Free Alfie by Bill Naughton

‘No, I’m not really a sweaty type. Come to think of it, I did sweat a lot last Sunday afternoon at the Locarno, but I was dancing and I’d had a few beers, so I suppose anybody would sweat under those conditions.’
    There’s a real dream I used to know called Kenny, bent as can be, used to hang about transport cafes, absolutely gone on drivers he was, went in for trunkers mostly, long-distance men, see, wouldn’t touch the blokes on local runs, and one time he saw me with my shirt off – but my trousers on – I’d been having half an hour’s kip in the sunshine, lying on top of my load, and this Kenny looked at me and said, ‘Alfie, that body of yours would pull any bint. It’s so appealing, so lean but so substantial. It’s making me go funny at the knees.’ So there you are, if you can take the word of a brown hatter – and I don’t see why not.
    She kept looking at me with those big brown eyes of hers, so innocent like, that I found myself keeping on talking. ‘I’d say I sweat like any other bloke in the normal way. Of course I use a deodorant under my armpits. You just rub it on, quite good they are.’
    ‘And do you ever sweat at nights?’ she said.
    ‘I should think nearly everybody sweats at night one way or another,’ I said. ‘Do you mean in bed?’
    ‘Yes, in bed,’ she said.
    I remembered getting all lathered up that night with young Clare, but I didn’t mention that because I didn’t feel it came into it.
    ‘Some nights you go to bed cool,’ I said, ‘and if the weather comes over hot in the night you naturally start to sweat a bit. Of late I do find myself throwing off the eiderdown.’ In fact it’s an old topcoat, officer’s, but she’s not to know that, is she—?
    She got me down on this chair and put this stethoscope thing on her ears and began tapping my back and chest.
    ‘Take a deep breath,’ she said. ‘Now breathe out slowly.’
    Did I tell you about this letter I got from her, saying that she’s only decided to marry this geezer Humphrey?
    ‘Say ninety-nine.’
    ‘Ninety-nine.’
    Me and Malcolm will be all right because then I shall be able to stay at home and look after him , she writes.
    ‘Again—’
    ‘Ninety-nine.’
    But what about you Alfie, what will you do? Won’t you miss us ? Know what! – I came over dead choked when I read that bit in her round writing. Fancy her thinking of me like that! Of course, I managed before I ever met Gilda and I’ll manage after she’s gone.
    ‘Do you ever feel any pain in your back?’ this doctor said.
    ‘Pain,’ I said, ‘pain?’ There are times when you’ve got a pain and you don’t know you’ve got it till it stops, if you see what I mean. Pain’s a funny thing. You can have a pain in your heart and it can make you dead sick, but you can have a pain in your back and not know it’s there. ‘No, I’ve got no pain,’ I said. She went on tapping away at my back. She had quite nice hands, on the stubby side, but they’re sensitive. ‘Funny,’ I said, ‘but I believe I’ve a pain there now. Seems like I just felt it this minute.’
    ‘Where?’ she said. ‘There?’ She sounded quite pleased.
    ‘A bit over to the left,’ I said, ‘a bit higher up.’ She tapped me a couple more times and I let out a wince. ‘ There! ’ I said. ‘Yes, there,’ I said.
    ‘Is it tender?’ she said.
    ‘It is when you prod and mess it about,’ I said. ‘It ain’t too bad when it’s left alone.’
    She came round front and started sounding my chest. ‘Do you cough much?’ she said.
    ‘I cough of a morning, I said, ‘but then everybody does after that first cigarette.’ I find I’m missing her, so after that letter I stick it out until the weekend afterwards comes round and then I go and visit her.
    ‘Do you bring anything up when you cough?’
    ‘Up? No, not much, just clear my chest, see. Well that’s the point of coughing, ain’t it, to bring something up and give the tubes a good clearing