‘He’s surely had his problems, especially after Pris left him, but they’re pretty much all of his own making.’
‘Till number five, good people, please!’ The elderly-looking gent directing customers calls out to the family in front of us with the trolley. ‘Basket; this way, this way!’ he says to us, gesturing extravagantly.
‘Haze was a big part of my life, and he’ll always be a friend,’ Hol says as we start passing the groceries across the laser scanner, to the accompaniment of beeps and ‘Next item, please’. ‘But he taught me an important life lesson a long time ago.’
‘A life lesson?’ I say, because this is an unusual turn of phrase for Hol.
She nods. ‘Just because you’d trust somebody with your life doesn’t mean you can trust them with your money.’ She looks at me and arches her eyebrows.
‘I’ll remember that,’ I tell her.
Beep.
3
W e’re all supposed to meet up for an early lunch in The Miller’s Boy pub. Hol and I are going to have to be late because I’ve seen the temperature display on the side of the Corn Exchange shopping centre and it’s a degree too high to leave the shopping in the car so we have to go home and drop it off and put the things in the fridge and freezer that need to go in those. I’ve offered to do this myself and let Hol go to the pub to meet the others but she insists on helping. She phones Paul to let people know.
Guy, who had said last night he reckoned he’d be able to go along to the pub, is still in the house, sitting in the kitchen feeling sorry for himself. He looks even more gaunt and haggard than usual and hasn’t put his woollen hat on, so his head looks still more like a skull.
‘Come on,’ Hol tells him. ‘Come to the pub, if you’re up to it; won’t be the same without you.’
‘I’m up to it, Rupert isn’t,’ he says, though he is now pulling on his knitted hat, which might be a positive sign. Guy calls his cancer ‘Rupert’, an idea he says he got from the dead playwright Dennis Potter.
I smooth and tidy what’s left of his hair and he flaps a hand at my fussing, though there is a quality to his tutting and sighing that I think indicates he’s persuadable. ‘Yeah, please come, Dad. You’ll perk up once you’re somewhere different, with lots of people; you know you will.’ (This is true.)
‘Yeah, you only call me “Dad” when you’re trying to get me to do something, don’t you?’ he says to me. (This is not true.)
‘Or stay here and I’ll stay with you,’ Hol says. ‘Won’t see you sitting here alone.’
‘I’ll sit here alone if I want to,’ Guy tells her. It is probably meant to sound rebellious or determined but actually it just sounds pathetic.
‘Fine,’ Hol says, ‘I’ll sit through in the parlour, have a sandwich, read the paper.’ She looks at me. ‘Kit, you can go to the pub. We’ll be fine here.’
I feel torn; I should probably offer to stay too but I’m quite excited at the idea of going to the pub to be with the others, even though it’s a public space and will doubtless be full of people.
Guy sighs dramatically. ‘Oh, all right, all right,’ he says, and starts trying to get up, so we go through a bit of negotiation – I would prefer him to take his Zimmer frame but he says he won’t be seen looking like some effing geriatric, so we compromise on one of his aluminium and grey plastic forearm crutches – then I drive the three of us back through a sudden, briefly sunlit shower and park in the multi-storey next to Thaxton’s.
Thaxton’s is the big department store in the centre of town and the place where I thought I’d invented escalator shoe-shining, which is when you clean and shine your shoes by using the black plastic fibres at the stair edges. I was quite proud of this and demonstrated the technique to Hol on one of her visits about three years ago. She told me she’d heard the idea before and other people had obviously had it too.
I got quite upset
‘Till number five, good people, please!’ The elderly-looking gent directing customers calls out to the family in front of us with the trolley. ‘Basket; this way, this way!’ he says to us, gesturing extravagantly.
‘Haze was a big part of my life, and he’ll always be a friend,’ Hol says as we start passing the groceries across the laser scanner, to the accompaniment of beeps and ‘Next item, please’. ‘But he taught me an important life lesson a long time ago.’
‘A life lesson?’ I say, because this is an unusual turn of phrase for Hol.
She nods. ‘Just because you’d trust somebody with your life doesn’t mean you can trust them with your money.’ She looks at me and arches her eyebrows.
‘I’ll remember that,’ I tell her.
Beep.
3
W e’re all supposed to meet up for an early lunch in The Miller’s Boy pub. Hol and I are going to have to be late because I’ve seen the temperature display on the side of the Corn Exchange shopping centre and it’s a degree too high to leave the shopping in the car so we have to go home and drop it off and put the things in the fridge and freezer that need to go in those. I’ve offered to do this myself and let Hol go to the pub to meet the others but she insists on helping. She phones Paul to let people know.
Guy, who had said last night he reckoned he’d be able to go along to the pub, is still in the house, sitting in the kitchen feeling sorry for himself. He looks even more gaunt and haggard than usual and hasn’t put his woollen hat on, so his head looks still more like a skull.
‘Come on,’ Hol tells him. ‘Come to the pub, if you’re up to it; won’t be the same without you.’
‘I’m up to it, Rupert isn’t,’ he says, though he is now pulling on his knitted hat, which might be a positive sign. Guy calls his cancer ‘Rupert’, an idea he says he got from the dead playwright Dennis Potter.
I smooth and tidy what’s left of his hair and he flaps a hand at my fussing, though there is a quality to his tutting and sighing that I think indicates he’s persuadable. ‘Yeah, please come, Dad. You’ll perk up once you’re somewhere different, with lots of people; you know you will.’ (This is true.)
‘Yeah, you only call me “Dad” when you’re trying to get me to do something, don’t you?’ he says to me. (This is not true.)
‘Or stay here and I’ll stay with you,’ Hol says. ‘Won’t see you sitting here alone.’
‘I’ll sit here alone if I want to,’ Guy tells her. It is probably meant to sound rebellious or determined but actually it just sounds pathetic.
‘Fine,’ Hol says, ‘I’ll sit through in the parlour, have a sandwich, read the paper.’ She looks at me. ‘Kit, you can go to the pub. We’ll be fine here.’
I feel torn; I should probably offer to stay too but I’m quite excited at the idea of going to the pub to be with the others, even though it’s a public space and will doubtless be full of people.
Guy sighs dramatically. ‘Oh, all right, all right,’ he says, and starts trying to get up, so we go through a bit of negotiation – I would prefer him to take his Zimmer frame but he says he won’t be seen looking like some effing geriatric, so we compromise on one of his aluminium and grey plastic forearm crutches – then I drive the three of us back through a sudden, briefly sunlit shower and park in the multi-storey next to Thaxton’s.
Thaxton’s is the big department store in the centre of town and the place where I thought I’d invented escalator shoe-shining, which is when you clean and shine your shoes by using the black plastic fibres at the stair edges. I was quite proud of this and demonstrated the technique to Hol on one of her visits about three years ago. She told me she’d heard the idea before and other people had obviously had it too.
I got quite upset
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