He said it was because I was lucky that he ought to stick with me, but it was the other way round. It was Jack who underwrote me. It wasn't that I was small so the bullets would miss me, it was that he was big, like a wall, like a boulder. And the bullets missed him anyway, they missed him so they missed me, except that once. It was because a small man needs speaking up for, like the old man saying I'd got brains and I ought to use 'em. I never knew I had 'em till he insisted on it, and till Jack went and made it a selling point. 'This is Ray, got it up here has Ray.' Except one way I knew I had it up here was in sticking with Jack.
I thought, Stick with this man and you'll be okay, stick with this man and you'll get through this war.
He passed me a ciggy.
He said, 'Tell you what, Ray, we could give the Pyramids a miss.' Then he took a crumpled card with an address scrawled on it from his wallet. 'Mate gave me this. Personal recommendation.'
I said, 'Maybe I could—'
He said, 'Pyramids are tombs, aren't they, Ray? Pyramids are for dead people. Whereas a tart's tackle.'
Then he got something else out of his breast pocket, pushed it across the table to me. He said, 'It's be-kind-to-your-pecker day.'
I said, 'Maybe—'
He said, 'What's up? Not so long since you saw the missis?'
I said I didn't have no missis.
He said, 'So, then.' Then he said, blowing out a big cloud of smoke, as if that was about as much as anything meant to him, 'I have.' And he took something else from his wallet and passed it to me.
I looked, and I thought, I want one of those. I want one like that.
I looked at him and he looked back as if he hadn't noticed the question in my look or he wasn't going to answer it.
He said, 'Different place, different rules, eh?'
I said, 'Lucky man,' passing back the photo.
He said, 'No, that's you, remember? Drink up.'
Then he led me out into the noise and the glare and the stink, and I never said—I wasn't that much of a dummy -'I aim ever been to a —. I aint ever.' Nearest I got was when Lily Foster tossed me off in the air-raid shelter, in the days when the only raids shelters saw were internal. I put my hand down her knickers, like I was rummaging in a bag of All-sorts, but she said, 'I aint letting you in there.' And I came so quick and sudden I messed up her skirt, must be hard for a girl to explain. Messed up my chances of any seconds an' all.
But as we dodged the touts and beggars he said, 'Tell you what, Raysy, we'll go and see the Pyramids after.' So maybe he knew.
And so there's a photo of Jack and me, taken that afternoon, sitting on a camel, with the Pyramids behind us. There must be a thousand bloody photos of old desert campaigners sitting on camels with the Pyramids behind them, but this was Jack and me. And that camel was the nearest I ever got to being a jockey. He said, 'You sure about this?' I said, 'It's all right, I used to drive the old man's horse and cart.' He said, 'Yes, but this aint a horse and cart, it's a camel.' You wouldn't have thought it would've bothered him, of all things, a camel. I said, 'Trust me,' and he said, 'I trust you, I aint got no choice.'
So there we are, sitting on a camel, in the brass frame on Jack's sideboard, beside the fruit bowl. I'm laughing fit to bust. Jack's trying to laugh. The camel aint even cracking its face. And Amy never knew, and she still don't, what we were doing just hours before that photo was taken. 'Second ride of the day, eh Raysy?' Or that that was the day I first saw a photo of her.
I said, 'Amazing though, aint it, Jack? Ancient Egypt. One of the sights.'
He said, 'You'll see some sights.'
And so I did, so we both did. Just as well I was in insurance, and Jack was in butchery. It seems amazing now, like ancient history, that I was ever there, with Jack, in the desert. That I advanced with Jack from Egypt into Libya and retreated with him to Egypt and advanced again into Libya. A small man at big history. And somewhere in the same desert Lenny Tate was advancing and retreating, though we never knew him then. And Micky Dennis was killed at Belhamed and Bill Kennedy at Matruh, and Jack said it was unfair that a pharaoh got a whole pyramid when there was a good half of Bill that wasn't even in that grave. Then on to Tripoli, and never a scratch, never a scratch. Save that once. And it wasn't me, it was Jack. Clipped him on the left shoulder, went crack over my own head. But he always said if I hadn't been there to pull him down smart off of those sandbags, he'd've copped it worse. He'd've been like Bill Kennedy. Smack in the wife's-best-friend.
I saw it when he was lying there after his op. The new scar on his stomach, the old scar on his shoulder.
See this, Nursey? Come a bit closer. Got it in North Africa. If it wasn't for my mate Lucky there I wouldn't be here.
He said, 'Your first choice, Ray. As long as you don't pick the one with the big diddies on the right.'
But it wasn't easy, because I'd never seen five girls together before, leaning on a wooden balcony, naked except for some beads and frillies. Like looking at a row of iced buns. And all of them giggling. I said, 'They're laughing, Jack.' He said, 'What do you want 'em to do, cry?' So.I chose the smallest. No saying why, but it was a good choice as it turned out. I reckon I needed someone who could show me how to do what I'd never done before, so I could do it without help next time, and who wouldn't let on. No matter that Jack must have guessed anyway. I bet he did.
'Good choice, Ray. Your size.'
And when she got me into her little bivvy - about fifteen flies and a gallon of perfume - the problem wasn't so much in the actions as in the words. Like when she said, 'You lick me?' This was after she'd dropped everything, turned round, wiggled and turned round again, all of a bobble. And I had my tongue half out, like I was at the doc's, before I thought, She means 'like me' she means 'like me'. Though I suppose I'll never know. Or when, after I'd shot my jollop, quick as spit, same problem as with Lily Foster but at least I got inside, at least I was on target, and I'd got up to go, hoisting up my khakis, because I thought that was it, short and sweet, best not dwelt on, she said, 'You got ten mints. Look at cluck. What your fren think, you go now?'
And when we went back on to the balcony it was Jack who was already there, waiting, leaning on the balcony, smoking, telling the other girls, who were still giggling, things they didn't understand and trading lip with two sappers who were haggling with the madam in the yard below, like he could do them a better price.
He says, 'Well how was it, Ray? Madam Yashmak here was just about to come and prise you apart.'
But I didn't have to answer because my one was right behind me and she answers for me. She says, 'Very good, very good. Little man, big cuck.'
Jack says, 'Cuck? Cuckf Then everyone starts laughing and I go red as ketchup.
'Cuck?' Jack's laughing and the girls are giggling and the sappers in the yard are looking up and laughing too, and we're in Cairo, in Egypt, in Africa, in the middle of a war.
'Well, Raysy, that sounds like just about everything rolled into one.'
Including luck.
Vince
So I hit her. I hit Sally Tate.
Because I said, 'Do you know where babies come from?' and she said, 'No.' I said, 'I do.' Then I didn't say nothing, so she said, 'Well tell me, teil me where babies come from.' So I said, 'Hops. They come from hops,' and she looked at me like she was going to laugh.
She said, 'What are hops?'
I said I wasn't too sure but they were the things. You had to do something with them, called hop-picking.
She was looking at me with this laugh in her face, like she knew all along how babies got made. It must have been her who started the joke. You should never share your secrets. A little joke on top of the big joke, but it stuck. So Lenny would say, years after, 'Have another beer, Vince, have some more baby juice.'