Last Orders (30 page)

‘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 Vic 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 have our excuse
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. Vic 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 Lenny’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, ‘I’ve 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, Vic 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 there’s furls of giant lace curtains swirling about in it, and the waves don’t look so angry any more, and maybe Vic 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.

It’s not far to go now. I don’t know if I say it spoken or just in my head but I say it, ‘Not far to go now, Jack,’ holding him inside my wet coat, ‘nearly there.’ And, now we’ve come right round the arm of the Pier, you can look across through the murk at the centre of Margate like we’re on opposite shores, different lands. You can see Marine Terrace and the parade of arcades we passed earlier, with their sprinkled lights, like little toy buildings trying to wave at us, trying to say, Here we are. And behind them, against the pale band in the sky, you can see the outline of the big wheel and the dipper and even imagine there’s some mad buggers up there right now, in the swaying seats, in the rattling cars, screaming and shrieking in the wind and the rain like they’re crazier than we are.

Vic has reached the end. He stands there for a moment looking out. Captain on the bridge. Up above him, on the raised section, there’s a harbour light on a tower like a miniature lighthouse, but where he’s standing it looks like there’s just a stone platform and a drop. He starts to pace about, waiting for us. It seems right that Vic’s there first,
to inspect the pitch, check the facilities, it wouldn’t do if something wasn’t up to scratch. We come up to him and he turns and looks at us, standing square and straight, like the wind’s decided to go round him, and gives us one of his all-present-and-correct smiles. He’s looking specially at me.

He says, ‘Here we are.’ But there aint nothing here but huge great slabs of stone laid as flags, all pocked and pitted and puddly, and a low granite parapet, like kerbstones, half broken away, and the wind and the rain and the spray. On one side the waves are smacking and crashing, and on the other they’re gurgling and clucking like they’re trying to apologize. One way there’s Margate and Dreamland, the other there’s the open sea. Except it aint just the open sea, because now we can peer round the end of the raised bit, we can see it: a rusty mass of old iron-work sticking up out of the water about three hundred yards out, the waves surging around it, like what’s left of a fallen-in bridge.

‘It’s the Jetty,’ Vince says, shouting against the wind. ‘It’s the Jetty, the bit that never got swept away.’

I hear Lenny say, ‘Today could be the day.’

We’re at the end and I’m holding Jack. I reckon you know what to do at the end. I always thought there’d be a pause, a time for gathering up your last thoughts, and someone might want to say some words and give a sign. There’d be this hesitation like when you sit down to eat with strange people and you look this way and that because you aint sure if they’re the sort who say grace. But I don’t hesitate. I get out the jar from under my coat, Jack Arthur Dodds, and I don’t say nothing, cradling the jar in my arm, unscrewing the cap, like there’s nothing else for it, and as I do, the rain starts to ease, like a gap’s opened up in it just long enough for the disposing of a man’s ashes, and that’s sign enough.
We’re at the end. I said, ‘What was he doing at the end?’ Amy said, ‘He was sitting up in bed listening to the radio, and then, the nurse said, he took off his headphones, all neat and careful, and said, “That’s it then. That’s all right then,” and she went off just for a moment to do something and when she came back he was dead.’ I unscrew the cap and shove it in my pocket, then I hold out the jar, turning my back to the wind, and I say, ‘Come on then,’ like I’m holding out a tin of sweets or doling out rations. Careful now, one at a time, there’s only room for one hand at a time. Lenny dips in first and takes out a handful, sifts of it slipping through his fingers, and Vic says, ‘Keep your hands as dry as you can,’ wiping his own hands on a handkerchief, and I realize what he means. It’s so Jack don’t stick to us, it’s so we don’t get Jack stuck to our hands. But I haven’t got no handkerchief, I aint never thought. Today of all days, I never thought about no handkerchief. Then Vic puts in his hand and takes out a scoop. Then Vince pushes up his sleeve but hesitates, like he’s going to say, ‘After you, Raysy,’ because he’s had a go already, he’s dipped in already, or because he just wants me to go first. But I can see it aint going to be easy, holding the wet jar as well, so I say, ‘Go on, Vincey, go on.’ And he takes a scoop and they all move off to the lee edge of the parapet, holding their hands out cupped and tight like they’ve each got little birds to set free and we’ve all got to do it together, so they’re waiting for me. Vic says, ‘I wouldn’t go too near the edge, if I was you. The wind’ll take it, let the wind take it,’ as if we’re that daft. He’ll be handing out life-belts next. And I know I’ve got to do it quick, like scattering seed, only having the one hand free, so I move towards the parapet, angling the jar away from the wind, then I dip into the jar and draw up a handful
to the neck. It’s soft and grainy at the same time, and almost white, it’s like white soft sand on a beach. Then I whip out my hand and throw. They must all have thrown at the same time but I aint looking at them, I’m looking at what I’ve thrown. I say, ‘Goodbye Jack.’ I say it to the wind. And they say, ‘Goodbye Jack.’

It’s true what Vic said. The wind takes it, it’s gone in a whirl, in a flash. Now you see it, now you don’t. Then I take the jar in both hands again, giving a quick peek inside, and say, ‘Come on, come on.’ They all huddle round to take another scoop. There isn’t much more than four men can scoop out twice over. They dip in again, one by one. Lucky dip. And I dip and we all throw again, a thin trail of white, like smoke, before it’s gone, and some seagulls swoop in from nowhere and veer off again like they’ve been tricked. Then I know there’s not enough for another share-out, another full round, so I just start scooping myself, they don’t seem to mind. I scoop and scoop like some animal scratching out its burrow, and I know in the end I’m going to have to hold up the jar and bang it like you do when you get to the bottom of a box of cornflakes. One handful, two handfuls, there’s only two handfuls. I say, ‘Goodbye Jack.’ The sky and the sea and the wind are all mixed up together but I reckon it wouldn’t make no difference if they weren’t because of the blur in my eyes. Vic and Vincey’s faces look like white blobs but Lenny’s looks like a beacon, and across the water you can see the lights of Margate. You can stand on the end of Margate Pier and look across to Dreamland. Then I throw the last handful and the seagulls come back on a second chance and I hold up the jar, shaking it, like I should chuck it out to sea too, a message in a bottle, Jack Arthur Dodds, save our souls, and the ash that I carried in my
hands, which was the Jack who once walked around, is carried away by the wind, is whirled away by the wind till the ash becomes wind and the wind becomes Jack what we’re made of.

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:

Acuff-Rose Musk, Inc., and Hal Leonard Corporation:
Excerpts from ‘Blue Bayou’ by Roy Orbison and Joe Melson, copyright © 1961, copyright renewed 1989, by Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., Barbara Orbison Music Company, Orbi-Lee Music, and R-Key Darkus Music. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., and Hal Leonard Corporation on behalf of Barbara Orbison Music Company, Orbi-Lee Music, and R-Key Darkus Music.

Essex Music, Inc.:
Excerpts from ‘The Gipsy in My Soul’ words by Moe Jaffe, music by Clay Boland, TRO-copyright © 1937 (copyright renewed) by Essex Music, Inc., and Words and Music, Inc., New York, NY. Reprinted by permission of Essex Music, Inc.

Gil Music Corp.:
Excerpt from ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, copyright © 1963, 1964 by Nothern Songs Ltd., London, copyright renewed. International copyright secured. Made in U.S.A. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Gil Music Corp.

Making an Elephant
Tomorrow
The Light of Day
Last Orders
Ever After
Out of This World
Waterland
Learning to Swim
Shuttlecock
The Sweet-Shop Owner

G
RAHAM
S
WIFT
was born in 1949 in London, where he still lives and works. He is the author of eight previous novels:
The Sweet-Shop Owner; Shuttlecock
, which received the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize;
Waterland
, which was short-listed for the Booker Prize and won the Guardian Fiction Award, the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize, and the Italian Premio Grinzane Cavour;
Out of This World; Ever After
, which won the French Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger;
Last Orders
, which was awarded the Booker Prize;
The Light of Day;
and, most recently,
Tomorrow
. He is also the author of
Learning to Swim
, a collection of short stories, and
Making an Elephant
, a book of essays, portraits, poetry, and reflections on his life in writing. His work has been translated into more than thirty languages.