That’s one way out, because how can I face the lads when they ask me where the money’s gone? ‘Touch a penny of that dough, for liquorice allsorts or fizzy lemonade — or even cream buns — and don’t come back here again.’ Jack Montgomery’s joke was laughed at by everybody in the meeting, Parsons included, who liked a hee-haw as much as the next man, though there would be no such jollity when he got back, so he might just as well make the best of his time in Fullstop Alley and get senseless. ‘Another bottle of champagne, Fred.’
‘He thinks God takes care of sots and kids,’ Percy said, ‘but I wouldn’t bank on it. God only looks after those who think summat of themselves. You can get blindo in your own house, but to booze yourself into a wet cabbage when we’re all in such dire peril, well, I reckon the Almighty wouldn’t countenance a worm like you. If He did He’d be no God.’ His fist waved, and Parsons’ head subsided under the onslaught. ‘Look at him. He knows who I mean. Only the lowest of the low don’t care whether he lives or dies.’
‘Everybody’s entitled to do what they like with their lives,’ Jenny said, thinking what an awful old bore he was.
Her remark stirred up more of Percy’s venom. ‘Nobody can backslide into not wanting to keep on keeping on, not even me, and I’m the eldest here by a long shot.’
‘Now stop it, Father. Don’t overexcite yourself.’
‘Overexcite myself be damned.’ He was off again. They looked on, wanting to stop him but unable to do anything about it short of, Keith thought, killing him, though if he went on much longer that was precisely what he would get up and do. ‘I’m just showing a bit of responsibility, which seems to be seriously lacking in this snowbound den. I’ll bet he’s got a wife and children, though I expect they hate his guts, and think him the biggest ninny in the world, and wish he wouldn’t come back whenever he goes out of the house. Still, he ought to stay sober and help the rest of us.’
The old man’s breath was grinding for renewal, and Sally thought his problem might be over sooner than most, though it was a pity he was using Parsons to commit suicide. The total attention he demanded made it difficult to get the conversation back to Daniel who, she knew, was thinking of her in his cold attic, and wanting to be comforted in his loneliness.
Percy lay back, head sculptured against the armchair, face drained of life, a noise out of his mouth like fingernails scraping along zinc. Keith thought he was becoming a nuisance, because you couldn’t tell who he would begin to demoralize next, and his death wouldn’t be much loss. In any case, if they had to run into the snow he wouldn’t live, so he might do well to snuff it in relative comfort.
Parsons found no joy in drinking the champagne. The first wash into his mouth could have been Dandelion and Burdock for all he knew, though Sally said it tasted fine when he pushed a glass disconsolately across. Alfred unlooped his father’s tie and pulled the collar apart, the old man’s eyes blue like the flame out of an acetylene welding torch, which he flashed again on Parsons. ‘God gave you life, and only God can take it away, and you’re seeking refuge in the product of the heathen Bacchus. He won’t help you, no matter how much you might think so.’
Parsons became more himself as the champagne took effect. ‘Mind your own business. It’s got bugger-all to do with you. Nor with God, either, as far as I’m concerned.’
A touch of pride had coloured Alfred’s overweight face at his father’s renewed tirade, and he placed a hand on his shoulder to stop him getting up. ‘He used to do a bit of preaching at the chapel, but the young ’uns didn’t take to him, when there was anybody there at all. He was a bit too straight for them.’
Parsons should have known he’d been a bloody old Bible thumper. Nevertheless, he had betrayed a sacred trust of the union, which was the nearest to God he himself would ever get, and spent a few hundred quid of the money which a benefactor had insisted should be collected in cash. Now that he had done it he could only tell them he was sorry, though mea bloody culpa would cut little ice.
Wayne came in from sentry duty looking petulant after his inactivity in the half dark, furthest away as if, Sally thought, to have a good view and decide who he should be unpleasant to next.
Parsons’ bottle had been more than half emptied by Jenny and her biker pal pledging their love, so he asked for another, thinking he might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb. If he had to sell up his furniture to pay the Union back, what was another chair more or less? At least it wasn’t something that would see the wife out.
‘He’s even brazen enough to laugh at what he’s doing.’
‘Have a drink yourself,’ Lance called. ‘You’ve had some pot already, Dad. Chase it down with a tot of bubbly.’
‘Don’t encourage him,’ Alfred said. ‘It’s not right.’
‘He’s over twenty-one, ain’t he?’
Wayne was bored, as well as tired and cold. ‘A hundred and twenty-one, if you ask me.’
Halfway out of his chair, Percy smiled at the joke. ‘I can still give you young ’uns a run for your money.’
‘Let’s have a trot round the room, then,’ Lance said. ‘It might warm all of us up.’
‘Leave him alone,’ Alfred said.
Percy reached for the glass which Lance pushed across. ‘I can take care of myself.’
‘Like a cat in a sack in a river,’ Wayne laughed.
‘He’s a good old sport,’ Lance said. ‘He should have two pension books at his age. I’d vote for it.’
Before Alfred got to him, Wayne leapt over a chair and knocked him back along the floor. ‘You were going to hit my mate, weren’t you? That’s naughty. It’s not on.’
‘Sit down,’ Jenny said to Lance.
‘You young bastards!’ Alfred called. ‘I’ll have you for that.’
Keith prevented a second hit as Wayne went forward again. ‘Leave him alone. Save it till we’re out of here. If you feel like it then, it’s up to you.’
Wayne hadn’t done halfway towards enough. If you thought something was enough you were weakening, and you did yourself no good at all. Alfred was used to bossing people around, but if he couldn’t take a friendly bit of chaff about his own father he should stay in his bungalow with his dogs, and make sure the fire extinguishers worked, in case there was a nasty accident one dark night.
‘Don’t think I won’t settle the score,’ Alfred said. ‘This isn’t the end of the world.’
‘It’ll be the end of you if you don’t stop threatening me. We were having a joke. We weren’t hurting anybody.’
‘I think you should be quiet,’ Keith told Alfred, which set a momentary silence over all of them. Percy’s face, in sleep, lost twenty years of his age, and he wasn’t awake to comment when the lights went out, and stayed that way.
TWENTY-FOUR
At the sound of fighting, Daniel spoke to the palpable ghosts he imagined were crowding him in: Let them kill each other, and when they’re dead I can go down and make my way into the countryside, where it will be better to die than stay here in the dark, though a dozen fleecy sheep in the lee of a Derbyshire wall might still save my shepherd’s life.
The chimney structure was warm from the fire downstairs, though his feet were cold. Time had no value. The air was bleak in the space he could sense but not see, more space than he had ever possessed, his body slowly expanding to fill it. He would be here for sufficient time to reach the bounds and burst through. Only then would he know why he was on earth, a boon never to be conferred on those who quarrelled while deciding how to dispose of him.