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Ray

It was Amy's voice but what I heard just for a moment, was Carol's.

She said, 'There's nothing they can do, Ray'll heard the bravery in her voice, just like Carol's.

She said he hadn't come round proper from the op yet and Strickland wasn't going to spell it out to him till he had. But he'd spelled it out to her, and to Vince, loud and clear. Nothing doing. Opened him up just to sew him back together again. Then, while she was there by his bed afterwards, he'd come round anyway just for a bit and she hadn't said nothing and he hadn't asked but he'd looked at her and all he'd said was, 'I want to see Lucky.'

I said, 'So do you think he knows?' And what I meant was: do you think he knows it's all over? But I thought, and maybe Amy was thinking it too, how you could take it another way, and maybe that's why he wanted to see me, because why do people get called to bedsides? I'd been going in to see him anyway, most days, but now he was asking: I want to see Lucky. What you never know won't hurt, but it's different when someone's dying, because it's not like you can say least said soonest mended, because there aint going to be no soonest or latest and you won't ever get the chance again to tell or not tell nothing.

Maybe that's what she was thinking too because she went all silent and choked.

So I said, 'You don't think he thinks that because I'm called Lucky—?'

Make a fool comment.

Then she started crying. I could hear the noise of people in corridors.

I said, 'Do you want - someone with you?'

She said, 'It's all right. I'm with Vince and Mandy, They'll stay the night.'

I said, 'I'll be there first thing tomorrow. Soon as they let in visitors.'

Then she said, 'Goodbye Ray,' as if she was setting out on some long journey, as if I might not see her again, not the same Amy. But it was Jack who was leaving, not Amy, and that's when her voice went like Carol's.

7 mean it, Ray, I'm not coming back. You listening to me? I'm not coming back'

She couldn't tell me to my face.

I pressed the receiver to my ear as if I couldn't hear properly and I remembered when Sue first called from Sydney and I hunched right up to the phone as if you had to do that when someone was speaking from the other side of the world, but Sue had sounded like she was just round the corner. I said, 'You sound like you're just round the corner, sweetheart.' And now Carol was sounding like she was the other side of the world, but I knew where she was phoning from.

Not Sydney, Sydenham.

7 couldn't tell you to your face but I'm telling you now'

But I could see her face, I could see it down the phone, trying to say her last words to me. I can still see it.

Tm with him, Ray. I'm with him now and I'm not coming back. Goodbye Ray.'

I didn't say, 'Goodbye Carol.' Goodbye Mrs Johnson. I didn't give her that satisfaction, or me that shame. That was all, my one cheap come-back, I never said goodbye. I put down the receiver. I sat in the silence, with the evening coming on outside. I thought, I won't go to the Coach, I can't go to the Coach. I couldn't imagine her with another man, even when I knew she had one. Barry Stokes. As daft as imagining me with— But if she had to have another man she might at least have found some rich ponce, or some flash ponce, or some handy-between-the-sheets ponce, if that was it. Instead of the sub-manager at the domestic-appliance centre where she worked part-time.

If I'd been another man I wouldn't have just sat there with it getting dark, but not bothering to put the lights on, as if, if I sat very still, I might fade away altogether. Another man would've kicked in a cupboard or two or swept every knick-knack off the mantelpiece with one swing of his arm. Another man would've put on his coat and gone straight round to where she was and bust open the door if needs be, then bust open his face.

But I aint another man, I'm a little bloke.

I thought, First my daughter buggers off to Sydney and stops writing, now my wife goes and bunks it. And they call me Lucky.

I thought, It don't help you much, having been at the battle of El Alamein.

Another man wouldVe acted different. But what I did was to sit there in the dark, not moving, not budging, till I wasn't sitting there any more, I was curled up with all my clothes still on and it was six in the morning. Then I got up and washed and shaved and changed my clothes and put two slices of toast under the grill and made tea like I wasn't thinking of anything. I washed up what was in the sink. I checked what was in my wallet and put some things in a bag. Then I went round to the yard, where the old stable had been turned by Charlie Dixon into a lock-up. I bought a Sporting Life on the way and twenty Player's and thought, I'm alive on this Wednesday morning. It was late April. I backed out the camper and wiped the dust off the windscreen with the engine still running. I looked at the tyres and thought of opening the engine compartment, but what was there to fuss over when the thing had hardly been driven? I checked all was okay in the back: the gas burners and cylinder, water carrier, the standby box with the kettle and mugs and tea-towel and stuff. Guide to Places of Interest in England and Wales. I drove out through the gates, stopped, got out and closed the gates, CHAS. DIXON, SITES CLEARED, and did the bolts and the padlock. It was a bright, clear morning. Then I jumped back in and drove to Newmarket.