Graham Swift - Last Orders

So I hoisted up a leg of my shorts, quick, maybe half a second's worth, but she said, 'Again,' like she was in charge. She looked, then she put her hand on it. She put her hand on it and felt, like she was feeling something she might want to buy, a tomato or something, like it was something her dad sold. Don't Squeeze Me Till I'm Yours.

So I hit her.

She was the only girl I hit. She must have known she was special. But the boys I hit unselective. I hit Terry Spencer. I hit Dave Croft. So the headmaster hauls me in for a talking-to. He was called Mr Snow and he used to breathe heavy and slow through his nose whenever he was angry, so we called him Snorter. I suppose it wasn't so simple for him, if he knew that I knew what I knew. Which I think he did. He said, Could I tell him the meaning of the word 'bully'? When you're that age there's a whole lot of things you can't find no words for, but what I said to him, one way or another, after he'd snorted a bit, was could he tell me the meaning of the word 'orphan'?

And I'd say that was a good answer, I'd say that was one of the best answers I ever give.

So he leans back in his chair and snorts and twiddles his pen. When I went in to see that surgeon I thought of Mr Snow. Life's a process of going before geezers who want to see you crawl.

He says, 'What do you want to be, Vince? What are you going to be?'

I think, That's a daft question because I'm something already. He looks at me, twiddling his pen. But the point is I aint even sure what I am in the first place. So I don't say nothing but I ruffle up and he can see it. There's playground noises coming from outside. I'd like to be Gary Cooper but I can't. I'd like to be all kinds of people, I'd even like to be Mr Snow putting some other poor kid on the mat, but I can't because I'm me. I think, This is what it must be like for June. There are all these people around her who aren't like June, because she's different, and if June thinks at all then she must think, I don't want to be like me, I want to be like them but I can't I can't I can't.

But maybe June doesn't think at all, she aint got a thought in her head, and supposing what you want to be is not like anything. Supposing what you want to be is a drive-shaft.

They said a flying-bomb killed them all so I was lucky.

He says, 'What I mean is, what do you want to do? He smiles, like he don't mean no harm really. "What job do you want to do?'

And I see them all hanging up before me, like clothes on a rack, all the jobs, tinker, tailor, soldier, and you have to pick one and then you have to pretend for the rest of your life that that's what you are. So they aint no different really from accidents of birth. I didn't know that phrase then but I learnt it later. It's a good phrase.

I think, He wants me to say 'butcher' but I aint going to say it. I aint going to say 'butcher'.

I said to Amy, 'Take me to see her, take me to see June.' I did something he never did, even if it was only once. Vin-cey's got a sister, face like a blister. And it was Amy who told me that he never wanted to tell me, never at all. Though how he thought he could keep me fooled beats me. It was Amy who told me that June was an accident, an accident of birth. She didn't mean the way June turned out, she meant that they'd never meant to have her.

So June was their accident and I was their choice, tinker, tailor.

He says, 'Well, how do you see yourself?'

He looks at me, knowing I've only got one answer. The whistle goes outside for play to end and the room goes quiet as cotton wool, except for his breathing. It was times like this I'd think, If they can see me, they must be watching me now.

No one ever kissed her, no one ever missed her.

I don't say nothing, and maybe he knows what I'd like to do is hit him.

Then I say, 'What I'd like to do, sir, what I'd like to be, is a hop-picker.'

It was Amy's voice but what I heard just for a moment, was Carol's.

She said, 'There's nothing they can do, Ray'll heard the bravery in her voice, just like Carol's.

She said he hadn't come round proper from the op yet and Strickland wasn't going to spell it out to him till he had. But he'd spelled it out to her, and to Vince, loud and clear. Nothing doing. Opened him up just to sew him back together again. Then, while she was there by his bed afterwards, he'd come round anyway just for a bit and she hadn't said nothing and he hadn't asked but he'd looked at her and all he'd said was, 'I want to see Lucky.'

I said, 'So do you think he knows?' And what I meant was: do you think he knows it's all over? But I thought, and maybe Amy was thinking it too, how you could take it another way, and maybe that's why he wanted to see me, because why do people get called to bedsides? I'd been going in to see him anyway, most days, but now he was asking: I want to see Lucky. What you never know won't hurt, but it's different when someone's dying, because it's not like you can say least said soonest mended, because there aint going to be no soonest or latest and you won't ever get the chance again to tell or not tell nothing.

Maybe that's what she was thinking too because she went all silent and choked.

So I said, 'You don't think he thinks that because I'm called Lucky—?'

Make a fool comment.

Then she started crying. I could hear the noise of people in corridors.

I said, 'Do you want - someone with you?'

She said, 'It's all right. I'm with Vince and Mandy, They'll stay the night.'

I said, 'I'll be there first thing tomorrow. Soon as they let in visitors.'

Then she said, 'Goodbye Ray,' as if she was setting out on some long journey, as if I might not see her again, not the same Amy. But it was Jack who was leaving, not Amy, and that's when her voice went like Carol's.

7 mean it, Ray, I'm not coming back. You listening to me? I'm not coming back'

She couldn't tell me to my face.

I pressed the receiver to my ear as if I couldn't hear properly and I remembered when Sue first called from Sydney and I hunched right up to the phone as if you had to do that when someone was speaking from the other side of the world, but Sue had sounded like she was just round the corner. I said, 'You sound like you're just round the corner, sweetheart.' And now Carol was sounding like she was the other side of the world, but I knew where she was phoning from.

Not Sydney, Sydenham.

7 couldn't tell you to your face but I'm telling you now'

But I could see her face, I could see it down the phone, trying to say her last words to me. I can still see it.

Tm with him, Ray. I'm with him now and I'm not coming back. Goodbye Ray.'

I didn't say, 'Goodbye Carol.' Goodbye Mrs Johnson. I didn't give her that satisfaction, or me that shame. That was all, my one cheap come-back, I never said goodbye. I put down the receiver. I sat in the silence, with the evening coming on outside. I thought, I won't go to the Coach, I can't go to the Coach. I couldn't imagine her with another man, even when I knew she had one. Barry Stokes. As daft as imagining me with— But if she had to have another man she might at least have found some rich ponce, or some flash ponce, or some handy-between-the-sheets ponce, if that was it. Instead of the sub-manager at the domestic-appliance centre where she worked part-time.

If I'd been another man I wouldn't have just sat there with it getting dark, but not bothering to put the lights on, as if, if I sat very still, I might fade away altogether. Another man would've kicked in a cupboard or two or swept every knick-knack off the mantelpiece with one swing of his arm. Another man would've put on his coat and gone straight round to where she was and bust open the door if needs be, then bust open his face.

But I aint another man, I'm a little bloke.