. It aint Blue Bayou. If you look one way, beyond the public bog where Lenny's disappeared, there's only grey thick sky and grey thick sea and a grey horizon having a hard job trying to mark the difference between the two, and the other way, across the road, it's like someone's put up a frontage in a hurry to outstare the greyness, it's like the buildings are a row of front-line troops drawn up to put a brave show on it, but it don't help exactly that they've been dressed up in joke uniforms.

Flamingo. Tivoli. Royal. Grab City.

Vince says, 'Marine Terrace.' He's got back in the car while we wait for Lenny. It's like he's decided to be our tour guide again, like in Canterbury Cathedral, except this time he's reeling it off out of memory. 'Marine Terrace, Margate. "Golden Mile".' But it's a short mile, it's about two furlongs and it don't look so golden, not in this weather, it don't look like it's made of gold. BurgersHotdogskesShakesTeas PopcornCandyflossRock. There are signs and coloured lights, some of them on, some of them flashing, everything rattling and shaking in the wind, and here and there a pavement placard on a chain lying where it's been blown flat. Most of the arcades look shut but one or two are lit up, all flickering and winking. By one of the entrances there's a geezer in a flat cap and a donkey jacket, perched inside a little booth, like he's only doing his duty. But they aint exactly flocking in.

Vince says, 'It's not season, of course.' You can imagine Vince running an arcade. It's not so different after all. Dodds Showrooms. Mirage. Gold Mine. Mr B's.

More little spots and spatterings are dotting the windscreen and Vince turns on the wipers but only gets a smear, so he turns them off again. The rain doesn't want to rain yet, though the sky's getting darker every second.

Vie says, 'Timed it perfect, didn't we? Wouldn't have thought, by this morning.' Vince says, 'Well we're here.' The sea don't know that.

Vie says, 'It's not good scattering weather,' as if the thought hadn't occurred.

Vince says, 'Depends how you look at it.' I'm holding the box. Vie says, 'Fair old wind.'

I say, like I only want to be sure, 'Where's the Pier?' Vince says, slow and patient, 'You're looking at it, Raysy. That thing right there that you're looking at, that's the Pier.' I say, 'It don't look like a pier.'

Vince says, 'But it's called the Pier. It's a harbour wall but it's called the Pier.' Then he launches into his tour-guide patter. 'There used to be this other thing called the Jetty, which looked like a pier, which you went on like a pier, where the steamboats came in. But they called it the Jetty, and that thing over there which is really a harbour wall, they call that the Pier.'

I say, 'Sounds reasonable. So what happened to the other thing - the Jetty?'

Vince looks at me like I ought to have mugged up on that too. 'Got swept away, didn't it, in a storm. Nineteen seventy-something. I remember Amy saying, "Did you hear about Margate Jetty?" I reckon that's why Jack specified the Pier. He didn't mean the Pier, he meant the Jetty. That's what we all remember, going on the Jetty. But he mustVe remembered there wasn't no Jetty any more, so he settled on the Pier.'

I'm getting confused so I don't say nothing.

Vince says, 'You can't see it from here, it must be behind the Pier, but there's supposed to be a bit of the Jetty still left, still standing, all by itself out to sea.'

I say, 'Well maybe that's been swept away today an' all.'

Vie says, 'This isn't a storm.' Voice of authority.

I think, Course not, looking at the spray.

The seagulls are whizzing around the sky like they're either having the time of their lives or they wish they'd never taken off.

Vince says, peering across the pavement, 'What's he doing? Gone for a paddle an' all?'

Then we see him, emerging from the lee of the walled-round entrance to the Gents. He can tell we're looking at him and he staggers a bit, deliberate, at the point where the wind catches him, pretending it's worse than it is. All the same, he glances grimly up at the sky, then he smiles, weakly, like a man always can when he's just emptied his bladder. He looks like the one who's always last and knows it, always keeping everyone waiting. He stands for a moment, with the railings and the grey sea behind him, as if because it's the seaside and he's the focus of attention he ought to do a quick comic turn but he can't think what, so he just stands there grinning, awkward, like he's having his photo taken. This is me at Margate. Shocking weather. He goes up on his toes all of a sudden, holding up his fists, rolling one shoulder, jabbing with his right. I reckon Lenny's face is its own comic turn. Then he moves towards the car, like it's hard work, he could be swimming for it, and opens the door. There's a blast of air.

'Aint weather for the beach,' he says.

'Mad March days,' Vince says.

Vie says, 'It's April.'

'April bleedin fools,' Lenny says.

'Mad Gunner Tate,' Vince says, like he didn't mean it to mean anything, it just came out.

'Mad Jack Dodds,' Lenny says, shutting the door. 'April first yesterday. You think he's whisked it all up special?'

You can't tell from holding the jar, no little trembles. Just the engine purring.

Vince looks at Lenny in the driving mirror then he looks straight ahead. We sit by the kerb.

Vie says, 'Well,' as if the moment's come.

Lenny says, 'Well.'

I don't say nothing. It's like we're all waiting for someone else to give the word and maybe it needs to be me since I'm the one holding Jack, I ought to sense him saying, 'Come on, lads, get shifting.' But I don't say nothing. I aint taking command.

Vince is staring ahead, his hands resting square on the wheel like he's driving though we're staying still, it's a pretend car. The windscreen's all silvery, the sky's like lead. Then just as I'm about to say, 'Come on, let's go,' we start to move anyway. As if Vince hasn't done nothing and the car's decided for us, as if we're all just payload and it's switched itself into motion, like that belt suddenly starting to move, you could hear a little clicking sound, that carried Jack's coffin out of sight behind the blue velvet curtains.

It doesn't look like the end of the road, it doesn't look like what you'd aim for and work for. It looks like it's trying to keep going all year round something that only happened once one whoopsy weekend. So this is what you get, this is where you come. I reckon it's all about wanting to be a kid again, bucket and spade and a gob full of ice cream. Or it's all about being on the edge, which you are, other sense, and you know it. Not where the road's going, just where it don't go no further, on account of the ogwash. End of the road, end of the pier. Splash. And if the seaside was such a fine and wonderful thing in itself, then there wouldn't be no need, would there, for this whole china-shop of Amusements? All of them trying to tickle your fancy like a troop of tired old tarts. Like it aint the coast of Kent, it's Cunt Street, Cairo.

Flamingo. Tivoli. Royal Vince lets the car roll slowly forward, barely touching the gas, as though it knows what to do, a Merc has a mind of its own, like Duke always knew the way home anyway, and I can see what he's doing, I can see how he wants it to be. It's like the car has become a hearse, a royal blue hearse. Because this is Jack's last ride, along Marine Terrace, Margate, along the Golden Mile. Last ride of the day, eh Jack? Vince looks straight ahead, hands on the wheel, like he don't want no distractions. Mirage, Gold Mine, Ocean. They're all painted up and decked out like poor men's palaces, except one, at the end of the parade, looming over them all, a bare brick tower with just a few big words on it. It looks more like the way into a prison than a funfair. We've already passed it, but we all noticed, as we came down that hill, the big wheel rising up behind it and the big dipper, black and spindly against the grey sky. It's what Margate's famous for, it's what people come here for. Dreamland.

And the most I've wanted, the most I've hoped in fifty years, believe me I've never asked the earth, is that you should have looked at me, just once, and said, 'Mum.' It isn't much to have wished, all this time. Damn it, you're fifty years old. You shouldVe fled the nest by now, you shouldn't want me around, you should be leading a life of your own. For God's sake, Mum, I'm a big girl Well, all right then, go on then, big girl, have it your own way. It's your life, you go and ruin it.

I've tried to know what it's like to be you. To be in that Home always, which I only visit. To be in that body all the time, which I only look at twice a week. Which shouldn't be so difficult, should it, since it was once part of mine? Flesh of my. But I think when they snip that cord they snip off everything else too. They say, You're by yourself now, you're as different and as separate as all the others, it's hoo-ha thinking otherwise. And when I tot up all those twice-weekly visits, then it seems we haven't shared each other's company for much more than one whole year, which isn't much in fifty, which isn't much for mother and daughter. But if you look at it another way, it's one whole year of just visiting.

That's what I am, that's what I've been: a visitor. And when I went in to see Jack, in that little room, Vincey waiting outside, to visit Jack's body, like you could say I was a visitor to it when it was alive, but I haven't counted up the times in fifty years, I thought: What's the difference? He isn't ever going to turn into something else now, but don't kid yourself, Amy Dodds, that was just as true of Jack alive as dead.

So what was true of you, girl, was true of him. And maybe that's why he never came to see you, because he'd already visited himself, looked in on himself somehow in that little room where his own body lay, knowing he wouldn't alter. Maybe that was his sacrifice for your sake: no hope for you so none for him. His sacrifice of all those other Jacks he might have been. But pull the other one. Maybe Jack Dodds, my husband, was really a saint and I never knew it, I never cottoned on. And I was the weak and the selfish one. Hello Mum.

Best thing we can do, Ame, is

You bastard, you butcher.

I stood there with my hand on his cold forehead, cold as stone, thinking, This is the only Jack that ever was or will be, the one and only, my poor poor Jack. Thinking, They'll have fetched him out the fridge and they'll pop him back, like he used to do with his pork and beef. Say something, Jack, don't just go dead on me too.

Thinking, I've got to look strong and proud and steady for Vince. At least we gave that poor little hopeless bundle a home.

I said, 'Will you go in and see him too, Vincey?'

I've tried to know what it's like to be you, girl. To know what it's like to have missed what you've missed and not even know that you've missed it. I've tried to know if it would have been better or worse, if we'd known beforehand and if we'd had the choice, to have put you out of your misery before you even knew you were you. If you do know that you're you. So Jack and me would've been free to lead different lives, thanks to you having laid down yours. Your sacrifice.

Except it seems that course of action never did much good for Sally Tate, poor little missed-her-date Tate, not in the short term, nor in the long. It seems she just ended up visiting too. Jailbird of a husband. Then having visitors of her own, paying guests. It's a living, you can see what drives a woman to it. And Lenny Tate has turned his back, washed his hands. It's your life, you go and ruin it. Though his own life hasn't got so much left of it, by the look of him these days, he's a bit of a ruin himself. And whether Joan Tate has turned her back or not, or what she thinks, I don't know. Except I think she always knew Lenny had a soft spot for me.

And then there's the crime of it, as it was in those days, bad old days, a crime. Chop it up for you, missis? Though why crime, when a good half of the world, when you think about it, when you think of all the misery, must be wishing for a good half of the time it'd never been born? You and me should be so lucky, June, And anyhow the fact is, the sad fact is, that Sally really wanted Vince. And I hadn't stopped wanting Jack. Let's all go to Dreamland. Runner beans. Colander. Holes in your head an' all. This bus is crawling today. It must be the rain, turning the roads to rivers. Atrocious weather. But a bus always gets through. I'll be late today, girl, but it makes no difference, since when did you ever know about the time or the day? Even if sometimes on these Mondays and Thursdays I've thought that perhaps you're waiting. You're thinking, It's Monday, it's Thursday, so she'll be coming. I hope she's coming, I hope she never forgets.