He went upstairs with his flaring lighter beginning to singe his thumb. He waited for a moment in the blackness for the casing to cool before bringing back the flame. There were the bedrooms and the small kitchen, the old bath that had been filled with cold water and a drunken man on many occasions. On the chimney mantel the bird skulls were lined up, though a couple of them had collapsed in fragments under a shroud of dust. He wandered through the shadowy rooms, watching the light pass over Riley’s old books, the statue of the Virgin Mary, tenacious as ever at the edge of the shelf, and what was left in the wooden crates that had once held his meagre possessions — some old clothing, stiff and mothy in heaps, a sketch book, a set of watercolours and a brush, a gunpowder tea tin in which there were his father’s cufflinks and a photograph or two taken inside the Bayview during happier times. After a while he remembered the Jewish menorah that had sat preposterously in the window downstairs, that had wound up in Riley’s possession through he knew not what ridiculous turn, and he went to find it. There were a few grubby, waxy stubs left in the tiers which he set the flame to and this provided enough light for him to wash his face with his last ration of serviceman’s soap in the bathroom sink, after first letting the water run clear of sediment and rust.
The sea in the bay was out and almost beyond sight, which was a disappointment the next morning as he approached the promenade, he had wanted to get close enough to it to feel the spray, but it meant that there was plenty of driftwood and kindling on the beach for him to collect for the fireplace. The previous night had been cold, with one military blanket only and his coat as protection against the frosty, stony air. It seemed he had not come so far really in two decades, he thought to himself, picking up debris on the shoreline for the Pedder Street parlour. The Lake Distict fells were a misty smear along the horizon. He had remembered them as mountains which were taller, fuller, the way landscape in paintings becomes exaggerated. In the shallow basin of the empty bay were a number of slimy, weed-covered anti-landing-craft obstructions that spoiled the view across the counties giving the vista a modern, interfered-with look. Post-war relics dotted the town behind him also, pill boxes near the piers and the ugly shelters built on the Sunshine Slopes. But other than this the town seemed unscathed by the conflict itself — he’d bought a copy of the Visitor that morning and it seemed like the same old paper that ever it was, with the same contentious, conservative opinions, the same gamely gossip and extravagant advertisements. Morecambe still had its pluck and it still professed to having soft air.
As he strolled along the bare flats there was the pungent smell of long, deep silt, like the creational clay of the world, and he thought about all the folk of Morecambe Bay he had known. He thought of his mother. Later, he would go and lay flowers on Reeda’s grave and clear away the moss and dirt from the carved lettering of her headstone. He knew the visit would bring him a gentle peace and in a way he was looking forward to it, though the graveyard overlooking the sea was a forlorn place. He would tell his mother about America, and that she would have been glad she wasn’t around for the next war for it had trumped the last in terms of horror. Before he knew it he had walked as far as the Trawlers’ Cooperative building and since he was of a mind to do the respectful rounds he decided to pay his regards to the photograph of his father, leaning, as he inevitably still would be, on the stern of the Sylvia Rose. But the door of the construction was locked and bolted and the handle would do no more than rattle under its chain.
— What do you need, pal? We’re shut up for the holidays until the social on New Year’s Eve.
Cy turned to see a middle-aged man with dark red hair and a long mackintosh coat approaching him. He was about to say it didn’t matter, that it was just a courtesy visit, but the man suddenly stopped in his tracks and peered hard. Then he executed a small clog on the pavement and put his hands in the air.
— Cyril Parks, as I live and bloody breathe! Is that you, you great string bean? Course it is, I’d know that great long lank of Lancashire lad anywhere.
— Morris? Morris Gibbs.
The two shook warmly and clumsily, cradling each other’s elbows with their free hands. Their eyes locked for a spell, disarmed and intrigued at once. It was as if neither had reconciled his own age until that point in his life, until confronted with a face from his youth that was now older, aged privately and separately. Morris shook his head, bemused.
— Well, what you been up to, Parksie? Must be, what, going on fifteen years now.
— Oh. This, that and the other. You know.
— I do indeed. Indeed I do. Still practising on pig heads?
— No, I’ve moved on to their arses now.
Morris laughed loudly and slapped him on the back.
— Well good for you. Fancy a jar? Come on, we’ll have a bit of a yarn and catch up. Not busy, are you?
— Not exactly busy. No. But, well look, I don’t drink any more, Morris. Not for several years now. I’ll have some tea if they’ve got it.
— Right you are. Tea it is. Look in need of a good cuppa, you do. Heard you’d buggered off to Yanksville.
Cy abandoned his foraged firewood and they sat in the smoky warmth of the Horse and Farrier for an hour, talking of old times, which suited Cy as the recent chapters of his life were still too fresh with reddish paint to handle yet. Morris had been fishing since he left, he was one of the last to still work the Skears in the old way, with a pony and rake, for which he was proud if poor, and he still had his brother’s granddaddy eel in the jar, kept in the garden shed though because his wife would not allow it in the house. And none bigger had yet been found. Cy was glad of the company, the reminiscences, and glad to see his old friend. He inquired after their childhood third. Morris sighed.
— Jonty died in the war, Cyril. Early on, poor bastard, in the Battle for France, ‘forty it will have been. Bad year that, bad year. Left behind a wife and three little kiddies — well, I think you met Irene before you left, didn’t you? She took in a number of vaccies, mind you; she’s a good sort.
Cy nodded. Both of them stared into their drinks for a time. Difficult conversations and deliveries of news such as this were not unknown to either of them. They had become no easier with the passing years nor in their growing proliferation. There was still the compulsory awkward pause, the bitter sadness, the struggle to go on.
— Well, I’ll be honest, I miss the daft bugger. Were you … er …? No, never mind, I can see that you were. Still, you’re back now. How long are you staying? And where?
— Not sure. A while, I think, I’ve no plans. I’m staying at Pedder Street — above Riley’s old place.
— Bloody hell, that’s rather grim. That place has been boarded up for donkey’s years. Some little devils broke in and took it over not long after you’d gone, so the Council fastened up the windows and changed the lock. Well, listen, you’ll come round ours for your Christmas dinner. I’ll not hear otherwise. Neither will the wife, and she’s fierce when she’s on the sherry come yuletide, so you best say yes. It’s good to have you back, Parksie.