Lenny sticks his nose in his glass like he's not going to say anything.
Bernie's looking at the jar and looking anxiously round the bar. He looks at Vie like he don't want to make a fuss but.
Vie says, 'Point taken, Bernie,' and takes the jar from where it's sitting. He reaches down for the fallen box. 'Not much good for business, is it?'
lAint helping yours much either, Vie,' Lenny says.
Vie slides the jar carefully back into the box. It's eleven twenty by Slattery's clock and it feels less churchy. There's more punters coming in. Someone's put on the music machine. Going back some day, come what may, to Blue Bayou... That's, better, that's better.
First wet rings on the mahogany, first drifts of blue smoke.
Vie says, 'Well all we need now is our chauffeur.'
Lenny says, They're playing his tune. Wonder what he'll bring. Drives something different every week, these days, far as I can see.'
Bernie says, 'Same again all round?'
As he speaks there's a hooting and tooting outside in the street. A pause, then another burst.
Lenny says, 'Sounds like him now. Sounds like Vincey.'
There's a fresh round of hooting.
Vie says, 'Isn't he coming in?'
Lenny says, 'I reckon he wants us out there.'
We don't go out but we get up and go over to the window. Vie keeps hold of the box, like someone might pinch it. We raise ourselves up on our toes, heads dose together, so we can see above the frosted half of the window. I can't quite, but I don't say.
'Jesus Christ,' Lenny says.
'It's a Merc,' Vie says.
'Trust Big Boy,' Lenny says.
I push down on the sill to give myself a second's extra lift. It's a royal blue Merc, cream seats, gleaming in the April sunshine.
'Jesus,' I say. A Merc.'
Lenny says, it's like a joke he's been saving up for fifty years, 'Rommel would be pleased.'
Ray
Amy eyes me as I look up from reading the letter.
She says, 'I suppose he thought he'd get there in the end, one way or the other.'
I say, 'When did he write it?'
She says, 'A couple of days before he—'
I look at her and I say, 'He could have just told you. Why'd he have to write a letter?'
She says, 'I suppose he thought Td think he was joking, I suppose he thought it would make it proper.'
It's not a long letter, but it could be shorter, because of the way it's wrapped up in language like you see in the small print on the back of forms. It's not Jack's language at all. But I suppose a man can get all wordy, all official, when he knows his number's up.
But the gist of it's plain. It says he wants his ashes to be chucked off the end of Margate pier.
It don't even say, 'Dear Amy'. It says, 'To whom it may concern'
She says, Tve told Vie. He said it don't make any difference. It says in his will he's to be cremated but what gets done with the ashes is a free decision. You can throw them anywhere so long as it's not over someone else's property.'
'So?'
'So Vie says: "Amy, if you want to do it, do it. If you want me to do it, I'll do it. I'll see it doesn't add too much on the bill. But one thing's certain" he says, "if you don't do it, Jack won't ever know" '
We're sitting out in the garden by St Thomas's, opposite Big Ben. She looks out across the river as if she's putting it to herself what she'd do if she had Jack's ashes now and he'd told her she should chuck him in the Thames, to the sound of Big Ben. But we haven't got Jack's ashes. All we've got is Jack's pyjamas, two pairs, and his toothbrush and his razor and his wristwatch and a few other odds and ends, which they give you in a plastic bag when you collect the forms. So we don't have to go there any more now, there aint no reason. No more walking down that squeaky corridor, no more hanging about drinking cups of tea. There'll be someone else in his bed now already, some other bleeder.
It's a mild grey day and the water's grey, and she keeps looking out over it without speaking, so I say, because I think maybe it's what she wants me to say: 'If you want to do it, Amy, I'll take you.'
'In the old camper?' she says, turning.
I say, 'Course.' I think she's going to smile and say yes. I think the day's going to brighten up.
She says, 'I can't do it, Ray. I mean - thank you. But I don't want to do it anyway.'
She looks out again at the river and I can't tell whether she thinks it's all a bad joke, on account of how Jack had been finally about to do what it was looking like he'd never do: sell up the shop, hang up his striped apron and look around for some other way to pass the time. On account of how she and Jack had found this nice little bungalow down in Margate. Westgate. It was all set up to go ahead. Then Jack goes down with a nasty touch of stomach cancer.
It's not for me to say it but I say it: 'A dying man's request, Amy'
She looks at me, 'Will you do it, Ray?' Her race looks emptied out. 'That way it's done, isn't it? That way his wish gets carried out. He only says, "To whom it may concern", doesn't he?'
I pause for just a bit. 'Okay, Til do it. Course I'll do it. But what about Vince?'
'I haven't told Vince. About this, I mean.' She nods at the letter. 'I'll tell him. Maybe you and him—'
I say, 'Til talk to Vince.'
I hand back the letter It's Jack's handwriting, but it's Jack's handwriting gone all wispy and weak and thin. It's not like the writing you used to see on that board at the front of the shop. Pork Chops - Down in Price.
I say, 'Could have been worse, Amy. You could already have bought that bungalow and be just about to move. Or you could have just been settling in and—'
She says, 'It's like he almost got his own way, anyway.'
I look at her.
'To work on till he dropped.' She folds the letter. 'In the end /was the problem, /was the obstacle. Didn't you know? When I knew he was serious, when I knew he really meant to pack it all in. I said, "What am I going to do about June?" He said, "That's just the point, girl. If I can give up being Jack Dodds, family butcher, then you can give up going on that fooPs errand every week." That's what he called it: "fool's errand".'
She looks again at the water. 'You know how when he had a change of mind, the whole world had to change too. He said, we're going to be new people.' She gives another little snort. 'New people.'
I look away across the garden because I don't want her to see the thought that might be showing in my face: that it's a pretty poor starting-point, all said, for becoming new people, a bungalow in Margate. It's not exactly the promised land.
There's a nurse chomping a sandwich on a bench in the far corner. Pigeons waddling.
Maybe Amy's having the same thought, maybe she's had it. Not the promised land.
I say, 'You sure you wouldn't want to come?'
She shakes her head. 'Got my reasons, haven't I, Ray?'
She looks at me.
(I suppose Jack had too,' I say, tapping the letter in her hand. I let my hand move up to give her arm a little squeeze.
'The seaside, eh Ray?' She looks again at the river. 'Yes, he had his reasons.' Then she dams up.
The nurse has blonde hair, tied up nurse-fashion. Black legs.
'Anyway,' she says, 'I don't think we could've done it. When you totted it all up. When you took away what Jack owed on the shop.' Her face goes just a touch bitter.
'We'd have been a fair bit short.'
The nurse finishes her sandwich, brushing down her skirt. The pigeons waddle quicker, pecking. They look like scatterings of ashes, bits of ashes with wings.
I say, 'How much short?'
Old Kent Road
We head down past Albany Road and Trafalgar Avenue and the Rotherhithe turn. Green Man, Thomas a Becket, Lord Nelson. The sky's almost as blue as the car.