Last Orders

Wick's Farm

He slows down suddenly, moving across to the inside lane, and we all breathe easier. He takes the slip road for the exit coming up, not saying a word. Junction 6, Ashford, Faversham. He takes the Ashford road, like he knows exactly what he's doing, though it aint the way to Margate, and after a mile or so he turns off that too. We're all looking at him, not speaking. He says, 'Detour,' eyes on the road, not budging his head, 'detour.'

The road gets narrower and twistier, trees arching across, hedges, fields. I suppose you could say we're in the country now, we're a long way from Bermondsey. The trees are all flecked with green. The sky's blue and grey and white, the sun coming in bursts. He takes another turn, and another, like there's a map in his head. We go along a ridge with a view off to our right, a big, wide view, wherever there's a gap in the hedge. It's as though he's got keen on views. Then the road climbs a bit, still on the ridge, and near the top of the climb he slows, looking this way and that, and pulls over where there's a wide bit of verge and a gate in the hedge. There's just a bare track leading off and down across a field, two chalky ruts, and there's one of those green signs sticking up and pointing by the gate: 'Public Footpath'.

He turns off the engine. We can hear sheep bleating in the distance. He looks at me and says, 'Raysy,' holding out his hand, palm up, fingers twitching, and I know he means the bag, the box, he means Jack. He says it in a way you don't argue with or ask why, so I hand it over. He takes the box out of the bag and tosses the bag back into my lap, Rochester Food Fayre. Then he flips open the box and pulls out the jar and chucks the box back into my lap too. His face is set hard. He opens his door and gets out, holding the jar tight against his chest.

He doesn't reach over for his jacket or go round to the boot for his coat. He slams the door and walks over to the gate. The breeze whips his tie over his shoulder and balloons out his shirt. The gate's metal and clanky. He fiddles with a bolt, pushing up on one of the crossbars, then opens the gate just enough for him to slip through. There's a rusty streak on the sleeve of his white shirt. He looks out across the field, then he swings shut the gate, which clangs and judders behind him, and sets off along the track.

Lenny says, 'Jesus, what now?'

Vie don't say a thing, like it's all down to him, it's him who's given Vince the idea in the first place. Find yourself a hill.

I say, 'Search me.'

It's Lenny who gets out first, then me, then Vie. The breeze hits us sharpish. It's muddy underfoot. We ought to get our coats from the boot but Lenny's already moved to the gate, struggling with the bolt, like he's twigged quicker than us what's going on.

'Toe-rag,' he says, 'toe-rag. He aint got no prior claim.'

Vince is walking across the field to where it starts to slope steeply, his red tie flicking like a tongue over his shoulder. It's not so much a field as an open hillside. We can see the full sweep of the view, like we're standing on the rim of a big, crooked bowl. Down in the valley it's all green and brown and patchy, woods marked off with neat edges and corners, hedges like stitching. There's a splodge of red brick in the middle with a spire sticking up. It looks like England, that's what it looks like.

The field slopes up to the left, to a crest, where there's a clump of trees and, peeping up from the other side, a tar-brown stump of a building, a windmill, with its sails missing. In front of us the field slopes down gently, maybe for eighty yards, then drops away. There must be a whole chunk of the view you can't see till you get to the brow.

Near the gate the grass is trodden bare and sprinkled with sheep shit. There's a water trough tucked in by the hedge, galvanized metal. We can hear sheep and smell sheep and we can see them, off to the left, dotted across the slope. They're all staring at Vince as he walks across the field, except for the little 'uns, the lambs. They seem keener on running this way and that or tucking in under their mothers. Now and then one of them starts jumping about like it's stepped on something electric.

Lenny wrestles with the bolt.

'He aint got no special rights,' he says, 'he aint kin.' He frees the bolt. 'Never was, was he?'

He pushes open the gate and before Vie and me have slipped through behind him he darts off along the track after Vince. It's like the climb up to that memorial has got him in shape, it was just a warm-up.

Vince is getting near the brow, he hasn't looked back once. One elbow's stuck out where he's holding the jar and his shirt's billowing and flapping. If it wasn't that everything seems to have gone crazy, you'd say he looked a complete berk, out there in the middle of a field, holding a plastic pot, with his white shirt and his flash tie and a flock of sheep baa-ing at him.

Lenny's moving so fast me and Vie are struggling to keep up with him. He's about twenty yards away from Vince when Vince stops on the brow and stands there, steady, pausing but like he's already made up his mind about something. For a moment he looks like a man perched on the edge of a cliff but as we get closer, we can see the hillside dipping sharply away and we can see the hidden part of the valley below: a wood, a road, a farmhouse. Orchards, oasthouses.

Then we see Vince start to unscrew the cap from the jar.

Lenny says 'Toe-rag,' as if he'd known in advance what Vince was going to do.

The cap looks hard to shift, like the lid on a new jar of jam. We're just a few yards from Vince now and he can see us coming at him. It's like he's prepared for that, like he even wants us as witnesses. But he aint prepared for what Lenny does next.

Lenny snatches at his arm, the arm that's working on the cap, and Vince pulls away and lifts the jar up high so Lenny can't reach it. The cap's still on but it looks like it's hanging on loose, just by the thread. Vince dodges to one side but Lenny goes at him again. This time he grabs him by the tie and with his other hand takes hold of his shirt front. I see a wodge of Vince's stomach and a button flying. Then Vince goes down, sudden, caught off balance, arm held up high. He tries to hang on to the jar but as he tumbles, it pops out of his grasp and Vince and me watch it falling. We watch it falling keener than we watch Vince falling because when it hits the ground one of two things could happen, or both. The loose cap could fly off and what's inside spill out, or the jar could bounce bad and start rolling all the way down the steep slope of the hill.

But it comes to rest against a clump of thistles and the cap stays on.

Lenny scoots over and picks it up, twisting the cap on tighter. Then Vince lurches to his feet and goes for him. Vince's shirt's come untucked. There's a muddy green streak down his left sleeve to match the rusty brown one on his right. He tries wrenching the jar from Lenny's hands and slips again and puts a hand out to break his fall and Lenny pulls the jar clear.

Vince gets up, all fired up now, all hunched and snorting and puffing, and Lenny holds out the jar in front of him in both hands, teasing and sort of skipping on the spot. I've never seen Lenny so neat on his pins. Vince moves forward and Lenny moves back, dodging, like he could chuck the jar to Vie or me if that was the idea and we were ready to catch it, but he does a sort of rugby flip with it, low and quick to one side, so it lands on the grass away from any of us,,then he steps round so he's between it and Vince, and puts out his fists and starts ducking and weaving.

'Come on, Big Boy. Come on, tosser.'

Vince holds off for a moment, thinking, like he's not so choked up as to take on a man Lenny's age. But he can see the jar on the grass behind Lenny, and Lenny don't look so past it, all of a sudden, he looks like a man with a purpose. He looks like it might be all over for him in just a while but right now he's planning on having his moment. Vie makes a little sighing, clucking sound beside me. Either of us could sneak round and grab the jar but we don't. I reckon Vic's not going to step in and be the referee, not this time.

Lenny says, 'Wasn't no love lost, was there? Was there?'

Vince goes forward, not putting his fists up, elbows out, hands splayed, like he's just daring Lenny, and Lenny goes forward and puts in a punch straight away, no messing, a good quick jab to the middle of the chest. It makes Vince stop and stagger, like he hadn't really bargained on it.

'That's for Sally,' Lenny says, gasping, then he puts in another punch.

'And that's for Jack.'

This time Vince don't stand and take it. He recovers, then comes in, grabbing Lenny's leading arm before Lenny can get his puff back. He holds Lenny's wrist and he shoves him twice under the throat with the flat of his other hand, like he could use more force if he wanted but he aint being so soft either. He moves his hand up on to Lenny's face, clawing and squeezing, and jerks Lenny's head back, once, twice, with Lenny's eyes sort of popping out between his fingers, then he takes the hand away so Lenny can breathe and Lenny says, 'Fists, pillock,' and wops Vince on the mouth. It looks like it hurts Lenny more. Then Vince takes hold of Lenny's arm with both hands and pulls him and swings him round, snarling, so they're twirling like a pair of ice skaters. He lets go and Lenny goes flying and tumbling. Then Vince goes and stands over him like you can't tell if it's to kick him or to see if he's all right. He puts out a hand and Lenny takes it, pulling himself up, then he socks Vince hard in the ribs and Vince shoves him back down again.

Me and Vie don't move an inch.

Lenny's sort of sprawled, half sitting, half lying, leaning on his hands, breathing and dribbling. Vince is standing over him, bent, breathing too. All you can hear is their breathing and the sheep bleating and baa-ing like spectators. Vince could get the jar now but it's like he's not sure of Lenny. He moves round slowly, so he's between the jar and Lenny, as Lenny pushes himself up.

Lenny's face looks like it's roasting and he's hee-hawing like a donkey, swaying on his feet. Vince steps back, gasping too, and picks up the jar. Then he comes forward with it slowly like it's him who's teasing Lenny now. You can see the look in Lenny's eyes, for all he's trying to hide it. It says, Tm beat, I'm done for. It's all I can do to breathe,' and all your feeling would be for Lenny standing there, breathing, except that Vince is swaying and staggering and gasping too and looking unsure at Lenny. And there's another thing about Vince. His face is all wet, his eyes are wet. He's clutching the jar like a kid holding a toy.

He says, 'I wasn't going to chuck the lot, I wasn't going to chuck the lot.' He's started to unscrew the cap again.

Lenny looks at him, not speaking, swaying, breathing.

'Just a bit,' Vince says, 'only a bit.'

Lenny looks at him then he speaks, all hoarse and croaky. 'So what's the idea? You going to stop off every ten minutes and chuck some more? A handful here, a handful there?'

Vince carries on unscrewing the cap. He wipes his face. It's like a temptation. It's like when you take a box of chocolates to someone who's ill, to someone in hospital, and you start tucking into them yourself, first one, then another. It's like when you're looking after what belongs to someone else and you go and take it for yourself.

Vince says, 'What's the meaning of "scatter"?' He wipes his hand across his face. 'What's the meaning of the word "scatter"?'

Lenny says, 'You ought to be ashamed of yourself, pillock.'

But it's like Lenny's ashamed of himself too, standing there, ready to drop. It looks like he's thinking he's hashed up the day.

Vince has got the cap off now. He looks quickly into the jar. The sheep are still staring at us. I reckon we must look as daft to them as they do to us, and I reckon anyone looking up from down below at the four of us on the top of this hill must think we're stranger-looking than the sheep.

Vince puts the cap into his pocket, then he hugs the jar closer to him and dips his free hand into it. His eyes are all gooey. He moves away from Lenny, turning his back towards him. It seems Lenny hasn't got the heart or strength to stop him. Vie and me don't stop him either. He moves to the edge of the slope, to face the view, his back to us all. In the distance there's a sort of trough of sunshine, a parting in the sky, but nearer to us a big, soft, sooty cloud is moving in. The breeze gets up. It's cold but I don't suppose Vince or Lenny can feel it. The ground smells of spring, the air smells of winter. Then there's a dash of rain.

Vince stands, feeing the view, with his back straight and his feet planted. I'd say that shirt of his is pretty well wrecked and those trousers are going to need a good clean. Mandy'll need an explanation. He splutters like he's trying to announce something but he can't get it out or he don't know what it is. He delves in the jar and he throws quickly, spluttering, once, twice. It looks like white dust, like pepper, but the wind blows it into nothing. Then he screws the cap back on and turns, coming towards us.

'This is where,' he says, wiping his face. 'This is where.'