Last Orders

Amy

And the most I've wanted, the most I've hoped in fifty years, believe me I've never asked the earth, is that you should have looked at me, just once, and said, 'Mum.' It isn't much to have wished, all this time. Damn it, you're fifty years old. You shouldVe fled the nest by now, you shouldn't want me around, you should be leading a life of your own. For God's sake, Mum, I'm a big girl Well, all right then, go on then, big girl, have it your own way. It's your life, you go and ruin it.

I've tried to know what it's like to be you. To be in that Home always, which I only visit. To be in that body all the time, which I only look at twice a week. Which shouldn't be so difficult, should it, since it was once part of mine? Flesh of my. But I think when they snip that cord they snip off everything else too. They say, You're by yourself now, you're as different and as separate as all the others, it's hoo-ha thinking otherwise. And when I tot up all those twice-weekly visits, then it seems we haven't shared each other's company for much more than one whole year, which isn't much in fifty, which isn't much for mother and daughter. But if you look at it another way, it's one whole year of just visiting.

That's what I am, that's what I've been: a visitor. And when I went in to see Jack, in that little room, Vincey waiting outside, to visit Jack's body, like you could say I was a visitor to it when it was alive, but I haven't counted up the times in fifty years, I thought: What's the difference? He isn't ever going to turn into something else now, but don't kid yourself, Amy Dodds, that was just as true of Jack alive as dead.

So what was true of you, girl, was true of him. And maybe that's why he never came to see you, because he'd already visited himself, looked in on himself somehow in that little room where his own body lay, knowing he wouldn't alter. Maybe that was his sacrifice for your sake: no hope for you so none for him. His sacrifice of all those other Jacks he might have been. But pull the other one. Maybe Jack Dodds, my husband, was really a saint and I never knew it, I never cottoned on. And I was the weak and the selfish one. Hello Mum.

Best thing we can do, Ame, is

You bastard, you butcher.

I stood there with my hand on his cold forehead, cold as stone, thinking, This is the only Jack that ever was or will be, the one and only, my poor poor Jack. Thinking, They'll have fetched him out the fridge and they'll pop him back, like he used to do with his pork and beef. Say something, Jack, don't just go dead on me too.

Thinking, I've got to look strong and proud and steady for Vince. At least we gave that poor little hopeless bundle a home.

I said, 'Will you go in and see him too, Vincey?'

I've tried to know what it's like to be you, girl. To know what it's like to have missed what you've missed and not even know that you've missed it. I've tried to know if it would have been better or worse, if we'd known beforehand and if we'd had the choice, to have put you out of your misery before you even knew you were you. If you do know that you're you. So Jack and me would've been free to lead different lives, thanks to you having laid down yours. Your sacrifice.

Except it seems that course of action never did much good for Sally Tate, poor little missed-her-date Tate, not in the short term, nor in the long. It seems she just ended up visiting too. Jailbird of a husband. Then having visitors of her own, paying guests. It's a living, you can see what drives a woman to it. And Lenny Tate has turned his back, washed his hands. It's your life, you go and ruin it. Though his own life hasn't got so much left of it, by the look of him these days, he's a bit of a ruin himself. And whether Joan Tate has turned her back or not, or what she thinks, I don't know. Except I think she always knew Lenny had a soft spot for me.

And then there's the crime of it, as it was in those days, bad old days, a crime. Chop it up for you, missis? Though why crime, when a good half of the world, when you think about it, when you think of all the misery, must be wishing for a good half of the time it'd never been born? You and me should be so lucky, June, And anyhow the fact is, the sad fact is, that Sally really wanted Vince. And I hadn't stopped wanting Jack. Let's all go to Dreamland. Runner beans. Colander. Holes in your head an' all. This bus is crawling today. It must be the rain, turning the roads to rivers. Atrocious weather. But a bus always gets through. I'll be late today, girl, but it makes no difference, since when did you ever know about the time or the day? Even if sometimes on these Mondays and Thursdays I've thought that perhaps you're waiting. You're thinking, It's Monday, it's Thursday, so she'll be coming. I hope she's coming, I hope she never forgets.

And I don't want this journey to pass quickly anyway, not today. Time to think, while the bus chugs, time to prepare what I've got to say.

I've tried and I've hoped and waited for fifty years and you can't blame me now. You can blame me that you were born in the first place but you can't blame me now. Fifty years is pushing it. And being born may be the big mistake in the opinion of a good part of this world, but once you have been, don't snivel, get on with it. That means you too, my girl, even you. There's only you now to show it, to prove it: that it's not the same as if you never were, that it's not as if you might as well have never been. Fifty years is beyond the call, for bringing up baby. And I'm sorry about the false hopes and promises, and the moments of weakness, I'm sorry about ail the second-stringers, VinceySallyMandy. But that doesn't excuse you from being the one you really are. Junejunejune.

I've got to fend for myself now. Though you don't know that, how could you? Look at me, a poor defenceless widow-woman, sitting on a number 44 bus, upstairs, though God knows why, with the world outside, what you can see of it through the fogged-up windows, turned all atrocious. And Bermondsey these days like the back of beyond. Safer where you are, girl, believe me. And now, because we're running late and it's the time they let them out of school, we've gone and stopped at a stop where a whole pack of 'em are screaming to get on. Navy-blue brats. They're piling upstairs, pushing and shoving and yelling like they don't know how just to speak. And I know they're only kids, kids letting off steam, but they scare me half to death. They scare me half to death twice as much as they might if Jack was still here. It shouldn't make any odds, should it, since he wouldn't be here anyway? He'd be there, behind his counter, nice bit of topside missis, not here on this bus with me. Not coming to see you, ever. And never asking, never: How is she? How's June? But it scares me to death that though he's not here, he's not there either, where he always was, nice bit of leg. He's not even propped up on those hospital pillows, like it seemed he was for an age too, for a whole lifetime, being visited. Tell you what, Ame, you come to my place. Even then never saying your name. He's not anywhere. Or by now he'll be washed out to sea or mingling with Margate Sands, if it's all gone to plan, all done before this weather set in. And I know what they'll be saying, thinking: She should've come, she should've been here, she should. Blame me for that too, blame Ame. But someone's got to tell you.

What I'm trying to say is that it's your own damn fault. If no one ever kissed you, no one ever missed you, except me. It's your own damn look-out. And it's too much to hope, I suppose, too much to expect that after fifty years without a peep, without a whisper from you, you should be waiting now, knowing, waiting to say: I understand, I've always understood. It's all right. Forget me.

What I'm trying to say is Goodbye June. Goodbye Jack. They seem like one and the same thing. We've got to make our own lives now without each other, we've got to go our different ways. I've got to think of my own future. It was something Ray said, about how much was I short.

You remember Ray, Uncle Ray? He and I came to visit you once, that summer I missed those Thursdays.

I've got to be my own woman now. But I couldn't have just stopped coming without saying it to your face: Goodbye June. And I couldn't have said the one thing without saying the other. It won't mean anything to you but someone's got to tell you, no one else is going to. That your own daddy, who never came to see you, who you never knew because he never wanted to know you, that your own daddy.