“You Belong To Me”

The brewery whistle gave a thin, weary cry in the cold air and the men spilled out through the gates of Ind Coope, boots scraping the wet ground, breath rising in pale clouds. The drizzle that had hung around all afternoon had eased, but the pavements still shone with it, slick under the lamps. Steam drifted from the vents along the yard wall, warm and sour with hops.

Billy waited for his brother, stamping his feet to keep warm. Jack came out almost last, shoulders hunched, collar up, face set in that unreadable way he’d had since returning home, walking as if still marching somewhere he didn’t want to go.

“You all right?” Billy asked.

Jack nodded without looking at him. “Long day.”

A small group of women from the bottling hall passed them, scarves pulled tight, their shoes clicking quickly on the wet concrete. One of them — dark hair, red coat — gave Jack a brief, curious glance. Not bold, not shy. Just a flicker of interest.

Jack looked away before their eyes could meet.

Billy nudged him. “She’s nice.”

“Leave it.”

“You used to talk to girls.”

“I used to do a lot of things.”

They walked toward the gatehouse. The watchman’s hut door was open a crack, a little pool of yellow light spilling onto the wet ground. A wireless murmured inside, valves glowing faintly. Jo Stafford’s voice drifted out, soft and faraway:

See the pyramids along the Nile…

Billy slowed, listening. “Sounds nice, that.”

Jack’s jaw tightened. “Does it.”

“You don’t like it?”

Jack shrugged. “Seen enough sand.”

Billy gave him a sideways look, but Jack was undettered.

They stepped onto Waterloo Road and started walking south. The brewery smell thinned behind them, replaced by the cold tang of wet pavement and the faint petrol scent from a passing lorry.

“You ever think about going somewhere?” Billy asked suddenly. “Like… proper somewhere.”

Jack didn’t answer.

“I mean, that line: pyramids, Nile, all that. Makes you think, doesn’t it?”

Jack’s breath came out in a white cloud. “Not in the way you mean.”

They passed under the railway viaduct, the girders dripping steadily from the afternoon’s rain. A train rumbled overhead, shaking soot from the brickwork. The sound rolled through the dimness like distant thunder.

A small row of dilapidated terraced houses glowed faintly with rectangles of yellow light, muted by chintzy curtains. Across the road, the brick edifice of Oldchurch Hospital loomed long, low and dark against the sky.

Billy kicked a stone into the gutter. “You ever see pyramids?”

Jack didn’t answer at first. The damp air curled around him, soft and grey. “Saw a lot of things,” he said finally. “Not like the song makes out.”

“What were they like?”

Jack’s breath came out in a white cloud. “Big. Hot. Full of flies. Nothing romantic about it.”

Billy nodded, though he couldn’t picture it. To him the line sounded like a promise: places he’d never see but yet might, somehow, one day.

They reached Oldchurch Road and crossed over to the residential side. Quiet suburban homes with decent front gardens, winter shrubbery and the occasional bicycle leaning under a porch.

The entrance to Oldchurch Park appeared as a darker shape in the darkness: a simple gate, unlatched, damp and cold to the touch. Jack pushed it open with his boot. Its hinges gave a soft, tired groan.

Inside, the park was a patchwork of ill defined shadows. Bare trees stood like ragged guardians of the allotments that lay further along the footpath. Sheds crouched as if hunched against the cold. Winter cabbages glimmered faintly where a sliver of moonlight caught their leaves. The soil was soft underfoot, the rows dark and sleeping. Somewhere in the hedge by their plot, a robin shifted, giving a small, irritated rustle.

Billy bent to run his hand down the edge of their shed door, feeling for the padlock with cold fingers. “Still on,” he reported.

Jack stood with his hands in his pockets, staring at the empty rows. “Can’t plant anything yet.”

“No,” Billy said. “But it’ll be spring soon.”

Jack didn’t reply. His gaze drifted upward, though there was nothing to see. Just low cloud and the faint glow of the town beneath it.

Billy straightened. “You could grow something this year. Properly, I mean.”

Jack let out a breath. “Maybe.”

“You don’t sound sure.”

Jack’s voice was quiet. “Hard to think about planting roots when you’ve spent years pulling them up.”

Billy didn’t know what to say to that. The damp pressed close, softening the edges of everything. A train passed over the viaduct to somewhere beyond, its rumble low and persistent. The robin hopped once, then stilled.

Billy shoved his hands into his pockets. “That song… when she sings about the pyramids… makes me think there’s more out there. You know. World’s bigger than this.”

Jack looked at him. Billy’s face was pale in the cold, eyes bright with something Jack couldn’t name.

“You think the world’s waiting for you?” Jack asked.

“Maybe.”

Jack shook his head. “World doesn’t wait for anyone.”

Billy opened his mouth, then closed it. The damp thickened, settling over the allotments like a blanket. A train continued to rumble towards its destination. The robin in the hedge gave a small, sleepy shuffle.

Billy breathed into his hands. “We should get home,” he said. “Mum’s making stew.”

Jack nodded, but didn’t move.

Billy regarded him for a moment: the set of his shoulders, the way he stared at the dark rows as if something might rise out of them. He knew that look. He’d seen it enough times to understand when to leave him be.

“See you later,” Billy said quietly.

Jack didn’t answer, but he didn’t expect him to. Billy turned and left the way they came, pushing the gate gently so it swung on silent hinges. His boots squelched softly then clumped louder as he stepped out onto the pavement and headed home.

Jack waited until Billy’s footsteps faded into the dark. Then he followed and latched the gate behind him. He stood alone for a while, listening to the swish of car tyres on the wet road, the faint rattle of a trolley across the hospital forecourt, the quiet shift of the earth settling in the cold.

The song repeated in his mind: just the one line, the one he couldn’t seem to shake.

See the pyramids along the Nile...

He pulled his collar up higher and stayed where he was, not quite ready to go home yet.