Work Text:
Bert had been nursing the same beer for hours, barely listening as Cec and Alice chatted away. The cheque from Joey McPherson sat heavily in his pocket, like it was a hundred pounds-mass, rather than a hundred pounds-sterling. He'd lied to his best mate – straight-up lied to his face, and the guilt was heavier than that hundred-pound cheque.
For most of their lives, it had been Bert and Cec, Cec and Bert. They grew up together as neighbors in Abbotsford, going round to each other's houses so often that each of their parents simply accepted that they had adopted another son. They'd gone to work the docks together as teens, and when the war broke out, they enlisted together and served in the same battalion. When they came home and could no longer stomach the politics of dockworking, they pooled their meager resources and bought the cab, and they'd been driving it together ever since. From the time they were kids, they'd rarely spent more than a day or two apart.
Now Cec wanted to move to Echuca, at the other end of the state, with this sheila he'd met three months ago. It would be Cec and Alice, and he would just be Bert. He didn't know how to be just Bert. He didn't know who he was without Cec by his side.
Alice excused herself to the washroom, and soon as she was gone, Cec turned to Bert with concern. "You alright, mate? You're quiet."
Bert looked at him for a long moment, then reached into his pocket, pulled out the cheque, and slid it across the table. "If you really want that farm…"
Cec picked up the cheque, took his time looking it over. Bert was afraid he'd be upset, that the final words Cec would ever speak to him would be in anger.
Instead, Cec tore the cheque in half, then in quarters, then crumpled the pieces into a ball and shrugged. "Reckon I'd rather drive a cab with you."
Alice returned and sat back down. "So Bert, Cec tells me you're a communist. I don't know much about them… what made you want to join?"
Maybe it didn't have to be either Bert and Cec or Cec and Alice. Maybe it could just be Bert and Cec and Alice. He could live with that.
Bert downed the rest of his beer and called for another.