The Longest Fight Read Free Page B

week.’
    ‘Loan some grub from Mrs Bell.’ He pressed her outstretched palm down before the girl saw.
    ‘She’ll make me stay for a chat.’
    ‘Tell her I said you’re to get dinner on quick.’ He watched her roll up the comic, or whatever it was, and adjust the small bandage. ‘It was a bit of fun. Not like you felt nothing, was it?’
    ‘More than one way to feel things.’ Pearl shrugged as she walked away.
    They used to do the cigarette trick all the time. How was he supposed to keep up with her changes? Jack shook his head, turned back to find two big brown eyes in front of his. He smiled.
    ‘Can’t just call you “barmaid”, now, can I? Tell me your name.’
    ‘Georgie Smyth. Smyth with a Y.’
    ‘Nice to meet you, Georgie. Call me Jack.’
    He reached over, shook her hand. He thought he could see his own reflection in those eyes, light brown like the polished wood of the swing chairs at the summer fair. Higherand higher he and Rosie used to ride. Jack looked down. The bottom of the glass peered up through the cloudy mist that was left of his drink.
    ‘You should come see my new fighter some time, Georgie.’
    ‘Maybe I will, Jack.’
    She took his empty pot and moved on to the queue at the pumps. He wiped the sweat from his eyes with his handkerchief, pushed it back into the depths of his waistcoat. Slowly he eased himself off the stool, but he couldn’t help glancing at the pictures tucked behind the half-empty bottles at the back of the bar. The Bible Factory send-off; his dad at the front in his Great War uniform, proud and tall; his mum at the pub’s VE Day celebration with a Union Jack poking from her hair. More photos waited for him back at the house. He couldn’t leave that family behind; sepia eyes, sneaking up on him when his mind wandered: the boys in their East Surrey Regiment get-up; Winifred and Win lying on a fur rug, only ten months apart – the first was born sickly, never expected to make it, so their dad’s mother’s name was supposed to live on in the next girl. The Winnies at eleven and twelve, still side by side as if their dresses were sewn together, just before they left for good. And, half hidden: one of Jack, back when he was John. He’d had that photo taken after his first win, thirteen years old – hands up, hair slicked, shorts hanging low. He could list them all. But only one picture of Rosie survived; Jack kept it at the back of his bedside drawer. Sometimes it was as if she had never existed for anyone but him. The people on the front room mantel were from John’s life. John James Munday – the name he was born with. He wasn’t that runt any more, but he still couldn’t get rid of their faces.

TWO
    J ohn recognises the house, all square windows and big red front door like something from Little Chums picture books. He heard the Winnies whispering to his mum about St John’s Villa when his dad was out of the room. The gate is closed and John doesn’t blame them. If he lived in a house like that he’d have a moat, a drawbridge, soldiers on guard, anything to keep the rest of London out. A copper walks along; any minute now he is going to wonder what a dirty canal rat like John is doing on that street.
    He chews his nails and presses himself closer to the prickly hedge; the blue uniform crosses to the other side, goes into a house. John hasn’t decided what to do yet, how to ask the question. So he waits some more. Leaving Camberwell, getting on the tram for Mitcham, coming all this way, it seemed so easy this morning.
    Two ladies appear at the front door. Neat grey dresses and matching hats. John tucks in his shirt, swallows a squeak as his fingers graze the top of his buttocks; the strap marks are bleeding.
    ‘What the bloody hell is he doing here?’
    They turn back into his sisters as they reach the gate, hands on their hips. Same dresses, same hats, same scraped-back hair; got up like a music hall pair of old women even though they are only eighteen and