Wick's Farm
We troop back across the field, not saying nothing. You can hear Lenny and Vincey breathing like a little duet. Vince is carrying the jar. He's holding it extra tight and careful. It's like the reason we're out here in this field is because the jar's gone and made a bolt for it and we've had to run after it and catch it. It's all the jar's fault. Except we know it aint, it's the other way round. It's all our fault. Fighting over a man's ashes. And the jar's sitting there in Vince's hands like it's shaking its head at us all, like Jack's inside there peeping out and sighing over us, with a bit of him left behind in the field for the sheep to trample on. He didn't expect this, he didn't expect this at all.
The wind's whipping up on our backs and as we reach the gate the shower hits us good and proper. We just get back inside the car in time to avoid a soaking. We get in the same seats as before. Vincey hands me the jar, wincing as he moves in behind the wheel, and then he looks around for something to wipe away the stains on his sleeve and trousers but he can't find nothing and he gives up and we all sit there for a moment, the engine not switched on and the rain beating against the windows like we might as well be in a boat. I look at Vincey's face and it looks far away and I can hear Lenny wheezing in the back seat. It's as though it's not a car, it's an ambulance. Meat wagon after all It's as though we're all wondering whether we should press on with this exercise or quit now on the grounds of not being up to it. Two detours, one fight, a piss-up and a near-wetting.
Then Vincey sort of snaps to, and switches on the ignition and the wipers. We can see the rain sloshing down on the narrow road and the sky all grey and heavy, but up on the crest of the hill, by the disused windmill, there's a faint gleam on one side of the clump of trees, as though the clouds are going to pass over before long.
Vincey says, 'Right. We want the Canterbury road. Look out for signs to Canterbury. A28 and Canterbury.' He starts the engine.
Lenny says, 'Canterbury?' He stops wheezing. 'We might as well call in there an' all. We might as well pop into the bleeding cathedral.'
He says it like he's joking, but Vince sits there for a bit staring at the rain on the windscreen, not making the car move. He says, 'If you say so, Lenny,' all fierce. 'If you say so. Why shouldn't we take him round Canterbury Cathedral?'
I can feel Vie and Lenny looking at each other in the back seat.
Another fool's errand, another detour. Lenny's turn.
Vince puts the car in drive and we move off. He doesn't speak but I can tell from his face he's serious, he means it, he might even be wishing he'd had the idea himself.
It's even better than a royal blue Merc.
Vie don't say nothing, like he's already paid his forfeit.
So it's me who says, but like it's Vie who's speaking, while I hang on to the wet jar, 'Good idea, Lenny. Good gesture. He'd be honoured.'
Ray
He looks at me straight and steady, so straight and steatty? that my own face must be all a-quiver in comparison. think, You have to sit straight and still for your final trait, no shifting, no pretending, no ducking out. Then says, like he can see what's in my head, like he sees the? question I want to ask, 'People panic, Raysy. You don't evwf want to panic.
It's like what they said in the war. Number one rule for soldiers: Don't panic. Though I never understood how votl! could lay that down as a command, you can't command a man not to believe that fire'll burn him. Except Jack used to put it into working practice. Like when we ran into that ' trouble outside Sollum and that lieutenant, Crawford, is lying there suddenly like a bloody rag, with his next-in-line yelling, 'What do I do? What do I do?' and Jack says, 'What you have to do, sir, is assume command. If you don't, I will.' And I'm thinking, I'm bleeding glad I don't have to assume command, I'll settle for being commanded.
I suppose that's what he's doing now, assuming command, taking charge of himself.
I say, 'It's a tough one, Jack, it's a tough one.' Like I'm not talking about the thing it is, like it's just an extra tricky test you come out of afterwards.
He says, 'It'll be tougher for Amy.' Looking at me straight and steady. 'If you ever get the choice, Raysy, if you ever get the option, you go first. It's carrying on that's hard. Ending aint nothing.'
I say, 'Well, it aint an option I've got, is it? I mean, if anyone has. Seeing as there's just me.'
He looks at me. 'You never know. Still I reckon I'm lucky, being the first.'
'No, I'm Lucky.'
He doesn't smile, it's not like the old joke. I'm not lucky, you're Lucky. He looks at me. His eyes are like they don't miss nothing, his face is like you can't not look at it. I think, I've seen him most of my life, but now I'm seeing him. I'm not seeing Jack Dodds, quality butcher, Smithfield and Bermondsey, or Jack Dodds care of the Coach and Horses. I'm not even seeing Big Jack, Desert Rat, Private Jack of the Cairo Camel Corps. I'm seeing the man himself, his own man, private Jack, who's assumed command.
He says, 'It'll be harder for Amy. She'll need looking after.'
I say, 'She'll be here any minute. With Vincey.'
'I aint got much for her to be getting on with.'
I look at what he has got. A bed, a bedside cabinet. I reckon he hasn't got much more now than June's had all her life.
I say, 'If there's anything I can do, Jack.'
His hand's lying spare, empty, on the blanket and I see the fingers curl just a bit. Then his eyes close. The lids just roll down of their own accord like a shutter, like the eyes on that doll I bought Sue years ago one Christmas. Just for a moment it's like— Don't panic, don't panic. But his chest heaves. The swelling round his operation scar dips and rises.
I look at his face, at his hand lying on the blanket. I think, Everyone has their own space and no one else can step in it, then one day it's unoccupied. It's a question of territory.
He opens his eyes. It's as if he's been tricking me and he's been watching all along, through the slits, to see if I'm a different person when I think I'm not being looked at. But the lids open slowly. You see the whites before you see the whole eye.