Last Orders (2 page)

Jack said, ‘Vince, your eyes’ll pop out.’

Vince said, ‘So will her arse.’

Jack laughed. You could see how we were all wishing we were Vincey’s age again.

I hadn’t seen Jack so chummy with Vince for a long time. Maybe he was having to be, on account of it being Vincey’s big day. That’s if it was his big day, because Lenny says to me, same evening, when we meet up in the pisser, ‘Have you ever wondered how he knows it’s his birthday? Jack and Amy weren’t ever a witness, were they? They never got no certificate. My Joan thinks Amy just picked March the third
out the air. April the first might’ve been a better bet, mightn’t it?’

Lenny’s a stirrer.

We stood there piddling and swaying and I said, ‘No, I aint ever wondered that. All these years.’

Lenny said, ‘Still, I forget my own birthday these days. It’s been a while since the rest of us saw forty, aint it, Ray?’

I said, ‘Fair while.’

Lenny said, ‘Mustn’t begrudge the tosser his turn.’ He zipped up and lurched back into the bar and I stood there staring at the porcelain.

I said, ‘Daft name to call a pub.’

Jack said, ‘What’s that?’

I said, ‘The Coach. The Coach. I’m trying to tell you.’

Vince said, looking at Brenda, ‘It’s Ray’s joke.’

‘When it aint ever moved.’

Jack said, ‘Well, you should put that right, Raysy. You’re the one for the horses. You ought to tell old Bernie there to crack his whip.’

Vince said, ‘She can crack my whip any day.’

Jack said, ‘I’ll crack your head. If Mandy don’t.’

And he only said it in the nick of time because half a minute later Mandy herself walks in, come to fetch Vincey home. She’s been round at Jack’s place, nattering with Amy and Joan. Vincey don’t see her, looking at other things, but Jack and me do but we don’t let on, and she comes up behind Vince and spreads her hands over his face and says, ‘Hello, big eyes, guess who?’

She aint built on Brenda’s lines any more but she’s not doing so bad for nearly forty herself, and there’s the clobber, red leather jacket over a black lace top, for a start. She says,
‘Come to get you, birthday boy,’ and Vincey pulls down one of her hands and pretends to bite it. He’s wearing one of his fancy ties, blue and yellow zig-zags, knot pulled loose. He nibbles Mandy’s hand and she takes her other hand from his face and pretends to claw his chest. So when they get up to go and we watch them move to the door, Lenny says, ‘Young love, eh?’, his tongue in the corner of his mouth.

But before they go lack says, ‘Don’t I get a kiss, then?’ and Mandy says, ‘Course you do, Jack,’ smiling, and we all watch while she puts her arms round Jack’s neck, like she means it, and gives him two big wet ones, one on each cheek, and we all see Jack’s hand come round, while she hangs on, to pat her arse. It’s a big hand. We all see one of Mandy’s heels lift out of her shoe. I reckon she took a drop of something with her round to Amy’s. Then Jack says, shaking loose, ‘Go on, get on out of it. And get this clown out of it too,’ pointing at Vince.

Then Jack and Vince look at each other and Jack says, ‘Happy birthday, son. Good to see you,’ as if he can’t see him any day he chooses. Vince says, ‘Night Jack,’ grabbing his jacket from the hook under the bar, and just for a moment it’s like he’s going to hold out his hand for Jack to shake. Forgive and forget. He puts his hand on Jack’s shoulder instead, like he needs the help-up, but I reckon, by Jack’s face, he gives a quick squeeze.

Jack says, ‘You’ve only got an hour of it left.’

Mandy says, ‘Better make the most of it.’

Lenny says, ‘Promises.’

Vince says, ‘Never know your luck.’

Mandy tugs at Vince’s arm while he picks up his glass and drains off what’s left, not hurrying. He says, ‘Keep ’em hungry, that’s what I say.’ He runs his wrist across his mouth. ‘Needs must.’

Lenny says, ‘You’re an old man now, Big Boy. Home before closing, and you have to be carted.’

I say, ‘Coach is leaving.’

Lenny says, ‘Don’t mind Ray, Mandy. Aint his day. Backed the wrong gee-gee. Sleep tight, won’t you, Mandy.’

That red jacket’s a bad clash with Lenny’s face.

Mandy says, ‘Night boys.’

Jack’s smiling. ‘Night kids.’

And everyone can see, as they slip out, Vincey with his hand just nudging Mandy’s back, that they’re the only ones in this pub with the jam. Nice motor parked outside, perk of the trade. Nice little daughter waiting up for them, fourteen years old. But that’s like eighteen these days.

Lenny says, ‘Turtle doves, eh?’ pawing an empty glass. ‘Who’s in the chair?’ And Jack says, ‘I am,’ looking like it’s his birthday too.

It was coming up to last orders, to when Bernie bangs on his bell, like it isn’t a coach, it’s a fire-engine. Even then it don’t move. There was smoke and noise and yak and cackle and Brenda bending and pools of spillage along the bar top. Saturday night. And I said, ‘It’s a hundred this year, aint anyone noticed?’

Jack said, ‘What’s a hundred?’

I said, ‘Pub is, Coach is. Look at the clock.’

Jack said, ‘It’s ten to eleven.’

‘But it aint ever gone nowhere, has it?’

‘The clock?’

‘The Coach, the Coach.’

And Jack said, ‘Where d’you think it should be going, Raysy? Where d’you think we’ve all got to get to that the bleeding coach should be taking us?’

Vic takes the jar and starts to ease it back in the box but it’s a tricky business and the box slides from his lap on to the floor, so he puts the jar on the bar.

It’s about the same size as a pint glass.

He says, ‘Bern!’

Bernie’s at the other end of the bar, usual drying-up towel over his shoulder. He turns and comes towards us. He’s about to say something to Vic, then he sees the jar, by Lenny’s pint. He checks himself and he says, ‘What’s that?’ But as if he’s already worked out the answer.

‘It’s Jack,’ Vic says. ‘It’s Jack’s ashes.’

Bernie looks at the jar, then he looks at Vic, then he gives a quick look round the whole of the bar. He looks like he looks when he’s making up his mind to eject an unwanted customer, which he’s good at. Like he’s building up steam. Then his face goes quiet, it goes almost shy.

‘That’s Jack?’ he says, leaning closer, as if the jar might answer back, it might say, ‘Hello Bernie.’

‘Jesus God,’ Bernie says, ‘what’s he doing here?’

So Vic explains. It’s best that Vic explains, being the professional. Coming from Lenny or me, it might sound like a load of hooey.

Then I say, ‘So we thought he should have a last look-in at the Coach.’

‘I see,’ Bernie says, like he don’t see.

‘It’s a turn-up,’ Lenny says.

Vic says, ‘Get me a large scotch, Bernie. Have one yourself.’

‘I will, thank you, I will, Vic,’ Bernie says, all considered and respectful, like a scotch is appropriate and it don’t do to refuse a drink from an undertaker.

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.’

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”.’