She said, 'If you hate him so much, why haven't you moved out?'
I said, 'I have, sweetheart, aint you noticed? It's you that's moved in.'
She said, (I meant permanent.'
I said I was biding my time. Step by step, little by little. First my business had to take off, then I'd get a place of my own.
She said, 'Your business?' I said, 'Yeh.'
She used to lick my tattoos, like she might lick 'em off. She said, 'When you get a place of your own, will there be room for me?'
I said, 'Might be, if you ask nice. This aint bad for now.' Came in handy, that camper.
Two of a kind, though we didn't look it. She was eighteen, I was twenty-three. I suppose I must have seemed to her at times like I belonged with some other bunch, some older bunch, like I was her bleeding uncle. She used to say now and then I ought to change, get with it, switch on. Roy Orbison had shot his bolt. I said I changed a long time ago, I switched right over, didn't I? Became a different person, didn't I? And 'with it'? Did she think I aint been around? I'd been on the hippie trail to Aden. Had she ever seen someone with their head sliced off? Well then.
She looked at me, blinking.
The world was changing all right, I knew that. I aint unaware. But I said I'll tell you what the big change is, the change underneath all the change. It aint the Beatles and it aint the Rolling Stones and it aint long hair or short skirts or free milk and baby-stoppers on the National Health. It's mobility, it's being mobile. How did you get to here from Blackburn? How did you get to shake off your ma and pa? Time was when the only way you got to travel was in the Army, though not everywhere's worth the trip, I'm telling you. But watch 'em all on the move now, watch 'em all going places. You listening? Ten years from now the Beatles and the Stones will be old-time music but what they'll still want is wheels. Wheels. More and more wheels. And I'll be there to sell 'em, Vince Dodds'll be right there to sell 'em. I'm in the right trade, the travel trade. So don't tell me I aint with it.
She looked at me as if she was doing a bit of trading of her own in her head.
She said, 'Course you are, lover.'
SheM twist the ends of her hair and suck 'em, like a schoolgirl.
I said, 'If it weren't for Hitler, Jack would never've budged from that shop. But one day Jack'll come crawling to me, you see.'
She said, 'Course he will, pet,'
We'd hit the road and head out through the suburbs, like we'd robbed a bank and were on the run. Just runnin' scared! Du-du-du-duml There was a lay-by out beyond Swanley with a mobile caff where they'd sizzle up bacon waddies and brew tea like it had to be stirred with a dipstick. The cars would whack by and the slipstreams would tug the steam from our mugs and flip her long hair. I'll always see her standing by a road. Then we'd find our own little private lay-by somewhere. It was like the car joined in with us. Crazy for it, we'd be. Slippery with it, have to mop down afterwards. Then we'd go for a walk in the woods, across the fields, listen to the birdies, take the air, clock the view. I said - I thought it would impress her, coming from Blackburn, I thought she'd be impressed, it coming from me -They call Kent the Garden of England:
ROCHESTER
We come up to the start of the M2 but Vince stays on the A2, through Strood to Rochester, We cross the Medway by the old road bridge, beside the railway bridge. It comes as a surprise, the sudden wide view of the river, like it's a whole look-out on the world you hadn't been thinking of, you'd forgotten it was there. Boats, jetties, moorings, mud banks.
Vie says, 'Tide's out,' and looks at his watch. 'It'll be corning in at Margate.'
Lenny says, 'Good thing, I suppose. Considering.'
You can see the castle and the cathedral spire ahead, standing out, like toy buildings set down special.
Vince says, 'So, anyone know any good pubs in Rochester?'
Vie says, 'No, but I knew a few once in Chatham.' Navy man.
Vince says, 'Memory Lane, eh Vie?'
The weather's changing, clouds brewing.
We overshoot on the main road then double back, getting lost in the side-streets and the one-way systems. Then we slip into a car park at the foot of the castle hill. Lenny says, I never knew this was a sight-seeing tour.' Vince says, 'Everybody out.' He takes off his shades and pats his hair. I lift up the box so he can get his jacket and he turns and reaches for it. He looks at Lenny as if Lenny might hand it to him but Lenny don't, then I put the box back on the seat. Then we all get out, stretching and putting on our clobber. It's nippy after being in the car. The castle looks dry and bony in the sunshine. Vince opens the boot and takes out a coat. Camel hair.
Then we should all move off but we stay put, loitering, looking at each other, sheepish.
I say, 'It don't seem right just to leave him there on the back seat, does it?'
Lenny says, 'Where d'you think he should go, in the boot?'
I say, 'I mean, it don't seem right us going off and just leaving him on his own.' Lenny shrugs.
Vie don't say nothing, like it's not his business any more, it's not his say-so, now he's handed over the goods. He gives me a quick sharp look, settling his cap, then he squints up at the clouds in the sky.
Vince says, 'You're right, Ray. He should come with us, shouldn't he?'
He leans in and picks up the box. It's the first time he's held it. He tucks it under his arm while he locks the car, then he straightens up with it hugged against his chest. Now he's holding it, now he's standing there in that coat with the box, it's as though he's in charge, it's as though he's got his badge of authority. It was Vie who was in charge, in charge but sort of neutral at the same time, but now it's Vince.
He says, 'Okay men, follow me,' like he's leading a patrol of marines, and he marches off across the car park. I see Lenny turn his head as if he's going to spit.
We come out on the high street. It's not big and bustling like your normal high street. It's narrow and quiet and crooked and historical and full of lop-sided old buildings. There are people ambling up and down it, aimless, the way tourists walk. It looks like a high street in a picture book, like you shouldn't be here, walking in it, or like it shouldn't be here itself, with the traffic belting along on the A2 close by. Except it was here first.
There's a fancy grocer's opposite, the Rochester Food Fayre, the sort that sells funny teas and posh tins of biscuits, and Vince ducks in sudden, leaving us standing. Then he comes out again with a plastic carrier-bag. He's slipping the box into it but there's something else already in there, by the look of it. He says, 'Mandy said we were out of coffee.' Then we look this way and that and Vince scoots off again as if he can't abide ditherers. There's a sign up ahead saying 'Bull Hotel' and he heads straight for it, like he's been meaning to all along. He says, 'There, gents, this should do us.' It's a big old rambling place, with a Carvery and a Grill and a regular bar with snacks, I can see Vince considering the Carvery, like he's thinking of lashing out special and making us feel like we owe him. Then he back-tracks along the pavement, settling on the bar and snacks. You can see the bridge over the river from the hotel entrance. The high street dips down towards it and the main road, and if you shut your eyes and open them again you can picture how a stage-coach might once have rattled across and up the slope and swung into the yard of the Bull, with the castle looking down just like a Christmas card.