Graham Swift - Last Orders

So there we are, sitting on a camel, in the brass frame on Jack's sideboard, beside the fruit bowl. I'm laughing fit to bust. Jack's trying to laugh. The camel aint even cracking its face. And Amy never knew, and she still don't, what we were doing just hours before that photo was taken. 'Second ride of the day, eh Raysy?' Or that that was the day I first saw a photo of her.

I said, 'Amazing though, aint it, Jack? Ancient Egypt. One of the sights.'

He said, 'You'll see some sights.'

And so I did, so we both did. Just as well I was in insurance, and Jack was in butchery. It seems amazing now, like ancient history, that I was ever there, with Jack, in the desert. That I advanced with Jack from Egypt into Libya and retreated with him to Egypt and advanced again into Libya. A small man at big history. And somewhere in the same desert Lenny Tate was advancing and retreating, though we never knew him then. And Micky Dennis was killed at Belhamed and Bill Kennedy at Matruh, and Jack said it was unfair that a pharaoh got a whole pyramid when there was a good half of Bill that wasn't even in that grave. Then on to Tripoli, and never a scratch, never a scratch. Save that once. And it wasn't me, it was Jack. Clipped him on the left shoulder, went crack over my own head. But he always said if I hadn't been there to pull him down smart off of those sandbags, he'd've copped it worse. He'd've been like Bill Kennedy. Smack in the wife's-best-friend.

I saw it when he was lying there after his op. The new scar on his stomach, the old scar on his shoulder.

See this, Nursey? Come a bit closer. Got it in North Africa. If it wasn't for my mate Lucky there I wouldn't be here.

He said, 'Your first choice, Ray. As long as you don't pick the one with the big diddies on the right.'

But it wasn't easy, because I'd never seen five girls together before, leaning on a wooden balcony, naked except for some beads and frillies. Like looking at a row of iced buns. And all of them giggling. I said, 'They're laughing, Jack.' He said, 'What do you want 'em to do, cry?' So.I chose the smallest. No saying why, but it was a good choice as it turned out. I reckon I needed someone who could show me how to do what I'd never done before, so I could do it without help next time, and who wouldn't let on. No matter that Jack must have guessed anyway. I bet he did.

'Good choice, Ray. Your size.'

And when she got me into her little bivvy - about fifteen flies and a gallon of perfume - the problem wasn't so much in the actions as in the words. Like when she said, 'You lick me?' This was after she'd dropped everything, turned round, wiggled and turned round again, all of a bobble. And I had my tongue half out, like I was at the doc's, before I thought, She means 'like me' she means 'like me'. Though I suppose I'll never know. Or when, after I'd shot my jollop, quick as spit, same problem as with Lily Foster but at least I got inside, at least I was on target, and I'd got up to go, hoisting up my khakis, because I thought that was it, short and sweet, best not dwelt on, she said, 'You got ten mints. Look at cluck. What your fren think, you go now?'

And when we went back on to the balcony it was Jack who was already there, waiting, leaning on the balcony, smoking, telling the other girls, who were still giggling, things they didn't understand and trading lip with two sappers who were haggling with the madam in the yard below, like he could do them a better price.

He says, 'Well how was it, Ray? Madam Yashmak here was just about to come and prise you apart.'

But I didn't have to answer because my one was right behind me and she answers for me. She says, 'Very good, very good. Little man, big cuck.'

Jack says, 'Cuck? Cuckf Then everyone starts laughing and I go red as ketchup.

'Cuck?' Jack's laughing and the girls are giggling and the sappers in the yard are looking up and laughing too, and we're in Cairo, in Egypt, in Africa, in the middle of a war.

'Well, Raysy, that sounds like just about everything rolled into one.'

Including luck.

So I hit her. I hit Sally Tate.

Because I said, 'Do you know where babies come from?' and she said, 'No.' I said, 'I do.' Then I didn't say nothing, so she said, 'Well tell me, teil me where babies come from.' So I said, 'Hops. They come from hops,' and she looked at me like she was going to laugh.

She said, 'What are hops?'

I said I wasn't too sure but they were the things. You had to do something with them, called hop-picking.

She was looking at me with this laugh in her face, like she knew all along how babies got made. It must have been her who started the joke. You should never share your secrets. A little joke on top of the big joke, but it stuck. So Lenny would say, years after, 'Have another beer, Vince, have some more baby juice.'

But it wasn't why I was asking her, or telling her. It wasn't the hops or how you picked them, it was who. It was who picked them.

So then I said what I was meaning to say. It wasn't Jack and Amy who picked my hops, they picked someone else's hops. She was called June. So it was true what the other kids said, the ones I hit. Vincey's got a sister. But it wasn't true as well, because my hops were picked by someone else, they were picked by—

And she said she knew, she knew that already.

So I hit her. She wasn't laughing but I hit her like I hit those other kids.

And I didn't stop hitting those other kids, I carried on hitting them, more and harder. Because I knew now it was true what they said, and not true. Because she wasn't my sister. June aint my sister, I aint got no sister. And though it was true she wasn't my sister, I hit all the harder because of her, I hit on behalf of her, because she couldn't hit for herself. Because before, when I never knew about June, I didn't have no one to hit on behalf of, I just hit.

I thought, It's one thing I can do for her. Because though she wasn't my sister I reckoned I was like her anyhow. Not like her like they said, funny in the head, but like her for having been played a trick on. So I hit.

The boys I hit. Alec Clarke I hit, Freddy Newman I hit. The girls I didn't hit, except Sally. You aint supposed to hit girls, they're different. But they know about hitting, they aint so different. So when one or two or a whole pack of 'em started up at me, same stuff as the boys only worse sometimes, I wouldn't hit them, I'd say, 'Show us your knickers.'

That was when Sally joined in, I noticed that, when it got like a game, when they'd start skipping and jigging and hopping in front of me, 'Look, Vince, look at all these hops,' trying to make me get to the point where I wouldn't be able to hit them.

Because up to then she'd kept her distance, we weren't speaking. Because I'd hit her.

But she didn't just give me a quick flash and run off screaming and shrieking like the others then sneak back for more. She said, 'Come with me, Vince.' We were picking our way through the bomb-site, through the weeds and bricks and rubbish and I aint ever thought what a bomb-site was before, it was just a word. Then she stopped and stood and looked at me and lifted up her skirt with both hands so the hem was touching her nose, like a veil. And it wasn't so much her knickers. They were dark blue, they weren't so interesting. It was the fact that she was standing there in front of me with her skirt held up like she was folding a tablecloth, all ready for inspection. So I said, 'Show me your pisshole.'

It was all different now with Sally.

She said, 'No.' So I said, 'Or I'll hit you.' So she said, 'If you show me yours.'

I said, 'I aint got a pisshole, I got a willy.'

She said, 'You piss through it, don't you?' So I didn't say nothing and she said, 'Well?'

Her face was all big and serious. I thought, She aint like a girl now, she's like a woman with a life.