The sergeant major tapped his fingers on the telephone. Suddenly he seemed to remember something. ‘And of course, the Queen’s shilling.’ Shuffling his ample weight on the small fragile chair, he pulled on a key attached to his waist and unlocked the top drawer of the desk. We watched mesmerized as he retrieved a small bundle of banknotes. He counted them out into two piles, one before each of us, then ironed them out with his chubby pink hands.
‘A fortnight. They conduct basic training in Catterick, Yorkshire. Ah say, ah could just about squeeze ye in.’
There was a pause that seemed to last for minutes. The sergeant major bit his lower lip and peered at us, waiting for an answer. I glanced out of the window, suddenly aware of the silence now that the rain had petered out.
Having shaken hands with the sergeant major, and been told several times farewell and good luck and if only there were more like ye — fit, willing young men — then this wee fair isle would be a better place, I stood by the doorway of the off-licence and felt for the existential weight of the Queen’s shilling in my pocket. With a finger I wrote the word YEOMANRY into the condensation on the glass frontage.
Adrian emerged into the street carrying a bottle of blackcurrant cordial and two heavy gold-coloured bottles of cider. ‘I’ve worked it out,’ he said, briefly lifting his purchases above his head. ‘Done the maths on the alcohol-percentage-over-volume-per-penny ratio.’
I saw that he had also bought a small glass bottle of tomato ketchup. He pushed it into a pocket and offered me an embarrassed grin. ‘Can never get enough of that stuff.’
Guiltily I patted my own pocket, where my money remained unspent.
A swan from the canal had lost its way, and at the roundabout traffic was at a standstill. The animal’s neck was caught in one handle of a blue carrier bag, and it thrashed furiously, its frantic efforts to escape only tightening the noose. Safely inside the video rental shop, people peered out, their noses pressed against the glass. The swan’s elegant body twisted and lurched, and feathers flew off as it flapped its great wings. Nervous drivers watched from their car windows.
‘Dare you,’ I said.
Adrian put down the shopping bags and strode across the road, slipping off his T-shirt. He threw it over the bird’s head, then with one easy flick of his wrist freed it of both plastic bag and T-shirt. He stepped quickly back with a flourish, dangling his T-shirt at the waist like a bullfighter’s cape. A car sounded its horn and Adrian took a deep bow. Behind him the bird lurched at Adrian’s legs but deflected away, just in time, as another car beeped its horn loudly.
‘I’d make a better survivor than you,’ Adrian said, returning to the corner and picking up the bags. Behind us, through the video shop window, the civilians looked on, transfixed.
We walked along the towpath of the canal until we found a hole in a high brick wall big enough for a man to squeeze through. On the other side of the wall was an enormous concrete yard. It was like a parade ground except that the concrete was rent with long gashes as though riven by an earthquake. Surrounding it on three sides were cavernous, four-storey rectangular brick buildings neatly appointed with row upon row of smashed latticed windows. A small steel canopy propped up on stilts projected from part of the wall. Beneath it the ground was dry, and we gathered loose bricks to make seats and settled down, our legs stretched out in front and backs against the oily black wall.
Adrian opened a bottle of the cider, took a long swig and then topped it up with blackcurrant cordial. ‘God’s own brew, for beginners.’ He pushed it towards me.
The cordial spread down through the yellow cider until the contents of the bottle were entirely red. I looked at Adrian, who was drinking from the second, unadulterated bottle.
‘Dare you,’ he said, raising his eyebrows.
‘No pain.’ I picked up the bottle in both hands and put it to my lips.
‘Tastes of pop,’ I said.
Adrian put the ketchup bottle to his mouth and sucked at its turgid contents. ‘I’ve dreamt of this and I’m gonna finish it even if it makes me sick.’
‘We don’t sell ketchup in our shop.’
‘Made chains here,’ said Adrian, looking around the yard. ‘And the anchor for the Titanic.’
‘My mate Maley, his dad worked round about here,’ I said, taking a large gulp from my bottle.
‘Wish I had been around then,’ Adrian said, licking the ketchup off his lips.
‘Made him go half deaf.’ I nodded thoughtfully, remembering to say a silent Bismillah.
‘Imagine how proud you’d be.’ Adrian swept his hand across the view. ‘Took twenty shire horses just to pull the anchor across the yard. God only knows how they loaded it onto a barge.’
‘Remember Maley?’ I asked.
‘He disappeared in a lorry, right?’
‘He’ll never come back.’
‘Don’t blame him.’
‘I would have gone to visit him but don’t know where he is.’
‘Shire horses,’ Adrian said dreamily, ‘solid, done up to the nines in brass.’
*
We drank slowly, and as afternoon turned to early evening the sun came out. Behind the wall we could hear birds chirruping out on the canal and ducks as they noisily floated by. A canal barge motored past, and when, a little further ahead, it entered the long tunnel, opera music echoed inside the barrel-vaulted brick walls.
‘They do that as they go through Netherton Tunnel. They cut the engine and play grand music from an old gramophone — it’s like being in heaven,’ Adrian said.
‘What do you think it’ll be like, the army?’ I was shivering from sitting still so long.
‘Beef and gravy, mate.’
‘Do you think there’ll be another war?’
‘Bring it on.’ He picked up the now half-empty ketchup bottle and flung it across the yard. ‘Don’t sell ketchup, what the fuck do you sell?’ I heard the bottle shatter in the darkening distance. ‘No pain!’ he shouted, wiping the ketchup from his chin and staggering unsteadily to his feet.
I tried to get up but my legs felt weak, and the slightest tilt of my head brought on nausea. I bent over and vomited.
‘Get it all out,’ said Adrian, slapping me on the back. ‘Tickle your tonsils with your fingers, it’ll help.’
It hurt like fury, and after a long and painful bout of gut cramp and vomiting I rose to my feet, wiping the tears from my eyes. My throat burned. I laughed, bending forward as far as I could to test the returning strength in my legs, and screamed into the uninhabited darkness, ‘No pain!’
‘So,’ said Adrian, rubbing his hands together, ‘are you going to show me where that paedo lives?’
‘I thought we had a deal. Army over paedo.’
Adrian grabbed me by the throat. Caught unaware, I was quickly pinned to the wall. ‘I dare you.’
I wriggled free and shoved him in the chest. As he staggered back I saw his eyes, glazed from the drink but cold and determined.
‘Do it again and I’ll. ’ I said.
‘Oh yeah?’
I rubbed my sore neck. Now we were comrades in arms. Army men fought and died for each other like brothers.
I took him to a terraced house not dissimilar to the one I had grown up in. It would have been indistinguishable from the others in the row except for the thick, moth-eaten curtains that hung precariously in his front window. They appeared undisturbed, as though never opened. No light emanated from any of the windows.
Adrian knocked on the door and waited for a minute.