Vince looks at Lenny in the driving mirror then he looks straight ahead. We sit by the kerb.
Vie says, 'Well,' as if the moment's come.
Lenny says, 'Well.'
I don't say nothing. It's like we're all waiting for someone else to give the word and maybe it needs to be me since I'm the one holding Jack, I ought to sense him saying, 'Come on, lads, get shifting.' But I don't say nothing. I aint taking command.
Vince is staring ahead, his hands resting square on the wheel like he's driving though we're staying still, it's a pretend car. The windscreen's all silvery, the sky's like lead. Then just as I'm about to say, 'Come on, let's go,' we start to move anyway. As if Vince hasn't done nothing and the car's decided for us, as if we're all just payload and it's switched itself into motion, like that belt suddenly starting to move, you could hear a little clicking sound, that carried Jack's coffin out of sight behind the blue velvet curtains.
It doesn't look like the end of the road, it doesn't look like what you'd aim for and work for. It looks like it's trying to keep going all year round something that only happened once one whoopsy weekend. So this is what you get, this is where you come. I reckon it's all about wanting to be a kid again, bucket and spade and a gob full of ice cream. Or it's all about being on the edge, which you are, other sense, and you know it. Not where the road's going, just where it don't go no further, on account of the ogwash. End of the road, end of the pier. Splash. And if the seaside was such a fine and wonderful thing in itself, then there wouldn't be no need, would there, for this whole china-shop of Amusements? All of them trying to tickle your fancy like a troop of tired old tarts. Like it aint the coast of Kent, it's Cunt Street, Cairo.
Flamingo. Tivoli. Royal Vince lets the car roll slowly forward, barely touching the gas, as though it knows what to do, a Merc has a mind of its own, like Duke always knew the way home anyway, and I can see what he's doing, I can see how he wants it to be. It's like the car has become a hearse, a royal blue hearse. Because this is Jack's last ride, along Marine Terrace, Margate, along the Golden Mile. Last ride of the day, eh Jack? Vince looks straight ahead, hands on the wheel, like he don't want no distractions. Mirage, Gold Mine, Ocean. They're all painted up and decked out like poor men's palaces, except one, at the end of the parade, looming over them all, a bare brick tower with just a few big words on it. It looks more like the way into a prison than a funfair. We've already passed it, but we all noticed, as we came down that hill, the big wheel rising up behind it and the big dipper, black and spindly against the grey sky. It's what Margate's famous for, it's what people come here for. Dreamland.
Amy
And the most I've wanted, the most I've hoped in fifty years, believe me I've never asked the earth, is that you should have looked at me, just once, and said, 'Mum.' It isn't much to have wished, all this time. Damn it, you're fifty years old. You shouldVe fled the nest by now, you shouldn't want me around, you should be leading a life of your own. For God's sake, Mum, I'm a big girl Well, all right then, go on then, big girl, have it your own way. It's your life, you go and ruin it.
I've tried to know what it's like to be you. To be in that Home always, which I only visit. To be in that body all the time, which I only look at twice a week. Which shouldn't be so difficult, should it, since it was once part of mine? Flesh of my. But I think when they snip that cord they snip off everything else too. They say, You're by yourself now, you're as different and as separate as all the others, it's hoo-ha thinking otherwise. And when I tot up all those twice-weekly visits, then it seems we haven't shared each other's company for much more than one whole year, which isn't much in fifty, which isn't much for mother and daughter. But if you look at it another way, it's one whole year of just visiting.
That's what I am, that's what I've been: a visitor. And when I went in to see Jack, in that little room, Vincey waiting outside, to visit Jack's body, like you could say I was a visitor to it when it was alive, but I haven't counted up the times in fifty years, I thought: What's the difference? He isn't ever going to turn into something else now, but don't kid yourself, Amy Dodds, that was just as true of Jack alive as dead.
So what was true of you, girl, was true of him. And maybe that's why he never came to see you, because he'd already visited himself, looked in on himself somehow in that little room where his own body lay, knowing he wouldn't alter. Maybe that was his sacrifice for your sake: no hope for you so none for him. His sacrifice of all those other Jacks he might have been. But pull the other one. Maybe Jack Dodds, my husband, was really a saint and I never knew it, I never cottoned on. And I was the weak and the selfish one. Hello Mum.
Best thing we can do, Ame, is
You bastard, you butcher.
I stood there with my hand on his cold forehead, cold as stone, thinking, This is the only Jack that ever was or will be, the one and only, my poor poor Jack. Thinking, They'll have fetched him out the fridge and they'll pop him back, like he used to do with his pork and beef. Say something, Jack, don't just go dead on me too.
Thinking, I've got to look strong and proud and steady for Vince. At least we gave that poor little hopeless bundle a home.
I said, 'Will you go in and see him too, Vincey?'
I've tried to know what it's like to be you, girl. To know what it's like to have missed what you've missed and not even know that you've missed it. I've tried to know if it would have been better or worse, if we'd known beforehand and if we'd had the choice, to have put you out of your misery before you even knew you were you. If you do know that you're you. So Jack and me would've been free to lead different lives, thanks to you having laid down yours. Your sacrifice.
Except it seems that course of action never did much good for Sally Tate, poor little missed-her-date Tate, not in the short term, nor in the long. It seems she just ended up visiting too. Jailbird of a husband. Then having visitors of her own, paying guests. It's a living, you can see what drives a woman to it. And Lenny Tate has turned his back, washed his hands. It's your life, you go and ruin it. Though his own life hasn't got so much left of it, by the look of him these days, he's a bit of a ruin himself. And whether Joan Tate has turned her back or not, or what she thinks, I don't know. Except I think she always knew Lenny had a soft spot for me.
And then there's the crime of it, as it was in those days, bad old days, a crime. Chop it up for you, missis? Though why crime, when a good half of the world, when you think about it, when you think of all the misery, must be wishing for a good half of the time it'd never been born? You and me should be so lucky, June, And anyhow the fact is, the sad fact is, that Sally really wanted Vince. And I hadn't stopped wanting Jack. Let's all go to Dreamland. Runner beans. Colander. Holes in your head an' all. This bus is crawling today. It must be the rain, turning the roads to rivers. Atrocious weather. But a bus always gets through. I'll be late today, girl, but it makes no difference, since when did you ever know about the time or the day? Even if sometimes on these Mondays and Thursdays I've thought that perhaps you're waiting. You're thinking, It's Monday, it's Thursday, so she'll be coming. I hope she's coming, I hope she never forgets.
And I don't want this journey to pass quickly anyway, not today. Time to think, while the bus chugs, time to prepare what I've got to say.