Say Goodbye to the Boys by Mari Stead Jones

time MT returned he had finished off a glass and was half way down the next.
    â€˜My God,’ MT said, ‘those were the days. Old Tubby Moore, Ted Francis and me – remember me telling you, Marshall?’ Mash nodded. ‘We had this old Morris. We’d tear up and down the countryside for the women and the pints.’ Emlyn winked at me and carried on drinking. ‘We were like you – roaring boys! My God, it’s a good drop, isn’t it? Shall we have some whisky chasers? That’s what we had in the old days. Whisky chasers...’
    â€˜Not me,’ I said hastily. I’d had enough. But Emlyn, amiable as ever, said whisky chasers would be fine. He wasn’t breathing heavily; he wasn’t slopping beer all over the place; he wasn’t even red in the face.
    Half past nine and MT was showing signs of wear, only occasionally coherent. ‘You three can be marshalls at the sports day,’ he announced at one point, ‘then I’ll have three marshalls, won’t I?’ By closing time he was gone, his mouth slack, beer dribbling down his chin and on to his shirt.
    Emlyn looked none the worse for wear. ‘Better see him home,’ he said to Mash, and Mash went to his father’s side. ‘That’s my boy,’ MT said. ‘Dear old pals, eh? It’s been bloody marvellous!’ They went lurching across the room, nearly taking the door with them.
    â€˜Wait for me outside,’ Emlyn said. ‘I’m going to be sick.’
    â€˜What was that all about?’ I asked him as we walked in the soft summer dark.
    â€˜Poor old MT. Come to drink us under the table. Well – he’s ruined my acid/alkaline balance for sure.’
    â€˜You didn’t have to take him on.’
    He belched. ‘No. But it was expected of us. He wanted to show Mash what a boy he can be with a glass in his hand.’
    We walked on in silence. ‘Maybe he came for Mash – to take him home,’ I said. ‘Maybe he’s heard Mash goes to Lilian’s.’
    â€˜And that was one way of getting him home? Possible.’ He paused by a street lamp and clutched his stomach. ‘Oh, dear God, my liver.’ Outside the house he said, ‘You can come in for drink if you like?’ Then he added very quickly, ‘and in answer to your query I haven’t been anywhere near Lilian’s, so he couldn’t have seen me leaving, could he?’
    Only a long, wailing siren from one of the waiting ships broke the silence that followed. The night seemed suddenly colder. Questions flitted like bats around us, but we left them unspoken. Emlyn went in. I walked home, all that booze catching up with me now, muttering to myself about sons and fathers. Old MT’s blundering, inept intervention. Had they had a man to man talk about Lilian? Oh God! Did MT intend to get plastered with us every night from now on? But it was bad with Mash and MT knew it... I wondered if my old man would have done the same for me, tried to save me. I had my doubts. And I couldn’t see Idwal Morton doing it for Emlyn, either.
    Sons and fathers. And why were they all such experts on the day before yesterday? ‘When I was a boy’, they all declared. I couldn’t bloody well remember when I was a boy. Well – bits and pieces, of course, when prompted. But not in the way they did.
    â€˜What’s wrong with you, Roberts?’ I said to the lamp post, and the bulb went out. Power had still to be saved for the Country! Belts had to be tightened. Grin and bear it. I leaned against the post. Maybe you had to return yourself to the past, train your memory all over again?
    The night gathered around me. The night before Lilian Ridetski’s day.

V
    Â 
    Â 
    Â 
    Â 
    On that day, a Saturday, it rained. I spent the morning at home, the afternoon in the Market Hall watching over the shop, while Laura did some sick–visiting. Mash and Emlyn didn’t