Could see why Mark signed up, thinking about it. The way he liked things to be done right. He probably liked the discipline of it and everything. Sit tight and wait for orders. It was still a surprise though, him being the fattest kid in the year and everything. No one really saw him after he’d signed up. Besides the other boys in our year who signed up with him. He was off on training exercises and getting rid of all that weight and all that, and then when he was home he probably wasn’t meant to associate with us anyway. Must have seemed like a good idea at the time, signing up. He must have thought the worst he’d have to face would be ducking petrol bombs in Belfast or maybe getting rained on for six months in the Falklands. Instead of getting stuck in a broken-down tank in the desert and dying of heatstroke.
Jackie got an earful of all that our-brave-boys stuff after that, all heroic sacrifices and dying-for-all-our-freedom, which if it was me I’d have wanted someone to talk me through how that was supposed to work exactly. Mark sitting tight in that broken-down tank waiting for his orders. Waiting for help to arrive without it ever passing through his big pink head that it was never coming. They gave him a posthumous medal and everything. No wonder Jackie moved out of town. Must have wanted to get away from all that sympathy. Don’t know what happened to Mark’s dad. He’d been in all the pictures in the paper, I could remember that, the two of them sat in their lounge with their arms round each other, holding up Mark’s school photo like some kind of consolation prize. The sofa was hardly big enough for the two of them and all their crying. He must have just gone and done the off.
Fucking heatstroke though. It weren’t exactly Andy McNab.
That was all about the time someone did a job on Hilltop Farm, which old man Stewart didn’t exactly own but it turned out he had some interest in, and word went round that it was us who’d done it. There wasn’t any proof and it got dropped in the end but that didn’t stop word going around anyway. That was when most of the trouble started. It was the interest in that job that meant we got caught out, in the end.
Whoever called it Hilltop Farm must have had some sense of humour, round here.
Jackie came over again before she went to the church and told us that if she did get to go to the reception she’d make sure she brought us back some cake. We told her thanks Jackie, that’s good of you, we’ll look forward to it. Another load of Tornadoes went over, three of them in close formation going extra-low over the Sands without dropping anything. Jackie said that was how they knew last time round that the war was definitely going to start, when they’d started going at the Sands all hours like this. We didn’t know what to say so we told her to enjoy the wedding.
By the time we heard the church bells ringing and the guests were all sweeping out of the church and throwing confetti at the happy couple it had been quiet over by the Sands for a couple of hours. Wouldn’t put it past old man Stewart to have gone and had words at the base. National emergency crisis or whatever, this was his daughter getting married. We stood up at the top of the rise by the hay meadow and watched them all coming out of the church. Getting into the line-ups for the pictures. Moving apart and coming together and moving apart again and the young lady in the white dress always at the centre. The women all in hats and dresses like at the races. Ray started talking about how women like dressing up for a wedding. Can’t argue with that, he was saying. Strappy shoes. High-heeled shoes. Dresses in bold colours and prints. Purple dresses. Red and white floral dresses. Very tight. Above the knee. Figure-hugging, you get me. Dresses they keep tugging at the hemline like they never noticed how short it was when they put it on, you get me. All that hair-dressing. Hats. Summer hats. Summer dresses and summer hats and straps that keep slipping off shoulders. Bare shoulders. Bare legs. You get me. It was hard to stop him when he got going on something like that. Fucking, monologue is what you’d call it. I asked him could he see Jackie anywhere and he showed me where she was standing off to one side, sort of behind a stone wall. There were a couple of other women from the village with her but she was the only one wearing a hat.
The church bells kept ringing until the married couple got into a car and drove off. That was a lot of bell-ringing. The seals down at the Sands must have thought the end of the world was coming. We watched the whole procession of cars follow the trail of balloons from the church to the Stewart place and then I got another drink and sat by the lake and Ray went and broke up another pallet. It seemed a bit early to be lighting a fire. It was a pretty hot day still.
When he was done he came and sat down and asked if he’d ever told me about the porno he’d written once. I told him I didn’t think he had. I told him I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. He told me it had been a while ago and to be fair it had just been the once. He picked up some stones and threw them in the lake. He went and got an empty can and set it up on a flat rock by the edge of the lake and came and sat down and said the story had been for his wife. He looked at me. I threw a stone at the can and missed and didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to know. He told me it wasn’t like he’d been in the habit of writing porn but this had been a long train journey and it was just something that had occurred to him to do. He’d thought she might appreciate it. He’d thought it was something he could do for her, while he was away. To surprise her. I said I didn’t know he’d been married. He said there were a lot of things I didn’t know about him and anyway this was all a while ago now. He told me don’t get him started on marriage.
A stone skidded off the ground and hit the can but the can didn’t fall and I threw another one. Jackie’s car turned into the driveway by her house and stopped. Jackie got out and went into the house and didn’t look at us. She wasn’t wearing the hat. She must have left it in the car. Ray carried on talking about this story he said he’d written for his wife. It had been really something, apparently. Blindfolds, gasps of surprise, third parties involved, that type of thing. I held up my hand and told him Ray I don’t want the details mate. He said fair enough let’s just say it was properly filthy. He said he’d really thought she was going to enjoy it, she’d been known to enjoy that type of thing previously, she’d been quite imaginative. You wouldn’t have thought it to look at her though, was his next point. He wanted to emphasise that, it turned out. He spent quite a while emphasising that. She was gorgeous, in summary, a lovely woman. Looked like butter wouldn’t melt.
There was a whistling noise from the sound system at the Stewart place, and what sounded like microphones being plugged in and out, and then it went quiet again. I went and got another drink. Ray was still telling his story about the porno story. It looked like it was going to take a while. He told me it took him a long time to write it, this story, when he was sitting on this train. He said he kept getting distracted by what he called the old days. I suppose he meant the old days as in when he first met this wife I’d never heard about. He said he hadn’t had a clue where the train was going. It was one of those single-carriage jobs and all he could see out the window was fields like this. He said it had been a hot day and all the windows on the train were open and the pages of his notebook kept flapping about in the wind. I asked him when had he ever had a notebook and he said shut up this was a while ago.
They must have started doing the speeches at the Stewart place. We couldn’t hear most of what they were saying but the place kept going off in applause and what sounded like people banging their cutlery on the tables.
Ray was still going on about the train, and about how there’d been hardly anyone else on board, just this bloke who looked like a fitter, and a couple of old ladies, and then this girl who was either a young-looking university student or an old-looking schoolgirl, it was hard to tell, she kept staring out the window, she must have had something on her mind, and as it happened she was quite pretty but he was trying not to look because he properly couldn’t tell how old she was and you can’t be too careful and anyway he was just trying to concentrate on writing this story for his wife because he thought it was something he could do
for her, it seemed important at the time, he thought she’d like it, he thought it would help.
I said, Jesus, Ray, don’t forget to breathe.
We threw some more stones at the can.
He told me some more about what had been in this story, stuff about firm smacks on the behind and tying hands and stuffing underwear into mouths, that type of thing. I told him I could probably definitely do without the details. They turned the volume up at the Stewart place and we heard someone doing a toast to the happy couple and then the whole crowd of them going to the happy couple again. Ray turned and looked in that direction. We were both thinking about the drink they’d be getting through over there. Ray knocked the can over and went and set it up again and we both moved our chairs a bit further back and threw some more stones. He still hadn’t finished. He started talking about how self-conscious it had made him to be writing all that stuff down on a train and how he’d had to keep stopping to sort of catch his breath but he wanted to persevere with it because he really thought his wife was going to like it. I said it was making me self-conscious just having to listen to him go on about it and he told me to shut up again. He said they’d got into that type of thing before, on the phone, when he’d been working away from home, and then he got into how all the working away from home might have been part of the problem, all those nights away and the unpredictability of it was how a lot of the arguments had started. I asked him like, what, you had an actual job and everything? He said sometimes it was like he couldn’t say the right thing to make it up to her. I asked him if he’d been a travelling salesman or what. He said some days it seemed like she didn’t even want him to try, like she wanted him to just turn round and go out on another job. I said I still didn’t know if we were talking about actual jobs here. He said it got to the point where he didn’t feel welcome in his own house and all he’d ever wanted was a home where he was welcome. I don’t think he was listening to me. It was turning out there was still plenty I didn’t know about Ray. He kept mentioning things as if I knew about them when really I had no idea. Like the wife thing. Or like a while before when he’d mentioned living in Scandinavia. Or even like was he or wasn’t he a Muslim any more or what.
Another thing I didn’t know was whether Ray’s mum still lived round in town or if she was still alive or what. I didn’t know if he knew. Maybe Ray hadn’t said anything about it because he was assuming I’d be as much of a cunt about it as he’d been when I told him about my mum. Who I happened to know had passed on, even though it had been a while before anyone had thought to tell me about it. I missed the funeral when I was inside. That was bad enough but it would have been good to know it was going on. This was what I don’t know why I bothered telling Ray one night, when we’d first got here and Jackie had told us all about what she wanted doing, and given us some binbags for cleaning out the caravan, and come down from the house with a couple of fresh pillows and said I don’t know about the rest of what’s in there but if you’re anything like me you’ll at least want decent pillows.
They wouldn’t have let me go to the funeral anyway but it would have been nice to have been told. It was up in Scotland. Scotland of all places. She never would have wanted to be buried there. She only went up there because her bloke said he’d had enough of it round here and he was going back to Scotland whether she wanted to go with him or not. She told me that, the last time she visited before she went up there. She was good at visiting, I’ll give her that. Given everything that had gone off. She said I could go up and join them when I got out, if I liked. While I got back on my feet. Right, I said. Scotland. She said would I write, and I said yes I would, I’d write. I’d definitely write. What was she thinking, Scotland. She must have hated it up there. She never would have wanted to be buried there. I knew she wouldn’t. That was what I told Ray about. Scotland had more or less come up in conversation somehow, so that was what I told him about. I said she should have been buried down here, where her family were buried, where the rest of her family still lived. People could go and visit her grave and that then, I said. My grandad had even paid for a plot for her in town. I’d known about that for years. She would have told her bloke about that, I was sure, but he went right ahead and buried her up there in Scotland. I was going to get in touch with my sister at some point. There was a legal thing involved, there were certain rights due to being next of kin. I was going to apply for her to be like transferred or something, once I’d spoken to my sister about it. She had a plot waiting for her in town here. She wasn’t supposed to be all the way up there where nobody knew her besides that bloke.
Ray thought it was funny. The idea of moving someone like that, once they were dead. The idea of anyone giving a shit where they were buried once they were dead, was what he said. What he said as well was he’d buy me a shovel himself. That was when I told him to shut up. He said I will I’ll buy you a shovel. I said Ray, leave it. He said don’t worry about fucking legal process, I’ll buy you a shovel and you can dig up your mam. I said Ray fucking leave it, and I put him on his back and he stopped laughing then.
One thing I remember about Ray’s mum. I don’t remember much but there’s this. When we were kids. We all called round to his house one day and when he opened the front door we heard his mum going Ray will you close the bloody door will you, and when we looked up there she was in the bathroom at the top of the stairs with the door wide open, sat on the throne with everything round her ankles. The bathroom door wide open, and now the front door. And Ray just stood there talking to us and ignoring her while she went Ray! Ray! Will you close the bloody door there Ray! The door! And all of us trying not to look but we must have looked at least once because later we’d all agreed that you could see her bone china and everything. And Ray just kept us there talking for as long as he could before he put his jacket on and came out and left the front door wide open so we could hear her calling after him as we walked away. Ray! Will you get back here and close this bloody door Ray! And the thing we all noticed but nobody said was that it was the exact same voice she used when she called him in for his tea, or just whenever we’d heard her speaking to him at all.
*
It was Ray’s car but he mostly let me do the driving. He said the angle of the pedals made his bad back flare up, but also it was because he had trouble concentrating. Plus the blackouts. It was a very particular type of car. It had taken some getting used to. It took a while even getting it started. Also the foot-brake didn’t really work properly so I mostly had to rely on the handbrake. Which was another reason I drove so slowly on the way over to the Stewart place that night. We drove right round the back of the marquee and parked up by the catering tent. The catering vans weren’t there.
They won’t be back until the morning, Ray says. Like he knew. Like he’d been casing the joint or anything. We sat there for a while with the engine running, figuring things out. We could see the portable toilets off to one side of the marquee, and people standing around talking. There was a big floodlight over the toilet, meaning we could see them and they couldn’t see us. There was a lot of cheering whenever a new song came on, which meant it was probably only the young ones left in there and the old or sober ones had gone home.
Someone knocked on the window. He had a look of the Stewarts about him. Big square chin and red face and floppy hair. Ray wound down the window. The younger Stewart asked us if we were okay. He was smoking a cigar, or at least he was holding a cigar and wondering what to do with it. Ray looked at him.
Was everything okay with your food? Ray says. The younger Stewart looked confused. He asked us if we were with the caterers. I told him we were just picking up a few things that couldn’t be left overnight. He nodded and told us that was a good idea. He turned away and turned back and told us the food had been bloody lovely. We waited until he’d gone back round the corner with his cigar. Ray got out of the car.
Keep the engine running, he says. I think this was meant to sound dramatic but it was obvious and he didn’t
need to say it. If I’d turned the engine off we wouldn’t have got it started again until the next day.
Keep the engine running, he says again. I don’t know why he had to say it twice.
*
We must have got about fifty yards back from the can and we were nowhere near knocking it down any more and Ray was still on with his story about writing the porno story. He said he’d just been getting to the best bit when he noticed that the student or schoolgirl or whoever was standing next to his seat. He said he didn’t really know how long she’d been standing there. She asked him did she know him or like had she met him before, and he didn’t really know what she was getting at so he just said no, sorry, he didn’t think she’d met him anywhere.
Then Ray got up and more or less started acting it out, which I could have done without. I just sat there looking at the lake, holding my can, waiting for him to get on with it. He stood there next to me, closer than I could have done with bearing in mind the facilities available to us at the caravan. He had his hand on his hip, meaning I suppose that’s how he thought girls always stood when they were talking to you, and he put on this voice which must have been his idea of a girl’s voice but sounded more like a cat or something. He said, in this voice, with his hand on his hip, that I kept looking at him like I knew him or something and it was making him like uncomfortable and he would rather I didn’t. The way he said it, there was a question mark at the end of each sentence. Also, the way he said it, it sounded like he was about to slap me round the face. He sat down again, as Ray.