No then. Whether he couldn’t or wouldn’t, was another question.
20.
They took Harry to Lewisham Hospital. The accident department there had recently been expanded and they were quickly able to get him in and looked at by a doctor who feared Harry had a fractured skull near the eye socket and a possibly broken jaw. X-rays were ordered. Ray and Joseph had to bide their time. When the results came back, they showed no sign of either. Any hopes of quickly speaking to him were dashed, however, when the doctor had ordered him to be sedated and to rest. His witness testimony, he explained, would still be there in the morning.
“We should get out of here,” Ray said once they’d heard the news. “We can come back tomorrow.”
“Should someone stick around, make sure he’s okay?” Joseph asked.
“No, he’ll be all right in here. Matron’s a tough old bird. Any issues and she’ll sort them out. Far more effective than we’d be.”
“Okay, sure,” Joseph said exhaling. His body loosened. The adrenaline that had been coursing through him had abated. He thought about what he’d done. He’d stood up to someone. Someone bigger, stronger than him, engaged in an act of violence. With only the sound of his voice and the declaration of who he was, he’d been able to make them not only stop, but turn and run. It was all he could do to stop himself from hugging Ray right there in the hospital.
Ray looked at him with something more than curiosity. “You all right?” he asked.
“Yes, just…” Joseph sighed, trying his level best to stop the stupid grin etched over his face.
Ray nodded as if agreeing with something Joseph had said, only he hadn’t said a thing. “We all get this way sometimes. That moment where we don’t know how to feel.”
“It’s the strangest thing,” Joseph began, but Ray wasn’t finished.
“Happens to the best of us. Survivor’s guilt, they call it. Someone else gets hurt and you don’t and you feel nothing but relief. You know you should feel bad for them, but…” he shrugged. “You just don’t.”
Joseph wanted to object. This was pride, not self-preservation. Before the words formed, he thought of how many times Ray must have seen people like this. His friends, his comrades, maybe even himself. That moment of relief and joy that they had survived, whilst others fighting alongside them had fallen. Of all the times Ray could have said it to him and it would have been absolutely on the money.
The smile disintegrated.
“Don’t think it’s not normal,” Ray consoled, reacting to the change in Joseph’s mood. “It isn’t anything that doesn’t happen to everyone in that situation. Me included.” He placed a hand on Joseph’s shoulder and offered what could have been described as a paternalistic smile.
“Thank you.” Correcting Ray seemed like the wrong thing to do. He’d opened up a little. In fact, by Ray’s standards, he’d opened up a lot.
“Pint?”
That caught Joseph even more off guard. They’d had their forays into the pubs of South East London as part of their work, but never had either of them suggested having a drink outside of work. He didn’t really know if he wanted to, but he knew it would be rude to say no, so he had to say yes.
“Sure.”
*
They settled on the nearest pub they could find. Workers from the hospital crammed in, their day over, standing or sitting surrounded by pint glasses, some full, some empty, some somewhere in between. The hum of happy conversation, punctuated by laughter as the groups began to unwind from their day. The pub itself was a little smarter and fresher-looking than the Grazier’s. A fire roared in one corner, the smell of coal an inviting antidote to the tobacco that it tussled with. The furniture looked newer, polished and well looked after. Yet beneath that, the conversations that Joseph caught snatches of were the same as he’d heard in the Grazier’s. People talking about work, their plans for the weekend, sport. Strip away the veneer and you’d never have known the difference.
They found a corner of the bar to stand in, behind a thick wooden pole that held the glass shelf above them in place. Joseph would have preferred to have sat at a table, but it appeared that wasn’t Ray’s way. Again, he had taken his jacket off and rolled up his sleeves and smiled as they approached the bar, offering to buy the first round.
They made small talk at first. Ray steered the conversation, touching on the usuals. The latest football scores… except Joseph knew very little about football. He confessed to being more of a cricket man, and they talked about the upcoming Ashes series and England’s chances. The press had already questioned the likelihood of success for the England team, but Ray maintained they were better than people thought. Both agreed that it was far better for the team to be travelling by air to get there, rather than the traditional yet arduous boat journey. For a moment, they acted like friends.
“Listen,” Ray’s tones turned formal. Joseph stiffened, ready to engage the side of him reserved solely for work. He looked at Ray as he tried his hardest to find the right words. “Susan’s dinner invite. She was thinking Friday might work?”
“Lovely,” Joseph replied automatically, because that’s what he believed you said in those situations, even though he dreaded every second of it. He understood exactly why Ray would have felt awkward asking.
“I’ll let her know to get a joint in,” Ray said in the same manner that he would order a body be sent for a post-mortem.
They talked about their wives briefly. Ray asked how Joseph had met Dziko, although he struggled with her name so that it sounded more like ‘ditto’. He apologised every time he stumbled over it, leaving Joseph unsure whether to be offended at his inability to get it right, or at least pleased that he had tried. When they finally met, he hoped Ray would have put more practice in.
Quickly, though, they found they had little else to talk about. They attempted to talk about growing up in London, but it quickly became apparent that their childhoods had been radically different, being pre- and post-war. Their early adulthoods even more so, and Joseph couldn’t help but notice the sadness in Ray’s admission that he hadn’t really grown up, he’d simply had to become a man. Like so many of his generation, a large chunk of his life had been stolen never to be returned. As Joseph looked around the room and saw the other men about Ray’s age, he wondered how many of them would have near-identical stories to tell. True, the places, faces and dates would all be a little different, but the themes would be the same. Fear. Anger. Death. He turned back to Ray and the conversation crept on, never gaining depth, staying in the shallows, both afraid to push too far into what lay between them in case it washed them away.
*
It had gone closing time when he finally got home. The beer and the journey had made him sleepy, the rocking motion of the top deck of the bus that had ferried him home felt like the slow swinging of a baby’s cradle. That he hadn’t nodded off by the time he reached his stop was a triumph. That happiness soon evaporated when the cold November air hit him. His legs wobbled and he doubled over, retching behind a lamp post, convincing himself that it would hide the evidence from his neighbours.
The lights were still on downstairs in the house. Early nights weren’t a thing for them. Dziko somehow managed the feat of being an early riser and a night owl. She didn’t need sleep the same way other people did. He’d asked her about it when they first started courting, about where her endurance came from. She’d shrugged, said it was nothing out of the ordinary. That was just how she was.
He stumbled in through the door, blurting out a stammered “hello” that he knew was neither as clear nor as controlled as he’d meant.
“Joseph?” Dziko queried from somewhere else inside the house. Before he could think of an adequate response, she stood in front of him, wiping her hands on a dish towel.
“Hello,” he said again, smiling at her, before becoming aware of how much he was smiling. He straightened his face.
“Been drinking.” The intonation of her voice subtly hinted that it might have been a question, but even in this state he knew she wasn’t naïve.
“Ray suggested it,” he said by way of explanation.
Dziko placed her hands on either side of his face, her warmth tingling against his cheeks. For a moment he wanted to nuzzle against them, but he managed to stop himself as she laughed. “Well, it’s about time you two let your hair down.”
“It is?”
“Of course,” she kissed him on the forehead then took her hands away. “You have to work together, you need to know each other and the problem with you men is, you never open up to each other without a little of what you like to call Dutch courage.”
Joseph stammered for something to say in retort, but already she had turned away into the kitchen.
