Andrew O'Hagan - The Illuminations

‘If you don’t want a good rifting, don’t be an arsehole,’ Flannigan said.

‘This was on the news?’ Luke asked.

‘Yeah,’ Dooley said. ‘On the news. The adjutant captain told the three fucking bears, these feather-heads, the NCOs, to melt the kid out on the parade ground.’

‘Where?’

‘Lucknow Barracks.’

‘Right.’

‘It was over the top.’

‘Oh, fuck off,’ Flannigan said. ‘How many times have you been trashed up and down the mudflats, Sponge Bob?’

‘Not for hours in that heat. Not when it’s boiling outside and I’m still dehydrated from the night before.’

‘Dry your eyes.’

‘No, seriously, Flange. That’s fucked. The main guy who did it was the most hated dude in the battalion. A real fucken drill-pig with a hard-on for sprogs.’

‘He wasn’t a sprog.’

‘He was twenty-three.’

‘So what, our kid? That’s old. You do shit, you get beasted. My dad told me they once beasted him from arsehole to breakfast-time just for dropping his stick. So stop fucking moaning, and bring on the rums.’

‘The kid had traces of ecstasy in his bloodstream,’ Dooley said, turning to Luke. ‘He was off his tits when they were beasting him out there. Fucken animals. And the guys who did it get off because everybody thinks they’re a bunch of hard-asses who can do what they like.’

Flannigan was looking at the girls. ‘You can’t have a military without militarism,’ he said.

Luke put his drink down. ‘And you think they deserve the Victoria Cross for that, do you, Flange?’

The two just stopped in each other’s eyes, the younger man’s pupils so large and so ready for action, engulfed by the moment. Luke paused to see just how far he would go, but Flannigan was biting his cheek and he came back with nothing. ‘The boy was about the same age as the guy we lost,’ Luke said. ‘Remember him? The kid we lost in that stupid ambush? That’s a fucken life, mate. And when you don’t do the right thing and you rub out a life you’ve lost your decency.’

‘Captain.’

‘Just saying. That shit happens: you’ve lost your decency.’

‘All right, sir.’

‘Do you get me?’

They went quiet. ‘I’m just messing,’ Flannigan said. Then after a moment one of the girls came up to the table and pulled him by the arm. He looked up at the other men with a grin, and said, ‘I’m off my face.’

‘Go and dance, Flange,’ Luke said. Flannigan saluted and was never so much himself as then. It would be a long road for him, thought Luke. He was vulnerable, his friend, a veteran of bad dreams, made for toughness, inclined to ruin. ‘Away and dance, ya big daft bastard.’

‘We’re okay, aren’t we, Captain?’

Luke smiled. ‘Of course we are. Go and enjoy yourself.’ Flannigan shrugged and turned out his hands.

‘I get better-looking every day,’ he said. ‘I can’t wait for tomorrow.’

Ten minutes later, Dooley was dancing so much in his seat that it seemed he could just take off. He got some water and then high-fived the captain. ‘I miss my wife,’ he said. ‘You know she’s a registered nurse, Jimmy-Jimmy?’

‘A staff nurse, eh. She’s qualified.’

‘I’m going to make her proud, Captain. I want to become sergeant and then we’ll buy a wee house.’

‘That’s a goal, Doosh.’

‘Awesome.’

Luke sensed he wanted to say more. More perhaps about life in general and whether the captain had somebody special and would he like to settle down with her some day and buy a house? It was all on Dooley’s face but he was too shy of the captain’s privacy. Dooley wished he could summarise their friendship and his emotions were rushing into the moment. But he wasn’t easy like the Scouser when it came to feelings so he just put his arm around the captain and said it was a great night. ‘I feel fucken magic,’ he said as he got up and joined the others on the dance floor. Luke watched his comrades-in-arms and thought them the best young men in the world. He realised how young they were and put two twenties under Flange’s glass.

As he walked home, he looked out and saw a hill of deckchairs stacked at the end of the pier. He looked over the sea and wondered if it might be one long dream, his family, his friends, the lives they tried to live. It was strange, but the dark water seemed experienced and alive, as if conscious of the people on the shore, as if it could see to the heart of things. The Ferris wheel was still but the lights blinked as he walked down the Golden Mile. There was no sound but the sound of the waves. This was Blackpool. The lights were part of the town but the moon was simple and white up there, and he loved how it shone without frailty over the sea and the coast.

HARRY’S VERSION

Sheila stood on the second-floor landing with a mug of Lucozade in her hand and a cigarette going. You could smell bacon all the way up the stairs and it was a fine morning if you believed the sunlight. ‘Oops,’ Sheila said, spilling a drop, her hands busy as she spoke, wreathing the air with smoke and fizz. ‘This carpet needs doing. Happen it’s only three years old. Would you believe that? It’s these young ones coming up and down in their boots. My mother ran it old-fashioned, you know, kippers for breakfast, two to a bed but she’d want to see the wedding ring.’

‘She was strict, then?’

‘Always wore a pinny, me mam. But good to the guests. She put a wireless in every room.’

‘Who did the bird drawings?’ asked Luke.

‘That’s father. He loved birds. All his books are still in the cabinet down in the lounge. He was like Mrs Blake, an artist at heart, really. When she pointed a camera at something you really knew it was captured.’

Luke was pleased as he listened. According to Sheila’s mother, who didn’t have kids at the time, Mrs Blake was famous one summer for haunting the cafes of Blackpool. It must have been the summer of 1962, she said. ‘The town was full of teenagers, they were always fighting and some of them drove their scooters up and down the front, and Mrs Blake was making a study of them.’ Apparently, the darkroom was like an art gallery at the time, rows of photos pinned up around the walls and the smell of chemicals, good God, Sheila’s mother thought she might have to say something. ‘But Mam knew it was important for Mrs Blake to get on with her work,’ Sheila said. ‘She

photographed all these youngsters and their hair.’

You couldn’t resist Sheila. She said her mother spoke of all the places where Mrs Blake used to take pictures. Putting down the mug, she began to count them off on her fingers. ‘The Shangri La cafe on Central Drive. The Hawaiian Eye cafe on Topping Street. Redman’s Cafe in Bank Hey Street. The Regal Cafe on Lytham Road.’

‘Wow,’ Luke said. ‘You’ve some memory.’

‘And Jenks Cafe in Talbot Square.’

He took care to close the door. He put down the newspaper and the groceries and turned to see Anne sitting up. He made tea with lots of milk and he buttered the rolls and put ham inside them. Anne liked it, chewing quite happily, introducing sips of tea after every bite. She saw the day when she would run down to get the breakfast for Harry. And when she came back carrying the sausages or the bacon wrapped in paper, the bread, the brown sauce in a bottle, she would hesitate at the top, knowing he was inside the darkroom waiting for her. She could picture it: how she stood there, how she kissed the door before going in.

‘Did you black out the windows?’ she said to Luke.

‘To let you sleep?’

‘For processing. Harry and the blankets. Just like they did in the war. Harry was in the war, you know.’

‘So I gather.’

‘He flew planes.’