Jack Carter and the Mafia Pigeon Read Online Free Page A

he settles himself in.
    The old dad starts up a routine with the young girl. “You ever been to Majorca before, young lady?” he asks her.
    “No.”
    “Ah,” he says. “We been coming five years now. Five years ago it was when I first come. ’Course, took me seventy-five years to actually get round to having a continental holiday. Not like you youngsters nowadays. We had it different in my day. I was brought up down Wapping Steps. But you can say what you like, there was a strong sense of community feeling down there, them days.”
    Behind, number one son cracks a laugh. “And he should know, the old sod. Did all the feeling, he did.”
    “My Uncle Ernie used to live down there,” the girl says flatly. “He said it was dead nasty.”
    The old dad changes tack, his attitude and voice betraying a lifetime of compromise.
    “Oh, yes,” he says. “Of course we moved out in the end, that’s why we moved out. Went to live in Vauxhall, we did. Very nice, it is.”
    The way he says Vauxhall, it sounds like a bronchitic’s expiring breath.
    “I wouldn’t know,” the young girl says. “I’ve never been to Vauxhall.”
    So the young girl successfully ends the conversation and then Dagenham son number one smacks his hands together and says towards the stewardess who in no way can hear him:
    “Come on then, darlings. Let’s be having you. The above have arrived. Get cracking. Start wheeling out the duty frees.”
    He turns round in his seat and looks towards the back of the plane.
    “They’re not a patch on last year’s, Benny,” he says to his brother across the way. “Remember that little spade? What a little cracker that was. Remember? I always fancied a bit of black for that.”
    “I’ll give you a bit of black if you don’t leave off,” his wife says from behind.
    “The day you give me anything’ll be a day to remember. Here, Benny, last year she gave it up for Lent and you know how she never could count, I never had the heart to tell her Lent’s over and done with. I never looked back since.”
    Benny bellows his appreciation. Number one son’s wife says: “You just bleeding watch it or I’ll tell them stewardesses all about your operation. That’ll slow you down a bit.” There’s a trio of screeches from behind. Number one son puts his hands on the back of his seat and raises himself up slightly and gives his old lady a freezer. “You’re asking for one in the mouth, you are,” he says.
    “Ooh, yes please,” his wife says. “Only not yours, eh?” Three more shrieks.
    “Here, Barry, can you arrange one for me?” the other wife says.
    Three more shrieks.
    A stewardess pauses in sweeping by and says to Barry: “Would you mind fastening your seat belt, sir?”
    Barry swivels round in his seat and says: “I was hoping you’d fasten it for me, darlin’.”
    The hostess smiles and keeps going so as to prevent herself spitting at him. Then she goes into pantomiming the oxygen drill, every action exaggerated, eyes fixed on a point somewhere slightly above the heads of her audience, like a bored stripper waiting for her disc to end, the voice of the unseen stewardess like a send-up of a fashion house commentary. When the visible stewardess has finished her act the Dagenham sons give a round of applause. The stewardess walks back and is very good at totally ignoring the sons while seeming to smile very sweetly at everybody before her. Barry gives a crooked arm and a clenched fist as she deports herself by. The old dad turns to his left but the aisle seat is still vacant and it strikes me how none of his family’s bothered about sitting next to him, nor do I fucking well blame them. Of course part of the thought occurs to him too. “ ’Ere, ain’t none of you lot going to keep me company, then?” he asks.
    “Can’t be done, can it, my old son?” Barry says. “It’s down to the numbering of the seats, innit?”
    “Yers, well, how come I’m the one as is on me own? Why can’t one