‘Get off, Joe,’ I said. ‘You mean?’
‘I don’t mean what you mean,’ he said, ‘all that came to an end long ago, except for the very occasional Sunday afternoon.’
‘How does it feel when that stops, Joe?’ I said. ‘It must be awful.’
‘It’s a relief, mate, a relief,’ said Joe. ‘You’ll find when you get my age you go in more for relief than for pleasure.’
‘How do you mean, Joe?’ I said. It was a new tack.
‘Once you turn sixty,’ said Joe, ‘pain starts gettin’ at you from every end. All you look for from life is a bit of relief. Nothing else.’
‘You mean you ain’t interested in crumpet any more, Joe!’ I said.
‘It hardly ever crosses my mind,’ said Joe. ‘The only time it does is when you begin to wonder why you ever knocked yourself out so much all over a miserable two-three minutes of skin rubbing with one another. I’ll admit there’s the odd little memory of a particularly good one, but you’d be surprised out of all the tens of thousands of times you’ve done it how few times come back to mind.’
‘How come you couldn’t get sleep then without the missus?’ I said. They can be very depressing some of these old geezers, the things they come out with.
‘She used to put her legs over mine in bed, she’d varicose veins, see,’ said Joe. ‘It was uncomfortable at first but somehow I got used to it. I don’t half miss them legs. Anyway I find driving at nights ain’t no pleasure, what with all the lights and my eyes getting a bit dicey, and all these young villains about these days, so I packs the whole thing in. I’m what you call financially independent.’
‘You’re on a soft number, Joe,’ I said.
Joe shook his head. ‘I ain’t. It’s bloody awful. You don’t know how to fill your time in.’
‘Don’t you like a drink, Joe?’
‘The old stomach won’t stand it. I come over in acidity. It’s all the fumes I swallowed and the meals I missed.’
‘Here, didn’t I understand the last time I saw you, you were going off on one of these eight-day coach trips to Paris?’ I said.
‘I came back on the second day by train,’ he said. ‘The food was upsetting my stomach. Then I couldn’t get my missus out of my mind. I kept thinking how she was always longing to go on a little holiday and somehow I never took her on one. It was like she was looking over my shoulder all the time.’
Remorse, see. So if a woman hasn’t got you when she’s alive she’s got you when she’s dead. Lily, Harry’s little wife, arrived just then, all hot and bothered. Joe turned away from me to watch them. He seemed to like the little scene.
‘Oh, I’m ever so sorry I’m late, Harry!’ said Lily. ‘I couldn’t help it!’
‘It’s all right,’ said Harry.
‘I started from home early enough. Then everything went wrong at the station. You look worried.’
‘I was only worried for fear something might have happened to you,’ said Harry. ‘I’m all right now you’ve come.’
I waved across to Lily and she smiled back. She’d quite a sweet little face when she smiled. Course, they’re only interested in their husbands, women like that. It’s a kind of ‘poor-you’ smile they give, what a pity you ain’t got a nice little wife like me to look after you. She went on telling Harry about how she couldn’t make up her mind whether she should take a taxi or not after she’d helped an old lady off the train with her luggage. Then she began to empty her basket and although old Joe was supposed to be talking to me he kept watching them.
‘There’s your new laid eggs,’ she said, ‘and there’s your digestive biscuits, and there’s your home-made marmalade.’ Those bloody great chunks of peel in it. No wonder poor Harry don’t get well.
‘What did Doctor say,’ she said. ‘Is he satisfied with you?’
‘He says I’m not doing too badly,’ said Harry. ‘I might soon be an up case.’ More like a bloody nut case, I thought to myself, the way you’re going on. I mean he’d been waiting there a half an hour for her and never said a word when she arrived. I’d have given her a good rucking, I would. Helping some old lady off with her luggage and she misses the bus whilst her poor husband with his face all washed has his eyes skinned for a sight of her. It’s keeping things to yourself makes people ill in my opinion. Out with it.
‘Did that bloke come about that smell down at the bottom of the garden?’ said Harry. The great romantic, I thought. His wife comes to visit him once a week and all he can think of is the smell down at the bottom of the garden.
‘Yes, he thinks it might be trouble with the main drain,’ said Lily. ‘How were your last X-rays?’
‘I think they must be improving,’ said Harry. ‘Now whilst he’s there will you ask him to look at that loose gutter near the back chimney. I’ve been worrying that it might fall on you and the kids one day.’ Yes, I thought, kill the bleeding lot of ’em and get ’em out of the way.
‘Was your sputum test all right, Harry?’ she said.
‘They’re waiting for the results. Are you managing all right? I mean, can you keep going?’
‘Oh, that’s all right. Yes, everything’s going fine,’ she said. It had a dead hollow ring.
‘I mean, about money?’
‘I tell you we’re all right.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, certain.’
‘Did my mother come round?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Was everything all right?’
‘She seemed a bit put out because I hadn’t made the kids a big cooked dinner.’
‘She’s mad about Sunday dinners.’
It’s a pity she didn’t give you a few more, I thought.
‘I suppose she means well.’
I couldn’t bear to hear any more so I turned to Joe. ‘They’re trying to get through to one another, Joe,’ I said, ‘but it ain’t easy with their sort of mentality.’
‘I envy ’em,’ said Joe. ‘I’d swop places with him any day in the week.’
Here was a bloke retired, with any amount of money and I can see he means it when he talks about swopping places with Harry. So that shows how much money means.
‘Know what, Joe,’ I said, ‘I ain’t had a single visitor since I came in here. I keep ’em away – I tell them all I’m on silence.’
‘Why, who’d come to visit you?’ said Joe. He was making out he was only taking the mickey, but I could see he meant it. ‘I tumbled you, Alfie,’ he said, ‘the first time I talked to you.’
‘Tumbled what?’ I said.
‘Do me a favour,’ he said.
‘How do you mean, Joe?’ I said.
‘Never mind how I mean,’ he said. ‘I know your sort – all for Number One. They’ll wear it whilst you’re your age – but wait till you get mine. You won’t have a bleedin’ friend in the world.’
I thought he was coming it a bit strong. ‘Who – me?’ I said, ‘I’ve got more birds than—’
‘I said friends,’ he said. ‘Know what, one woman came round to try and get me to go down to the Darby and Joan Club. “You might find a Joan,” she said. “I found my Joan forty years ago,” I told her. “I don’t ever want to find another.”’
‘Ain’t you never thought of going to live at the seaside, Joe?’ I said. I don’t mind talking about myself, but I don’t like others talking about me. I always say nobody understands you like yourself.
‘What, on my own!’ he said. ‘It’d be a living death. Besides, ain’t you never seen one of those places in the winter? Another thing, I don’t know how it is, but I can’t get myself to make a will.’
‘Why’s that, Joe?’ I said.
‘It’s the way they start off – “Last Will and Testament”, as though you were going to die the next bleedin’ minute. So same as I was saying, I’m nervous going off to sleep at night thinking who’ll get all my money if I never wake up.’
‘But ain’t you got a family, Joe?’ I said.
‘I’ve got on
e son,’ he said, ‘and he’s a tearaway, spendthrift and gambler. He’d go through that lot on women and dogs in no time.’
‘Dogs,’ I said, ‘then don’t leave him nothing.’ I’m dead witty at times but nobody ever seems to notice it except myself. ‘I thought you had a daughter as well,’ I said.
‘I have a lovely girl. But she’s gone and got herself married to one of these Cypriots. I’m gonna see he doesn’t lay hands on a penny of it. I ain’t slaved forty years for his bloody benefit. Do you see my problem, Alfie? I’ve worked all my life, and I’ve got this money and it’s a bloody millstone round my neck. I can’t spend it and I’ve got nobody I want to leave it to.’ He looked in a right state, did Joe.
‘Why not leave it to Battersea Cats’ Home?’ I said.
‘I would too,’ said Joe, ‘only I never cared for bleedin’ cats either.’ He picked up his bag of apples and looked across at Harry and Lily. ‘Yes, I envy ’em,’ he said, ‘I envy the pair of them.’
‘But she’ll go off in a few minutes and he’ll be worrying all week long till he sees her again.’
‘Yes, but she’s here now and he knows he will see her. He has something to look forward to. They both have. It’s when you know you’ll never see somebody again in this life, that’s when it all feels hopeless – bloody hopeless.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I watched old Joe totter off and the thought went through my mind what funny things human beings are. But what’s the answer, that’s what I keep asking myself. No matter which way you turn you’re caught. I go through life with that question on my mind: what’s the bleeding answer?
I see Lily take a letter out of her bag for Harry. As soon as I see it, I know it’s a letter from their youngest kid, Phil, who’s three years old. Now this letter is nothing but scrawls all over the paper. Yet I’ve often seen Harry take that letter up in his hand when Lily’s gone and keep studying the scrawl. It was funny watching him there because that reminded me of this dream I had one night at the sanatorium. Stuck in my mind it did.
I find myself walking out in the middle of the road at night, see, in this dream, when something suddenly comes down from the sky and blows up, and out of it come all these big round cans, every one exploding off, sending out loads of thick dust, see. Now it wasn’t too bad, till I heard somebody shout out that it was the new bomb dust, that they’d just invented, see, the Japanese or Chinese, who were getting their own back on us, and I knew if one speck was to fall on you, you’d had it. So I thinks, I’d better get out of this lot, and I nips up the next road out of the way, where it was dead quiet and I’m the only one. This is lovely, Alfie, I says to myself, you were the lucky one again, and all the rest unlucky, and just when I thought I was dead safe, one bleeding can came rolling round the corner, and came rolling up towards me, and suddenly it bangs off, and out comes this cloud of dust. So I dodges out of the way, and gets down on my hands and knees, at a house, knocking and banging on the door, see, shouting for them to let me in. I can see this new atom bomb dust is coming down, and if I don’t get out of the way I’m going to be a goner. Then one geezer opens the door and I shouts at him: ‘Let me in! let me in, mate!’ And this bloke has no more savvy than to let me in, so I crawls in on my knees. And as I do I sees some of this dust on my shoulder. But as luck would have it this bloke don’t see it. And then behind him I sees a kid of three or four standing watching me, and suddenly it struck me who it was – it was young Malcolm. You know, what I told about earlier on – and I realised that like as not this dust on me would sooner or later kill the kid. And he’s standing there so innocent. And I’m taking this dust to him – taking death to him, you could say. But what could I do? The thought struck me that I could crawl out, shut the door, and get back into the street. It would have been the thing to do. But even before the thought struck my mind I shut it out, if you see what I mean. I didn’t want to know. I mean you don’t want to know things like that, do you? You’ve got to save yourself, I thought, and I did.
But I didn’t half feel rotten when I woke up, and I said to myself: Alfie, if only you could get yourself to do something good in your dreams, it wouldn’t cost you nothing, and you’d get quite a bit of satisfaction out of it. Of course it only goes to show – if they ain’t got you when you’re awake, they’ve got you when you’re asleep. But what’s the answer? – that’s what I keep asking myself.
Lily and Harry went on talking about drains, loose gutters and kids, and every in-between they’d just sit in silence, either looking at one another or looking straight ahead like two people you might see in a picture. It seemed dead painful to me at times when I gave a glance across at them to think how much their little hearts were in love with one another. Love is pain, ain’t it. In twenty years’ time, I thought, you’ll hardly know one from the other. Well, you know how it is with these old married couples, they begin to look like one another. As a matter of fact I think we each one of us grow to look like the thing we love – that is, if we love anything at all. You’ve only to look at one of these old birds from Kensington as she’s calling out to some horrible ugly pet dog, ‘Oh you naughty boy!’ to see how much they look like each other. I once saw a bloke who bred bulldogs and I reckon he’d have taken first prize at any show. Still, some people would say it’s better to love something than nothing.
Next thing into the ward comes this little ward orderly, Gina, a little Italian kid from a farm somewhere up in the mountains. I quickly slipped off my dressing-gown and got into bed. Well, you never know your luck. She’s got a great bunch of big ugly flowers that Lily must have brought from the garden and handed in.
‘Look what lovely flowers your wife brought you, Mr Clamacraft,’ she said.
‘Thanks very much,’ said Harry, and you’d think his face would split in two the way he keeps trying to smile his thanks to this Gina and then back again to his missus. And I’m just thinking they’ll give him hayfever for certain – horrible dahlias, pompons or something, which in my opinion are only meant for a hedge. Why women ever take flowers out of a garden I do not know, because if there’s one thing I hate it’s to see flowers around the place. I mean, you’ve no sooner put them in water than the petals are falling off, the water starts stinking, and you begin knocking them over.
‘There’s one lot for Mr Elkins,’ said Lily, giving me one of her shy smiles.
‘Yes, of course,’ said Gina, ‘I’ll put them on his locker. Now don’t let me disturb you, Mrs Clamacraft,’ she said, ‘I know what it must be like only seeing each other once a week. Carry on as if I wasn’t here. Some flowers for you, Mr Elkins,’ she said, and puts these great dopey dahlias on top of the locker.
‘Oh thank you!’ I called to Lily, ‘Thank you very much.’ Then I saw her stoop and dip down into her basket and my heart sank.
‘I’ve got a jar of home-made marmalade here for you, Mr Elkins,’ she said. She handed the jar to Gina and Gina gave it to me. There were these big dark dollops of orange peel behind the glass and how anybody could eat that stuff I do not know.
‘Home-made marmalade!’ I said. ‘Why, that’s fabulous! Thanks very much. That’ll come in handy for breakfast.’
Then she dipped down again and said, ‘There’s a little jar of calves-foot jelly here if you’d like it?’
Calves-foot bloody jelly! I mean you never know where these calves’ feet have been, do you – and even if they haven’t been anywhere, they don’t sound too good to me. How anybody can put something in a jar and call it calves-foot jelly and sell it, I do not know.
‘You’re spoiling me,’ I said.
She wasn’t a bad little bird really, Harry’s wife, only she’d never been handled right. Still, what am I saying these things about people for. We’ve all got to find our way through life, the best we can.
‘Here,’ I said to Gina in a loud voice, ‘ain’t it time I had my injection?’
‘Is it?’ she said. ‘I’ll go and tell Staff.’
‘Hadn’t you bette
r put the screen round?’ I said. Then I whispered: ‘It’ll give them a bit of privacy, see.’
She was in two minds, but then she did pull the screen round me. They can talk about these boudoirs full of fancy mirrors, but give me a bed and a little orderly or nurse dressed in all this starched linen and smelling as clean as an apple. I mean for exciting certain things in a man. I hope that don’t sound kinky. I never meant it that way. Old Harry and Lily went dead silent for a bit.
The first thing I heard him say was: ‘Are them crocus bulbs up yet?’
‘They’ve started sprouting all over the place,’ Lily said. ‘Did I tell you about Rover when he got that big seed stuck in his ear?’
‘No, do tell me,’ he said. ‘What happened?’
He’s making out he’s all ears – but the fact is he’s facing Lily but he keeps turning his peepers towards the screen – I can see him through a slit.
‘Well, I took him to the young vet – by the way, did you know he’s got five children?’ said Lily.
‘I didn’t even know he was married,’ said Harry.
You wouldn’t, I thought. I didn’t hear the next bit or the bit after that. I didn’t hear anything for a good minute – my mind was elsewhere – and the next thing I heard was Harry saying ‘What about young Phil?’
Now I knew he’d been thinking about him all the time, but he’s that crafty he only begins to talk about it at the end.
‘I can’t tell you how much he misses you,’ said Lily, ‘he’s not the same child. He seems to have gone so quiet. This morning he must have woken up early and I could hear him talking away to himself in his cot like he does. He kept saying “Daddy” and it seemed he was scolding you.’
The bell started ringing then and Gina got the screen out of the way. ‘Nurse will give you your injection after tea,’ she said to me.
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