Lenny says, 'We could wait a bit. lack could spare a quarter of an hour.'
Vie says, 'It's not a passing shower. It's dirty weather setting in.'
Aye aye skipper.
Vince moves round to the boot to get his coat, leaving his door open. Cold air swirls round the car again, so does the niff of the seaside: tarry and bilgy and mucky, same time as it's zingy and clean. It smells like something you remember, like the seaside you remember, except I never got taken to no seaside. It's Tower Bridge Pier or nothing, Ray boy, for you and me. It smells like memory itself, like the inside of a lobster pot.
Vince comes round to where we can see him again. He's carrying all our coats and jackets, like he's Daddy again, but we don't move. I reckon it's because we're all scared. We're all scared all of a sudden. Vince bangs with his fist on the roof above Vie and Lenny, and Lenny ducks, instinctive, his mouth going flat and wide, his eyes going up and rolling, all froggy. 'Come on,' Vince says, 'let's go.' Then Vie opens his door and Vince hands him his coat. Then I open my door but I stay sitting, holding the jar as if it's too heavy to lift. Then Vince comes round to his open door to take the car keys, and drops my coat for me on his seat. I look at him, holding Jack, as if to say, Do you want? Would you like? And he says, 'Hold on to him, Ray,' as if he remembers he's already done some carrying and chucking, a bit of Jack which got lost on the way. 'Hold on to him.' Which means it'll be up to me. He says, 'I don't think we need the bag any more, do we?' So I pull out the jar and drop the bag at my feet. Jack Arthur Dodds. The rain's started to spit harder. Then I grab my coat and get out and Lenny opens his door and gets out. Vince hands him his coat and shuts his door, locking up. Then we're all standing in the wind and the noise of the sea, struggling to put on our clobber. I juggle with Jack while I get my cap on, jamming it tight against the wind, but I don't like to put him down on the tarmac. I can see the jar's going to get wet and slippery. Supposing I drop him? Vince is going bare-headed anyway, that slicked-back hair of his is all over the place, but I've put on my cap now and I wonder if I shouldVe done.
'Come on, come on,' he says, let's go.' And it don't seem such a contradiction all of a sudden that it's taken us all day to get here but now we've got to act quick. When you thought of it beforehand, pictured it in your mind's eye, you saw it all paced and slow and ceremonial, with Vie maybe offering a few tips, acting like a marshal, not all whirl and scramble and rush. It's true if we'd got here earlier, like we could've, there might've been calm, space, sunshine, time. But it's as though the weather was needed all along to push us to it, like the elements aren't so much against us as behind us. Like all the while we've been teetering and tottering towards some edge, and now there aint no more hanging back. On account of the heavens being about to open.
The Pier's wider than it looked from a distance, it's as wide as a road, which means maybe we won't get so soaked, not from the spray anyhow. On the seaward side, the side that ought to be taking the worst but isn't, there's a raised bit running all the way along, several feet higher, like a defence, except there's what looks like the remains of old railings and lamp-posts up there, rusty and stumpy, as if once long ago you might've taken a jaunty stroll along the top, if you didn't get blown away first. But now it's closed off, the steps up all crumbled, and down below, on the main level, where we're walking, there's signs saying THIS LAND is PRIVATE - TRESPASS AT YOUR OWN RISK. So We'd haVC OUT CXCUSC for turning round and backing out. No go, Jack, we'd've been trespassing. Except who's going to stop us, day like today? No one else around. And, any case, special circs, special request, special mission. It's like another whip to drive us on.
It's broad and it's solid. I'm glad it aint a jetty, sea thrashing around underneath. But it's potholed and patched and uneven, it wouldn't be an easy walk at the best of times. In the inner wall of the raised bit there are arched bays clogged with rubble and rusty cans and litter, and further on, where the raised bit gets higher, there are lock-ups and lean-tos butting up against it, for storing God knows what, the paint on some of them weathered right off, the woodwork underneath all grey and feathery.
It looks like a dump, that's what it looks like.
It's about two hundred yards long, two hundred and fifty, but Jack said the end, he specified the end. We walk on, spread out, but as if it's the weather that's forcing us apart, it's not our choosing, as if each of us is fighting his own little fight with the elements. We keep to the right, away from the drop to the sea and the beating of the spray, but now and then great showers of it carry to us, flecks stinging our faces, the main offering slapping down with a noise like gravel being flung. Up ahead, on the inside of the curve of the Pier, you can see the waves slicing in and forming peaks, each one like a mad animal trying to scurry up on to the flat surface, lashing out with its tail when it realizes it can't. We don't speak. We can't speak, strung out from each other, but I reckon I couldn't speak anyway. Because there's something swelling up inside me, in my chest, where I'm holding Jack under my car-coat, like there's waves beating at my own harbour wall.
I hadn't expected it, I hadn't reckoned on it. It's like a part of me's taking charge of me, telling me what to do, telling me how to act.
Vince is walking ahead, maybe four yards, purposeful, one hand thrust in his coat pocket, the other holding his collar to his throat. There's the mud of Kent on his trousers. Vie has drawn level with him but off to the left, as if he's not bothered by a bit of extra spray. His head's up and there's a set to his face that could almost be a smile. And Lenn/s somewhere behind me, or I hope he is. I ought to turn round, give him a helping hand, grab him by the arm and pull him along, which wouldn't be easy, holding Jack as well. But it's Vince who suddenly stops and turns, to check on us stragglers, and as I carry on walking it's him I grab by the arm, not worrying about Jack, my other arm and the feeling in my chest are taking care of Jack. I grab his arm, pulling it, squeezing it, and as I draw up close to him I say, Tve got your thousand. I'll give you back your thousand. I'll explain.' And I'm glad that all the noise and commotion mean there can't be no lengthy conversation, and that all the spray flying about means that Vincey can't be sure of what's going on in my face. But the look in Vincey's face is like simple plain relief, like light's suddenly splashed across it. It's like he can wait for the full story but right now he's shot of some little nagging side-problem and he can give the matter at hand his full attention. We both turn and look at Lenny, hunched, hobbling, flame-faced, battling towards us. He draws level and he says, 'I reckon Amy made the right decision after all.'
We move on, slipping back into our own separate spaces, Vie several yards ahead now. It looks like Vic's going to win this race. Victor. And as we carry on it's like the rain decides it's time it fell proper at last. Nothing changes in the sky but the rain just starts to rain in earnest. It sweeps in on the wind as if it's tired of the spray making a poor job of wetting us, so in seconds we're soaked and it's running off our noses and chins, but I'm not sorry about that. And either the wind takes away some of the weight of the rain or the rain cuts through the force of the wind, because it's like with the rain everything gets softer, safer, like we're in the thick and there's nothing more that can be chucked at us now. The light's all dim and gauzy across the bay as if mere's furls of giant lace curtains swirling about in it, and the waves don't look so angry any more, and maybe Vie was wrong about it not being a passing shower because low down in the sky in the distance, inland, there's a faint thin gleam. We choose our moments.