Last Train to Gloryhole (60 page)

‘Look I realise I’m not ill, Brawd,’ replied Gary. ‘So I’m not in your shoes - and so, frankly, I wouldn’t know exactly, and I am prepared to acknowledge that. But what I do know is that, however painful or drawn out the process of dying might turn out to be, when it comes to me - when my turn comes round - and it will - then I fully intend to stay the whole course and find out.’

‘Find out! Let me get this right,’ said Tom. ‘Are you trying to tell me that you’ve already decided that, however bad things get, you’re going to be choosing knowledge over - over pain!’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ Carla heard Gary tell him, perhaps through gritted teeth. ‘I certainly am.’

Tom laughed heartily at him, then summoned up, and spat into a bowl beside his bed, some phlegm that this action had created. ‘I wonder, Gary,’ he continued, ‘if you’ll actually live up to those brave, commendable intentions of yours when
your
time comes, if come it does, or - or whether you will just forget you were once so inclined, and, like me, choose the easier way out.’

‘But, Tom, I don’t think you fully understand what I’m saying,’ Gary pleaded.

‘Well, tell me then’ Tom shot back. ‘Go on.’

‘It’s that - it’s just that I really don’t feel I have
the right
to do such a thing - take my own life, I mean,’ Gary told him.

Tom paused for a moment then spoke. ‘You know, I shouldn’t really be so surprised that you are saying all this,’ he said.

‘What do you mean by that?’ enquired Gary, feeling he knew more or less what his brother was about to say.

‘Well, you are an ordained minister, after all, aren’t you?’ said Tom.

‘Listen - it’s not because of my religious vocation that I’m telling you this, Brawd,’ replied Gary. ‘And nobody ever taught me it, either. I say it simply because I - because I am
a man
- a human being, Brawd, who, like you, was created in my Great Father’s image. And it is my God who created me - supplying me, as He did, with that very first gulping breath of life I inhaled in the vast, new, stranger-than-strange, ocean-like atmosphere that my tiny, helpless body fell into from our dear mother’s birth-canal. And Who, even now, continues to deliver to me the very same blessed draft, because - well, because He commited Himself so to do on my behalf for every single, lung-filled, breath-taking moment of my long, painful, arduous, but wonderful life.’

Carla got up and stood at the door, and watched her father’s eyes wander about as he considered the words her uncle had just spoken. ‘Do you mean to say, Gary - are you telling me that you believe Our Maker has made a binding commitment to keep us alive until the moment - that crucial moment - when He elects - when He - chooses to take our life away from us again?’

‘Yes, I do believe it,’ Gary answered, clasping his brother’s blue, vein-ridged hand in his.

Tom gazed lovingly into his elder brother’s eyes.
‘Out of a misty dream our path emeges for a while, then closes within a dream,’
he said, his eyes shut tight.

Encouraged by the poem’s lines that he knew so well, Gary smiled back at his brother through a stream of tears that suddenly began to flow down his face like warm, trickling rain. ‘And that moment - that crucial moment, my brother - was set in stone and decided a long, long time before either of us was even born.’

‘Before we were even conceived, are you saying?’ said Tom.

‘Yes,’ said Gary. ‘Most likely far, far earlier than that, even. Eons before, I’d say. You see, Tom, I have long believed that the very moment of our demise was written down by Him at the start of time, in the great
Book Of Life
.’

Tom lay his head back on the pillow and stared straight up at the ceiling. ‘Now I understand what you are saying, Gary,’ he told him. ‘And yes, like you, I admit I too believe that it’s true. I too believe that He promised to be with us, and care for us, and sustain us right from the moment of our very first breath of life, in this world that He created for us, right up until our last.’

‘Womb to tomb,’ said Gary, suddenly recalling how he had once sung a part alongside his brother in a school-production of ‘
West Side Story,’
and even believed he might still have the cool, red Jets-jacket he wore in that performance buried somewhere in his glass, walk-in wardrobe back at home.

‘Birth to earth,’ said Tom, smiling at the mutual recollection he realised he and his sibling had just enjoyed.

‘Between the forceps and the stone,’ a tearful Carla whispered in the doorway, recalling the iconic lyrics of Joni Mitchell that she had once sung at a concert, and yet again wishing that they could have been her own. She could already tell from her father’s discussion with her uncle that her trip to the bank the previous week had plainly proved a pointless one. The money itself meant nothing to her, of course, she told herself, wiping the streaming tears from her face into the white handkerchief that she had earlier unfolded, and now held, pressed tightly to her cheek. But the sudden failure of the intricate plan she had devised, with her dad’s enthusiastic help, relating to his sad, but imminent, demise, had plainly taken the wind from her sails, and now left her feeling downcast and depressed.

Carla slowly crossed the threshold of the shadow-strewn bedroom and took in the sight of the two aged brothers on the bed, hugging each other’s contrasting frames, and looking almost as if they had lived their long lives together, and had never once been apart.

‘It is the choice a Christian has to make and it’s the right one,’ she heard her uncle’s deep, mellifluous voice tell her supine, nodding father, as he lay cradled and supported by Gary’s strong left arm, encircling firmly and fully, as it did, both of his bony, pointed shoulders.

Tom once again emitted a hoarse, painful cough, then replied to him, and to the whole wide world, ‘And what the dear Lord gives us, only the dear Lord Himself has the right to take away.’

Carmen and Rhiannon were sitting on the grass revelling in the powerful rays of the morning sun.

‘Good at English! Pippa Jenkins!’ ejaculated Carmen. ‘I don’t think so, somehow. Last week she told Mrs. Jarman she thought ‘
subordinate clauses
’ might be Santa’s little helpers. She did, Rhi, I swear!’

Rhiannon turned to her friend and said, ‘Chris told me he can’t stand her any more. She’s got horrific personal B.O. too, he told me.’

Carmen considered this news. ‘Doesn’t surprise me a bit,’ she told her friend, giggling.

‘And do you know what else he told me? He told me she’s got so much vagazzle going on down there, he said it didn’t - well, he didn’t feel right.’

‘What a bloody waste of money,’ said Carmen. ‘She should have got a tattoo on her forehead instead, I reckon.’

‘A tattoo!’ said Rhiannon. ‘What sort of tattoo?’

‘One saying
‘I badly need doing,’
Carmen told her. ‘It would definitely save time, don’t you think?
And
it wouldn’t rust.’

Carmen went back to reading the joke-page in her magazine. After a minute or so she turned to Rhiannon to share what she had gleaned from it. ‘If
The Grim Reaper
comes for you, whatever you do don’t go hitting him with the vacuum-cleaner, Rhi,’ said Carmen.

‘And why is that?’ asked Rhiannon.

‘You could be Dyson with death,’ She paused for her friend to ponder it. ‘Dyson with death - do you get it?’ Then the two girls rolled about laughing.

All of a sudden Pippa Jenkins and a group of her associates walked past, totally ignoring the two of them as usual.

The friends watched them go by, then Carmen sat up. ‘You know, I sometimes wish I had bigger boobs like you’ve got Pippa,’ bellowed Carmen, easily loud enough for the whole group to hear her.

‘Really?’ replied a shocked Pippa, turning, approaching, and then perching herself down on the wall, facing them. Rhiannon spun round to face her friend, open-mouthed, clearly not expecting this.

‘Yeah, just sometimes, I mean,’ said Carmen, grinning. ‘No - occasionally I wish I had. No, I lie - I did once, then I thought better of it.’

Pippa stared at her. ‘Well, what you should do, Carmen, is get some really soft tissue-paper, darling, and, once a day if possible, rub it firmly back-and-fro between your breasts. You know, down the cleavage like this.’ She opened her blazer and imitated the action required.

‘You being serious!’ said a shocked Carmen. ‘And how the hell is that supposed to work, you daft bat?’

‘Well, I don’t rightly know, but it cetainly worked on your arse,’ replied Pippa, smiling broadly, then getting up and hurrying away to join her friends again, who were already laughing themselves silly.

Watching Pippa scamper off, Carmen waited a while. Then, when the group had turned the corner of the main building, she jumped to her feet. ‘I want to ask you something, Rhi,’ she said. ‘because you’re my dearest friend.’

Anticipating the question that was coming, Rhiannon told her, ‘No, it doesn’t look big at all in that skirt. I don’t know how many times I’ve told you.’

‘It’s nothing to do with my arse,’ said Carmen. ‘It’s about my mother.’

‘What about her?’ asked Rhiannon.

‘Well, you know how she works evenings in the Labour Club?

‘Behind the bar, yeah.’

‘Right. Well, she told me this morning how she met your Mam’s husband in there doing a show.’

‘My dad!’ exclaimed Rhiannon. ‘But he works part-time driving a van for a living, Carmen. I thought you knew that.’

‘She meant your Mam’s first husband, Rhi. Er - Dick something or other.’

‘You mean - oh, you mean Dick Plant!’ said Rhiannon. ‘Oh my God!’

‘Yeah, that’s what she called him. I thought she was having a laugh, like, or maybe that it was the lager talking. But, no. Dick Plant is what she called the fella. She said she saw him on stage performing, though what it was he was doing she never told me. Say - what was he like, Rhi?’

‘How would I know?’ replied Rhiannon. ‘I never met the bloke, though there’s a couple of snaps of him in the first part of the photo-album. My dad says he pissed off when Sarah, my half- sister, was still in her teens.’

‘Then do you reckon that’s why she’s a - why she likes the women, do you think?’ enquired Carmen.

‘Sarah? I haven’t a clue,’ replied Rhiannon. ‘You see, I haven’t seen her in years. She lives and works in London these days, doing something or other for the government I gather. And Dad says she only seems to come back home again for funerals.’

‘Well, listen, Rhi. If you fancy seeing your sister’s dad - this Dick bloke - in action, well, my Mam says he’s working there every day this week,’ Carmen told her.

‘I don’t know,’ said Rhiannon, pondering the matter. ‘But I do know I wouldn’t go down there on my own. And anyway, it might be expensive.’

‘True, but you never know, my Mam might be able to get us in there for nothing,’ her friend replied. ‘Say - would you like me to ask her?’

The burly police-officer placed the heavy, red enforcer on the door-step outside Anne’s home and joined his two uniformed colleagues inside.

‘Llew!’ yelled Sergeant Foley from above, ‘Get up these stairs now and lift Ben up into the loft, will you?’

‘Thank God I was in to open the door for you, that’s all I can say. And mind the aspidistra!’ Anne told them, to absolutely no effect, edging down the stairs, and then bending low to catch the slowly tumbling pot, but sadly not much of the soil it contained, and which soon became scattered all over her floor.

‘Grab the torch, boy!’ the sergeant urged the young constable, who had already reached the very top of the step-ladder, but discovered that he was still a foot or so short of being able to scramble up into the loft on his own.

Llew-the-Great grasped Ben’s calves in both arms and hoisted him high.

‘O.K., O.K.!’ blurted Thomas, stretching out both his arms to seek some lateral support. ‘Don’t send me into orbit, for God’s sake!’

‘Aye, you’re not practising the line-out now, you know, Llew,’ said Sergeant Foley, peering up, and rubbing dust from out of his thinning, grey hair. ‘Say - what can you see up there, lad?’

‘What the hell’s to see?’ asked Anne from the foot of the stairs. ‘The lost continent? Listen - if you’re looking for a box of Christmas decorations and a couple of broken chairs then I reckon you boys have hit the jackpot.’

‘What’s in there, Ben?’ asked Constable Llewellyn, ignoring the home-owner’s comments.

‘Bugger all, that I can see,’ replied the muffled voice of young Thomas. ‘A large box of Christmas decorations and a couple of broken chairs is all I can make out.’

‘You mean there’s no drugs?’ asked Sergeant Foley, holding firmly onto the step-ladder and peering up again.

‘Well, none that I can see,’ said Thomas.

‘Drugs!’ screamed Anne. ‘Why the hell would we have got any drugs up there?’

‘Well, you see, we were anticipating a small farm,’ Sergeant Foley told her.

‘But does my house look like a farm?’

‘No - I mean up there, ma’am,’ he told her.

‘A farm! In my loft!’ exclaimed Anne, sitting down on a step and rubbing her temple with the tea-towel she was holding. ‘But God alive, man! Don’t you think we’d have noticed if we had any sheep up there? We’d have heard them, wouldn’t we? And the only thing bleating in this house these days is my husband.’

‘He means cannabis, Mrs. Cillick,’ Llewellyn told her, by way of calming her fears. ‘Weed, you know.’

‘Well, I’ve got a garden full of those if that’s what you’re after,’ she told him, breathing in deeply, and gripping her forearm so as to check her pulse. ‘Shall I take you out front and show you? Say - who the hell told you my boy was up to no good, anyway?’

‘Er - one of his friends squealed,’ said Llewellyn.

‘Squealed! Why? You didn’t sit on him, did you?’

‘No,’ the constable retorted sharply, then looked over at his sergeant.

‘The fact is - a lot of them shopped him, Mrs. Cillick,’ said Sergeant Foley. ‘So we had to pay you a visit, see.’

‘Aah! Found some,’ they heard Thomas report, ducking his head back into view once again.

‘What have you got?’ asked Foley.

‘Coffee-beans,’ the constable told them, holding up two large bags and smiling at his new discovery.