Lee Rourke: Vulgar Things

‘I don’t know what else to say …’

‘…’

‘Wait … Sorry … Wait …’

I forget about the jetty and continue towards the Lobster Smack, leaving him standing in the road. I should speak to Mr Buchanan one last time, just to say goodbye, to thank him. There’s so much more I should ask him, but there doesn’t seem to be a point to it any more. It would just prolong everything, when what I really need to do is move things on, away from all this. One day I know that I’ll finally look back at all this, I’ll read my notes and re-watch all my recordings and I’ll be able to make sense of it all, but it seems such a long way off at the moment.

is it all finished?

To my right, the oil refinery towers over me: tall chimneys, the gargantuan oil containers, brimming with the stuff. I want to submerge myself in it somehow, to sink slowly into it, its blackness engulfing me, a blackness I’d be unable to escape from, never to be found, sunken, returned, lost in its gloop, where I’d remain, entombed for aeons, eventually broken down into particles and matter, used to power giant engines on ships, machinery, fuelling the big bangs of industry. I would return to where I came from: the blackness of night.

I carry on walking, as quickly as I can. I need to finish what I started. I head straight for the Lobster Smack to see Mr Buchanan. Just as I’m about to walk through the door to the pub my phone begins to ring. It’s Cal.

‘Hello …’

‘Jon …’

‘Cal …’

‘Is it all finished?’

‘What?’

‘Is it all finished?’

‘What, sorry, I can’t hear you, it’s breaking up, the signal is breaking up, where are you?’

‘I’m at Stansted … Just got back …’

‘Right, okay …’

‘Is it all finished?’

‘Yes, Cal, it’s all finished …’

‘Oh good … Just remember to label all the boxes correctly, okay …’

‘Sure, Cal …’

‘We’ve got to go …’

‘Cal, I need to …’

‘Our car is here … We’ve got to go … I’ll phone you tomorrow …’

‘Sure …’

‘…’

‘…’

it doesn’t feel like an ending

When I walk into the Lobster Smack Mr Buchanan greets me almost immediately. There’s a broad smile across his face. He adjusts his wire-framed glasses and pats me on the shoulder.

‘Jon … Jon … I didn’t expect to see you today …’

‘Oh … I just …’

‘I thought you’d be in Southend …’

‘I have … How did you know that?’

‘Oh … I guessed … I just figured that’s where you’d be …’

‘Well, I don’t need to go there any more, there’s no need for that, there’s nothing for me there now …’

‘Well, you must be ready to go back to London tomorrow?’

‘Yes … yes, I am.’

‘Must be a relief?’

‘To go back there?’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t know … I might take a holiday, or something …’

‘Well, at your age I suppose you can still go wherever you want …’

‘Yes … I guess I can …’

‘…’

‘Mr … Robbie …’

‘Yes?’

‘Is …’

‘What?’

‘Is he still alive?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Is Uncle Rey still alive?’

‘What?’

‘Is he?’

‘No … No … What are you talking about … What … Why do you think … What do you mean?’

‘It’s just that I have this feeling … In my gut … That he’s been talking to you all … You know, since I’ve been here, that he’s staged it all and you’re all in on it … Like he’s looking over me, or creating things for me, so that I’ll, you know … Forgive him, or something …’

It just hit me really, like that, I hadn’t given it much thought, and there’s no real reason to have reached such a far-fetched conclusion, but something in Mr Buchanan’s eyes, something in his staged reaction piques my interest. I’m convinced he’s covering something up, like there’s something else he isn’t telling me.

‘He’s as dead as Dillinger, lad.’

‘Something isn’t right about all this … It’s like …’

‘What?’

‘It’s like it’s all been staged … I can feel his presence … Like he’s there wherever I go, watching me, recording my every move with some hidden camera …’

‘But he’s dead, Jon …’

‘I feel like he’s watching us now …’

‘It’s natural to feel this way … It’s a big loss, and a sad one, under these circumstances.’

‘It just doesn’t feel right, like you know something … like you’re hiding something from me …’

‘Jon … Jon … This is ludicrous, there’s nothing to hide … Rey was a sad, lonely old man … who’d lived a life of regret. He was a truly sad man, that’s all there is to it.’

‘I just want an end to it … it doesn’t feel like an ending … it just goes on and on and on and on …’

I’m starting to get angry, frustrated. I seem to be shaking my stick aggressively. Mr Buchanan backs away, just out of harm’s way. I stop when I see him doing this and walk over to a table to sit down. He follows me after a slight hesitation, putting his hand on my shoulder again.

‘Nothing ends, Jon … You know that as much as I do … all it can do is go on …’

I sit with my head in my hands. I can sense Mr Buchanan fumbling around for something behind me.

‘There is one thing …’

‘Pardon?’

‘There is one more thing … Something I didn’t tell you …’

‘What … What is it?’

‘He gave me a letter.’

‘For me?’

‘No … For …’

‘Who?’

‘Your mother …’

‘Oh.’

‘He gave it to me the morning before he … You know …’

‘Where is it?’

‘He wanted me to post it to her, he just told me to post it … Nothing else …’

‘Did you?’

‘No …’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know … I must have forgotten initially … and then after what he did, I just … You know …’

‘Where is it?’

‘It’s here …’

I put the letter in my rucksack with the others. Mr Buchanan offers me some lunch as an apology. We eat rare steak and share a bottle of Burgundy. He asks me about London and I tell him that I might sell up and leave, that there’s nothing for me there either. All the while the letter to Mother is burning a hole in my rucksack. It must be the final thing he wrote, to Mother, his final thoughts. I’m itching to read it, but I remain calm, savouring each mouthful of the steak and fine wine.

‘There’re a few things I’d like to ask you to do … I can leave you the money …’

‘Certainly, Jon …’

‘Could the telescope and everything else in Uncle Rey’s shed, the charts and maps and stuff, be sent off to me, here’s my address …’

‘Sure … Of course …’

‘And there’s a bunch of Dr Feelgood records, could you send them to my brother Cal? His address is here. He doesn’t live that far from me.’

‘Yes, sure … Is there anything else?’

‘No … I think that should be it … The rest will be taken care of … I’ll drop off the money and keys with you at some point tomorrow afternoon. Could you make sure everything is sent tomorrow morning … I’ll leave the records in the shed.’

I finish my glass of Burgundy and shake Mr Buchanan by the hand. He smiles at me, but I don’t feel like smiling much. I thank him for everything, grab my stick and rucksack and walk out of the pub. I climb up the grass verge, up onto the sea wall, over the iron steps and out onto the jetty. The tide is out, revealing the rocks and pebbles, the muddy flats on which the seagulls and oystercatchers are gorging themselves on whatever it is they find out there. I find myself a suitable rock to sit on, down the steps, on the shore. I open my rucksack and take out the letter. I look at her address. I stare at each letter of her address, the place where she’s been all this time, for most of my life, living her own life away from the world. I open the envelope.