Last Orders (17 page)

To run away from home and find another home in less than a day, though the new home wasn’t a real home, any more than the one I left. The new home was all the opposite of what it seemed: a son whose home it wasn’t but it was, a daughter whose home it was but it wasn’t because she had to be kept in a Home, a mum and dad who weren’t really a mum and dad, except to me.

Why should I have fitted into that? Why shouldn’t I have taken off again like a shot? When the world was saying anyway everything is changing now, everything goes. It couldn’t have just been him, Vince. That we were somehow, underneath it all, like
brother
and
sister
, worse, father and daughter. Just back from the Middle East, ‘from the bleeding garden of Aden, sweetheart,’ with his kit-bag slung in a corner of that bedroom he’d hardly moved back into before he moved out again for me. ‘V. I. Dodds.’ The smell of him in there, sweat and engine oil and Senior Service. Tattoos up his arm. ‘You can lick ’em but they won’t come off.’ So it was like
committing incest
, like throwing the whole thing open, like being dangerous where you ought to be most safe. Safe as houses. And in a camper-van too, Uncle Ray’s camper, like a pair of gypsies.

Blackburn to Bermondsey, aiming high. But that’s where I stayed and that’s what I became. Vince’s floozy, Vince’s wife, Vince’s sister, daughter, mother, his whole family. And Jack and Amy’s little grown-up girl. So it’s as though I don’t know any more who that lassie on the A5 was. As though
in those twelve hours on the road I might have been about to become anyone. What do you want to be, Mandy? November ’67. The year of Sergeant Pepper. Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire. It wasn’t Wednesday morning at five o’clock, it was Thursday evening at eight o’clock. But I couldn’t help carrying that song in my head, like my theme tune:
She’s leaving home, bye, bye.

He said, ‘A doodlebug.’

I said, ‘What?’

He said, ‘A buzz-bomb. V-1. Flattened the house, killed ’em all, except me. I aint who you think I am, I aint Vince Dodds.’

I thought, I could have guessed that. Not just from the way you look but from the way you keep to your own separate space, from the way you were so ready to move out and kip down in this camper-van. But that was a sly move, wasn’t it, Vince, a crafty move?

She can sleep in my room.

And what about you, Vincey?

I’ll think of something.

I thought of saying to him, ‘I’m not who you think I am either.’ Because I don’t know who Mandy Black is, not yet, I’m discovering.

But I’d already told Jack, sitting there in that meat van while we did a sort of dawn tour of London: ‘I’m not who I said I was, my name’s not Judy. It’s Mandy, Mandy Black, from Blackburn.’ And he said, ‘So who’s Judy?’ And I said, ‘No one.’

Old Bailey, St Paul’s, London Bridge, the light breaking over the grey river.

Vince said, ‘My real name’s not Dodds, it’s Pritchett.’

I felt him shrinking, slipping inside me. I sank down so my face was on his chest.

He said, ‘It aint no secret. It’s a known fact. Except he tries to pretend it never was a fact.’

‘Who?’

He said, ‘Old man. I mean, Jack. Why d’you think I took off in the first place? Why d’you think I joined up? Because I wasn’t going to be no Vince Dodds. I wasn’t going to be no butcher’s boy.’

I said, ‘But you came back.’

He said, ‘I came back to show ‘im.’

I said, ‘It’s easier for men. They can go and be soldiers, they can run away to sea.’

He said, ‘You ever done a stretch in Aden?’

I started to lick his tattoos. One of them said ‘V.I.P.’, with a fist and a thunderbolt. I said, ‘It says “Dodds” on your kit-bag. So what are you going to be, Vince? What do you want to be?’ And he said, ‘Motors.’

I said, ‘Motors?’

He said, ‘You saw that old Jag in the yard, didn’t you? ’59, Mark 9. It’s a start, aint it? Aint any old jam-jar, it’s a Jag. I’ll make it like new again.’

Then he told me about motors, he told me all about motors.

I thought, It’s never how you picture it, never how you picture it at all. Me and Judy Battersby knocking around the West End, getting picked up by a couple of fellers in a rock band.

A butcher’s van, an ex-soldier with oil under his fingernails. Meeting a man from the motor trade.

He said one day Jack would come crawling to him, I’d see.

I licked the hairs on his chest.

I said, ‘How do you know I’m who you think I am, either? How do you know my names really Mandy Black? I could be anyone too, couldn’t I?’

I put my hand on his sticky cock.

He said, ‘I aint teasing you, I aint having you on. I’m telling you so you know what’s what. I’m telling you so you don’t get no wrong ideas. That’s fair, aint it?’

I said, ‘Yes.’

‘That’s only honest.’

I said, ‘Yes, Vince.’

He said, ‘I was only three months, I didn’t know nothing, did I?’

I felt his cock stiffening under my hand.

‘I’m telling you so you’ll be prepared.’

‘Prepared?’

‘He’ll try and do the same with you. They’ll try and do the same with you.’

I said, ‘What?’

‘I bet it even suits them that you and me are doing this.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘So I won’t want to move on again, you neither. So we’ll have to show ’em, together. We’ll have to stay put and scarper at the same time.’

I said, ‘How do you do that?’

He said, ‘Motors.’

It felt safe in that camper, like a hiding-place.

I said, ‘What are you talking about?’

He rolled me over and shoved into me and I lifted my knees and gripped him.

He said, ‘They haven’t told you, have they? Course they haven’t. You don’t know the half yet, do you?’

*

It’s never how you picture it. Mrs Vincent Dodds, Mrs Dodds Autos. A husband in the motor trade, a daughter on the hustle.

The bright lights of London. There were bright lights all right. There were these rows of long, tall buildings, each of them lit up like a fairground, each of them full of meat and men and din, as if the men were shouting at the meat and the meat was shouting back. And outside it was still dark, extra dark because of the brightness inside, the air full of wet murk. There were lorries throbbing and reversing, the drizzle like sparks in their lights, and doors being swung open and puddles shining red and white, and more meat, on barrows, on shoulders, being lugged into the brightness, the men doing the lugging all streaked and smeared with blood, their faces red and glistening as the loads they were carrying. I thought, Jesus Christ, Mandy Black, where have you come to? And the noise like some mad language, as if it might as well have been the meat still yelling and protesting, still kicking, except that coming out of it I heard that voice, sounding unreal because I’d heard it before on the telly, on the radio, like a voice no one ever really used, but here they were all using it, natural as breathing, as if this was the very spot it came out of, the very spot. Cockney. Cockneys. Cock. Knees. Why do men from London get stiff in the legs?

He said, ‘Smithfield Market, love. All meat and mouth, all beef and grief. I’ve got work to do but see up there,’ and he pointed, leaning across the cab, leaning across me, putting an arm behind me. Penny’s caff. Good cuppa, good bacon sandwich. Stick around, I’ll see you there,’ and he winked.

The noise changed as I clambered down. It drew back then closed in on me like waves. Slop, slap, slurp, look what
Mick brought in. Like wading out at Morecambe, trying to keep your fanny dry till the last moment. I walked towards the caff, pushing my way through meat and men and noise, and if I’m honest, what I was thinking then, in the middle of my great adventure, was: I’ll wait for him, my driver Mick, I’ll cadge a breakfast off him, I’ll go along with whatever nudgings, noddings and pretendings he wants to fit me into. Then I’ll say, quietly, with a flash or two of the eyelashes, ‘Can you take me back? Can you take me as far north as you’re going?’

I never thought that an hour from then I’d be carried off to my future, to the rest of my life, in a butcher’s van. By a big, round-armed, round-edged, big-voiced man who was like some uncle I never knew I had, who was like some man on the spot who’d been waiting specially for me to arrive. ‘You come to the right place, sweetheart. ‘Eart of London, Smithfield, life and death, Smithfield. See that over there? That’s the Old Bailey. I’ll take you by the scenic route, since you aint never seen none of it before. ‘Op in.’

St Paul’s, London Bridge, the Tower, like things that weren’t ever real. The grey, wet light it all seemed made for. He slowed down, crossing the bridge. He said, ‘You live in it all your life, then one day you notice it.’ Then he said, ‘Want a job in a butcher’s shop? Quid a day, plus board and lodging.’

I said, ‘My name’s not Judy.’

He looked at me long and hard. ‘And mine aint mud.’

And my breakfast date never showed up anyhow, or if he did, I never saw him, he never tried to come between Jack Dodds and me.

The smell, that had you trapped, of frying bacon. Steam and smoke and gab and cackle. Heads turning, smirking.
All pork and talk. I thought, This is worse than outside. All with that look on their faces like you were a sight for sore eyes but at the same time you’d invaded their precious territory. All chomping and guzzling and big and blood-smeared and butchery. Except one. Except for this odd little feller in a grey raincoat, a collar and tie showing underneath, who looked as out of his way as I did, who sat stirring and stirring his tea and peered up at me as if his thoughts were far away but I might have just stepped out of them. I thought, Buy me a breakfast, little man, buy me a breakfast. You look as though I could handle you. You look sad and safe enough to buy me breakfast, as if you don’t use food yourself.

So I sat down opposite him, at the table he seemed to be saving for someone else, and he was just about to say something, still stirring his tea like it would set solid if he didn’t, when in came these other three he seemed to know. And one of them was bigger than the others, even bigger, and put himself to the front like a sergeant, and I thought, I don’t know why but you know these things when you see them, I could be taken in hand by this man. He looked at me, then at the little man, then he looked at me again, like I can remember men of a certain age looking at me once, but not any more, Mandy Dodds, like they wished they were ten years younger but they’re facing the fact that they’re old enough to be your father. Then he looked again, smiling, slyly, at the little man, who said, clearing his throat, flustered, ‘This is—’ So I said, ‘I’m Judy. From Blackburn.’

I saw the little pause in the big one’s face. Then he spoke, in that too loud, too bold voice, that didn’t know, that had never learned and never would and wouldn’t care if it did, that it was too loud and too bold, that wouldn’t ever be
afraid of being heard: ‘This is Ted. This is Joe. I’m Jack Dodds. And you’ve met Ray. You’re all right with Ray. Ray’s in insurance, Ray’s lucky, small but lucky. He needs a good feeding up an’ all.’

I’ll duff Hussein over too, same as Lenny, if he don’t come good. I’ll get him by his brown bollocks. One for the Merc and one for going cold on Kath.

The price of the motor and a thousand over, then we’re all clean.

I’ve got to pay for this suit, this poxed-up suit.

Otherwise it’s fist-in-the-face time, I hope he understands that. And I won’t just go soft and easy on him, I won’t just go through the motions, like with old left-hook Lenny here, old jam-face Tate. We aren’t talking fruit and vegetables.

I don’t even have to do it myself. There’s people.

And anyhow I think he knows I hate his guts. That’s half the pleasure of it for him. It aint just cars and pussy. It’s that he knows I’ve got to smile and lay it on thick and act like I’m his humble servant when what I’m thinking is, You towel-head toe-rag, we used to shoot your lot when we was in Aden. And your lot used to take off squaddies’ heads.

The sergeant said, ‘We do engines, we don’t do bodywork.’

It’s that he knows he’s got me where he wants me. It’s that he knows somehow just by looking – because I aint ever told him, but I suppose Kath has, I suppose she would have gone and done – that there I was once, showing the flag, oiling the rag, in that stinking, flyblown heat-trap he’d be at home in, and now here he is at the bottom end of Bermondsey Street, slipping across from his City glasshouse, getting me to find him fancy cars, getting me to say,
‘Right you are, Mr Hussein, yes sir, Mr Hussein,’ at a wave of his wallet.

Oil for oil, that’s what I call it, oil for bleeding oil. And all it is is his kind of fun.

There goes Vince Dodds who sold his daughter to an Ayrab.

He comes in, that first time, with his coat draped over his shoulders and his shades tucked in his top pocket and I can see he don’t have to slum it. They’re feeling the squeeze in the City, so I’m going up-market while they’re going down, but that aint this one’s caper. He don’t have to deal with Dodds Autos, he could buy motors in Berkeley Square. Except he’s got what they’ve all got, if you ask me. Haggle fever, call of the old bazaar.

All I’ve got to interest him is an ‘85 Granada Scorpio and he sniffs round it for a bit, more than he needs if he aint going to cut cake, but I see him looking at Kath, I see him clocking her as much as he clocks the car. She’s sitting there in the office, behind the partition, with the door wide open, and it aint my fault she’s wearing a skirt like an armband and a tight white T-shirt, and where he comes from they dress ’em up like nuns. It aint my fault she’s grown up from being my little girl Kath, that she’s eighteen and out of school and can’t get no job. I said, You can work in the showroom, if you like, if it’ll get you off your arse.

So I let him hover another thirty seconds till I can tell what makes him tick, good and proper. Women, motors and haggling. That’s fair, them’s fair hobbies. Then I go over, slow, unpushy, and say, ‘Can I help you, sir?’ And he looks at me, and one eye’s saying he don’t want to bother with the likes of me, he aint interested in a three-year-old Ford, and the other’s still trying to peek round my shoulder at Kath.