{"product_id":"last-orders-isbn-9780679766629","title":"Last Orders","description":"Four men gather in a London pub. They have taken it upon themselves to carry out the last orders of Jack Dodds, master butcher, and deliver his ashes to the sea. As they drive towards the fulfillment of their mission, their errand becomes an extraordinary journey into their collective and individual pasts. Braiding these men's voices, and that of Jack's widow, into a choir of sorrow and resentment, passion and regret, Swift creates a testament to a changing England and to enduring mortality. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Swift has involved us in real, lived lives...Quietly, but with conviction, he seeks to affirm the values of decency, loyalty, love.\"--New York Review of Books\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A beautiful book...a novel that speaks profoundly of human need and tenderness. Even the most cynical will be warmed by it.\"--San Francisco Chronicle“A profound, intricately stratified novel full of life, love lost and love enduring.” — \u003ci\u003eThe Globe and Mail\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Swift is surely one of England’s finest living novelists.... The tale he tells is as affecting as it is convincing.... Quietly, but with conviction, he seeks to reaffirm the values of decency, loyalty, love.” — \u003ci\u003eThe New York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003eGraham Swift is the author of five other novels, including the acclaimed \u003ci\u003eWaterland\u003c\/i\u003e, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the Guardian Fiction Award. His work has been translated into more than twenty languages. He lives in London.\u003cb\u003eBERMONDSEY\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt aint like your regular sort of day.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBernie pulls me a pint and puts it in front of me. He looks at me, puzzled, with his loose, doggy face but he can tell I don't want no chit-chat. That's why I'm here, five minutes after opening, for a little silent pow-wow with a pint glass. He can see the black tie, though it's four days since the funeral. I hand him a fiver and he takes it to the till and brings back my change. He puts the coins, extra gently, eyeing me, on the bar beside my pint.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Won't be the same, will it?' he says, shaking his head and looking a little way along the bar, like at unoccupied space. 'Won't be the same.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI say, 'You aint seen the last of him yet.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe says, 'You what?'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI sip the froth off my beer. 'I said you aint seen the last of him yet.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe frowns, scratching his cheek, looking at me. 'Course, Ray,' he says and moves off down the bar.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI never meant to make no joke of it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI suck an inch off my pint and light up a snout. There's maybe three or four other early-birds apart from me, and the place don't look its best. Chilly, a whiff of disinfectant, too much empty space. There's a shaft of sunlight coming through the window, full of specks. Makes you think of a church.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI sit there, watching the old clock, up behind the bar. \u003ci\u003eThos. Slattery, Clockmaker, Southwark\u003c\/i\u003e. The bottles racked up like organ pipes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLenny's next to arrive. He's not wearing a black tie, he's not wearing a tie at all. He takes a quick shufty at what I'm wearing and we both feel we gauged it wrong.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Let me, Lenny,' I say. 'Pint?'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe says, 'This is a turn-up.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBernie comes over. He says, 'New timetable, is it?'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Morning,' Lenny says.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Pint for Lenny,' I say.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Retired now, have we, Lenny?' Bernie says.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Past the age for it, aint I, Bern? I aint like Raysy here, man of leisure. Fruit and veg trade needs me.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'But not today, eh?' Bernie says.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBernie draws the pint and moves off to the till.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'You haven't told him?' Lenny says, looking at Bernie.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'No,' I say, looking at my beer, then at Lenny.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLenny lifts his eyebrows. His face looks raw and flushed. It always does, like it's going to come out in a bruise. He tugs at his collar where his tie isn't.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'It's a turn-up,' he says. 'And Amy aint coming? I mean, she aint changed her mind?'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'No,' I say. 'Down to us, I reckon. The inner circle.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Her own husband,' he says.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe takes hold of his pint but he's slow to start drinking, as if there's different rules today even for drinking a pint of beer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'We going to Vic's?' he says.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'No, Vic's coming here,' I say.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe nods, lifts his glass, then checks it, sudden, half-way to his mouth. His eyebrows go even higher.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI say, 'Vic's coming here. With Jack. Drink up, Lenny.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVic arrives about five minutes later. He's wearing a black tie but you'd expect that, seeing as he's an undertaker, seeing as he's just come from his premises. But he's not wearing his full rig. He's wearing a fawn raincoat, with a flat cap poking out of one of the pockets, as if he's aimed to pitch it right: he's just one of us, it aint official business, it's different.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Morning.' he says.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI've been wondering what he'll have with him. So's Lenny, I dare say. Like I've had this picture of Vic opening the pub door and marching in, all solemn, with a little oak casket with brass fittings. But all he's carrying, under one arm, is a plain brown cardboard box, about a foot high and six inches square. He looks like a man who's been down the shops and bought a set of bathroom tiles.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe parks himself on the stool next to Lenny, putting the box on the bar, unbuttoning his raincoat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Fresh out,' he says.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Is that it then?' Lenny says, looking. 'Is that him?'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Yes,' Vic says. 'What are we drinking?'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'What's inside?' Lenny says.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'What do you think?' Vic says.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe twists the box round so we can see there's a white card sellotaped to one side. There's a date and a number and a name: JACK ARTHUR DODDS.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLenny says, 'I mean, he aint just in a box, is he?'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy way of answering Vic picks up the box and flips open the flaps at the top with his thumb. 'Mine's a whisky,' he says, 'I think it's a whisky day.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe feels inside the box and slowly pulls out a plastic container. It looks like a large instant-coffee jar, it's got the same kind of screw-on cap. But it's not glass, it's a bronzy-coloured, faintly shiny plastic. There's another label on the cap.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Here,' Vic says and hands the jar to Lenny.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLenny takes it, uncertain, as if he's not ready to take it but he can't not take it, as if he ought to have washed his hands first. He don't seem prepared for the weight. He sits on his bar-stool, holding it, not knowing what to say, but I reckon he's thinking the same things I'm thinking. Whether it's all Jack in there or Jack mixed up with bits of others, the ones who were done before and the ones who were done after. So Lenny could be holding some of Jack and some of some other feller's wife, for example. And if it is Jack, whether it's really all of him or only what they could fit in the jar, him being a big bloke.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe says, 'Don't seem possible, does it?' Then he hands me the jar, all sort of getting-in-the-mood, like it's a party game. Guess the weight.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Heavy.' I say.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Packed solid,' Vic says.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI reckon I wouldn't fill it, being on the small side. I suppose it wouldn't do to unscrew the cap.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI pass it back to Lenny. Lenny passes it back to Vic.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVic says, 'Where's Bern got to?'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVic's a square-set, ready-and-steady sort of a bloke, the sort of bloke who rubs his hands together at the start of something. His hands are always clean. He looks at me holding the jar like he's just given me a present. It's a comfort to know your undertaker's your mate. It must have been a comfort to Jack. It's a comfort to know your own mate will lay you out and box you up and do the necessary. So Vic better last out.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt must have been a comfort to Jack that there was his shop, \u003ci\u003eDodds \u0026amp; Son, Family Butcher\u003c\/i\u003e, and there was Vic's just across the street, with the wax flowers and the marble slabs and the angel with its head bowed in the window: \u003ci\u003eTucker \u0026amp; Sons, Funeral Services\u003c\/i\u003e. A comfort and an incentive, and a sort of fittingness too, seeing as there was dead animals in the one and stiffs in the other.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMaybe that's why Jack never wanted to budge.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRAY\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI'd said to Jack, 'It aint never gone nowhere,' and Jack'd said, 'What's that, Raysy? Can't hear you.' He was leaning over towards Vince.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was coming up to last orders.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said, 'They calls it the Coach and Horses but it aint never gone nowhere.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe said, 'What?'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe were perched by the bar, usual spot. Me, Lenny, Jack and Vince. It was young Vince's birthday, so we were all well oiled, Vince's fortieth. And it was the Coach's hundredth, if you could go by the clock. I was staring at it--COACH AND HORSES in brass letters round the top. \u003ci\u003eSlattery. 1884\u003c\/i\u003e. First time I'd thought of it. And Vince was staring at Bernie Skinner's new barmaid, Brenda, or was it Glenda? Or rather at the skirt she was squeezed into, like she was sitting down when she was standing up.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI wasn't just staring at the clock, either.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJack said, 'Vince, your eyes'll pop out.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVince said, 'So will her arse.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJack laughed. You could see how we were all wishing we were Vincey's age again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI hadn't seen Jack so chummy with Vince for a long time. Maybe he was having to be, on account of it being Vincey's big day. That's if it was his big day, because Lenny says to me, same evening, when we meet up in the pisser, 'Have you ever wondered how he knows it's his birthday? Jack and Amy weren't ever a witness, were they? They never got no certificate. My Joan thinks Amy just picked March the third out the air. April the first might've been a better bet, mightn't it?'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLenny's a stirrer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe stood there piddling and swaying and I said, 'No, I aint ever wondered that. All these years.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLenny said, 'Still, I forget my own birthday these days. It's been a while since the rest of us saw forty, aint it, Ray?'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said, 'Fair while.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLenny said, 'Mustn't begrudge the tosser his turn.' He zipped up and lurched back into the bar and I stood there staring at the porcelain.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said, 'Daft name to call a pub.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJack said, 'What's that?'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said, 'The Coach. The Coach. I'm trying to tell you.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVince said, looking at Brenda, 'It's Ray's joke.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'When it aint ever moved.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJack said, 'Well, you should put that right, Raysy. You're the one for the horses. You ought to tell old Bernie there to crack his whip.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVince said, 'She can crack my whip any day.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJack said, 'I'll crack your head. If Mandy don't.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd he only said it in the nick of time because half a minute later Mandy herself walks in, come to fetch Vincey home. She's been round at Jack's place, nattering with Amy and Joan. Vincey don't see her, looking at other things, but Jack and me do but we don't let on, and she comes up behind Vince and spreads her hands over his face and says, 'Hello, big eyes, guess who?'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe aint built on Brenda's lines any more but she's not doing so bad for nearly forty herself, and there's the clobber, red leather jacket over a black lace top, for a start. She says, 'Come to get you, birthday boy,' and Vincey pulls down one of her hands and pretends to bite it. He's wearing one of his fancy ties, blue and yellow zig-zags, knot pulled loose. He nibbles Mandy's hand and she takes her other hand from his face and pretends to claw his chest. So when they get up to go and we watch them move to the door, Lenny says, 'Young love, eh?', his tongue in the corner of his mouth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut before they go Jack says, 'Don't I get a kiss, then?' and Mandy says, 'Course you do, Jack,' smiling, and we all watch while she puts her arms round Jack's neck, like she means it, and gives him two big wet ones, one on each cheek, and we all see Jack's hand come round, while she hangs on, to pat her arse. It's a big hand. We all see one of Mandy's heels lift out of her shoe. I reckon she took a drop of something with her round to Amy's. Then Jack says, shaking loose, 'Go on, get on out of it. And get this clown out of it too,' pointing at Vince.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen Jack and Vince look at each other and Jack says, 'Happy birthday, son. Good to see you,' as if he can't see him any day he chooses. Vince says, 'Night Jack,' grabbing his jacket from the hook under the bar, and just for a moment it's like he's going to hold out his hand for Jack to shake. Forgive and forget. He puts his hand on Jack's shoulder instead, like he needs the help-up, but I reckon, by Jack's face, he gives a quick squeeze.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJack says, 'You've only got an hour of it left.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMandy says, 'Better make the most of it.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLenny says, 'Promises.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVince says, 'Never know your luck.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMandy tugs at Vince's arm while he picks up his glass and drains off what's left, not hurrying. He says, 'Keep 'em hungry, that's what I say.' He runs his wrist across his mouth. 'Needs must.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLenny says, 'You're an old man now, Big Boy. Home before closing, and you have to be carted.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI say, 'Coach is leaving.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLenny says, 'Don't mind Ray, Mandy. Aint his day. Backed the wrong gee-gee. Sleep tight, won't you, Mandy.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat red jacket's a bad clash with Lenny's face.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMandy says, 'Night boys.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJack's smiling. 'Night kids.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd everyone can see, as they slip out, Vincey with his hand just nudging Mandy's back, that they're the only ones in this pub with the jam. Nice motor parked outside, perk of the trade. Nice little daughter waiting up for them, fourteen years old. But that's like eighteen these days.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLenny says, 'Turtle doves, eh?' pawing an empty glass. 'Who's in the chair?' And Jack says, 'I am,' looking like it's his birthday too.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was coming up to last orders, to when Bernie bangs on his bell, like it isn't a coach, it's a fire-engine. Even then it don't move. There was smoke and noise and yak and cackle and Brenda bending and pools of spillage along the bar top. Saturday night. And I said, 'It's a hundred this year, aint anyone noticed?'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJack said, 'What's a hundred?'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said, 'Pub is, Coach is. Look at the clock.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJack said, 'It's ten to eleven.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'But it aint ever gone nowhere, has it?'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'The clock?'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'The Coach, the Coach.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd Jack said, 'Where d'you think it should be going, Raysy? Where d'you think we've all got to get to that the bleeding coach should be taking us?'","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303161319653,"sku":"NP9780679766629","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780679766629.jpg?v=1767731174","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/last-orders-isbn-9780679766629","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}