Last Orders

Vince

It's a 380 S-Class, that's what it is. V8, automatic. It's six years old but it could do a hundred and thirty without a wobble. Though not in the New Cross Road it won't.

Custom paintwork, all-leather upholstery.

So Hussein better buy it soon, cash, he better just. Otherwise I'm out of readies.

I'm not telling no one, not Amy, not Mandy, about Jack's little last request, or about my little hand-out. I always said, Don't come running to me, Jack, don't expect me to do any shelling out.

Seems to me the only time a man can get what he asks is when he's dying. Though he didn't ask for an S-Class Merc, extra long wheelbase, walnut dash. So I hope he damn well appreciates it, I hope he damn well does.

Hussein better damn well an' all.

It's got white-walled tyres. It needs some air in the front near-side.

I said, 'Let me get you another, Jack, then I'm off home. Family man now, aint I?' But he looks at me, holding up his hand sudden like everyone should shut up, like it was that last remark that did it, and I see Ray and Lenny start peering into their beers.

But it was true. Me, Mand and little Kath. She was still in short socks then.

He says, 'Excuse us, gents, Vince and me have got to have a private word,' and he jostles me over to a table in the corner. He says it's been a tough week and could I spare him a fiver, just so he can buy Ray and Lenny there a drink and not look a fool, but I knew it wasn't the five quid, I knew it wasn't why he'd asked me to call by in the first place. Five quid- Five large might be nearer the mark. If you're going to plead, plead straight.

But he don't go all humble and pleading. He looks at me like I'm the one who should be begging, as if it aint a loan he's after but more like I should be settling my dues. As if the least I owed him, and hasn't he let me know it, was to have teamed up with him years ago and acted like it was a real case of flesh and blood. Except it wasn't flesh and blood, it was meat. Meat or motors. That was the choice.

I say, 'Don't expect me to bail you out.'

But he stares at me like that's exactly what I'm required to do, like we struck a deal and now he's calling in my side of it. I should know about deals, shouldn't I, being a dealer myself, a used-car dealer? As if there was something wrong about used cars and something bleeding holy about meat.

I say, 'If you can't see what's under your nozzle. A new supermarket just up the road and they offer you first refusal as their meat manager. Aint got no choice, have you?'

He says, 'Haven't I?'

I say, 'Stay put if you want. It's your funeral.'

He says, 'At least I'd be my own man.'

I say, 'Your own man? You never were your own man. You were your old man's man, weren't you? What does it say over the shop?'

He looks at me as if he could knock me between the eyes.

He says, 'That cuts two ways, don't it?'

I say, 'Don't expect me to bail you out, that's all,' giving him a fiver. 'Don't expect nothing.' Slipping him another fiver.

I say, 'There's ten, Jack. Go and buy your mates a drink. Buy one for yourself an' all. Now I'm shoving off.'

And what did he ever do anyway? It was Amy. All he did was come home from winning the war and there I was - his welcome-home present - lying in that cot that was meant for June.

It's got cruise control, power steering.

And there he was, forty-odd years later, lying with the tubes in him, his own bleeding man all right, and he says, 'Come here, Vince. I want to ask you something.' He don't give it a rest.

It's a beautiful car.

And that surgeon - Strickland - looks at me like I'm his next victim, like it's me he's going to stick his knife in. I think, It's because he knows I'm not really next-of-kin. But then I think, No, it's because the old bastard's given him a hard time in the first place, and now this prick's passing it on. It would be like Jack to give a hard time even to the man who could save his life.

He starts to explain. He says, 'Do you know what your stomach looks like?' as if I'm a complete arsehole.

He says, 'And do you know where it is?'

It's the only way I could think of it. Like doing a repair job. A rebore or something, a decoke. I don't know how we work inside but I know a good motor when I see one, I know how to strip an engine. If you ask me, flesh and blood aint such a neat piece of work, not always, but a good motor is a good motor.

So Hussein better cough.