by Graham Swift
He says, ‘Is Mrs Dodds here?’ And I say, ‘Yes, she’s gone back to get a cup of tea. She’s with my wife.’ Then he looks quick at his watch and he says, ‘If you could fetch her, I could speak to her now, while I’m here. We could find somewhere private. Maybe the sister’s office.’ And I’m thinking, You turd. Because he aint thinking of the effect on me, or maybe he’s thinking it aint important to me, I don’t count, I’ll just do as his messenger-boy, and I want to hit him, I want to smash his poxy four-eyed face. But I say, ‘I’ll go and get her.’ He’s already turning, as I say it, to a pile of notes some little junior doc’s shoved under his nose. He says, ‘I’ll be here.’ He prods his glasses with his finger and gives me a tight little half-measure of a smile.
So I go and find Amy and Mandy. But it’s like I aint going nowhere, it’s the corridors and swing-doors that move past me, like one of those old machines in arcades, with a steering-wheel and a picture of a road spinning round, so you got the feeling you were travelling though you weren’t.
They’re sitting there with their cups of tea, and they don’t know nothing yet, only that Jack’s alive, he aint sparked out on the table, possibility number three. But I can tell that she knows, straight away, just by looking at me, that she can see in my face what I don’t even need to tell her. I say, ‘He aint come round yet. Strickland’s in the ward. He said he’d like to speak to you.’ Then I shake my head just a fraction, like it’s hard to budge it, and she looks at me like she don’t want anyone to say it. As if it’s all her fault and she knows it and she’s sorry, and she don’t see why she has to go before the headmaster and get punished extra for it, when it’s punishment already, just knowing. But maybe the headmaster’s going to give her a second chance. Don’t ever let this happen again. So she gets up, and as she gets up Mandy squeezes her arm. Then Mandy gets up too, giving me a little nod like a question. She looks good, Mandy looks good. And I nod back.
Then we go back along the corridors, which slide past and under us while we just pretend we’re walking, and Amy don’t say a word till we get near the ward, when she says, ‘Uncle Ray ought to know.’ I say, ‘What?’ She aint called him that for years: Uncle Ray. Like Uncle Lenny. Like I’m a nipper again.
Strickland sees us coming and he says something quick to one of the nurses, then he ushers us into an office, it aint the sister’s office, it’s more like a store cupboard, and shuts the door behind us. There’s only two chairs and he pulls one round for Amy to sit on and Mandy takes the other one, by the door. I stand close beside Amy, and Strickland stands in front of the desk with his arse half parked on it, and as he starts talking I put my arm behind Amy’s head and clasp her shoulder and I feel her hand come across and grab my other hand.
He says he don’t believe in not giving the facts straight, it don’t serve any purpose otherwise. When he starts to talk he’s looking at Amy but he switches his eyes pretty smart to me, as though in order to talk to Amy he has to talk to me, or he’s seen something in Amy’s face he don’t want to look at. I can’t see Amy’s face. I have to look straight ahead, like when you’re up on a charge, before they march you into the cooler. I have to look this bugger straight in the eye.
And when he’s done, it’s like Amy’s pretending she hasn’t heard him, she’s pretending she aint even in the room. So it’s up to me to keep things going, to ask the questions, though there’s only one question, How long? Strickland looks pleased when I do, like we’ve shifted into a different area which aint his department, he’s a repair-man, he aint a scrap dealer, and he’ll be quit of all this just as soon as he walks out of this room. He starts talking about ‘symptom control’, which sounds to me about the same as ‘inoperable’, and it’s while he’s talking about this that I feel Amy’s hands start to clutch and grab at me and I hear her start to catch her breath. Strickland carries on about symptom control, looking straight at me, but Amy keeps clutching and grabbing, like her symptoms need controlling an’ all. It’s like her hands are climbing, scrambling up me and I’m a ladder, an escape route, up to some hatchway out of this room. But it seems to me Amy aint ever going to get out of this room, she’s going to be locked up in it for ever, her own cooler. She’s like June now. And I go rigid and fixed, like a mast, like a tower, while she clings and grabs at me. Thinking, She aint my mum, she aint my mum.
Then suddenly we’re out of that room, as if we didn’t do nothing, again, to make it happen, the world just shifted, twisted for us, and Strickland’s disappeared, he’s disappeared down his own escape route. Mandy’s taken charge of Amy now, she’s holding her and steering her towards the exit and looking at me sort of sharp, like this is a thing between women. But Amy aint Mandy’s mum either.
Like my job’s the thing between men. So I go back into the unit, before I follow them out, and just stand there by his bed, looking at him. He still aint so much as flicked an eyelid, he’s just lying there under the mask, and Strickland said he’d speak to him, he’d speak to him himself, but he’d leave it a good twenty-four hours, even when he’s come round, because what with the anaesthetic and everything, he won’t take in proper what you say to him. But it seems to me that it aint Strickland’s job to tell him, it aint really his job.
I stand by the bed, like I’m a tower, a mast still, but Jack aint trying to climb up me, he’s just lying flat beneath me, and I think, It might be better if he died now, without waking up, so he’d never know and no one need ever tell him. Just him never knowing and the world travelling on and on without him. What you never know don’t hurt. It’s like I don’t remember that bomb falling, I can’t ever remember that bomb falling. They said so long as you could hear them, you were all right, it was when the sound cut. But I don’t even remember not hearing it. So if that bomb had killed me too, I’d never’ve known I’d been born, I’d never’ve known I’d died. So I might’ve been anyone. I look at him like I’m looking down at a view. Golden days before they end. And I think, Someone’s got to tell him, someone’s got to.
RAY
I peered over the rim of my glass at Slattery’s clock.
He said, ‘It aint much good to you now though, is it?’
I said, ‘How come?’
He said, ‘I mean, now there’s just you. Now it don’t look like she’s coming back.’
I said, ‘Other way round, aint it? I can go as I please now, I’m my own man now. Free as a bird. If I want to take off for a couple of days, then off I go, and I don’t have to worry about nowhere to kip.’
I took a swill of beer and smacked my lips like a man who knows what he’s about.
He said, ‘That aint no life for a man. All by yourself. Dossing down in car parks, at the side of the road.’
I said, ‘Maybe it’s the only life, maybe it’s the only life for me right now.’ Then I didn’t say nothing for a bit. Then I said, ‘Why you asking anyway, Jack?’
He said, ‘I was just thinking. If you didn’t need it, if you didn’t want it, I could take it off you.’
I said, ‘You? What the hell would you want with a camper?’
He said, ‘Well, when Carol went and hopped it – excuse me, Raysy – it set me thinking. About me and Amy. Only natural.’
I looked at him and fished out a snout.
‘I mean, not that Amy— Only that we got ourselves sort of in a rut. Only that we don’t get about much, do we? And I reckoned what with Sundays and some help at the shop and some time off.’
He pushed his glass around on the bar.
‘I mean, now Vincey’s buggered off, good and proper. Overseas. And Sue— It’s like the whole world’s buggering off. ’Cept Amy and me.’
I looked at him, sharp, lighting up my ciggy. I said, ‘You know that’s what I thought an’ all, don’t you? I thought, Me and Carol are just getting all cooped up, we aint seeing much of the world, are we? I’ll get us a means of travel. That’s what I thought. Look what happened.’
‘She buggered off.’ He glugged some beer. ‘But Amy aint—
’
We stopped talking for a bit. There was just the sound of the Coach on a Friday night. Rattling on, going nowhere.
I said, ‘Amy in the know about this?’
He said, ‘No, I want it to be a surprise.’
I said, ‘A surprise? That’s what I thought with Carol too.’
He said, ‘You must’ve paid a bit for it an’ all. I’ll give you a thousand. Straight cash, no messing. You don’t need no camper, Raysy, all you need is some little pop-pop motor.’
I looked at him. Good price.
He said, ‘Unless you think – she’s going to come back.’
I took my eyes off him. I said, ‘I’ll think about it.’
And I did think about it, all that winter of being on my tod. I even said to him, ‘You still in the market?’ like I was ready to sell, and he says, ‘Still a grand. Amy’ll be chuffed.’ But I was thinking about something else too, another use for that camper. And after we skipped seeing June, that first time, and drove over to Epsom, I said to him, ‘I’ve made up my mind, Jack. It aint for sale.’
CANTERBURY
The road twists along between the hills, with orchards climbing up the slopes on one side, all bare and brown and trimmed and lined up like the bristles on a brush. The sign says, Canterbury, 3 miles. There’s a little river on the other side, then a railway line, and the road and the river and the railway line wiggle along the valley as if they’re competing. Then we come out by some houses and some playing fields, and Vince says suddenly, ‘There’s the cathedral.’ But I don’t see no cathedral. I see the gas-holder in front of it, and I see the cars zipping along the A2, just ahead, Dover one way, London the other. If we’d approached by a different route, down them hills where the A2 comes, we’d’ve seen it like you’re supposed to, all spread out before you with the cathedral sticking up in the middle. We cross the A2 and a sign says ‘City of Canterbury – Twinned with Rheims’. Then as we get closer in I still can’t see no cathedral but there are big old stone walls in front of us, city walls, and it starts to look like a town you’re meant to arrive at, at your journey’s end. Except it’s not our journey’s end, we’re going on to Margate, by the sea. Jack never specified Canterbury Cathedral.
Vince follows the signs to ‘City Centre’. We haven’t hardly said a word since we last got back in the car, since Lenny came up with his idea, like we’ve all been thinking it was a stupid idea in the first place and maybe we don’t have to go through with it. But now we’re here, with the cathedral just a few streets away hiding somewhere, like it’s seen us if we aint seen it, it’s too late to back out.
Besides, Vic suddenly says, all eager and cheery, as if he’s remembering how it was him who got us hiking up to that memorial, that he’s never seen Canterbury Cathedral, he’s never stepped inside it. Vince says, ‘Me neither, Vic.’ His voice sounds all sweet and mild, like you wouldn’t think that half an hour ago he nearly punched Lenny’s face in. Lenny says he’s never been anywhere near the place. I say, ‘Nor me.’ Vince says, ‘Aint no racetrack in Canterbury, is there?’ But no one laughs, and it’s like we’re all thinking we might have lived all our lives and never seen Canterbury Cathedral, it’s something Jack’s put right.
We get a glimpse of it suddenly, the cathedral tower, popping up over the tops of buildings, and Vince aims as best he can for it, as if he thinks we can drive right up to the front door, in a car like this. But it ducks out of sight, like it’s playing tricks with us, and the streets take you this way and that, so Vince says, ‘I reckon we could walk it,’ and pulls into a car park.
We get out of the car. I’m still holding the jar and I look at Vincey like it’s for him to take, it’s his by right now, his trophy won in a fight, but he says, ‘You hang on to it, Raysy.’ So I bend down and find the plastic bag that’s still lying by my feet under the dash, and put the jar in it, and I think, I’m the one who’s going to carry Jack into Canterbury Cathedral.
We must look a strange bunch. Me and Vic aren’t much the worse for wear but Vince is all scuffed and mud-stained. He puts on his coat, which hides most of it except the bottoms of his trousers, where it’s worst. Lenny looks like he’s been pulled through a hedge. He’s hobbling slightly but he’s trying not to show it. It’s like we aren’t the same people who left Bermondsey this morning, four blokes on a special delivery. It’s like somewhere along the line we just became travellers.
Vince straightens his tie and gets out his comb.
We follow the signs, ‘To the Cathedral’. The streets are narrow and the buildings crooked, like that street in Rochester, as if they’ve come out of the same picture-book. There’s whole bits where cars can’t go and people are walking in that same haphazard way. Tourists. The pavements are all wet though it’s not raining. But now and then the wind suddenly gusts up and, judging from the sky, it looks as though there’s more rain coming, more than just a shower.
We turn another corner and there’s an old arch and we go through it and suddenly there’s nothing in front of us except the cathedral itself, and a few bits of chained-off lawn and cobbles and people walking. It’s a big building, long and tall, but it’s like it hasn’t stretched up yet to its full height, it’s still growing. It makes the cathedral at Rochester look like any old church and it makes you feel sort of cheap and titchy. Like it’s looking down at you, saying, I’m Canterbury Cathedral, who the hell are you?
I reckon I wouldn’t mind if it was just me, passing through in the camper, taking a look, seeing the sights. But I feel all keyed up, with the others, and holding Jack. There’s an entrance through a big arch, where people are milling around and lining up to go through some smaller door inside. We head towards it and it’s as if, because I’m carrying Jack, I have to go first and they make way for me, and I look up at the arch and the walls and the carvings and the funny knobs and pinnacles and I feel like I felt at the Home when Amy said yes I could go in with her.
LENNY
Canterbury Cathedral. I ask you. I should’ve kept my big trap shut.
Still, dose of holiness’ll do us good, I suppose, the way things were going.
So glory be. Lift up your hearts for Lenny.
VIC
Well it makes you feel humble. It makes a man in my line of business feel humble to think of what they’ve got in here. Tombs, effigies, crypts, whole chapels. When all I do in the normal course of work is box ’em up and book ’em in for their twenty minutes at the crem.
He’s got himself a guidebook, biggest, flashiest one he could find. Wonders of Canterbury Cathedral. Chose it like he chose that tie, I suppose. He stands, flicking through, as if he doesn’t want to look at the cathedral, just the guidebook, giving us snippets, as if we can’t make a move till we’ve had the lecture.
He says, ‘Fourteen centuries. Fourteen centuries, think of that.’ He says, ‘They got kings and queens in here, they got saints.’
His coat’s hiding most of the damage, but there’s a smear of drying mud up his left trouser leg.
‘They got cardinals.’
I look at Lenny and half wink and jerk my head just a little, as though I’m saying, ‘Come on, let’s go. Let Raysy suffer.’
And it’s not a bad idea, considering, to get the two of them separated for a bit.
He says, ‘They got nineteen archbishops. You know, if we’d thought, we could’ve taken him to Westminster Abbey an’ all.’
Lenny and me shuffle off slyly, along the side-aisle, over the worn stones, as if we could be treading on tiptoe.
It makes you feel humbled. But it makes a man in my line feel relieved we don’t all get to choose or we don’t ask for much when we do. Canterbury Cathedral, please. I suppose we’re doing our bit for fair dos for the deceased by bringing Jack in here, all thanks to Lenny. Levelling things off, like death’s supposed to.
But then he didn’t have his sights set so low, as I recall. ‘Any lodgers?’ he’d say. So I said, as if I was touting for custom, ‘You ever thought what you’
d want, lack?’ Half a wink. And he looks at me, face wrinkling, and says, ‘Ooh, I don’t know if you’d be up to it, Vic. I’m thinking big. I reckon nothing short of a pyramid.’
VINCE
Amy said, ‘Will you go in and see him?’ and I said, ‘Yeh, I’ll go and see him.’ She wasn’t crying and her voice was clear and steady. She wasn’t insisting or demanding. It was like she was asking a polite, considerate question, like a host to a guest. I even reckon she was holding her head a bit higher and her back a bit straighter, as if this was an important day, a very important day, and she had to see it got managed proper, like something special had happened to her and she wanted to share it.
She’d just come out. She’d just been to see him herself.
I said, ‘Yeh, I want to see him.’ Like I couldn’t have said no, even if I’d wanted to. You don’t refuse to see someone’s prize possession.
She said, ‘You go through the door and ask the man,’ and I thought, She don’t know it’s happened yet.
So I went through the door and asked the man. He had a rumpled white jacket and a pale podgy face to go with it, and he looked at me like I shouldn’t expect him to understand what a big deal it was for me, any more than he should expect me to understand how it wasn’t for him.
It said ‘Chapel of Rest’. He said, ‘Mr Dodds?’ and I wondered which one he meant. I said, ‘That’s me,’ when maybe I should’ve said, ‘That’s him.’ He said, ‘Through there.’
There was this little room with a glass partition down the length of it and an opening at one end you could step through, otherwise you could just look. On the other side of the glass there was Jack, raised up on something and lying on his back, and I thought, That aint Jack, he aint real. I suppose I was right.
You could only see his head because they’d wrapped him up in something like a pale-pink curtain or a tablecloth, right up to his chin. It was covering what he was lying on an’ all. Like Jack was just his head, it wasn’t a body, there wasn’t no dead body.
