by Graham Swift
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.’
VINCE
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.
He says, ‘I was looking at the Granada.’
I say, ‘Sweet car, sweet engine, all tuned and tickled. You won’t get better value. Want to run it round the block?’
I can see him backing off, so I say, watching his eyes, ‘Keys are in the office. Shall I get ’em?’ Then I say, looking at my watch, ‘I’d come with you myself, but I’ve got another client coming, three o’clock appointment. But I’ll see if Kathy here can’t do the honours. You in a hurry?’
And he says, looking at his own watch, it’s a bleeding Rolex, ‘Maybe not.’
So I poke my head round the office door and I say, ‘Kath, will you go with this gentleman while he takes the Granada for a spin? I’m tied up myself. Mr—?’ I turn round and he’s right at my shoulder. He says, ‘Mr Hussein.’ I say, ‘Mr Hussein.’ Then I pick the keys off the rack and toss ’em to her and they land in her lap.
I’d never asked her to do that before and she looks at me, uncertain. But one thing you can say about Kath is that she aint no dummy when it comes to cars. I taught that girl how to use a motor soon as she could get a licence. Took to it like a natural, like her dad’s daughter.
So she even backs it out for him, neat and nifty.
It aint my fault she was built like she was, it aint my fault she was her mother’s daughter an’ all.
I said, ‘This is Kath, my daughter Kath. You’re in good hands with Kath.’
Other client coming, my arse.
So I say when they get back, ‘Well? Goes a treat, don’t it? Vince Dodds don’t deal in duds.’ And he looks at me as though to say, Throw in the girl and I’ll buy, and I look at him as though to say, Throw in an extra half-grand and she’s yours. He says, ‘Okay.’
Then he says, getting all chummy, ‘My little weakness, Mr Dodds, my little indulgence. I buy a car, then I grow tired of it, then I get another one, like toys.’ The coat’s a camel-hair. ‘You should look out for anything I might like. I could make it worth your while.’
And I knew he never meant to buy the Granada. I knew he’d be back before long to buy another and there’d be extras in it if I so much as hinted that I was missing Kath around the place, that a girl of her age ought to be earning a decent living.
There goes Vince Dodds who pimps for his own daughter.
But it aint as if she didn’t know what she was doing, it aint as if she can’t take care of herself. Her mother’s daughter. And she aint on no regular rummage. Not like Sally.
But now if he wants to ditch her, if he thinks he can chuck her out on the street, another motor, another muff, then he’s got another think coming. I’ll pop over to that posh pad of his and bust in the door. Then I’ll bust in his head. And it don’t matter, I don’t care, if he don’t buy the Merc and he never forks out that extra grand. Because maybe a grand aint nothing, it aint nothing at all, now Jack aint nothing neither. But Kath’s my own living daughter, she is. She’s a Dodds. And she turns up at Jack’s funeral wearing the best little black outfit you ever saw, which must have cost half a grand for a start, half a grand if it was a penny. And maybe I aint done right by her, maybe I aint.
RAY
She would go and see June twice a week. Mondays and Thursdays, regular as clockwork, like she still does. And this was when I swung it so I only worked three days at the office, Mondays to Wednesdays, two days less for only a quarter less pay, taking into account my increment. Hennessy said, ‘You’re up for promotion, take it from me,’ putting a finger to his lips. ‘All you have to do is be a good boy till your annual review.’ He was taking pity on me, I think, on account of Carol, and had put in a word, reminded them I was still working at the place. He said, ‘About time too, Ray, if you ask me. How old are you these days?’ I said, ‘Forty-five.’ But I wasn’t interested in promotion, I wasn’t interested in getting on in insurance. I was interested in the opposite. I said, ‘They could do me a better turn than that. Less time for less pay, that’s what I’m interested in, I don’t want no leg-up.’
It stood to reason, with only me to consider. And a camper-van.
Besides, I was getting lucky, I was getting canny, I was starting to live up to my name. The gee-gees were doing me favours, if no one else was.
And why shouldn’t a man who’s all on his own, with no one to fend for but himself, arrange his life to suit his own hankering? Mondays to Wednesdays at the office, Thursdays to Saturdays at the races or on the open road.
It’s just the gypsy in my …
And any shortfall in my pay-cheque the horses made up, more or less, sometimes with extra on top. It’s the same business, after all, the chance business. Insurance, gambling.
Hennessy said, ‘And by the way, what do you fancy for Goodwood?’
So Amy would go and see June on Thursdays and I would be chasing off all over the country, following the nags. And for a long time I thought about it before I said it, for a long time I chewed it over, then one day I plucked up and I said it. I said, ‘Amy, I aint going nowhere this Thursday. I suppose the horses can run without me. That’s a long old bus ride you have to do. Let me drive you over to see June. Let me take you in the camper.’ So she said, ‘All right, Ray,’ and I took her.
And it was either the second or the third time I took her, either the second or the third Thursday, that I said, ‘I met you same time as I met Jack, did you know that?’ She looked at me, puzzled, and she said, ‘What, in the desert?’ I said, ‘Yep, in the desert. Egypt.’ She sort of frowned and laughed at me at the same time. So I said, ‘I saw your photo,’ and when I said it my voice wasn’t like I meant it to be, like I was just playing a game, answering a riddle, it came out different, it came out sort of like the truth. I aint ever been a dab hand with women.
She looked at me, long and hard, soft and sharp at the same time, and that was when I knew that she knew, or that she’d wondered all along. That I’d just had this thing about her, always. In spite of Carol, in spite of Sue, in spite of her being Jack’s anyway, in spite of her having lost her looks by now. But there’s a beauty in that itself, I reckon, that’s a lovable thing, fading beauty, it depends on your attitude. And they aint all been lost. In spite of her and Jack getting stuck in their ways as if they’d been put in a mould long ago and come out and gone solid. But I suppose we all do that. We all need something to stir us up.
I’d had this thing about her always.
And I’d say it worked in my favour that Sue and then Carol did a flit, one after the other, because I reckon she took pity on me. Not Hennessy’s kind of pity. Maybe she’d always taken pity on me, and if all it ever was was pity, I suppose I wasn’t going to complain.
It was a long way over to that place. She’d get a 188 to the Elephant, then a 44, and sometimes she’d have to change again in Tooting. It wasn’t so far from Epsom. So even by the route I took, the route I already knew, there was plenty of time to talk. But we used to hang around afterwards anyway and just sit in the camper or on one of the benches in the grounds if the weather let us. She said Jack had never seen June, or only the once, only that first time. He’d never gone to see her in the Home. I’d never known that for certain, though I had my guesses. I thought maybe there’d been a time once or he had his
own arrangement still, his own private arrangement, he just didn’t like to talk about it. But he never went. That was Jack’s failing plain and simple, she said, that he didn’t want to know his own daughter. And her failing, she could see it, she could tell me, was just the opposite, that she’d kept on coming, two times a week all these years, and it made no difference, but she couldn’t stop now, a mother was a mother. And if he’d only come himself just now and then, just once in a while, it might have balanced things out, she might have spared some of her visits for some of his, and they wouldn’t have become the people they’d become, pulling opposite ways on the same rope. But it was too late now.
She said she chose between him and her. It was a simple fact. She couldn’t help it. She knew it and he knew it.
I said that was a hard choice, or I tried to say it, because choosing my words wasn’t so easy either: to pick the one who didn’t know who she was and maybe never would, not the one who was sound and whole and she’d been married to anyway for nearly thirty years. And she looked at me, slow and careful, as if it wasn’t my turn to speak, and I thought I’d torn it.
She said, ‘You think Jack knows who he is?’
I said, ‘Never met anyone more sure about it.’
Then she smiled, she laughed under her breath. ‘He’s not such a big man, you know, when it comes to certain things. He aint such a big man at all.’
I said, ‘He got me through, in the desert.’ But I didn’t say, like I half wanted, like I was half going to, ‘And so did you.’
When she went in to visit I used to stay put in the car park, or I’d mooch around the grounds. There were lawns and paths and some of the inmates would be shuffling about. They didn’t look so different. Like you could get mistook.
When I watched her walking across the car park and in through the entrance I used to think, She looks about as on her own as I am, and I’d start to ache. But it never occurred to me, not at first, that maybe it would clinch it if I went in to see June too, if I did what Jack hadn’t ever. And maybe that’s what she was wishing me to do all along. I thought I was holding back because it was only right, because it wasn’t my place, I was only there to drive her. Or else I was just plain scared. But on the third or fourth Thursday I said to her, ‘Can I come too?’ And she said, ‘Course you can, Ray.’
