Jackie got an earful of all that our-brave-boys stuff after that, all heroic sacrifices and dying-for-all-our-freedom, which if it was me Id have wanted someone to talk me through how that was supposed to work exactly. Mark sitting tight in that broken-down tank waiting for his orders. Waiting for help to arrive without it ever passing through his big pink head that it was never coming. They gave him a posthumous medal and everything. No wonder Jackie moved out of town. Must have wanted to get away from all that sympathy. Dont know what happened to Marks dad. Hed been in all the pictures in the paper, I could remember that, the two of them sat in their lounge with their arms round each other, holding up Marks school photo like some kind of consolation prize. The sofa was hardly big enough for the two of them and all their crying. He must have just gone and done the off.
Fucking heatstroke though. It werent exactly Andy McNab.
That was all about the time someone did a job on Hilltop Farm, which old man Stewart didnt exactly own but it turned out he had some interest in, and word went round that it was us whod done it. There wasnt any proof and it got dropped in the end but that didnt stop word going around anyway. That was when most of the trouble started. It was the interest in that job that meant we got caught out, in the end.
Whoever called it Hilltop Farm must have had some sense of humour, round here.
Jackie came over again before she went to the church and told us that if she did get to go to the reception shed make sure she brought us back some cake. We told her thanks Jackie, thats good of you, well look forward to it. Another load of Tornadoes went over, three of them in close formation going extra-low over the Sands without dropping anything. Jackie said that was how they knew last time round that the war was definitely going to start, when theyd started going at the Sands all hours like this. We didnt know what to say so we told her to enjoy the wedding.
By the time we heard the church bells ringing and the guests were all sweeping out of the church and throwing confetti at the happy couple it had been quiet over by the Sands for a couple of hours. Wouldnt put it past old man Stewart to have gone and had words at the base. National emergency crisis or whatever, this was his daughter getting married. We stood up at the top of the rise by the hay meadow and watched them all coming out of the church. Getting into the line-ups for the pictures. Moving apart and coming together and moving apart again and the young lady in the white dress always at the centre. The women all in hats and dresses like at the races. Ray started talking about how women like dressing up for a wedding. Cant argue with that, he was saying. Strappy shoes. High-heeled shoes. Dresses in bold colours and prints. Purple dresses. Red and white floral dresses. Very tight. Above the knee. Figure-hugging, you get me. Dresses they keep tugging at the hemline like they never noticed how short it was when they put it on, you get me. All that hair-dressing. Hats. Summer hats. Summer dresses and summer hats and straps that keep slipping off shoulders. Bare shoulders. Bare legs. You get me. It was hard to stop him when he got going on something like that. Fucking, monologue is what youd call it. I asked him could he see Jackie anywhere and he showed me where she was standing off to one side, sort of behind a stone wall. There were a couple of other women from the village with her but she was the only one wearing a hat.
By the time we heard the church bells ringing and the guests were all sweeping out of the church and throwing confetti at the happy couple it had been quiet over by the Sands for a couple of hours. Wouldnt put it past old man Stewart to have gone and had words at the base. National emergency crisis or whatever, this was his daughter getting married. We stood up at the top of the rise by the hay meadow and watched them all coming out of the church. Getting into the line-ups for the pictures. Moving apart and coming together and moving apart again and the young lady in the white dress always at the centre. The women all in hats and dresses like at the races. Ray started talking about how women like dressing up for a wedding. Cant argue with that, he was saying. Strappy shoes. High-heeled shoes. Dresses in bold colours and prints. Purple dresses. Red and white floral dresses. Very tight. Above the knee. Figure-hugging, you get me. Dresses they keep tugging at the hemline like they never noticed how short it was when they put it on, you get me. All that hair-dressing. Hats. Summer hats. Summer dresses and summer hats and straps that keep slipping off shoulders. Bare shoulders. Bare legs. You get me. It was hard to stop him when he got going on something like that. Fucking, monologue is what youd call it. I asked him could he see Jackie anywhere and he showed me where she was standing off to one side, sort of behind a stone wall. There were a couple of other women from the village with her but she was the only one wearing a hat.
The church bells kept ringing until the married couple got into a car and drove off. That was a lot of bell-ringing. The seals down at the Sands must have thought the end of the world was coming. We watched the whole procession of cars follow the trail of balloons from the church to the Stewart place and then I got another drink and sat by the lake and Ray went and broke up another pallet. It seemed a bit early to be lighting a fire. It was a pretty hot day still.
When he was done he came and sat down and asked if hed ever told me about the porno hed written once. I told him I didnt think he had. I told him I wasnt sure I wanted to know. He told me it had been a while ago and to be fair it had just been the once. He picked up some stones and threw them in the lake. He went and got an empty can and set it up on a flat rock by the edge of the lake and came and sat down and said the story had been for his wife. He looked at me. I threw a stone at the can and missed and didnt say anything. I didnt want to know. He told me it wasnt like hed been in the habit of writing porn but this had been a long train journey and it was just something that had occurred to him to do. Hed thought she might appreciate it. Hed thought it was something he could do for her, while he was away. To surprise her. I said I didnt know hed been married. He said there were a lot of things I didnt know about him and anyway this was all a while ago now. He told me dont get him started on marriage.
A stone skidded off the ground and hit the can but the can didnt fall and I threw another one. Jackies car turned into the driveway by her house and stopped. Jackie got out and went into the house and didnt look at us. She wasnt wearing the hat. She must have left it in the car. Ray carried on talking about this story he said hed written for his wife. It had been really something, apparently. Blindfolds, gasps of surprise, third parties involved, that type of thing. I held up my hand and told him Ray I dont want the details mate. He said fair enough lets just say it was properly filthy. He said hed really thought she was going to enjoy it, shed been known to enjoy that type of thing previously, shed been quite imaginative. You wouldnt have thought it to look at her though, was his next point. He wanted to emphasise that, it turned out. He spent quite a while emphasising that. She was gorgeous, in summary, a lovely woman. Looked like butter wouldnt melt.
There was a whistling noise from the sound system at the Stewart place, and what sounded like microphones being plugged in and out, and then it went quiet again. I went and got another drink. Ray was still telling his story about the porno story. It looked like it was going to take a while. He told me it took him a long time to write it, this story, when he was sitting on this train. He said he kept getting distracted by what he called the old days. I suppose he meant the old days as in when he first met this wife Id never heard about. He said he hadnt had a clue where the train was going. It was one of those single-carriage jobs and all he could see out the window was fields like this. He said it had been a hot day and all the windows on the train were open and the pages of his notebook kept flapping about in the wind. I asked him when had he ever had a notebook and he said shut up this was a while ago.
They must have started doing the speeches at the Stewart place. We couldnt hear most of what they were saying but the place kept going off in applause and what sounded like people banging their cutlery on the tables.
Ray was still going on about the train, and about how thered been hardly anyone else on board, just this bloke who looked like a fitter, and a couple of old ladies, and then this girl who was either a young-looking university student or an old-looking schoolgirl, it was hard to tell, she kept staring out the window, she must have had something on her mind, and as it happened she was quite pretty but he was trying not to look because he properly couldnt tell how old she was and you cant be too careful and anyway he was just trying to concentrate on writing this story for his wife because he thought it was something he could do for her, it seemed important at the time, he thought shed like it, he thought it would help.
I said, Jesus, Ray, dont forget to breathe.
We threw some more stones at the can.
He told me some more about what had been in this story, stuff about firm smacks on the behind and tying hands and stuffing underwear into mouths, that type of thing. I told him I could probably definitely do without the details. They turned the volume up at the Stewart place and we heard someone doing a toast to the happy couple and then the whole crowd of them going to the happy couple again. Ray turned and looked in that direction. We were both thinking about the drink theyd be getting through over there. Ray knocked the can over and went and set it up again and we both moved our chairs a bit further back and threw some more stones. He still hadnt finished. He started talking about how self-conscious it had made him to be writing all that stuff down on a train and how hed had to keep stopping to sort of catch his breath but he wanted to persevere with it because he really thought his wife was going to like it. I said it was making me self-conscious just having to listen to him go on about it and he told me to shut up again. He said theyd got into that type of thing before, on the phone, when hed been working away from home, and then he got into how all the working away from home might have been part of the problem, all those nights away and the unpredictability of it was how a lot of the arguments had started. I asked him like, what, you had an actual job and everything? He said sometimes it was like he couldnt say the right thing to make it up to her. I asked him if hed been a travelling salesman or what. He said some days it seemed like she didnt even want him to try, like she wanted him to just turn round and go out on another job. I said I still didnt know if we were talking about actual jobs here. He said it got to the point where he didnt feel welcome in his own house and all hed ever wanted was a home where he was welcome. I dont think he was listening to me. It was turning out there was still plenty I didnt know about Ray. He kept mentioning things as if I knew about them when really I had no idea. Like the wife thing. Or like a while before when hed mentioned living in Scandinavia. Or even like was he or wasnt he a Muslim any more or what.