He says, 'Exactly. And Charlie Dixon popped off over a year ago, didn't he? Since when you aint been collecting rent or nothing. You just been being a bleeding office-boy. And chasing horses.'
I say, 'That's my look-out.'
I look at him. He blows out another swirl of smoke, I say, 'So what are you suggesting? You pay me rent? What with?'
He shakes his head. Tm talking ownership, I'm talking buying.'
I look at him. There's something in his face that stops you laughing.
I say, 'Same question, twice over. What with?'
He says, Tm asking you to make an investment, Raysy. In Dodds Motors. A non-cash investment, you don't have to fork out a penny. An investment of time. There aint no Dodds Motors now, course there aint, but there will be in five years, I'm telling you. You sell me the yard as premises but you loan me out the asking for five years. Come five years, I pay you your price plus a percentage. If I can't stump up - but I will - the yard's yours again. Plain and simple, can't lose. Soon as I've got another car on the go and I've got the margin, I'll give you a deposit. You'd get to keep that an' all,'
Maybe he can see me thinking that I ought to laugh but I can't. I say, trying to look tike I know when my leg's being pulled, 'Why should I take on a cock-eyed offer like that? Why shouldn't I just put it up for the highest bidder?'
He takes a swig of beer, squeezing his lips on it slowly. 'Seems to me you aint been rushing to do that this last year or so. Seems to me that you aint minded me parking my motors in your yard anyway, for free. That's where your kindness comes in, and my being grateful. That's where I'd reckon on us having a special understanding.'
I look at him. I think, He bounced right out the way of a V-bomb.
He says, 'I aint forcing, I'm only asking. If I've put other ideas into your head then that's my problem. It's a gamble, course. But you'd understand that, wouldn't you, Uncle Ray? With me it's motors, with you it's horses.'
But he looks at me like it's a certainly, a racing certainty. The glint in his eye sharpens. And that's when I think that he knows. I don't know how, but he knows. By scent, by doing the same. Sleeping in that camper. And not just sleeping.
Chasing horses.
That's why he thinks I can't refuse him.
He says, 'Mother one?' holding out his hand, all smiles, to grab my glass, but I shake my head, like I don't want to interrupt a different sort of flow. All flowing his way.
I say, 'What about the price?' like I'm not interested, I'm just raising an objection, testing him. Thinking, he won't have a straight answer to that, because he knows anyway he aint got a hope.
But he says, quick as a shot, his hand still hovering by my glass, 'Two grand. Plus twenty per cent over the five years. Twenty per cent. Call it five grand to come - after I've put down a deposit.'
Like he's done his sums.
He blows out another cloud of smoke then he stubs out his snout, taking his eyes off me, looking at the ashtray, while I look at the smoke now, floating up and disappearing, because I know and he must know, without any asking around, that that's still a cheap price, even in 1968, even for a disused junkyard round the back of Spa Road. And if I'd've known what would happen in five years' time, if I'd've known what those years would do, but Vincey had his finger on that pulse too, I'd've said, Forget it, Vincey, just forget it. I aint selling. Have it for nothing, meantime.
Value for money.
He says, looking up, Tm only offering, I aint insisting. I'm only putting it to you. You sure you won't have that other one?'
I say, 'Yes.' Then I say, 'Yes, I'll have another one,' in case he gets me wrong.
He says, 'Think about it. You could be in there at the beginning of Dodds Motors. Founding father. Bernie! You here?'
I think, Maybe he doesn't know, but I won't ever know that he doesn't know.
Then Bernie comes out of hiding and pours us two more pints and Vince pays for them and I say, before I take a sip, 'There's just one thing in all this, Vincey.' Realizing as I say it that it's taking me down the path he wants me to go.
He says, 'What's that?'
I say, 'It's called a butcher's shop.' Realizing it's like I've committed myself. 'It's called Dodds and Son.'
He stops his beer half-way to his mouth, looking all hurt and taken-aback, like it seems I didn't understand him and he had reason to suppose I did. He says, 'Do me a favour, give me a break. I thought you was on my side.' Giving me the little-lost-orphan look.
Then he smiles quickly and lifts his glass. 'Cheers.' So I lift my glass and drink. He says, 'Just think about it.' Then I drink some more, not saying nothing, then I say, Td want to keep the camper there. I'd still need my own space for the camper.' He looks at me and says, 'Course you can. No charge. I'd even give it a regular once-over for you. And if you ever wanted to trade it in, I'd see you got a good deal.' He holds his glass to his lips and it's almost as though I see him wink.
'That's not as though I'm agreeing,' I say.
He says, 'Course you aren't, Raysy.'
I think, Jack won't forgive me. Either way, he won't ever forgive me. Wound a man once, you can wound him twice. I think of him down there at the shop even now, chopping and weighing, not knowing, while we sit here drinking. He always had a rule: no boozing at lunchtime, not even a quick mouthwash, not when you're handling knives.
Then Vince downs the rest of his pint quickly and looks at his watch, hands all grubby, not like Jack's. There's the tattoo on his forearm, blue and red, made in Aden, a little scroll with his initials on with a fist holding a thunderbolt on top: 'V.I.P.'
But 'Dodds Motors'.
He says, wiping his mouth on his wrist, 'Better dash, gotta see a man about a car.' Grinning. He slips his packet of ciggies into the breast pocket of his shirt and gets off his stool, giving me a nudge on the shoulder with his knuckles. 'Think it over,' he says, sloping off, like it's nothing special, like it aint neither here nor there.
And I sit there for a while, finishing my own beer slowly, getting out my own packet and lighting up again, Slattery's clock edging round to quarter to three. Then I say, 'Ta-ta, Bernie,' and go down to Billy Hill's, like I'm not thinking, and I put a one-pound bet each-way on a steeplechaser at Sedgefield, thinking, It's not to make, it's to decide. If it's placed, I hang on, if it's not, I sell. You shouldn't bet on superstition. And it comes in fourth in a nine-horse race. O'Grady Says, five to one. So I walk out, thinking, That don't settle nothing, and I go over to the yard, thinking, Either he'll be there or he won't, and if he is.
And he isn't. There's the Rover and the Alvis, sitting there in the sunshine, like someone's ditched them, with a panel off here and a panel off there, and the Alvis with its back end hitched up on two stacks of bricks, and his tools and oil cans and greasy rags lying around. I think, He ought to have an inspection ramp. Lying all day on his back with his nose up an oil sump. The camper's parked outside the lockup, the weather being mild for the middle of February, and it being in regular use at the moment. Regular and irregular. But it's not in use right now, either kind. I think, I haven't had a good trip out for a while, on account of making room for that girl, on account of being so accommodating.
I think, I sell Vince the yard. I never sold Jack the camper.
Then I just stand there in the middle of the yard, in the middle of my own yard, with the lock-up that used to be Duke's old stable, and the new blocks rising up against the fuzzy blue sky and the railway arches running across, every arch some joker's business premises, and the smell of dust and rust and the rumble of traffic and something banging away on a building site somewhere. I think, First Johnson, then Dixon, then Dodds. Or Pritchett. It's a question of territory. It's when you say, This is my patch, this is my pitch, that the trouble starts. TowcesterUttoxeter.