For the next week, Joe spends almost every other night sleeping on my couch. He turns up in the evening – or just waits on my doorstep until I get back from work – bedraggled, hungry, unable to cope. I take him in, let him share whatever I’m eating, get down the spare blanket, and in the morning take him home. Then he’s all right for one night, but the next day, he’s always back. He knows that she’s dead, but he also thinks she still talks to him. I don’t understand how he can believe those two things at the same time, but he does.
I’m worried he’s losing his marbles; he only had a couple of ordinaries to begin with.
The day of his mother’s funeral arrives. We take our seats and the humanist minister at the lectern burbles on and I can’t follow what he says, because it just doesn’t matter. He didn’t talk to us about what to say. There are only four mourners in the chapel: me, Mr Green, Joe, and, alone on the other side of the aisle, Mrs Joe’s brother. He sits straight-backed in his double-breasted suit, eyes fixed on some point on the wall. If he’s listening to the sermon, he gives no sign. There’s no movement, no expression. He looks more like an old soldier than a man who made a living running a removals firm.
There are no hymns or prayers. She didn’t go in for that stuff. Why would she? And so we simply have a moment’s silence before the curtains open and the casket is swallowed. As we walk out, the only sound is of our footsteps on the hard floor of the aisle. The minister offers his hand at the door. I ignore him.
Outside, Mrs Joe’s brother gets into his car and drives off. Since he went to the house that night last week, he has made everything a mere formality, perhaps out of shock or maybe just the sense that the best he could do was be rid of a bad job as quickly as possible. Amazingly – after four decades or more – Joe recognized his uncle on the doorstep and promptly flipped out. Somehow, he chased him to the next-door neighbours’ house. It was then I got the call. Thank God I was in. I arrived to find Mrs Joe’s brother hiding in the young couple’s living room while their kid screamed blue murder. Joe was in the lane, yelling his mother’s view of various family disputes that surely aren’t important to her now. Joe never did learn the lessons of what really matters and when, so I had to pin him to the wall and let him kick my shins, while his uncle scuttled to the car and screeched away. Later, I found his wing mirror lying in a puddle, and a great scratch down my driver’s-side door.
‘Do you think we’ll see him again?’ I ask Mr Green, as the black Jaguar sweeps past us.
‘I’d say that was fairly unlikely, son.’
‘Can we trust him with the solicitors and that?’
‘We’ll have to, won’t we? It’s officially none of our business.’ He fumbles with the car door handle; I go over and help him. ‘Take me to the pub,’ he says.
‘Are you sure? What about him?’ I nod over at Joe, who just stands with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his coat, staring at his feet.
‘Bring him with us.’ Then he throws his walking stick onto the back seat and slowly climbs in after it.
I close the door for him and call over to Joe, ‘C’mon, mate. It’s time to go.’
‘No one came,’ he says.
‘Don’t worry about that. You were there – that’s all that matters. Come to the pub with us.’
‘I’m barred.’
‘That was ten years and two landlords ago. They won’t remember. Anyway, it wasn’t your fault. Get in.’
‘Is he going?’
‘Your uncle? No.’
‘He’s a nasty piece of work, that one.’
‘He’s gone. Forget about him.’
He looks over his shoulder to the crematorium, looks back at me. ‘I don’t want to leave her.’
‘She’s not here, mate. She’s not here. Come with us.’
For the first time today, he starts to cry, but he gets in the car and we drive away.
—
At the pub, I buy the drinks: a pint for Mr Green and a shandy for Joe, whose mother never let him get drunk. It’s about six o’clock – Mrs Joe’s was the last funeral of the day and the drive back took half an hour – so the pub is still sparsely populated, but people are drifting in. The three of us drink, Joe quietly, Mr Green and me earnestly, and mull over our individual regrets. In here, Joe looks like a rabbit who finds himself in the fox’s den. I could reach out and put my hand on his shoulder or something, but I don’t. After a little while, he gets up and goes to the toilet.
Mr Green leans over to me. ‘Lydia came to see me the other day.’
‘Who?’
‘The panto lady.’
‘Oh, her.’
‘Aye. She says that Joe worries some of the others. Wondered if we’d mind keeping him away from rehearsals in future.’
‘He’d be heartbroken. I hope you told her to go and do one.’
‘I was slightly more diplomatic than that.’ He sucks his teeth.
‘So he’s not kicked out?’
‘No. Not yet.’
‘Good.’
‘She asked me about you too. It seems somebody has been whispering to her about your chequered past.’
‘Jesus.’
‘Well, I told her you’re “fully rehabilitated” and “an upstanding member of the community”. She liked that. I think she’s a Guardian reader. Listen…’ He pauses, taps the tabletop. ‘I called Social Services.’
‘About Joe?’
‘Of course about Joe.’
‘Right.’ Joe is scared of the authorities, and I’m not sure I like the sound of this. ‘So?’
‘So nothing. They listened sympathetically, issued forth some platitudes. You know what a platitude is, don’t you?’
‘Yes, Mr Green, I know what a platitude is.’
‘Good. Well, I just wanted you to know that I’ve set the wheels in motion, or I’m trying to at least.’
‘Right.’
‘Don’t worry – they’re not going to drag him away by the hair. They’re not that efficient, for a start. I was a teacher, so I’ve dealt with these people before. It’ll be hard enough to get them to do anything, let alone something drastic. They’re overworked and under-resourced.’
‘Well, as long as you know what you’re doing.’
‘Unfortunately, in this regard I do.’
I pick up a beer mat and turn it over in my hands because they’re itching for something to do. I suppose I should be glad; if Joe gets help, maybe he’ll stop coming to my house at all hours. Then again, that assumes the ‘help’ is any help.
‘Relax,’ he says to me. ‘I’ll handle them. You just keep doing what you’re doing.’
‘That’s what I’m scared of.’
‘That and everything else, I should imagine.’
‘Aye. That and everything else.’
Joe gets back from the bog and slumps once more into his chair. He keeps looking around himself as if he expects attack from any angle. Under the table, I nudge his shin with my toe. ‘Chill out, mate. Nobody’s going to bother you. You’re with me.’
‘It’s not civilized in here,’ he pronounces.
‘Joe, that’s the point. If it were civilized in here, no bugger would come.’
‘It’s full of ruffians,’ he says, and sips at his shandy.
Mr Green reaches into his inside pocket and withdraws his wallet. He inspects its contents, then pokes a tenner into my hand. ‘I think you and I need a large whisky each.’
‘I think you might be right.’
I know he’s just had a stroke, but that’s his business, and if he wants to drink himself to death, I’ll be right behind him. I’m watching the barmaid push a glass to the optic when the muscles in my shoulders and neck suddenly stiffen. A familiar voice comes through the door behind me. If this were a western, I’d lower my hand to my hip and prepare to spin on my heel the moment the talking stops. Instead, I quietly ask for a bag of cheese and onion crisps and some dry-roasted nuts.
Back at our table, I push the snacks towards Joe and sip at my whisky. Barry sits with his back to us, so I don’t think he has seen me yet. His companion is at the bar and he looks familiar, but I’m not sure: a big guy with a hint of belly hanging over the top of his jeans. I’ve seen him around. He looks like a ruffian.
He swaggers back to Barry with a pint in each hand, sits down, starts to drink. It’s not far from here to there – maybe eight or nine paces. They’re laughing at something. I could cover that distance quickly; Barry wouldn’t see me coming, and his mate wouldn’t have time to work out what was happening. I could punch Barry in the back of the head and break my glass in the other guy’s face before he was even on his feet, but that’s not going to happen.
My knee judders up and down.
‘Are you all right?’ Mr Green is talking to me.
‘What? Yeah. I’m fine. It’s just…nothing.’ I pick up the whisky and wish I’d got a pint instead; I need something wet.
‘You looked like you were miles away.’
‘No such luck.’
‘Do you know those men?’
I look round. Barry turns in his chair, smiles, and tips his glass towards me. I do nothing. He gets up and saunters over.
‘All right, mate?’
I say nothing.
‘Sorry I didn’t stop the other night. I was in a rush.’
What you mean, I think, is that you didn’t have back-up. I look past Barry, to the big guy; he’s watching, arms folded.
‘I hear you’re back in work. With that lad from Mac’s lot. What’s his name? Lee.’
‘How did you know that?’
‘Ways and means.’
‘Shut up, Barry. You’re all piss-steam.’
‘Am I now?’ He looks at Joe. ‘I see you’re still doing your bit for charity.’
‘Baz, we’ve just been to a funeral. If you want to talk to me, you know where I live. Now get lost.’
‘Nasty bruise, that.’
‘Thanks for your concern.’
‘You’re welcome. I’ll see you later.’
He goes and sits with his mate again.
Mr Green looks at me. ‘What was all that about?’
‘Nothing for you two to worry over.’
Joe has gone very still and small.
‘Are you all right, mate?’ I ask him.
‘I don’t like him,’ he says quietly.
‘I know you don’t. I’m not that keen on him either. C’mon, drink up and we’ll go and have some dinner.’