Huts48

We stood in little groups, knotted together in fag smoke and rain,with upturned collars, weary, like characters from a Chandler novel, waiting and wanting it to be suddenly over and for someone to tell us who to blame.

Canon Mallon didn't choose to have a discreet word with Bundy Macintosh about her husband. He didn't tell her that Jammie would not be allowed to be buried in hallowed Church grounds beside his baby, Little Addy, and let her make alternative arrangements. Like any common gangster, or debt collector, Canon Mallon waited until he had a captive audience, with the doors shut, at Holy Mass, and nailed her mundane wants and needs to the floor, as an example to others.

The two undertakers made all the right Uriah Heep hand wringing noises about it being a shame, but they had to store the body and there would need to be another, more Protestant burial. Business was business. Bundy's face and body had that bowed and unbalanced look as if she had been pummelled too many times and wanted just to lie down and give in. With one resigned shake of her head the new contract was effectively signed and the two Uriahs motored the problem away.

Dad never said anything bad about priests or the church, but with his usual graciousness he took it personally.'Lets go. That old bastard's fucked us up,' he said.

He didn't say there was nothing we could do about it, but that's what he meant. The Horse and Barge was open to sell drink. That never changed. I didn't say anything about being barred, just jockeyed along with the others, and kept my head ducked down when dad was at the bar.

Barry Ferguson sat on his usual bar stool, within spitting distance of the nearest barman. I don't know if he spotted me first, or I spotted him. Our eyes locked, until I looked away. He slid off his bar stool, with practiced ease, and came striding towards me. I snatched a look at the bar.

Dad was a proud man, but not too proud to beg. He had his eyes on the bar manager and two bar maids as if he was trying to negotiate a 'not proven' verdict. I'd scanned the faces around me before Barry Ferguson had reached me. There was no one else I could see that would help me.

I knew there would not be the usual escalation of name calling, pushing and shoving. Barry Ferguson was professional in his approach to violence and short-circuited such shabby amateurishness. I took a step back, and splay footed, almost fell over the leg of the chair behind me.

'Watch it!' said one of my cousins, whose name I could never remember, jumping out of his seat like a thingummy in the Box.

Too late, as Barry Ferguson, grabbed me by the arm, pulling me upright, I realized my cousin's concern was about spilling some drinks on his table and not my blood.

'What you wanting to drink?' said Barry Ferguson, looking me in the eye.

'Lager,' I replied, meeting his calculating gaze.

Barry was back, balancing the pint of lager on the end of the table, before my dad had been served. 'There you go Cassius,' Barry said, with his little half smile, that spoke of a joke being not quite a joke.

'Thanks,' I said, swallowing half of the pint, almost immediately; in thirst or fright, or a show of appreciation, or because I was too scared to look at him properly, I wasn't quite sure. Barry was already away before I'd time to find out.

Dad finally returned, with a tray of drinks for the two of us, searching desperately in his jacket for his fags and matches. And not being able to find them mouthing to me above the noise: 'Have you seen your mum?'

Mum was sitting with Bundy at the buffet table, all kinds of finger food laid out, like Mother's Pride and the ghost of real food: slices of roast beef, speared sausage and pineapple chunks, Spam and sausage rolls. Mum frantically signalled to me: 'I need to pee,' she said apologetically. I slid into the seat beside them as Dusty Springfield' 'I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself' came on the jukebox and somehow cut out the need for conversation.

Bundy grabbed at my hand, tucking it in beside her as if I was a chid. I desperately tried to think of something to say, prayed for mum to return quickly and fidgeted to get away.

Dad didn't see the need for grown up conversation, filling his mouth quicker than his paper plate. 'All right Bundy,' he said, as if he had just met her in the street as he grazed and wandered away.

'I'm tired,' said Bundy to me or dad, or no one in particular, as I slipped my hand away from hers like a pickpocket, wondering what was keeping my mum so long, and knowing that she would be yakking to someone in the toilet, when she should have been here. Bundy needed her.

'I'm so tired,' said Bundy repeating herself, her head falling forward as if she was going to fall asleep. I was hoping she would. She looked tired. And she smelt as if she was rotting from the inside out, as if the undertakers had put the wrong body in the coffin. It would be good for her to sleep.

'My head's not working, and I'm so tired. And everything's heavy.' Bundy began to sob quietly beneath the curtain of her matted hair. I wanted to put my arm around her, but couldn't, just sat, staring at the the remains of the food, which looked like it had been attacked by a pack of stray dads.

Mum pushed past me and held Bundy. I slid along the seats and slunk away.

I don't know if it was the buttons or my eyes. I might have closed them for a minute. The buttons on the stripy black cardigan seemed done up wonky and pulled down over one shoulder. In the wrong holes. But I knew the gently modulated voice from childhood and Audrey Hepburn movies where everyone spoke very proper. Maureen Hargreaves tapped me on the shoulder once more.

'It's time to go,' she said, 'the pub's shutting.'

'I know,' I grunted, shutting my eyes.

She prodded me again. But I just smiled at her with my eyes shut.

'C'mon,' she said, pulling at my shoulder, her My Fair Lady English deserting her, as I slumped into the warmth of her body sitting next to me.

Her blond hair, in a chignon, was the unravelling of me, but her twinkling blue eyes were my delight. 'Time to go,' she said disentangling herself from me.

I'd have went anywhere with her. But when I sat up the bastard Sammy Doak was sitting smoking, blowing smoke rings, at the other table, watching us. I'd promised myself I'd hunt Sammy Doak down like a dog, after what he'd done to Maureen, but I didn't need to go far. I jumped up, ready to change the wooden puppet smile that Sammy Doak had on his face to something more real.

'We're engaged,' said Maureen pulling me down beside her, flashing the ring on her finger, to show that it was real.

'Engaged,' I said looking at the ring and looking at her face and back to the ring.

'Engaged to be married,' she said once again in proper English, willing me with her eyes to be happy for her.

I looked at her and I looked at Sammy Doak and my face set like stone into a firm hatred of them both. I got up to leave. Maureen pulled at my arm once more. But there was no easy capitulation this time. Maureen jumped up and ran beside me, pulling at my arm, like some kind of wailing widow.

'Don't,' I said irritably, watching Sammy Doak following us, 12 steps behind.

Maureen was crying, soft tears like rain. 'I'm pregnant,' she said, whispering the death of us, all that could have been, in my ear.

'How?' I asked, looking at her, as if I didn't know her, lost for words, reason or logic.

'Here,' I said, flinging a ten bob note fluttering into the air, 'you'll need this,' pushing out the door and into the cold night air, and the sterile stars, that signalled something and nothing.

.