Last Orders

Margate

We come in on the Canterbury Road, past faded, peely bay-windowed terraces with that icing-on-an-old-cake look that buildings only have at the seaside. Hotels, B-and-Bs. Vacancies. The buildings look extra pale against the grey, piled-up sky, and against the clouds you can see little twirling specks of white, like broken-off flakes of the buildings, like scatterings of white being flung about by the wind. Seagulls. You can feel the wind, even in the Merc, bouncing up the side-streets and jolting into us, and we're all thinking, Any moment now we'll see it, we've got to see it, it can only be just over there. Then we see it, as we come over a brow and a gap opens up in the buildings: the sea, the sea. With the whole of Margate spread out below us, the front, the bay, the sands, with Cliftonville beyond, except you can't see the sands, or precious little of them, because the tide's right in, like Vie said it would be, and the sea's grey and thick and churny like the sky, with white spray flying up. And that long harbour wall out there on the far side of the bay, the only thing you can see that's like a pier, with the spray lashing up against it extra fierce: that looks like where we've got to go, that looks like where we've got to do it.

With a storm brewing.

Lenny says, 'Journey's end. 'AUelujah. I need a pee.'

Two extra pints in Canterbury.

He says, 'Looks like it's expecting us.'

Vie is sort of perking up, like he's coming into his rightful element. I'm thinking, You could get blown clean off that wall. I'm holding Jack again, in his bag, in his jar, and I hold on to him tighter, like I already need the extra ballast. Vince is looking all cool and careful and deliberate. He don't say nothing. He only had the one at the last port of call, but I reckon we're all glad we took a little extra on board to steady ourselves for what's to come. He drives on slowly down the hill, the sweep of the bay ahead of us, his eyes looking this way and that. It's not exactly thick with traffic or bulging with trippers. It's not season.

We join the front proper and he pulls up by the kerb, leaving the engine running. It seems he's heeded Lenny's little problem. Sudden sight of all this water. One thing it's not hard to find in a seaside resort is a public bog, and he's drawn up close to one, it looks like a blockhouse. But he don't stop at that. He opens his driver's door and gets out. There's a great gust of air. He walks round to the pavement, lifting his head and scanning the bay, his messed-up white shirt flapping like a flag, then he opens the passenger door for Lenny, courtesy itself, like a chauffeur. He cocks his head towards the blank-walled building on the other side of the pavement. 'Make yourself comfy, Lenny,' he says and it sounds as though he says it with a smile. It's like he wants things from now on to be proper and seemly, with no snags and upsets like a bursting bladder. 'Anyone else?' he says. But I'm not feeling the call. I switched to whisky, taking a tip from Vie.

Lenny edges out of his seat, all abashed and obedient. More raw air swirls round the car while his door's open but Vince, out on the pavement, doesn't seem to mind. It's as though he wanted the excuse to be the first of us to stand on the front at Margate and breathe in the briny. I twist my head round so I can see him hoisting back his shoulders and holding up his chin. You can hear the din of the waves. I hold on to Jack. Little pin-pricks of rain are peppering the windscreen and being dried off again almost immediately as if, despite the clouds, the sky's too het-up to start a real downpour. All wind and no piss. Lenny stands on the pavement and takes his own lungful of air, half like it does him a power of good and half like it hurts. He looks around, hunched and braced, and looks at Vince, straight and tall, looking around beside him. He says, 'Remember it, Big Boy? Remember it?'