The barman was concentrating on the slow-pouring drink. He blinked and said, ‘Oh. Your dad was at Old Oak, was he? Ah, yeah. Yeah. Retired now, is he?’

  ‘Oh yeah. Years back. Got his feet up now, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Wise man.’

  Lou signed the cheque A McCrissican, adding an elaborate repeating rococo squiggle beneath the signature, which he used to obscure and blot out the ‘Miss’ printed there. He placed the written cheque upon the counter, facing into the bar, and he positioned the cheque guarantee card above it, while the pen lay vertical, across the plastic, again obscuring the ‘Miss’. The barman put down the second pint beside us and was about to pick up the cheque when Lou suddenly added, ‘Oh yeah, sorry, mate, and two whiskeys. What Irish do you have now?’ he scanned the bottles. ‘I only drink the Irish. Ah, Powers. Two Powers whiskeys it’ll be as well.’

  The barman nodded tolerantly, filled a water jug from the tap and placed it on the counter; he held up the glasses to the whiskey measuring spigots.

  ‘Make ’em doubles, and why don’t you have something for yourself as well, since it’s Christmas Day.’

  ‘Well, thanks very much.’

  ‘I’m surprised you’re so quiet.’

  ‘Most folk come in the evening today; y’know, escape the kids and the toys broke already and all that.’

  ‘Oh yeah. Absolutely.’

  The barman put down both the whiskeys.

  I now realised that, psychologically, Lou had fixed the surname McCrissican in the barman’s mind. That was what the barman was concentrating on when he looked down on the cheque and didn’t even pick up the guarantee card to examine it, he just lifted the torn-off cheque, carried it and rung the till while speaking aloud, ‘Right. Two Guinness and we’ll make that three please, cause I’ll keep one in the till for myself later, thanks; and Powers times four and the total. Okay.’

  Lou had whipped the guarantee card away as the bell jingled and the till drawer came open. There were actually several other cheques in a compartment with a spring-loaded metal clip holding them together at the vertical. The barman placed this latest cheque amongst them and he removed the change – including four real, undeniably beautiful tenners – conjured from the ether.

  Lou and I sat against the far wall. Near the door. ‘Drink up quick,’ he murmured.

  ‘Feeding of the five thousand,’ I stated. We clinked glasses and downed the whiskey in one. Smooth as it was, we made sour faces at its punch. I lifted my Guinness and said, ‘And a Merry Christmas to you. God bless us all.’

  ‘Peace on earth.’

  I doused the oily burning in my throat with the bitter, yeasty stout and then took pleasure in letting the masculine fumes of it all batter round my front teeth.

  ‘Spare a gasper?’

  ‘Sure.’ He peeled me off a cigarette.

  ‘Match me, Sidney,’ I quoted.

  He slowly took out a household-sized box of matches and we both laughed.

  ‘My Zippo is in the garage for a service. One million ignitions. Actually, I can’t afford to refill it.’ He lit me off the match that he then used for his own cig.

  ‘You know that? Match me, Sidney?’ he asked.

  ‘Sure. Sweet Smell of Success. Made by a Scotsman.’ I nodded to the bar, ‘Well this isn’t exactly the 21 Club, but good show.’

  He lowered his voice strategically, ‘If you think a woman is going to leave you, Cunningham, always steal her chequebook and eat into her overdraft. I knew that these Anglo-Saxons wouldn’t know if Aoife was a boy or girl’s name, I just had to squiggle out the “Miss”.’

  ‘Aoife isn’t going to leave you.’

  ‘I’m pushing it near to the line now.’

  ‘Fiddlesticks. She’s only just married you and she adores you.’

  ‘She needs someone steadier.’

  ‘You just need to watch yourself on the sauce for a bit.’

  ‘You’re starting to sound like her, boyo.’

  ‘We all love our beer, but you’re pounding down the hard stuff like your legs were hollow: spirits, brandy, all that shit’s like drugs and gets you in the end. Beer just makes us fat and you can quit when you want.’ I nodded and slobbered down another few delicious gulpfuls.

  He looked at his feet. ‘I don’t know, Cunningham. That illness fairly shook me up. You don’t want heart problems; trouble down in the main engine room. I thought I was on my way out and all my life would have amounted to was me banging up Aoife. Making a widow with a fatherless daughter. What an achievement. I know I should be up, but when you sail that close to the wind some of your glitter gets shaken off. Not that I ever had much.’

  I nodded, nuzzled into my pint, then replied, ‘I can believe that. You know, some people who have survived an air crash feel all their material aspirations and possessions have become worthless; they report feelings of rebirth.’

  ‘Well that’s what it’s like. Of course I have a child to provide for, but to me material things have melted into air and I just feel so bloody great, so alive. When I drink. If I want money it’s only for my girls. C’mon.’

  The barman had taken a step round the back, so Lou and I walked to the club door, let it swing quietly behind us then moved out into the cold grey of Christmas Day. Lou took the change from his pocket and fanned out the four tenners in his hand for us to look at – as if to confirm they were in our possession.

  ‘These are mere tokens of transformation,’ Lou pledged.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. But on the way back to the corner shop to purchase a great deal of booze, we passed the Catholic church I had been into with Abby after the wedding. People were crowded on the pavement, entering it for Christmas Mass. At first, Lou had merely glanced aside as he talked busily about our choice in grog; he was walking onward but then he abruptly stopped.

  ‘I might go to Mass.’

  ‘You’re joking? Won’t your granny be in there?’

  ‘Nah. She always goes at crack of dawn if her pegs are in good shape. She’s first in. You can gossip with Father Petrie longer at the early Mass. Come, there are cheap seats for Prods.’

  ‘Will there be carols?’

  ‘I’ll request them for you.’

  So I stood beside Lou, once again inside that Catholic church and its smell of incense. The church I supposed he would have been married in, had they all agreed. He nudged me, winked, sang along with false gusto and forced me to do so also. He rolled his eyes at the prettiest girls, dressed up in their best. I noticed he dispensed quick, ducking genuflections and rapid crossings. He slouched provocatively and met the priest with a challenging eye, as if he might leap to his feet and contend the oration at any juncture. At the sign of peace, he shook hands joyously with those around him, as did I. When Lou went up to take the Host, he positioned himself behind a pretty teenage girl, smirked back at me once and stooped with one hand in his pocket – but he still got down on his knees and did the business with the rest. As we went to leave, several folk – older men who knew his gran – stepped up and wished him a Merry Christmas.

  Outside, he borrowed ten pence off me and went directly to the telephone boxes by The Bells to phone his gran. ‘Twenty minutes, she’ll know I’m back in Acton anyway. Word travels fast in the chapel circles. I’ll be a few moments, though. Takes her two or three goes to get to the phone now, the poor old girl.’

  When he came out of the phone box he said, ‘Couldn’t get her; must be round Flo’s, she’ll go there for the Christmas feed-up for sure, but it’s a bit early.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Hope she’s okay. Sorry, Cunningham, we best just pop round. You never know. There might be some grub. I hope you don’t mind.’

  ‘Of course I don’t mind. It’s Christmas.’

  After knocking for some time, a hall light came on, changing the stained glass to deep ruby. Myrtle Smith’s voice wheedled out from behind the door, ‘Who’s there? Is it robbers?’

  Lou gave me an exasperated look and shook his head. ‘It’s Lou, Gran.’

  Granny Smith opened the door. ‘Well, well, look what the cat dragged in. Merry Christmas indeed.’

  ‘Merry Christmas, Gran. I was phoning.’ He hugged her.

  ‘Cat must have knocked it off the hook again.’

  ‘Merry Christmas, Myrtle.’

  ‘Merry Christmas, Douglas.’

  I was overwhelmed that she could even remember my name. I had to bend over to kiss her on the cheek. She wore a cardigan which hung down very low at the front she was so stooped over; I could feel her shoulder blades through the thick wool when I put my hands there. Her cheek was as dry and fallen as an old wasps’ nest.

  ‘It was ringing fine, Gran. You’re Mutt and Jeff these days. What cat?’

  ‘Flo’s. Old Buggers. He’s near twenty year old now, y’know. Started coming in here from round the back, hasn’t he, looking for a spell of peace when it’s all a bit hectic round there. When Flo has one of her turns. They put him out today cause he can smell the turkey doing in the oven. Come through the parlour with both of you.’

  ‘Old Buggers, he was here when I was a kid. Douglas and I had a run in with bloody cats recently, didn’t we, boyo? Going round there for your nosh-up are you, Gran? Pull a few crackers.’

  ‘Yeah.’ She quickly stated, ‘Don’t think there are any spare places y’know, Lou? I thought you were all away up north with Lil. Watch that wife of yours get fed up good and proper with some dumpling and turkey.’

  Lou claimed, ‘There was a bit of a travel mix-up to do with British Rail. Aoife and Lily are up there now for a few days, while Douglas and I shall be holding the fort. We’re doing a spot of DIY while the lady folk are away.’

  ‘Are you now?’ We had followed her into that front parlour and out came a sherry bottle and little glasses from the cabinet. ‘Have a sweet sherry, boys.’

  ‘Nothing with a bit more kick, Gran?’

  Very quiet, she muttered, ‘I’ll give you a kick for sure.’

  For all her acidity, I very much liked Myrtle Smith.

  She frowned. ‘You want to watch yourself. Don’t you, though? Up north. This time of year.’ She poured three glasses from the bottle with a very shaky hand.

  ‘Absolutely. Couldn’t agree with you more, Gran.’

  She handed me a small glass of sherry in her unsteady fingers. I noted the glass was very dusty but, of course, I said nothing. When she turned to give a glass to Lou, he gave me a look. ‘Any grub in the fridge, Gran?’

  ‘Oh Lou? You two boys aren’t having some kind of awful bachelors’ Christmas, are you? Told you before to eat your greens and go for your mid-afternoons, since you was up in that hospital, but you won’t heed. He won’t heed at all.’ She looked at me. ‘Cheers, boys. Merry Christmas and the Blessed Trinity.’ She hoisted her own sherry and took a sip and so did I. ‘Take a seat,’ she pointed.

  ‘Merry Christmas,’ I said, sitting in the chair I had sat in last time.

  Lou downed his sherry in one, left the glass on the sideboard and stepped from the parlour. I heard a crash in through by the kitchen. Lou shouted, ‘Out of here, Margaret Scratcher, damned parasitic rodent!’ There was the skidding of rapid paw work on the hallway tiles.

  Granny Smith leered across at me, revealing her teeth, said warmly, ‘Old Buggers,’ and chuckled.

  ‘Some spuds in here, Gran, can I take ’em?’ he called through.

  She looked at me but she spoke at a volume high enough for Lou to hear. ‘For goodness’ sake. Have you not a tidgy widgy to eat up there? I bet there’s booze galore. I don’t know, the two of you young fellows living like the war was still on. Lou, I’ve remembered the telephone ringing, love.’

  ‘Have you, Gran?’

  ‘Yes. What happened, son, is I had to get my teeth in. I had them cleaning in the Lady Di mug, because that’s me away through with Flo for my Christmas dinner, so I need my teeth nice and white. I can’t talk on the telephone without my teeth in, Lou. You’d think you were through to the Chinese restaurant. So by the time I’d got my choppers about me, the phone had stopped. I swear, I can get one day mixed up with the next.’ She had turned her attention back to me again, shaking her head, frowning momentarily as if she had forgotten I was there – or who I was.

  I asked her, genuinely interested, ‘Were you in London during the war, Myrtle?’

  ‘Course. Where else? We wasn’t evacuated. Just the nippers got ’vacuated. Lou’s dad was grown by then; he was RAF y’know. Ground crew he was, not a flier. He was down there at Tangmere but that was after the Battle of Britain. I can’t claim he was there during it. This was after, when the bombing got worse. Then he was up in Lincoln with the Yank bombers, later on.’

  ‘You were here when the Blitz was on?’

  Lou called, ‘Leave it out, Gran.’

  ‘Course I was. I’d like to see this bunch of pansies today, when a five-hundred-pounder or whatever they were comes down. Mind you, there was lots of men like that. They march round now, telling you how brave they was, but there was plenty worried faces that I saw. And worse. I saw tears. And all you men thought your end had come, so you were about twelve times more randied up than normal.’

  Lou let out a whoop from the kitchen.

  She suddenly looked at me as if I was a right queer ticket. ‘What? Wasn’t your folks in the war, then, up in Scotland?’

  ‘Nah, my mum and dad are too young.’

  ‘Too young. Ah, I see. We thought Hitler was going to be marching up The Mall any day.’

  From the kitchen – where I suspected he was leaning against the sink, calmly smoking a fag – Lou shouted, ‘He has done. Blonde wig and lipstick. Called Margaret.’

  ‘Tom Daniel and his brothers was talking about how to block up Acton High Street themselves. You know that, Llewellyn? That’s a fact.’

  Lou came back through with a carrier bag and I could see it was hanging heavily with a jumble of large potatoes pushing against the white plastic at the bottom. ‘I was going to say the Nazis were bloody welcome to Acton. But everything everyone fought for is getting pissed on now, by that sell-out shopkeeper from Grantham and her second-rate cast of blethering toffs.’

  Granny Smith frowned at Lou. I asked her, ‘Did you actually see the German bombers, up in the sky?’

  ‘Course I did. In daylight raids. We was down by Chaucer Road then and you could stand out by the shelter and see them go over or turn back for France. There were two kinds of Jerry bombers, both with two engines, but the long thin ones, like pencils, was Dorniers, one come down right on Victoria station this one time. The hunched-back things, like a raven, with big thick wings, were Heinkel bombers.’

  ‘God’s truth, Gran, he doesn’t want to hear Commando-book stuff.’

  ‘Shut it, Lou. He’s interested. Being Scotch.’ I was surprised how raspy her anger was. ‘They didn’t have the Blitz up in Scotland; it’s all hills.’

  ‘Ah, with all due respect, we did. Clydebank got flattened. All down the hill from the Singer works to the river. Six or seven hundred dead in two nights. We had the shipyards up there, you see.’

  Myrtle frowned. ‘Crikey. Now you mention it, I do remember that. There you go. See, Llewellyn, I was right.’

  Lou frowned.

  She went on, ‘Yeah, old Hitler made war be everywhere. There was no bloody escape. That’s what I remember of it, all clear as day. It’s a terrible thing, boys, war. Keep well shot of it. It gets up in the air all round you. The Nazis made the wind and the weather all become war.’

  Lou gave me a look, raised his eyebrows.

  ‘True, wasn’t it? Suddenly it was all war. You woke up to it and slept in it; the weather, the clouds. The chance of where your house was happened to be built, if it got hit or not. In old wars, civilians weren’t up for the chop then suddenly we were. But listen here, the most fancy thing I ever saw then was down in Kent, in among the hop frames. Wasn’t so much hopping for Londoners during the war but still a good bit was done and we were down there sometimes with the others, the Acton Lane Petersons with old Tom Daniel and his brothers, all the way down to Kent in the back of an open lorry, singing songs. I was into my forties during the war but I was still nippy enough.’

  Lou began laughing. ‘You never told me any of this.’

  ‘You never ask, Llewellyn. Rhys used to. You always had your mug in a book, then a drink. I was an old lady already when I had my hands full with you two, so I didn’t go on. But for all the beer you boys drink, I bet you don’t know much about growing hops; hops grow up, on frames. Hard work and we was down there in forty-two or three when this pencil Dornier goes over, so right down by the ground we can see everything; getting chased back to the south coast by a fighter boy, right behind in a Hurricane or a Spitfire, and the Jerry’d been hit too, you could see the black holes in the sides, that horrible dirty green they was painted, and those crosses; frightening to see it so close up and his engines didn’t sound too fancy either. They must have come right down from much higher up in the sky when they could have parachuted out, cause, would you believe your eyes, in the bottom of the bomber was this square hatch opened up and sticking out clear as day was just two legs, two legs kicking away back and forth in the air, like they was running to Dungeness; that Jerry had skipped his greens, ate too many of his sausages and couldn’t fit out. Who knows how long he’d been stuck like that, maybe his chums inside were trying to tug him back up and in, so they could get out, and just as he went above us, over them Kent hops lands, didn’t one of his boots come sailing off, floating down and I always remember, he was so low we could all see that the fat devil had no bloody socks on – dirty Jerry bugger. Not on that foot, anyways. Imagine. No socks. Both planes went on south in a moment and they say the Hurricane boy brought it down near Romney Marsh. He was just waiting to be clear of the towns before he shot it down, so they said. And didn’t all of us start arguing, did the bloody Jerry get in the plane that morning with no socks on or was the sock still inside the boot that came off? So two of the Daniel brothers went out across the fields to search for it – the damn Jerry’s boot fallen from the sky into the English trees – but they never did find it that year though they looked and looked. The next year too.’