each other across a BBC desk covered with the morning papers, and we understood each other perfectly.
I stood in the newsagent’s looking up at the shelves of tobacco. SMOKING KILLS, it said under a leering skull. SMOKING HARMS YOURSELF AND OTHERS. YOU ARE GOINGTO DIE NOW. DEATH. DEATH. CERTAIN DEATH. PUFF, PUFF – YOU’RE DEAD.
‘Is it for yourself?’ said the boy behind the counter.
‘No, it’s a gift,’ I said.
I thought that I would buy Ken a tin of Old Holborn. The kind of tin that he carried, and that I could clearly remember my father having – yellow and white, with a drawing of a Ye Olde Georgian street on the front, and ‘Old Holborn Blended Virginia’ written in that fake fountain-pen font, as if nothing in this universe was more tasteful and sophisticated and classy than rolling your own soggy little man-made snout.
I thought that I might be purchasing the last loose tobacco in captivity. But the newsagent’s was full of the stuff. Just not in tins.
‘You could try eBay,’ the kid behind the counter told me. ‘They sell them on eBay. But we got these.’
The kid made a gracious gesture with his hand, like a proud sommelier presenting me with his extensive wine list. Amber Leaf. Golden Virginia. Van Nelle. Samson. Domingo. Drum. And Old Holborn itself – still going strong but in small packs rather than big tins now, and given new brave new world colours of orange, black and blue, kin to a lovely pack of Jaffa cakes.
‘You want some skins with that?’ said the kid behind the counter.
I stared at him, struck dumb by the fact that the baton dropped by my father’s generation had been picked up by what my dad would have called the pot heads – the kind of people he despised above all others. Apart from men who wore dresses. And Germans.
I got a 500-gram pack containing ten convenient grow-your-own-tumour sachets. It wouldn’t make up for Pat’s phone going off at the Cenotaph. It would not make up for smashing the silence with ‘Love Lockdown’ by Kanye West.
But I didn’t know how else to say I was sorry.
At Nelson Mansions, Tyson dozed at the foot of the concrete staircase, his enormous front paws clamped possessively on some hideously chewed object, possibly a human bone.
I stepped over him and skipped up the stairs, passing a couple of children huddled in their elf-like hoods, like some Tolkien nightmare. It felt much colder than November, but that might have been just the ceaseless wind that always whipped through Nelson Mansions, whatever the weather.
I rang the doorbell and a man in his early fifties answered. He looked soft and rich, like a banker enjoying his day off in lime-green Lacoste, a man whose life had treated him well. His thin lips and little eyes made three slits of his face, and he could be nobody else’s son. I held out my hand and introduced myself.
‘Ian Grimwood,’ he said, and his accent was different to his father’s – a classless modern drawl. ‘Thank you for – you know. Everything.’
I saw him looking at the Old Holborn in my hands. ‘No problem,’ I said.
Singe Rana was just leaving. He turned his soft golden face towards me. ‘I’ll come back when it’s over,’ he said.
‘I wanted to say I was sorry,’ I told him. ‘My son’s phone – it rang as you were marching. And – I felt bad. I felt terrible. About all the old soldiers.’
Singe Rana smiled gently. ‘Don’t be so fretful,’ he said. ‘Half of them are so deaf they couldn’t hear a bomb go off. And the other half don’t care.’ He tapped my arm fondly with his rolled-up copy of the Racing Post. ‘They have seen worse things.’
Then he slipped away.
Voices were being raised in the kitchen. Ken’s unmoving, old man quaver and, much louder, the voice of a woman. She had the same accent as her brother. One of those accents that sound as though you come from nowhere.
‘I don’t know how you can even think such things,’ she said, coming out of the kitchen.
I stood in the newsagent’s looking up at the shelves of tobacco. SMOKING KILLS, it said under a leering skull. SMOKING HARMS YOURSELF AND OTHERS. YOU ARE GOINGTO DIE NOW. DEATH. DEATH. CERTAIN DEATH. PUFF, PUFF – YOU’RE DEAD.
‘Is it for yourself?’ said the boy behind the counter.
‘No, it’s a gift,’ I said.
I thought that I would buy Ken a tin of Old Holborn. The kind of tin that he carried, and that I could clearly remember my father having – yellow and white, with a drawing of a Ye Olde Georgian street on the front, and ‘Old Holborn Blended Virginia’ written in that fake fountain-pen font, as if nothing in this universe was more tasteful and sophisticated and classy than rolling your own soggy little man-made snout.
I thought that I might be purchasing the last loose tobacco in captivity. But the newsagent’s was full of the stuff. Just not in tins.
‘You could try eBay,’ the kid behind the counter told me. ‘They sell them on eBay. But we got these.’
The kid made a gracious gesture with his hand, like a proud sommelier presenting me with his extensive wine list. Amber Leaf. Golden Virginia. Van Nelle. Samson. Domingo. Drum. And Old Holborn itself – still going strong but in small packs rather than big tins now, and given new brave new world colours of orange, black and blue, kin to a lovely pack of Jaffa cakes.
‘You want some skins with that?’ said the kid behind the counter.
I stared at him, struck dumb by the fact that the baton dropped by my father’s generation had been picked up by what my dad would have called the pot heads – the kind of people he despised above all others. Apart from men who wore dresses. And Germans.
I got a 500-gram pack containing ten convenient grow-your-own-tumour sachets. It wouldn’t make up for Pat’s phone going off at the Cenotaph. It would not make up for smashing the silence with ‘Love Lockdown’ by Kanye West.
But I didn’t know how else to say I was sorry.
At Nelson Mansions, Tyson dozed at the foot of the concrete staircase, his enormous front paws clamped possessively on some hideously chewed object, possibly a human bone.
I stepped over him and skipped up the stairs, passing a couple of children huddled in their elf-like hoods, like some Tolkien nightmare. It felt much colder than November, but that might have been just the ceaseless wind that always whipped through Nelson Mansions, whatever the weather.
I rang the doorbell and a man in his early fifties answered. He looked soft and rich, like a banker enjoying his day off in lime-green Lacoste, a man whose life had treated him well. His thin lips and little eyes made three slits of his face, and he could be nobody else’s son. I held out my hand and introduced myself.
‘Ian Grimwood,’ he said, and his accent was different to his father’s – a classless modern drawl. ‘Thank you for – you know. Everything.’
I saw him looking at the Old Holborn in my hands. ‘No problem,’ I said.
Singe Rana was just leaving. He turned his soft golden face towards me. ‘I’ll come back when it’s over,’ he said.
‘I wanted to say I was sorry,’ I told him. ‘My son’s phone – it rang as you were marching. And – I felt bad. I felt terrible. About all the old soldiers.’
Singe Rana smiled gently. ‘Don’t be so fretful,’ he said. ‘Half of them are so deaf they couldn’t hear a bomb go off. And the other half don’t care.’ He tapped my arm fondly with his rolled-up copy of the Racing Post. ‘They have seen worse things.’
Then he slipped away.
Voices were being raised in the kitchen. Ken’s unmoving, old man quaver and, much louder, the voice of a woman. She had the same accent as her brother. One of those accents that sound as though you come from nowhere.
‘I don’t know how you can even think such things,’ she said, coming out of the kitchen.
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