PART 3

CHAPTER 35
“Four as usual, Mr Barker?

“Aye, love. It’s that time of year again”

“We can take them… look, I don’t want to sound cheeky, like, but it must be a bit of a faff, what with bus and that. If you want, we could…”

The young girl, Cheryl her little badge said, Cheryl looked across the shop to her friend. “Pippa? Mind the shop for a bit?”

“Yeah?”

“Going for a drive in van. Be twenty minutes, tops”

“Orright”

Cheryl turned back to me. “You give us them wreaths, Mr Barker, I’ll take you round in van. We don’t charge for delivery over a tenner, and you’ve been right loyal here over past couple of years. Least we can do”

She pulled on a nylon rain jacket, cagoules they called them now, and took me out of the back door, carrying two of the wreaths, to a little Escort van, with the shop name on the sides, the front seat scented by old flowers.

“Buckle up, Mr Barker, please. I don’t want any points on me licence just yet. Usual place?”

“Aye, love”

“You always do it twice a year, Mr Barker. That’s what gets us, but only three months apart”

“Aye, well. Traditional dates, like”

“Well, today, I can see that, aye? Valentine’s, and… Valentine’s. But why November?”

It still surprised me that so much seemed to be disappearing. Not through malice, not through ignorance, I felt, but more through the simple fact that apart from the Irish stuff there was nothing to shake the world of the young. I mean, most of them still bought poppies, and there was a vague sort of memory that surfaced one Sunday a year, but I had noticed that the two minutes were being observed less often and far less rigorously.

“Remembrance Day. Love. Lads who did their bit when they had to, and one who still did it even when he didn’t. Have to, that is. Dear friends”

She looked over me when we stopped for a red light. “Were it bad, Mr Barker? War?”

I took a long, slow breath to allow my thoughts to filter my words before they spilled out. “Aye, love. It were right bad. I just hope—no, I just pray that you and your generation, that kids today never have to find out way we did. Aye; bad were one word for it”

She looked a little embarrassed, and then she tried to get her own little speech out. “Mr Barker, happen, well… happen folk should say thank you. Thanks for what you did back then, in trenches”

“Love, that were a different war. I were in tanks”

Burning. Screaming. Teeth white in charcoal faces. “What it is, love, is I’ve got my wife here, and both mams and dads, and that’s why I do Valentine’s, aye? Day to talk about love, day to think of when… think back to when I were courting. And both dads were in First War, that’s the one that had the trenches, and there’s a mate here as well”

A man that loved me. I could admit that now, and it cut me deeply every time the thought arose, because the one thing the empty years of Dobbs and Barker had brought home to me was that I had indeed loved Bob. Not that way, not the way he had felt about me, but in the same way I had loved my own fathers, men who had fought so hard to let me know what they could never let them say out loud. I had been so bloody naïve, so dreadfully blind to what was under my nose. Rodney had seen it, and Matthew, but not Ginge Barker. Taking over from Bernard had forced me to do some very quick growing up, and I just wished that I had been made to do it while Bob had still been with us, still been able to hear me say the words I should have said to him. I was still here while all those who Cheryl really owed her thanks to were lying in ranks and columns of white stones.

Cheryl nudged me. “You were miles away, Mr Barker. We’re here. Want me to wait while you do laying?”

“Thanks, love, but no ta. I’ll be sitting here a while, and you’d best be back to shop”

“Sure you’ll be warm enough? It’s right parky”

“I’ll be fine, love. Ta for the lift”

“OK, then. See you in November?”

“Aye, probably”

I took the wreaths, waved a polite goodbye, and walked slowly into the cemetery, my feet knowing the way. Tricia’s Mam and Dad, Cyril, my second father, they were first. I had a cap on, so it was proper to salute, and I did the same to my own parents. They got a kiss on the headstone where they lay together. I could feel my knees and back creak as I straightened, but my thoughts took me away from that for a while. Dad had tried so hard to be what he had been told men should be, but still he had fought through it, as had Cyril, to say things to me from his heart, to love as a father should be able to. The tears were rising by then, and thankfully it was getting towards sunset, as I made my way to the last pair of graves.

“Hello, Bob. That time again, so I’ve brought fresh flowers for you and my girls. Hello, love, hello Susie. Daddy’s got you some more pretty things. Going to sit here for a while, keep you company, just till it gets dark. Business is doing well, love, and we’ve got a dinner next week, East Riding boys want to do a joint thing in TA hall, dinner and speeches, like. Got to go in best rig, and Rodney and Matthew will be coming up for it, so should be grand night…”

And there was more of the same, till I managed to kneel down by their resting place and leave each with a gentle kiss to the headstone. Sleep well, my loves. Guard them for me, Bob.

Matthew was round for me the next week, Rodney and Ernie smart in blazers and slacks where he outshone them in his Lieutenant Colonel’s Number 2 rig. Ernie was looking old, but then we all were, and there was still a twinkle in his eye to bring a smile to the darkest of days.

“All set, Ginge? Well, when I say Ginge, it should really be Pinky, aye?”

“Cheeky bugger. Not so young yourself, old man!”

Matthew’s laugh had got no quieter over the years, and Rodney just waited them both out. “Where to, Gerald?”

“Territorials drill hall, Rodney. Used to be old North Riding’s place over by Museum Gardens”

“Well, give our liveried servant here the necessary directions and he may await us with the vehicle after we have enjoyed our revelries”

Matthew roared again. “BLOODY landed gentry!”

It was the usual sort of event, and for the life of me I cannot recall what was special about the date, but the four of us were sat at the high table, more glasses and silverware than I had ever seen at one place setting gleaming in front of me. I bent my head over to Ernie.

“Why not best bib for this, pal?”

“Happen it’s not mess rig, is it? All ranks here. And with us in civvies it would have been rude. You’ve been out of touch too long”

“Aye, and head down in boats. Hang on; chief brass is up for his speech”

And the East Riding’s Colonel was indeed on his feet. “Gentlemen! Comrades! We are honoured tonight to welcome four of our own, four of Yorkshire’s finest, as guests. I am not going to embarrass any of them by listing their honours, and will leave the deciphering of ribbon colours as an exercise for our newer and younger brothers in arms, but I will say that the honours in question do include two MCs. These gentlemen served together from the earliest days of the Normandy campaign all the way through to European victory. They fought at Caen, and in the Ardennes counter-offensive, in Market Garden and the Rhine crossing. Two of them stayed with the colours through Korea, and one continued with distinction in such places as Aden.

“Gentlemen, these men are what we should all aspire to emulate in our service. At the times of their country’s need, they stepped forward and answered the call. Please charge your glasses. Gerald Barker, Royal Tanks. Ernest Roberts, also RTR. Major Sir Rodney Lancelot Nolan, Baronet Patrixbourne, their commanding officer through that unpleasantness. And Lieutenant Colonel Sir Matthew St Jon Folland, Royal East Riding and one of our own, as you are all fully aware, or damned well should be. Please be upstanding! Your health, gentlemen!”

There was a roar back from the hall, and then the Colonel turned to face to his right, where the portrait hung.

“Gentlemen! The Queen!”

The meal was excellent, the wine was almost drinkable (Rodney had spoiled me, it seemed) and afterwards, we were passed from hand to hand as fresh young faces and the occasional older NCO quizzed us about what they clearly thought of as our exploits. The booze flowed, and they had gin, and, well, it seemed rude not to, and the kids, for that was what so many of them were, started to blur into a mass of pink cheeks and innocent grins, and just like that I saw Philip, his brains all over a tree while his cock was still dribbling piss, and Harry’s face came back, and Wilf’s, and I suddenly asked myself what the hell was I doing there?

All those kids thought I was some sort of hero, and all the bloody heroes I knew were over the other side of the hall, or buried next to my bloody girls, or in some field outside that fucking airfield, and the gin I had avoided so long had gone straight to my head.

There was yet another kiddy in front of me, proud of his khaki, his bulled boots and his regiment.

“Bit woozy, son. Need some air. Where’s door outside?”

“Just over here, sir. You all right?”

“Just need a bit of air, son. Be fine. And you don’t call a private ‘sir’, aye?”

“Aye, si—Mister Barker. Door’s here”

“I’ll be right, son. Just need a bit air”

I slipped free and found myself walking randomly, and the gin was in my feet and my head, along with flashes, bangs, smoke and screaming. “Bert’s gone”

“GAS GAS GAS!”

“Can’t get the smell out of me boots”

What was I? Why was I still bloody well breathing? A railway bridge…I was just up from the boathouses, nobody about apart from some girl sitting down by Lendal Bridge, just visible in the glow from the streetlights. I walked on, stumbled in truth, and all I could think of was what utter shit they had been saying in that dinner. I had left the real heroes out there. I had failed Bob. I had even killed my own bloody wife.

The shock of hitting the water nearly stopped my heart.