for a while, but he wasn't a man who liked to be at odds with anyone, so he'd ended up apologising for his suspicions. Cliff hadn't accepted the apology initially. He'd said gloomily, "I don't know, Gerry. How can we live in peace together -
in harmony like you always said you wanted - when we get into rows like this?"
To which Gerry had said, "Forget it. It's the heat. It's getting to me or something. I'm not thinking straight."
Thinking straight was what everything was all about, in the end. And Cliff was finally doing that. He shot along the country road between Great Holland and Clacton - where the summer wheat languished under a sky that hadn't produced a drop of rain in four scorching weeks - and he realised that what was called for now was a rededication of the self to another. Everyone received a wake-up call sometime during his life.
The key was to recognise that call for what it was and to know how to answer it.
His answer would be straightforward fidelity from this time on. Gerry DeVitt, after all, was a good enough bloke. He had a decent job. He had a house five steps from the sand in Jaywick. He had a boat and a motorcycle as well. Cliff could do a lot worse for a permanent situation than hooking up with Gerry. Hell, Cliffs past was a veritable study on that point. And if Gerry was a bit of a bore sometimes, if his compulsion for neatness and promptness began to wear against one's natural grain now and then, if he clung too closely so that one wanted to swat him into the next time zone every once in a while . . .
weren't these in reality small inconveniences compared to what Gerry had to offer in return? Certainly. At least they seemed to be.
Cliff turned along the seafront in Clacton, spinning along Kings Parade. He always hated this stretch of going home: a line of seedy old buildings nudging the shore, a score of ancient hotels and decrepit nursing homes. He hated the sight of the doddering pensioners, clinging to their zim-mers with nothing to look forward to and only the past to talk about. Every time he saw them and the environment in which they lived, he renewed his vow never to be among them. He'd die first, he always told himself, before he ended his life this way. And always as he came in sight of the first of the nursing establishments, his foot pressed down on his old Deux Chevaux's accelerator and his eyes shifted to the undulating mass of the grey-green North Sea.
Today was no different. If anything, it was worse than usual. The heat had brought the pensioners out of their caves in herds. They were a bobbing, teetering^ careening mass of shiny bald heads, blue hair, and bulging varicose veins. And traffic along the shore was halted, so Cliff was treated to a lingering look at what the happy golden years of old age had in store for the unfortunate.
Restlessly, he tapped the car's steering wheel as he watched them. Ahead, he could see the flashing lights of an ambulance. No, two. Or was it three? Brilliant. A lorry had probably ploughed right into a group of them. And now he was going to be treated to a nice long sit as the paramedics sorted out the living from the dead. Not that they all weren't half dead already. Why did people continue to live when it was so clear that their lives were useless?
Shit. Traffic was going nowhere. And he was parched with thirst. If he drove with two of his wheels on the pavement, he could make it up to Queensway and cut into the town from there. He went for it. He had to use the horn to clear the way, and he was treated to a few raised fists, one tossed apple, and some shouts of protest. But he gave two fingers to anyone who hassled him, and he made it to Queensway and headed away from the shore.
This was definitely better, he thought. He'd crisscross through town. He'd drop back to the shore just beyond Clacton Pier, and then he'd have only a quick jaunt from there to Jaywick Sands.
Moving along again, he began to consider what he and Gerry could do to celebrate his conversion to monogamy and lifelong fidelity. Naturally, Gerry couldn't