Last Orders

Vince

And passion wagons.

If you want to get your oats, get a car.

I said, 'Hop in, Mand.'

I used to drive her out along the old A20, or the Sevenoaks road or where we're driving right now. Turn off somewhere before Rochester. Badger's Mount, Shoreham Valley, Brands Hatch, all that part of Kent. But I never took her further - down Memory Lane. I could've stopped, just like Jack did, and said, This is where. But it didn't need no mystery tours, because I told her straight out anyway, the time we first had it off in the back of Ray's camper, the whole story, the complete Jack and Amy set-up. June an' all.

She said, 'So Jack and Amy took you in, just like me. They were good to you like they were good to me.' Like she was speaking up on their behalf.

I said, 'I never asked 'em no favours.'

But we were two of a kind, all the same, Mandy and me.

You'd hit the country sooner, them days, driving out, and the traffic wasn't so thick, so it served two purposes. I could test my handiwork on the latest motor, I could see if it didn't go a lot better for having been given a going-over by me. Then we could test our handiwork on each other. In them early days we saw a fair range of back seats.

It's true we could've got out and walked and spread a rug down somewhere on some cosy patch of grass and done it like the bunny rabbits. Sometimes we did. But the ground aint always dry and the air aint always warm and I suppose she cottoned on anyhow soon enough that I liked doing it in cars, I did. An old black cracked leather seat the best. I liked it cramped and squashed and hasty, as if that was how you really had to do it, seeing as you had nowhere proper to do it, and I reckon that's how she liked it too, because it didn't take much coaxing, a look, a nod, and there she'd be with her legs round my neck. I said, 'You sure you aint done it in cars before?' and she said she never had no boyfriends in Blackburn with cars. I said, 'Boyfriends? What are they? You must have done it somewhere though.' She said, 'How d'you work that out?'

She'd sit on my cock, then she'd reach up to the roof of the camper, which was just about at the right height, and push.

I know it wasn't what she'd reckoned on, what she'd pictured, but people adapt quick, they adjust quick. They shove aside the pie-in-the-sky. I know she'd seen herself swinging away in Swinging London, wherever that was, or tooling around, making love not war with some long-haired tossers. Instead of which she gets scooped up off the streets, no questions asked, by Jack and Amy on her first night in town, as if she's run away from one mum and dad just to find another. And she aint so ungrateful, all things considered, she aint so disappointed. I said, They've done this before, you know, a long time ago. I said, spelling it out> 'It's because you're supposed to be the sister I aint got' Which is when she could've done another runner, smart, if she'd wanted, but she didn't.

Instead of what she'd reckoned on, she got me: Vince Dodds, son of a doodlebug, fresh back from the arsehole of Arabia. Lying under a motor most of the time, when he wasn't lying on top of her.

I said I ran away an' all. I ran away to the Army. Most people run away from the Army but I ran away to it. Because I wasn't going to be no butcher's boy, just for him. She said, lSo why did you come back?' I said it was different now, wasn't it? I had my own set-up now, thanks to Uncle Ray, and thanks to the Royal Electrical and Mechanicals. If Jack thought I was going to give up mucking around with motors and put on a white apron again, he had another think coming.

She said, 'If you hate him so much, why haven't you moved out?'

I said, 'I have, sweetheart, aint you noticed? It's you that's moved in.'

She said, (I meant permanent.'

I said I was biding my time. Step by step, little by little. First my business had to take off, then I'd get a place of my own.

She said, 'Your business?' I said, 'Yeh.'

She used to lick my tattoos, like she might lick 'em off. She said, 'When you get a place of your own, will there be room for me?'

I said, 'Might be, if you ask nice. This aint bad for now.' Came in handy, that camper.

Two of a kind, though we didn't look it. She was eighteen, I was twenty-three. I suppose I must have seemed to her at times like I belonged with some other bunch, some older bunch, like I was her bleeding uncle. She used to say now and then I ought to change, get with it, switch on. Roy Orbison had shot his bolt. I said I changed a long time ago, I switched right over, didn't I? Became a different person, didn't I? And 'with it'? Did she think I aint been around? I'd been on the hippie trail to Aden. Had she ever seen someone with their head sliced off? Well then.

She looked at me, blinking.

The world was changing all right, I knew that. I aint unaware. But I said I'll tell you what the big change is, the change underneath all the change. It aint the Beatles and it aint the Rolling Stones and it aint long hair or short skirts or free milk and baby-stoppers on the National Health. It's mobility, it's being mobile. How did you get to here from Blackburn? How did you get to shake off your ma and pa? Time was when the only way you got to travel was in the Army, though not everywhere's worth the trip, I'm telling you. But watch 'em all on the move now, watch 'em all going places. You listening? Ten years from now the Beatles and the Stones will be old-time music but what they'll still want is wheels. Wheels. More and more wheels. And I'll be there to sell 'em, Vince Dodds'll be right there to sell 'em. I'm in the right trade, the travel trade. So don't tell me I aint with it.

She looked at me as if she was doing a bit of trading of her own in her head.

She said, 'Course you are, lover.'

SheM twist the ends of her hair and suck 'em, like a schoolgirl.

I said, 'If it weren't for Hitler, Jack would never've budged from that shop. But one day Jack'll come crawling to me, you see.'

She said, 'Course he will, pet,'

We'd hit the road and head out through the suburbs, like we'd robbed a bank and were on the run. Just runnin' scared! Du-du-du-duml There was a lay-by out beyond Swanley with a mobile caff where they'd sizzle up bacon waddies and brew tea like it had to be stirred with a dipstick. The cars would whack by and the slipstreams would tug the steam from our mugs and flip her long hair. I'll always see her standing by a road. Then we'd find our own little private lay-by somewhere. It was like the car joined in with us. Crazy for it, we'd be. Slippery with it, have to mop down afterwards. Then we'd go for a walk in the woods, across the fields, listen to the birdies, take the air, clock the view. I said - I thought it would impress her, coming from Blackburn, I thought she'd be impressed, it coming from me -They call Kent the Garden of England:

We come up to the start of the M2 but Vince stays on the A2, through Strood to Rochester, We cross the Medway by the old road bridge, beside the railway bridge. It comes as a surprise, the sudden wide view of the river, like it's a whole look-out on the world you hadn't been thinking of, you'd forgotten it was there. Boats, jetties, moorings, mud banks.

Vie says, 'Tide's out,' and looks at his watch. 'It'll be corning in at Margate.'

Lenny says, 'Good thing, I suppose. Considering.'

You can see the castle and the cathedral spire ahead, standing out, like toy buildings set down special.

Vince says, 'So, anyone know any good pubs in Rochester?'

Vie says, 'No, but I knew a few once in Chatham.' Navy man.

Vince says, 'Memory Lane, eh Vie?'

The weather's changing, clouds brewing.

We overshoot on the main road then double back, getting lost in the side-streets and the one-way systems. Then we slip into a car park at the foot of the castle hill. Lenny says, I never knew this was a sight-seeing tour.' Vince says, 'Everybody out.' He takes off his shades and pats his hair. I lift up the box so he can get his jacket and he turns and reaches for it. He looks at Lenny as if Lenny might hand it to him but Lenny don't, then I put the box back on the seat. Then we all get out, stretching and putting on our clobber. It's nippy after being in the car. The castle looks dry and bony in the sunshine. Vince opens the boot and takes out a coat. Camel hair.

Then we should all move off but we stay put, loitering, looking at each other, sheepish.

I say, 'It don't seem right just to leave him there on the back seat, does it?'

Lenny says, 'Where d'you think he should go, in the boot?'

I say, 'I mean, it don't seem right us going off and just leaving him on his own.' Lenny shrugs.

Vie don't say nothing, like it's not his business any more, it's not his say-so, now he's handed over the goods. He gives me a quick sharp look, settling his cap, then he squints up at the clouds in the sky.

Vince says, 'You're right, Ray. He should come with us, shouldn't he?'

He leans in and picks up the box. It's the first time he's held it. He tucks it under his arm while he locks the car, then he straightens up with it hugged against his chest. Now he's holding it, now he's standing there in that coat with the box, it's as though he's in charge, it's as though he's got his badge of authority. It was Vie who was in charge, in charge but sort of neutral at the same time, but now it's Vince.

He says, 'Okay men, follow me,' like he's leading a patrol of marines, and he marches off across the car park. I see Lenny turn his head as if he's going to spit.

We come out on the high street. It's not big and bustling like your normal high street. It's narrow and quiet and crooked and historical and full of lop-sided old buildings. There are people ambling up and down it, aimless, the way tourists walk. It looks like a high street in a picture book, like you shouldn't be here, walking in it, or like it shouldn't be here itself, with the traffic belting along on the A2 close by. Except it was here first.

There's a fancy grocer's opposite, the Rochester Food Fayre, the sort that sells funny teas and posh tins of biscuits, and Vince ducks in sudden, leaving us standing. Then he comes out again with a plastic carrier-bag. He's slipping the box into it but there's something else already in there, by the look of it. He says, 'Mandy said we were out of coffee.' Then we look this way and that and Vince scoots off again as if he can't abide ditherers. There's a sign up ahead saying 'Bull Hotel' and he heads straight for it, like he's been meaning to all along. He says, 'There, gents, this should do us.' It's a big old rambling place, with a Carvery and a Grill and a regular bar with snacks, I can see Vince considering the Carvery, like he's thinking of lashing out special and making us feel like we owe him. Then he back-tracks along the pavement, settling on the bar and snacks. You can see the bridge over the river from the hotel entrance. The high street dips down towards it and the main road, and if you shut your eyes and open them again you can picture how a stage-coach might once have rattled across and up the slope and swung into the yard of the Bull, with the castle looking down just like a Christmas card.

It's an old coaching inn, tarted up and buggered about. But I don't make no jokes.

It's warm and glinty and chattery inside. Vince says, I'll get 'em,' before we're hardly through the door. 'You take this, Ray.' He hands me the carrier bag. 'Grab that table over there. Pints all round and a shortie for you, Vie?'

He pulls out his wallet and steps up to the bar, like everyone round here knows Vince Dodds.

There's a barmaid with a white blouse and cherry red lipstick.

We go to the table. We hear Vince say, 'Any grub going, darling?' He wasn't ever one for speaking soft but maybe he means us to hear. He cocks his head in our direction. 'Three old codgers to look after, and one extra who aint eating.' The barmaid looks our way, puzzled, then back at Vince, as if she's not sure whether to smile or what. I can't see Vince's face but I know he's looking at her with that special look he has, like he knows he might seem just a bit ridiculous but he's daring her to make the mistake of thinking he really is.

Like when he said, 'Wanna do a deal on the yard?'

She reaches over for some menu cards, her face a bit pink. I can hear Vince thinking, 'Nice jubbies.'

We start on our drinks, then we order our nosh. Then Vie gets in another round. Then the food arrives: jumbo sausage, beans and chips for me and Lenny, steak and chips for Vince, quiche of the day for Vie. I reckon today he should eat meat. The barmaid brings over the plates and stretches across and Vince says, 'Looks a treat, sweetheart,' with his face in her armpit, and none of us says a thing. There's a strand of blonde hair that falls down her cheek like it's not meant to but it's meant to at the same time. Then we eat up and drink up and Lenny and I light up ciggies and Lenny gets in a round and it seems like we've always known the Bull in Rochester and it's always known us, and we're all thinking the same thing, that it's a pity we can't just carry on sitting here getting slowly pickled and at peace with the world, it's a pity we're obliged to take Jack on to Margate. Because Jack wouldn't have minded, it's even what he would've wanted for us, to get sweetly slewed on his account. You carry on, lads, don't you worry about me. If he was here now he'd be recommending it, he'd be doing the same as us. Forget them ashes, fellers. Except if he were here now there wouldn't be no problem, there wouldn't be no obligation. There wouldn't be no ashes. We wouldn't even be here in the first place, half-way down the Dover road.

Lenny says, 'It's a crying shame he aint here,' like Jack was planning on it but something else came up.

'He'd've appreciated it,' Vince says.

'He shouldn't've hurried off like he did,' I say, entering the spirit.

'Daft of him,' Lenny says.

Vic's gone quiet.

'Crying shame,' Lenny says.

It's as though, if we keep talking this way, Jack really will come through the door, any second now, unbuttoning his coat. 'Well, had you all fooled, didn't I?'

Then Vie says, like it's a truth we're not up to grasping, that has to be broke gently, 'If he was here, we wouldn't be, would we? It's because he's not that we are'

'All the same,' Lenny says.

'He'd've appreciated it,' Vince says.

Lenny looks at Vince.

'If it weren't for him we wouldn't be here,' Vince says. 'We wouldn't be here without him,' and he looks sort of snagged up by his own words. We're all looking snagged up, like everything means one thing and something else at the same time.

I say, 'I've got to take a leak.'

But it's not just to take a leak. I find the Gents and I unzip, then I feel my eyes go hot and gluey, so I'm leaking at both ends. It's cold and damp and tangy in the Gents. There's two condom machines, one says 'Glowdom' and one says 'Fruit Cocktail'. It's be-kind-to-your-pecker day. There's a frosted window with a quarter-light half open so I get a peek of a bit of wall, a bit of roof, a bit of tree and a bit of sky, which isn't blue any more, and I think for some reason of all the pissers I've ever pissed in, porcelain, stainless steel, tarred-over cement, in pubs and car parks and market squares up and down the country, wherever there's a racecourse to hand. There's always a frosted quarter-light, chinked open, with a view of the back end of somewhere, innyards, alleyways, with some little peephole out on life. Racecourse towns. It's when you stand up to piss you can tell how pissed you are. A drink or two helps for putting on a bet. A drink or three buggers your judgement. When I can't get to sleep I tick off in my head all the racetracks I've been to, in alphabetical order, and I see the map of England with the roads criss-crossing. AscotBrightonCheltenham-DoncasterEpsom.

I shake myself out and zip myself up again. I sniff and I run my sleeve across my face. Some other punter comes in, a young feller, but I don't reckon he sees, or thinks twice if he does. Old men get pissy eyes. He gets out his plonker like a young feller does, like it's a fully operational piece of machinery.

Well, that's that over with. Crying's like pissing. You don't want to get caught short, specially on a car journey.

But as I head back into the bar and I see them at the table, with the barmaid collecting glasses, nice arse an' all, and all the bar-room clobber, brass rails, pictures on the wall, of a pub I've never been in before and won't ever be in again, it's as though I'm looking at them like I'm not here. Like it's not Jack, it's me and I'm looking on, afterwards, and they're all talking about me. HaydockKempton. Like I'm not here but it's still all there, going on without me, and all it is is the scene, the place you pass through, like coachload after coachload passing through a coaching inn. NewburyPontefract.

I say, 'Same again, fellers?'

Vic's looking at me. He looks like he's thinking.

Vince says, 'Not me, Raysy,' holding up a flat palm, all strict. 'Unless you want to find another driver. You could get me a coffee. And a half-corona.'

Lenny looks at Vince like he's going to give a mock salute. He says, And I'll have a knickerbocker glory.'

It's always the third drink with Lenny.

I order the drinks and ferry over the pints and Vic's whisky.

Vie says, 'Just as well Amy didn't come, she wouldn't have planned on a piss-up.'

Lenny says, 'Is that whisky or tea you're drinking there then, Viccy?' He slurps some beer. 'Jack wouldn't begrudge us.' Then he says, 'All the same.'

Vince says, 'All the same what?'

Lenny says, 'He'd've appreciated it if his missis had carried out requirements.'

I say, 'That's been settled. We're doing it for her.'

They all look at me as if they're expecting a speech.

I glug some beer.

The barmaid brings over Vince's coffee. He looks up and says, smiling, 'Old ones are the worst, eh gorgeous?'

' "For" aint the point,' Lenny says. ' "For" don't apply. Some things is direct. None of us is next of kin, is we? None of us is close relative. Even Vincey aint close relative.' And he looks at Vince like he wouldn't look if he hadn't had three pints of heavy. Vince is lighting his cigar. 'Even Big Boy here aint next of kin, is he? Vincey here aint got no more claim to be here than any of us, have you, Big Boy? Specially as, if you ask me, there wasn't no love lost in any case, not till Jack was on his last legs. There wasn't ever no love lost, was there?' Lenny's face is all knotted up.

Vince puffs on his cigar. He doesn't look at Lenny. He pours the milk from the plastic thingummy into his coffee, then he tears the sugar sachet and tips out the sugar, slow and careful, concentrating, stirring all the while with his free hand. It's like he doesn't intend talking to any of us again.

Lenny opens his mouth, as if there's more to come, but something sort of clicks shut in his throat. 'I've got to take a leak an' all,' he says. He gets up, sudden, looking around like he's dizzy. I jerk my thumb in the direction he should take.

Vie says, 'I was wondering—'

You can trust Vie to do his peace-keeping act.

Lenny slouches to the Gents. I wonder if he's going to do some blubbing too.

Vince shakes the sachet even though it's empty, then screws it up. He looks up. 'What was you wondering, Vie?' He smiles, calm and polite, and sips his coffee.

'I was wondering, as we're close, if we could pop over to Chatham and see the memorial. I've never—'

Vince looks at Vie. He raises his eyebrows slightly, he puffs his cigar. Vic's face is serious and steady. You can't ever tell with Vie.

'Don't see why not,' Vince says. 'Do you, Raysy?' He could be chairing a committee. He gives a quick glance to me then back again to Vie. It's like he's forgotten all about Lenny. 'If a man in your line don't get enough of memorials.' He smiles, then wipes off the smile quick, as if it wasn't anything to smile over. 'That's why we're here, aint we? To remember the dead.'

'It means a detour,' Vie says.

Vince blows out smoke, thinking. 'We can do detours.'

Lenny comes back from the Gents. His face looks like it's been having a fight with itself, like it don't know what expression it should wear.

He says, 'My round, aint it? Same again, Vie? Ray? Vince? Another coffee? Something to go with it?'

I reckon Lenny'll need to do better than that.

Vince glances up quick at Lenny but he don't say nothing. He puffs his cigar, eyes narrowed, then he takes the stub from his mouth, there's still a few puffs left, and crushes it in the ashtray. He says, 'I don't know about you, Lenny, but I'm here to take something to Margate, that's what we're all here to do. And Vie here would like us to pay a little extra call on the way, which I aint against, considering. We're here to remember the dead.' He looks at his watch. 'Gone two fifteen. Now if you want to stay here drinking all afternoon' - he sweeps his gaze round the table as if we're all suddenly included in some plot against him, it's not just Lenny -'that's your business. But I'm going to the car right now and I'm driving to Margate. If you don't want to come too, you better find out where the station is.'

He takes a last sip of coffee. Then he gets up, unhurried, putting on his coat, rolling his shoulders so the cloth sits, tugging at the lapels. Then he walks out, not looking back, the door swinging to behind him. When Vince was a nipper his hero was Gary Cooper.

We look at each other, not moving, though it's plain we don't have no choice.

Vie gets up first, then I get up.

Lenny says, 'Tosshead,' under his breath, not moving.

Vie says, 'You shouldn't judge.'

Then we notice the plastic bag, Rochester Food Fayre, lying on the seat and it's as though a new spark comes into Lenny's face, there's a new look in his eye. He picks up the bag and grabs his coat. He's the first of us to reach the door, though he pauses for a moment in front of it, waiting, as if he's thought for a moment that Vince might be about to step back in. Then he pushes it open and we follow.

Vince is walking back the way we came. The high street looks like a model. He isn't looking back but it doesn't seem like he's keen to make too much ground. We follow him, Lenny scuttling on ahead with the bag.

'Hey, Big Boy!'

Vince don't look back but his pace quickens and he hitches himself up a peg.

'Hey, Big Boy!' Lenny's moving at a fair old lick, you wouldn't think it. 'You forgot something, didn't you? You forgot something!'

Then it's as though Vince's shoulders sag just as quickly as they perked up and though he keeps on walking it's as if he can't make no more headway, as if his leg's tied to the end of a rope. He don't look round, like his neck's stuck. Then Lenny catches up with him and Vince turns his head slowly like someone else is having to wrench it round for him.

'Forgot this, didn't you? Forgot your coffee. You might think you can do without us but you'd look a bloody fool going to Margate without this.'