Last Orders Read Online Free PDF

happening, does she? Amy don't know if she's coming or going.'
    I say, 'She's okay, she's managing. She'll manage.'
    Knowing she isn't, even if she will. Knowing she'll come into the spare room again tonight, where Mandy and me are sleeping, and want me to hold her and hug her, right there in front of Mandy, like I'm her new husband, like I'm Jack.
    He says, 'I've got the easier job.'
    I look at him.
    I say, 'Don't seem a doddle to me.'
    He says, 'People panic.'
    Nurse Kell/s bending over some other poor bastard. I used to say to him, when I first saw her, 'You'll be all right there, Jack, landed on your feet there.' But I don't now. I don't know if it would be a torture or a mercy to be tucked up by Nurse Kelly when you're pegging out.
    Her name's Joy. Nurse Joy Kelly. It says so on her badge, on her left tit.
    Jack's dying and I've got a cockstand.
    He says, 'So what did that geezer Strickland tell you? Before the op. Sweet-talk, you, did he?'
    I think a bit then I say, 'I can tell you now, makes no difference. He said you had a one-in-ten chance.'
    He looks at me. 'Ten to one. And you didn't bet, did you? I bet you didn't bet.'
    I can tell he knows that I've known all along, somehow, that I haven't wished or hoped.
    Chips for you, Jack.
    He says, 'Help me up a bit, Vince,' and he grabs my arm and I brace myself so he can pull himself up. It must hurt with that zip in his belly, there's a purply stain on the bandage, but he doesn't wince, he just hangs on while I shift the pillows with my free hand. He don't weigh so much now. Big Jack.
    He says, 'That's better.' But as he says it I can see the spasm starting inside him, I can see his throat working. He's going to fetch up some more of that muck. I grab a bowl from the stack and I get the tissues all ready. It's like when Kath was little.
    He settles back, wiping his mouth. I put the bowl on the cabinet. He ought to look less like himself but he doesn't, he looks more like himself. It's as if because his body's packed up, everything's gone into his face and though that's changed, though it's all hollow with the flesh hanging on it, it only makes the main thing show through better, like someone's turned on a little light inside.
    I say, 'What did you want to see me about?' As if I'm a busy man and I've got to be getting along. It came out wrong.
    He looks at me. He looks right into my face like he's looking for a little light too, like he's looking for his own face in mine, and it goes right through me, like I'm hollow, like I'm empty, that I haven't got his eyes, his voice, his bones, his way of holding his jaw and looking straight at you without so much as a bleeding blink.
    Then it wouldn't be finished, it wouldn't have to finish.
    It's like I'm not real, I aint ever been real. But Jack's real, he's realler than ever. Though he aint going to be real much longer.
    He says, 'I want you to lend me some cash.'
    I say, 'Cash?'
    He says, 'Cash.'
    I say, 'You need cash?'
    He touches the drawer of his bedside cabinet. 'I've got my wallet right here, next to my watch and my comb.' He half pulls open the drawer, sort of cautious and secretive. It's as though his whole life's in there.
    I say, 'You need cash in here?'
    He says, 'I need cash, son.'
    But it's like I'm like his father now. Bedtime, Jack, no more larking about, I've come to say night-night.
    I look at him and shrug and reach for my inside pocket but he grabs hold of my hand.
    He says, 'I was thinking of a thousand pounds.'
    I say, 'A thousand pounds? You want a thousand pounds?'
    He says, 'By Friday, let's say. And not a dicky-bird.'
    He looks at me, I look at him. He's holding my hand. He says, 'Don't ask me, Vince, don't ask me. It's a request, it aint an order.'
    I look at him. There's the sign dangling over his head:
NIL BY MOUTH.
    I say, 'Lend?'

Ray
    He said, 'Take the reins, Ray boy. Go on, take 'em for your dad.'
    It said TRANK JOHNSON - SITES CLEARED' up there on the board behind the seat on the cart, and