Chapter 75: Epilogue

On the third, and final evening of his visit to Lancaster in 1983, Michael Watson telephoned and arranged to meet his old friend Rob. Paul Howson was living in Australia, and he had not seen him for five years but Rob had never moved very far from the Lancaster area. He lived near Millom, in Cumbria, and came down willingly to Lancaster by car to see Michael.

They'd always remained friends, ever since the day they'd met in the park when they were infants. Usually, Rob went to Norfolk and spent a week with Michael and his family every summer. Michael's visits to Rob were infrequent because Michael's wife strongly disapproved of his old friend. She wished she could stop Rob from coming to see them.

"He bosses you about," she'd say. "He has a a funny attitude to life. Thinks he knows everything. What's more, I know he doesn't like me."

Michael thought his wife saw Rob as a threat. He had been married four times. After his father Jack died, he'd inherited a lot of money and never worked again. That was more than twenty years ago, since when he'd led a carefree existence; the only barriers to what he did to enjoy himself were the limitations of his imagination. To an extent, Michael envied him but he also felt sorry for him. Rob had never been able to settle. He'd never had anything like a responsible attitude. He'd never had to, and didn't want to, take care of anything or anybody.

"Life's about pleasing yourself," he'd say. "I never do anybody any harm." His was a blinkered existence.

During the twenty years of their marriage, Michael's wife had worked hard to ensure her husband was a reformed character. Before he'd met her, he had been into all sorts of dubious dealings and semi-crooked activities. He and Rob had been in a number of scrapes together.

In Lancaster, with no wife around, Michael was looking forward to a really good night out with Rob. They were going pub-crawling, before returning to the Castle Hotel. Rob had decided to stay there overnight, rather than drink and then drive back to Millom.

Rob arrived promptly at seven o'clock. He was ageing well, despite his debauchery. He was tall, well-built and walked with a swagger. He came in through the front entrance. Michael was waiting for him at the bar, looking out for him. They shook hands.

"Hello Rob! Nice of you to come all this way. Pint of bitter?"
"Hello mate! Glad to be here! Yes please." Rob looked around. "Not exactly the Ritz is it?"
"Suits me fine! I had a good time in here last night with the locals. Met a couple of blokes who used to work with the old man, at Williamson's. Your dad would have enjoyed it."
"Oh yeah! He loved to wear a hair shirt. Miserable sod!"
"Go on! He wasn't a bad sort really. He did all right by you in the end, didn't he?"
"You could say that. Eventually! Anyway, I'm damned glad to see you. Where's your minder? She let you off the hook for once? Into your second adolescence yet?"

"Never mind mine! Where's yours? Have you got one? Or are you still looking for Miss Perfection?"
"No such thing! Never found one yet who knew when to open her legs and keep her mouth shut!"

The landlady heard what Rob said and was frowning at him. Michael noticed and told Rob to watch what he was saying.

"Quite right!" he said to Michael. "Only joking, love!" He smiled at the landlady. "Anyway, Mike, what are you doing here in the old town, all on your own?"
Lancaster had been a city since 1937 but the label 'town' still stuck.

"My dad died recently, and it seemed a good idea to have a few days round here where I was brought up. Kind of a memory-lane kick."
"So Gordon's dead, why didn't you let me know? I'd have come to the funeral."
"When you're dead, you're dead. Honour the living I say. The dead can look after themselves. They haven't much choice have they?"

He didn't say that his wife hadn't wanted Rob at the funeral.
"My! My! We are getting cynical in our old age aren't we?"

They finished their pint in the Castle Hotel and then rang for a taxi, to take them to the George, at Torrisholme.

They didn't talk much on the way. Gordon remembered how their two fathers had been friends too. And so different in their ways.

Gordon had come back from the war, a staunch family man and a pillar of the local society. He was on the City Council, a Church Treasurer and always up to some good.

In 1945, a few weeks after Gwyn died, Jack had put up for Labour and become an MP. Subsequently, he'd spent most of his time, away from his family, down south living with that Beth Farrell who had been a teacher at Ryelands School. She was supposed to be his personal assistant!

Rob had had to grow up fast in those years. His father having departed, he was the only male in the house, when he was in the house, right from being a very young teenager. "More like the male out of the house," his mother described him.

Rob was street-wise at fourteen. He did well at the Junior Technical School, at the Storey Institute. He'd started there when he was twelve and eventually had good trade qualifications. Not that he'd ever put them to good use! "There are easier ways to make a living than working!" he'd boast.

"Did he die happy? I mean, your old man," Rob asked his friend.

"Yes, I think he did. He never complained. Always called himself a lucky man. But you remember what he was like. He always said, "Deeds should speak louder than words!"
"Not like mine, he never stopped yapping."

They paid the taxi man and went into the lounge. It was quite crowded and smokey in there. There was nobody they recognised.

"Tell you where we could go, just for a laugh?"
"Go on! Try me!"
"Let's go to your Aunty Joyce's, in Queen Street. If she's still there, we might have a good night."

Michael was a bit doubtful. His mother and Joyce had been good friends when he was a boy. But something went wrong between them, even though she married his Dad's brother, Frank, when he came home from the war. Joyce never visited Gordon and Margaret after Gwyn died. The Watsons never called at Joyce's when they occasionally shopped in Queen Street.

Michael would have liked to have seen more of his Uncle Frank but his mother would have none of it, for a reason she did not disclose. The two brothers occasionally saw each other in the canteen at work, until Frank left Joyce, and took a ten pounds, one-way passage to Australia. After that, it was just the exchanging of Christmas cards and a short note once a year.

Michael knew the adults in his childhood and youth had hidden plenty from him. He had certainly kept secret from them all sorts of things. Now they gave it a fancy name, 'The generation gap', as though it was something new!

He'd finished his beer and decided he didn't want another one in there. He went along with Rob's suggestion. "We could give it a try. I don't suppose I've seen her for over thirty years. She's probably dead by now."

But she wasn't! There she was, a lively peroxide blonde, bright blouse and skirt, heavy make-up, same perfume as ever. Not bad for seventy! She'd worn well, Michael thought, recognising her immediately, serving behind the bar. She came to serve them, and her perfume brought back a memory of when he was a child.

He used to like the smell of her when she picked him up and gave him a hug.

"Two pints of bitter please," Michael asked.
"Coming up love!" She smiled, her professional smile.

He smiled back at her. "What's up with you?" she asked. "You're giving me an old-fashioned look. Either that or I've got something on the end of my nose!"
"You don't know me do you? I'm Michael. Michael Watson."
She took a long look at him. "Well I never!" she exclaimed, totally surprised.

While she was catching her breath, Michael said, "Well I never, either! But I wish I'd had the chance!"
"Ee! Love! I should have known you straight away. Your eyes! You've got your father's eyes."

She stared at Michael's hands, grasping his glass of beer. "And his hands! You've got the same big hands as him. He always had lovely hands did your Dad. My God, it takes me back a bit! How are your Dad and Mam?"
"I'm afraid my Dad died recently but Margaret's fine."
"That's a shame! I used to be fond of your Dad. He was a real sport!" She didn't say anything about Margaret.

Rob had been silent while all this was going on. "You'll not know me love," he said to her, "but Michael and me, we've been friends all our lives. I'm Rob. I think you met my mother once or twice way back. Mike's Mam used to say I led him astray."

"Didn't need much leading! Not in those days did I?" Michael smirked.

The pub was in need of decorating and the bar furnishings could do with replacing. Like Morecambe, the place had seen better years. "How's business these days? You have a good crowd in tonight."

"Not like it used to be! I have my ways of making ends meet so I don't do too badly. Anyway, what are you doing here? Have you come back to live locally?"
"No! Just visiting old haunts. You're the first person I've met from way back."
"It's lovely to see you. I'll have to leave you for a minute! Excuse me! I'm keeping my regulars waiting." Joyce carried on serving. Mike felt it had been a good idea of Rob's. There was a good atmosphere in the pub.

They spent the evening there. It was Talent Night and the beer was good. "We're a free house," Joyce laughed. "Free entry, free entertainment, free-and-easy we are. But you'll have to pay for your beer! And those two don't come cheap!" she whispered as two likely-lasses came to the far end of the bar and gave Michael and Rob the eye.

"How about it?" Rob asked Michael. "We'd be all right there!"
"You might be. I'm a settled married man. Knowing you, you could manage the pair of them."

It was an exceptionally good crowd in the pub, for a Thursday night. The customers were mainly Joyce's regulars and were a noisy, friendly lot. The Talent Night entertainment wasn't too bad. It included two disco dancers, a singing duo and a blue comedian. The two disco dancers won. The bloke looked a bit like John Travolta but his head was twice as big. You could see from his body-language that he really fancied himself.

The two likely lasses made their mark with Rob. The more he drank, the more attractive the blonde of the pair appeared to be to Michael. When the pub closed, the quartet joined Joyce for an after-hours drinking session.

"We'll have to order a taxi," Michael urged Rob, around midnight.
"Or book in here for the night!" Rob replied, giving Michael a nudge and a wink.
"Plenty of rooms to spare, haven't we girls?" Joyce urged.

The girls agreed enthusiastically.

The next morning, when she was having her breakfast with Joyce the blonde asked her,

"Why were you so keen to fix me up with that chap last night? Why did you tell me he was the one I had to have?"
Joyce took a sip of her tea, inhaled, blew a cloud of smoke up into the air and answered, "Reasons!"
"Another of your games I suppose?"

Joyce responded with, "Well, let's face it, we're all on the game, one way or another, aren't we?"
"Very funny! The point is, I hope he paid you before he went. He didn't give me a penny and he'd gone when I woke up. Not exactly the generous sort! Jan got fifteen pounds off her bloke."
"Don't worry, I'll see you're all right. Oh yes, he paid me all right! Some old dues!"
"What do you mean by that?"
"Nothing you'd know about love! Just something I arranged for my own satisfaction. Something to amuse me.

“You know me,” she continued. “Memory like an elephant. I lost somebody I was fond of to a friend of mine, a long time ago, and your bloke being with you was a sort of final settlement. Gave me satisfaction. I just wish I was twenty years younger, I'd have taken him on myself. That would have been perfect."

Her young friend stubbed her cigarette out on her saucer, shrugged and said, "I'm off to get dressed. You keep your mystery to yourself!"

When he collected his luggage from the Castle Hotel, Michael apologised for not having stayed his last night there.

The landlady smiled. "All the same to me love. You paid when you arrived. That's all I'm worried about. Have a good journey home!"

It took Michael five hours to drive back. "That bloody Rob!" he thought. "He always was a bad influence on me."
  
As he drove, he wondered why Joyce had been falling about laughing the previous night, when he and the blonde girl went upstairs, about one o'clock in the morning. Why had she found it so hilarious? Were they such an incongruous looking couple. You'd have thought his shirt tail was hanging out through a hole in his trousers.

"Coincidence is a funny thing!" she'd said, when she handed him the key to the room for himself and the girl. He pondered the meaning of her laughter. He was nearly home when he thought back to the incident in his childhood right in the middle of the war. It was so long ago! But his sub-conscious must have been working on it. Himself, his mam and that man, all waking up in the same bed!

That bitch Joyce! She'd remembered! She'd put him in the same room last night on purpose! Room 7! He remembered now. Yes, Room 7!

Well, all he could think was, it had been a good adventure!

He'd always enjoyed a good adventure…