He takes two glasses from the rack and squeezes one up against the scotch bottle, two shots, then he takes just a single for himself. He turns and slides the double across to Vic. Vic pushes over a fiver, but Bernie holds up a hand. ‘On the house, Vic, on the house,’ he says. ‘Aint every day, is it?’ Then he raises his glass, eyes on the jar, as if he’s going to say something speechy and grand but he says, ‘Jesus God, he was only sitting there six weeks ago.’
We all look into our drinks.
Vic says, ‘Well here’s to him.’
We lift our glasses, mumbling. JackJackJack.
‘And here’s to you, Vic,’ I say. ‘You did a good job Thursday.’
‘Went a treat,’ Lenny says.
‘Don’t mention it,’ Vic says. ‘How’s Amy?’
‘Managing,’ I say.
‘She hasn’t changed her mind about coming then?’
‘No, she’ll be seeing June, as per usual’
Everyone’s silent.
Vic says, ‘Her decision, isn’t it?’
Lenny sticks his nose in his glass like he’s not going to say anything.
Bernie’s looking at the jar and looking anxiously round the bar. He looks at Vic like he don’t want to make a fuss but.
Vic says, ‘Point taken, Bernie,’ and takes the jar from where it’s sitting. He reaches down for the fallen box. ‘Not much good for business, is it?’
‘Aint helping yours much either, Vic,’ Lenny says.
Vic slides the jar carefully back into the box. It’s eleven twenty by Slattery’s clock and it feels less churchy. There’s more punters coming in. Someone’s put on the music machine. Going back some day come what may, to Blue Bayou … That’s better, that’s better.
First wet rings on the mahogany, first drifts of blue smoke.
Vic says, ‘Well all we need now is our chauffeur.’
Lenny says, ‘They’re playing his tune. Wonder what he’ll bring. Drives something different every week, these days, far as I can see.’
Bernie says, ‘Same again all round?’
As he speaks there’s a hooting and tooting outside in the street. A pause, then another burst.
Lenny says, ‘Sounds like him now. Sounds like Vincey.’
There’s a fresh round of hooting.
Vic says, ‘Isn’t he coming in?’
Lenny says, ‘I reckon he wants us out there.’
We don’t go out but we get up and go over to the window. Vic keeps hold of the box, like someone might pinch it. We raise ourselves up on our toes, heads close together, so we can see above the frosted half of the window. I can’t quite, but I don’t say.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Lenny says.
‘It’s a Merc,’ Vic says.
‘Trust Big Boy,’ Lenny says.
I push down on the sill to give myself a second’s extra lift. It’s a royal blue Merc, cream seats, gleaming in the April sunshine.
‘Jesus,’ I say. ‘A Merc.’
Lenny says, it’s like a joke he’s been saving up for fifty years, ‘Rommel would be pleased.’
RAY
Amy eyes me as I look up from reading the letter.
She says, ‘I suppose he thought he’d get there in the end, one way or the other.’
I say, ‘When did he write it?’
She says, ‘A couple of days before he—’
I look at her and I say, ‘He could have just told you. Why’d he have to write a letter?’
She says, ‘I suppose he thought I’d think he was joking. I suppose he thought it would make it proper.’
It’s not a long letter, but it could be shorter, because of the way it’s wrapped up in language like you see in the small print on the back of forms. It’s not Jack’s language at all. But I suppose a man can get all wordy, all official, when he knows his number’s up.
But the gist of it’s plain. It says he wants his ashes to be chucked off the end of Margate pier.
It don’t even say, ‘Dear Amy’. It says, ‘To whom it may concern’.
She says, ‘I’ve told Vic. He said it don’t make any difference. It says in his will he’s to be cremated but what gets done with the ashes is a free decision. You can throw them anywhere so long as it’s not over someone else’s property.’
‘So?’
‘So Vic says: “Amy, if you want to do it, do it. If you want me to do it, I’ll do it. I’ll see it doesn’t add too much on the bill. But one thing’s certain,” he says, “if you don’t do it, Jack won’t ever know.” ’
‘So?’
We’re sitting out in the garden by St Thomas’s, opposite Big Ben. She looks out across the river as if she’s putting it to herself what she’d do if she had Jack’s ashes now and he’d told her she should chuck him in the Thames, to the sound of Big Ben. But we haven’t got Jack’s ashes. All we’ve got is Jack’s pyjamas, two pairs, and his toothbrush and his razor and his wristwatch and a few other odds and ends, which they give you in a plastic bag when you collect the forms. So we don’t have to go there any more now, there aint no reason. No more walking down that squeaky corridor, no more hanging about drinking cups of tea. There’ll be someone else in his bed now already, some other bleeder.
It’s a mild grey day and the water’s grey, and she keeps looking out over it without speaking, so I say, because I think maybe it’s what she wants me to say: ‘If you want to do it, Amy, I’ll take you.’
‘In the old camper?’ she says, turning.
I say, ‘Course.’ I think she’s going to smile and say yes. I think the day’s going to brighten up.
She says, ‘I can’t do it, Ray. I mean – thank you. But I don’t want to do it anyway.’
She looks out again at the river and I can’t tell whether she thinks it’s all a bad joke, on account of how Jack had been finally about to do what it was looking like he’d never do: sell up the shop, hang up his striped apron and look around for some other way to pass the time. On account of how she and Jack had found this nice little bungalow down in Margate. Westgate. It was all set up to go ahead. Then Jack goes down with a nasty touch of stomach cancer.
It’s not for me to say it but I say it: ‘A dying man’s request, Amy.’
She looks at me. ‘Will you do it, Ray?’ Her face looks emptied out. ‘That way it’s done, isn’t it? That way his wish gets carried out. He only says, “To whom it may concern”, doesn’t he?’
I pause for just a bit. ‘Okay, I’ll do it. Course I’ll do it. But what about Vince?’
‘I haven’t told Vince. About this, I mean.’ She nods at the letter. ‘I’ll tell him. Maybe you and him—’
I say, ‘I’ll talk to Vince.’
I hand back the letter. It’s Jack’s handwriting, but it’s Jack’s handwriting gone all wispy and weak and thin. It’s not like the writing you used to see on that board at the front of the shop. Pork Chops – Down in Price.
I say, ‘Could have been worse, Amy. You could already have bought that bungalow and be just about to move. Or you could have just been settling in and—’
She says, ‘It’s like he almost got his own way, anyway.’
I look at her.
‘To work on till he dropped.’ She folds the letter. ‘In the end I was the problem, I was the obstacle. Didn’t you know? When I knew he was serious, when I knew he really meant to pack it all in. I said, “What am I going to do about June?” He said, “That’s just the point, girl. If I can give up being Jack Dodds, family butcher, then you can give up going on that fool’s errand every week.” That’s what he called it: “fool’s errand”.’
She looks again at the water. ‘You know how when he had a change of mind, the whole world had to change too. He said, we’re going to be new people.’ She gives another little snort. ‘New people.’
I look away across the garden because I don’t want her to see the thought that might be showing in my face: that it’s a pretty poor starting-point, all said, for becoming new people, a bungalow in Margate. It’s no
t exactly the promised land.
There’s a nurse chomping a sandwich on a bench in the far corner. Pigeons waddling.
Maybe Amy’s having the same thought, maybe she’s had it. Not the promised land.
I say, ‘You sure you wouldn’t want to come?’
She shakes her head. ‘Got my reasons, haven’t I, Ray?’
She looks at me.
‘I suppose Jack had too,’ I say, tapping the letter in her hand. I let my hand move up to give her arm a little squeeze.
‘The seaside, eh Ray?’ She looks again at the river. ‘Yes, he had his reasons.’ Then she clams up.
The nurse has blonde hair, tied up nurse-fashion. Black legs.
‘Anyway,’ she says, ‘I don’t think we could’ve done it. When you totted it all up. When you took away what Jack owed on the shop.’ Her face goes just a touch bitter.
‘We’d have been a fair bit short.’
The nurse finishes her sandwich, brushing down her skirt. The pigeons waddle quicker, pecking. They look like scatterings of ashes, bits of ashes with wings.
I say, ‘How much short?’
OLD KENT ROAD
We head down past Albany Road and Trafalgar Avenue and the Rotherhithe turn. Green Man, Thomas à Becket, Lord Nelson. The sky’s almost as blue as the car.
Vince says, ‘Goes along sweet, don’t it?’ And he takes his hands off the wheel so we can get the feel of how the car takes care of itself. It seems to veer a shade to the left.
He said he thought he should do Jack proud, he thought he should give him a real treat. Since it had been sitting there in the showroom for nearly a month anyway, with a ‘client’ who couldn’t make up his mind, and a bit more on the clock wouldn’t signify and it don’t do to let a car sit. He thought he should give Jack the best.
But it’s not so bad for us too, for Vic and Lenny and me, sitting up, alive and breathing. The world looks pretty good when you’re perched on cream leather and looking out at it through tinted electric windows, even the Old Kent Road looks good.
It veers a shade to the left. Lenny says, ‘Don’t go and give it a dent, will you, Big Boy? Don’t want you to lose a sale.’
Vince says he don’t dent cars, ever, least of all when he’s driving extra steady and careful, on account of the special occasion.
Lenny says, ‘With your hands off the wheel.’
Then Vince asks Vic what they do in a hearse when they have to go on a motorway.
Vic says, ‘We step on it.’
Vince isn’t wearing a black tie. It’s just me and Vic. He’s wearing a red and white jazzy tie and a dark blue suit. It’s his showroom clobber, and he’s come from the showroom, but he could have chosen some other tie. He’s taken off his jacket, which is lying folded on the back seat between me and Lenny. Good-quality stuff. I reckon Vince is doing all right, he’s not so badly placed after all. He says now they’re feeling the pinch in the City they pop across in their lunch hours to do deals for cash.
Lenny says, ‘Don’t encourage him, Vic’
Vic says, ‘A hearse is different, everyone makes way for a hearse.’
Lenny says, ‘You mean they don’t make way for Vincey here?’
Vic sits in the front beside Vince, holding the box on his knees. I can see it’s how it should be, Vic being the professional, but it don’t seem right he should hold it all the time. Maybe we should take it in turns.
Vince looks across at Vic. He says, smiling, ‘Busman’s holiday, eh, Vic?’
Vince is wearing a white shirt with silver cuff-links, and pongy after-shave. His hair is all slicked back. It’s a brand new suit.
We head on past the gas works, Ilderton Road, under the railway bridge. Prince of Windsor. The sun comes out from behind the tower blocks, bright in our faces, and Vince pulls out a pair of chunky sun-glasses from under the dashboard. Lenny starts singing, slyly, through his teeth, ‘Blue bayooo …’ And we all feel it, what with the sunshine and the beer inside us and the journey ahead: like it’s something Jack has done for us, so as to make us feel special, so as to give us a treat. Like we’re off on a jaunt, a spree, and the world looks good, it looks like it’s there just for us.
AMY
Well let ’em go, eh June? Let ’em do it, the whole bunch of ’em. Let ’em do without me. And you. Boys’ outing. Do ’em good.
Jack should know that. All work and no play. Unless you count propping up the bar in the Coach.
That’s what I told him all those years ago. We should give ourselves a break, a treat, we should give ourselves a holiday. His brave little Amy. When you fall off your horse you should get straight back on again. We should get ourselves out of ourselves. New people.
It might never have come to a choice between you and him.
My poor brave Jack.
Back on the merry-go-round, back on the swings. Seaside fun. All those things, June, you never knew. Donkey rides, bucket and spade, Punch and Judy. The waves coming in and the crowds on the beach and kids yelling, running, kids everywhere, and him looking at it like it was all a trick. Watch the birdie, kiss me quick, end of the pier.
But it wasn’t the Pier, he even got that wrong. It was the Jetty. He ought to have remembered: the Pier and the Jetty, two different things, even if the Jetty looked more like a pier, and the Pier was only a harbour wall. Except there isn’t no Jetty now, all swept away in a storm, years ago, and good riddance, I say, and amen. So maybe it wasn’t his mistake, maybe it was his alternative arrangement. If he had to be chucked, if it was a case of chucking, if he had to be taken to the end of somewhere and chucked, but count me out, Jack, I won’t be doing any chucking, then it had to be the Pier. Though it should have been the Jetty.
NEW CROSS
Vic says, ‘Pam sends regards. She’ll be thinking of us.’
Lenny says, ‘Same goes for Joan.’
Vince says, ‘And Mandy.’
I reckon if wives are being mentioned I should shut up.
Vince says, ‘It was good to see Pam at the funeral, Vic. Aint often we get the pleasure.’
Vic says, ‘Sad pleasure.’
Lenny says, ‘Went a treat.’
We’re coming up to the lights by New Cross Gate station and the traffic’s slowing to a crawl.
I don’t suppose Carol’s even heard. I’d’ve got the shock of my life if she’d showed up at the funeral.
Lenny says, ‘They might all’ve come along too. Joan was all set. But I suppose if Amy—’
I say, ‘I don’t know how we’d’ve squeezed in seven of us, Lenny, even into this thing.’
Vince says, ‘Four of us is comfy. Maybe it’s a blokes’ job anyway.’
I say, ‘Five.’
Vince says, ‘Five.’ Then he says, ‘It aint a thing, Raysy, it’s a Mercedes.’
Lenny looks at me then at the traffic all around us. ‘Still, aint no car built yet that’ll beat a jam, is there, Big Boy?’
Lenny’s a stirrer.
Vic says, ‘Pam was all for doing us sandwiches and a thermos but I said I thought we were old enough to take care of ourselves.’ He’s holding the box like it might be his lunch.
Vince says, ‘She’s a good ’un, Vic. It was good to see her.’
Lenny says, ‘Joan was dead set.’
We creep forward five yards then stop. People are walking past us on the pavement, slipping into the station entrance like it’s an ordinary day. We should have a flashing sign up: ASHES.
Lenny says, ‘Every car’s the same in a snarl-up, aint it?’
Vince drums his fingers on the steering wheel.
Vic says, ‘Anyhow Pam says he’s got a good guard-of-honour.’
We all straighten up, as if we’ve got to be different people, as if we’re royalty and the people on the pavement ought to stop and wave.
VINCE
It’s a 380 S-Class, that’s what it is. V8, automatic. It’s six years old but it could do a hundred and thirty without a wobble. Though not in the New Cross Road i
t won’t.
Custom paintwork, all-leather upholstery.
So Hussein better buy it soon, cash, he better just. Otherwise I’m out of readies.
I’m not telling no one, not Amy, not Mandy, about Jack’s little last request, or about my little hand-out. I always said, Don’t come running to me, Jack, don’t expect me to do any shelling out.
Seems to me the only time a man can get what he asks is when he’s dying. Though he didn’t ask for an S-Class Merc, extra long wheelbase, walnut dash. So I hope he damn well appreciates it, I hope he damn well does.
Hussein better damn well an’ all.
It’s got white-walled tyres. It needs some air in the front near-side.
I said, ‘Let me get you another, Jack, then I’m off home. Family man now, aint I?’ But he looks at me, holding up his hand sudden like everyone should shut up, like it was that last remark that did it, and I see Ray and Lenny start peering into their beers.
But it was true. Me, Mand and little Kath. She was still in short socks then.
He says, ‘Excuse us, gents, Vince and me have got to have a private word,’ and he jostles me over to a table in the corner. He says it’s been a tough week and could I spare him a fiver, just so he can buy Ray and Lenny there a drink and not look a fool, but I knew it wasn’t the five quid, I knew it wasn’t why he’d asked me to call by in the first place. Five quid. Five large might be nearer the mark. If you’re going to plead, plead straight.
But he don’t go all humble and pleading. He looks at me like I’m the one who should be begging, as if it aint a loan he’s after but more like I should be settling my dues. As if the least I owed him, and hasn’t he let me know it, was to have teamed up with him years ago and acted like it was a real case of flesh and blood. Except it wasn’t flesh and blood, it was meat. Meat or motors. That was the choice.
I say, ‘Don’t expect me to bail you out.’
But he stares at me like that’s exactly what I’m required to do, like we struck a deal and now he’s calling in my side of it. I should know about deals, shouldn’t I, being a dealer myself, a used-car dealer? As if there was something wrong about used cars and something bleeding holy about meat.