And when he's done, it's like Amy's pretending she hasn't heard him, she's pretending she aint even in the room. So it's up to me to keep things going, to ask the questions, though there's only one question, How long? Strickland looks pleased when I do, like we've shifted into a different area which aint his department, he's a repair-man, he aint a scrap dealer, and he'll be quit of all this just as soon as he walks out of this room. He starts talking about "symptom control', which sounds to me about the same as 'inoperable', and it's while he's talking about this that I feel Amy's hands start to clutch and grab at me and I hear her start to catch her breath. Strickland carries on about symptom control, looking straight at me, but Amy keeps clutching and grabbing, like her symptoms need controlling an' all. It's like her hands are climbing, scrambling up me and I'm a ladder, an escape route, up to some hatchway out of this room. But it seems to me Amy aint ever going to get out of this room, she's going to be locked up in it for ever, her own cooler. She's like June now. And I go rigid and fixed, like a mast, like a tower, while she clings and grabs at me. Thinking, She aint my mum, she aint my mum.
Then suddenly we're out of that room, as if we didn't do nothing, again, to make it happen, the world just shifted, twisted for us, and Strickland's disappeared, he's disappeared down his own escape route. Mandy's taken charge of Amy now, she's holding her and steering her towards the exit and looking at me sort of sharp, like this is a thing between women. But Amy aint Mandy's mum either.
Like my job's the thing between men. So I go back into the unit, before I follow them out, and just stand there by his bed, looking at him. He still aint so much as flicked an eyelid, he's just lying there under the mask, and Strickland said he'd speak to him, he'd speak to him himself, but he'd leave it a good twenty-four hours, even when he's come round, because what with the anaesthetic and everything, he won't take in proper what you say to him. But it seems to me that it aint Strickland's job to tell him, it aint really his job.
I stand by the bed, like I'm a tower, a mast still, but Jack aint trying to climb up me, he's just lying flat beneath me, and I think, It might be better if he died now, without waking up, so he'd never know and no one need ever tell him. Just him never knowing and the world travelling on and on without him. What you never know don't hurt. It's like I don't remember that bomb falling, I can't ever remember that bomb falling. They said so long as you could hear them, you were all right, it was when the sound cut. But I don't even remember not hearing it. So if that bomb had killed me too, I'd never've known I'd been born, I'd never've known I'd died. So I might've been anyone. I look at him like I'm looking down at a view. Golden days before they end. And I think, Someone's got to tell him, someone's got to.
Ray
I peered over the rim of my glass at Slattery's clock.
He said, 'It aint much good to you now though, is it?'
I said, 'How come?'
He said, 'I mean, now there's just you. Now it don't look like she's coming back.'
I said, 'Other way round, aint it? I can go as I please now, I'm my own man now. Free as a bird. If I want to take off for a couple of days, then off I go, and I don't have to worry about nowhere to kip.'
I took a swill of beer and smacked my lips like a man who knows what he's about.
He said, 'That aint no life for a man. All by yourself. Dossing down in car parks, at the side of the road.'
I said, 'Maybe it's the only life, maybe it's the only life for me right now.' Then I didn't say nothing for a bit. Then I said, 'Why you asking anyway, Jack?'
He said, 'I was just thinking. If you didn't need it, if you didn't want it, I could take it off you.'
I said, 'You? What the hell would you want with a camper?'
He said, 'Well, when Carol went and hopped it - excuse me, Raysy - it set me thinking. About me and Amy. Only natural.'
I looked at him and fished out a snout.
'I mean, not that Amy— Only that we got ourselves sort of in a rut. Only that we don't get about much, do we? And I reckoned what with Sundays and some help at the shop and some time off.'
He pushed his glass around on the bar.
'I mean, now Vincey's buggered off, good and proper. Overseas. And Sue— It's like the whole world's buggering off. 'Cept Amy and me.'
I looked at him, sharp, lighting up my ciggy. I said, 'You know that's what I thought an' all, don't you? I thought, Me and Carol are just getting all cooped up, we aint seeing much of the world, are we? I'll get us a means of travel. That's what I thought. Look what happened.'
'She buggered off.' He glugged some beer. 'But Amy aint—'
We stopped talking for a bit. There was just the sound of the Coach on a Friday night. Rattling on, going nowhere.
I said, 'Amy in the know about this?'
He said, 'No, I want it to be a surprise.'
I said, 'A surprise? That's what I thought with Carol too.'
He said, 'You must've paid a bit for it an' all. I'll give you a thousand. Straight cash, no messing. You don't need no camper, Raysy, all you need is some little pop-pop motor.'
I looked at him. Good price.
He said, 'Unless you think - she's going to come back.'
I took my eyes off him. I said, Til think about it.'
And I did think about it, all that winter of being on my tod. I even said to him, 'You still in the market?' like I was ready to sell, and he says, 'Still a grand. Amy'll be chuffed.' But I was thinking about something else too, another use for that camper. And after we skipped seeing June, that first time, and drove over to Epsom, I said to him, 'I've made up my mind, Jack. It aint for sale.'
Canterbury
The road twists along between the hills, with orchards climbing up the slopes on one side, all bare and brown and trimmed and lined up like the bristles on a brush. The sign says, Canterbury, 3 miles. There's a little river on the other side, then a railway line, and the road and the river and the railway line wiggle along the valley as if they're competing. Then we come out by some houses and some playing fields, and Vince says suddenly, 'There's the cathedral.' But I don't see no cathedral. I see the gas-holder in front of it, and I see the cars zipping along the A2, just ahead, Dover one way, London the other. If we'd approached by a different route, down them hills where the A2 comes, we'd've seen it like you're supposed to, all spread out before you with the cathedral sticking up in the middle. We cross the A2 and a sign says 'City of Canterbury - Twinned with Rheims'. Then as we get closer in I still can't see no cathedral but there are big old stone walls in front of us, city walls, and it starts to look like a town you're meant to arrive at, at your journey's end. Except it's not our journey's end, we're going on to Margate, by the sea. Jack never specified Canterbury Cathedral.
Vince follows the signs.to 'City Centre'. We haven't hardly said a word since we last got back in the car, since Lenny came up with his idea, like we've all been thinking it was a stupid idea in the first place and maybe we don't have to go through with it. But now we're here, with the cathedral just a few streets away hiding somewhere, like it's seen us if we aint seen it, it's too late to back out.
Besides, Vie suddenly says, all eager and cheery, as if he's remembering how it was him who got us hiking up to that memorial, that he's never seen Canterbury Cathedral, he's never stepped inside it. Vince says, 'Me neither, Vie.' His voice sounds all sweet and mild, like you wouldn't think that half an hour ago he nearly punched Lenny's face in. Lenny says he's never been anywhere near the place. I say, 'Nor me.' Vince says, 'Aint no racetrack in Canterbury, is there?' But no one laughs, and it's like we're all thinking we might have lived all our lives and never seen Canterbury Cathedral, it's something Jack's put right.