‘Don’t talk so daft,’ Jenny said.
‘Well, I’m not serious, am I? When I was a kid’ — he smiled, as if he might still be one, and have life to live over again — ‘I went after tiddlers, scooped ’em up in a jam jar with a bit of string around the neck. It wasn’t easy, but I always got some. We lived in Basford Crossing, and the Leen was our favourite stream. There were eight of us kids in the family, and when we went out as a tribe nobody could harm us. We often stayed by the water all day, rain or shine. Mam would wrap us up sandwiches in greaseproof paper, and fill bottles of cold tea left over from breakfast. There was always something interesting to look at, as long as the stream kept running, and it always did. Never stopped, did it? Well, it couldn’t, could it?’ The idea of the stream ceasing to flow seemed to alarm him. ‘It could no more stop than the Trent could stop. Or any river, come to that, though the Leen’s only a piddling little brook.’ He smiled again. ‘It was cold, though, if you fell in, and I did a time or two. It’s a wonder one of us didn’t drown, but kids had charmed lives in those days.’
Old times meant more to him than anybody else, but they were important to everybody the older or more physically difficult life became. With Arthur and Derek he often made fun of them, because if you didn’t the reality of so-called halcyon days didn’t bear thinking about, and there was too much happening in the present to have their weight as well on your back. Even so, it would be cruel to scoff at such times in front of George, who dropped a host of sugars into his tea: ‘Jenny tells me you’ve done very well for yourself in London.’
‘You could say I’ve made a living.’ George’s tone implied that he must have done so out of trickery and skiving. ‘But I like to come up and see my brothers, who are always glad to see me. In any case, I’m still fond of the old place.’
‘Why did you leave it, then?’
‘I lived here till I was eighteen, then thought I’d take off.’ Enough of the apologetic tone for having made use of his legs. ‘We called at the White Horse for a pint or two last night.’
‘Sometimes we get in the car,’ Jenny said, ‘and go for a drink, don’t we, duck?’
‘Aye, and a right bleddy ta-tar it is, lifting me in and out of this thing.’ He looked at Brian, ignoring Jenny. ‘I ain’t been in the White Horse for years. Not that I could put much back if I did. Apart from having to watch my weight, I’ve got too many pills inside to swill ale down as well. Still, I can let myself go a bit when I’m in Ingoldmells. When I’m away from home, if you see what I mean. I don’t have Jenny fussing over me every second of the day and night. It’s the only time we get a rest from each other, and I’m sure she deserves it. I know I do.’
She kissed him on the forehead. ‘It makes a change. You like to have young nurses pushing you up and down the seafront, don’t you? And all that sea air! You do look a lot better when you get back.’
‘Jenny takes me, and then she fetches me. Anyway,’ George said to him, ‘you manage to get around a bit?’
Brian set his empty cup on the table. ‘When I can. I drove through Yugoslavia to Greece last year, and put the car on a ship to Israel. It was a treat, steaming through the islands.’
‘Did you look in on Libya? Or Crete, where we changed ships as prisoners of bloody war.’
‘It wasn’t on our way. We stopped an hour or two at Cyprus, but there wasn’t time to get off.’
‘I’d like to go back and see Tobruk.’ He gazed at the window. ‘On the other hand, I wouldn’t. You can’t go back, can you? Not if you don’t want to you can’t. Or you can’t if you’re knackered like this. It would be funny if I did, though. Still, wanting to satisfies me. As long as you can dream you can tell yourself you’re still alive.’
He was sorry for George, because who wouldn’t be? But you couldn’t tell him so to his face. George was well aware of what everybody felt when they looked at him, knew they had to feel sorry, nothing else they could do. George would feel the same for somebody like himself if he was all fit and full of beans, or even if he was all fit and full of sludge. He’d much rather be the one who was feeling sorry, and if it happened that he was such a person he wouldn’t say he felt sorry for fear of being told to fuck off, though he’d still be over the moon at feeling it.
So the projection bounced back at Brian, to inform him that there was no need to feel sorry for George, or feel bad because you weren’t a cripple as well. George was done for, and comments of sympathy would be no help. He too had a roof over his head, all the food he could get into himself, any clothes he thought of wearing and, under the circumstances, the finest care in the world. He was all right for as long as Jenny stayed by his side, so it was her you should feel sorry for, and how could he not, heart bleeding drop by drop into his liver at her fate, and though it was proof that he could still feel pity for somebody he much preferred dealing with the emotional turmoil that came from himself, always useful for channelling into his work.
She stroked her husband’s pale hand. ‘Maybe one day we’ll win a lottery, then we’ll hire a private plane and go to Tobruk.’
‘Don’t be daft.’ He pushed the hand away, smiling at Brian as if to apologize, though not to Jenny, for his abruptness.
She didn’t have much of a life, shackled to his side and waiting for any little request that might pop into his circumscribed brain, but she was glad at hearing Brian tell of his drive through the Balkans, the description of a squalid night-stop in Macedonia exaggerated into as much of a narrative as would interest George and amuse Jenny. Set apart from the world, no such talk could lift them out of their imprisonment. By now he had taken in all he could, and had to leave, Jenny offering to show him out because she wanted to see what sort of a car someone drove who wrote scripts for television.
He had never been a flash lad for posh motors, he told them, not caring to impress anybody when he was on the road. A dependable estate served for whatever he wanted in the way of transport, no need of a blood-red underslung tin lizzie with the power of a Spitfire flashing up and down the motorway at a hundred and twenty till he was nicked for the third time and lost his ticket.
They smiled at his admission that the car wasn’t changed every three years, though his accountant said it should be for self-employed income tax. Maybe she was disappointed that he didn’t live up to his image, though why should she care? ‘It’s nothing to show off about, but come and look. Nice meeting you,’ he said to George, once being enough. ‘I’ll call again sometime, if that’s all right.’
‘You’re always welcome.’ He told Jenny to put on her mac, the first to notice a drop at the window.
She stood outside with Brian. ‘I didn’t really want to look at your car.’
‘I know.’
‘Sometimes he dozes off in the afternoon and wakes up with tears on his cheeks, but what can I do? He used to scream because the iron was falling on him in his dreams, but he doesn’t do that anymore, which is a blessing.’
He took her in his arms and kissed her. Because he wanted to? Because she expected it? To give her a treat in her miserable life? Whatever, he pressed her to him, his and her tears meeting after so much time. ‘I’m sorry, love.’
‘Don’t be,’ she said. ‘It’s my bed, and I’ve got used to lying on it.’
He let her go, whether or not she hoped he might hold on to her forever and release her from the life she had been pitched into. He saw the light glow again in those melting brown eyes that he recalled after making love so many times in the old days, knew her as she was then, the momentary resurrection of the past suddenly blown away like so much smoke, the poignancy that you couldn’t go back setting him as close to a broken heart as he would ever get.