ing his way towards the hall. He passed Beverly and used
his big hand to scoot her out of the way, almost pushing
her into the kitchen and into Nick’s path.
‘I didn’t see you arrive.’ She bopped on the spot in
front of him.
‘I’ve been here hours.’ He smiled and drank his lager.
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‘Cheers!’ She raised her glass of wine and knocked
it against his bottle. ‘Good Christmas? Jen said you hid
away until Boxing Day.’
‘We weren’t hiding exactly, well, only from her.’ He
pulled a face.
‘Ah, fearful she might reach for the Monopoly?’
‘Something like that.’ He laughed. ‘What about you?
Did you have a nice time?’
‘No. No I didn’t, actually.’ She shook her head and
drank her wine. ‘I hate Christmas. It’s a bad time of
year for me. I always feel really lonely and every advert
and programme is a reminder of what I’m missing. And
that’s why I have a New Year’s party – first, it gives me
something to look forward to, and, second, it means that
whilst Christmas might be shite, the end of the year is
always epic!’
He liked her candour. Most folks would try to sugar-
coat or enhance their experience, attempting to convince
you that their life really was as good as their Instagram
life, but not Beverly; she told it as it was and he liked it.
‘Well, here’s to a less shite new year!’ He raised his
bottle and drank it quickly, wishing that he too had
thought about a fried egg beer cushion to line his gut.
Eric danced into the kitchen, knocking people out of
the way with his pointy elbows and jolting their arms
so that drinks spilled. It made Nick wince, thinking of
the clean-up.
‘Oi, Daphne!’ Eric called to him, laughing. ‘I just
danced with Jen! Actually danced with her! This is the
best party ever!’
Nick shook his head and said to Beverly as Eric grabbed
two beers and left the room, ‘Oh God, I’ll never hear the
end of it. I hope she doesn’t mess him around. They had
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a thing a few years back; a short-lived thing that looked
like it might have legs. But after one weekend away they
travelled back separately and normal service was resumed.
It’s a shame; he’d be so good for her.’
‘And she for him.’
‘Yes, probably,’ he had to admit.
‘He’s pretty smitten, isn’t he?’ Beverly chuckled.
‘He always has been.’
‘Well, Nick, when you know, you know.’
‘Yep.’ He reached for another bottle of beer. His foot
began tapping to the strains of Cheryl Crow’s ‘If It Makes
You Happy’ – this was turning into a good party. ‘When
you know you know.’
It was approaching midnight and Nick was drunk.
It had been a long time since he had felt like this. In
fact, he could pinpoint the last time, a night after Kerry’s
initial diagnosis when Eric and Alex had taken him to
the pub and, unaware of how best to help their friend,
they got him sloshed. He had woken the next morning
with his head in a bucket on the bathroom floor and
Kerry sitting on the edge of the bed, crying. This felt a
little similar: he was out of his depth, not in full control
of the situation and hoping that he might be able to slip
home without anyone noticing just how drunk he was.
The music of his youth pumped in his veins as he
danced with abandon in the tiny sitting room with his
arm around Eric’s shoulders and his shirt collar unbut-
toned. Each song contained a memory, a moment from
his short-lived teens, the time of his life when one minute
he was excited about the future, planning to go to college
where he would study hard before claiming his fancy of-
fice job where he would sit behind a desk, and the next
he was holding a crying baby in the early hours, pacing
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the floor while simultaneously fretting about where they
were going to find the money for rent. And it had hap-
pened with frightening speed, as if he were on a spinning
roundabout and it was all he could do to hang on.
‘Do you ever wonder,’ he shouted at Eric above the
din, ‘about what your life would have been like if you’d
made different choices, done different things?’
‘No!’ Eric yelled his reply. ‘Do you?’
‘Stometimes,’ he slurred. ‘I do, recently. I think I could
be living in France or driving a Porsche, or just dancing.
But I didn’t. I stuck around and it all kept spinning. It
was bloody hard. It is bloody hard!’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, my drunken
friend!’ Eric laughed and they carried on dancing.
Time was skewed and he felt a bit woozy, when sud-
denly there were loud shouts, counting down, ‘Ten …
Nine … Eight…’ He felt someone grab his hand and saw
it was Beverly who gripped his fingers tightly, her little
hand in his, pulling him from the lounge where the crowd
counted backwards, walking headlong into another time,
a new age and a new year in which Kerry had never lived.
The start of a new chapter.
He wasn’t sure how he felt about it – he was too drunk
to properly order his ideas. Instead, he took Kerry’s advice
and loosened the lid on his thoughts a bit, letting some
of his sadness float away and at the same time mentally
lassoing the spikes of joy that fired through him at no
more than this: the touch of a woman, this woman, who
for whatever reason was drawn to him as he was to her.
Beverly opened the door to the downstairs toilet and
pushed him inside. He leant against the sink and took a
deep breath as the room spun. She reached up and pushed
his fringe from his forehead. The touch of her finger on
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his face was like a jolt, an electric shock of a sensation,
something new and a feeling he had quite forgotten.
He heard the count reach its crescendo. ‘Two …
One! Happy New Year!’ voices screamed and claps were
interspersed with whoops, hollers and whistles.
He bent down and kissed her gently on the mouth.
It felt strange and at the same time wonderful. It was
the first time he had kissed another woman since he had
first held Kerry Forrest’s hand on a day trip to Drayfield
Moor when he had been all of sixteen and without a
clue as to how life would turn out. In truth, he felt very
similar now as fireworks of longing exploded inside him
and his body folded with sweet desire for this pretty girl
who unbelievably appeared to want him too. He reached
up and twined his fingers in her hair, pulling her to him
as he leant in for a longer kiss.
And it was in that moment – as their lips touched and
her hands roamed
the skin beneath the fabric of his new
denim shirt, as he felt his guard slip and his body yield to
the joy of another human touch – that all hell broke loose.
1992
‘What are you two looking so glum about this morning?’
his dad asked as he sipped his tea and ate his toast at the
table before work. ‘If I had the whole day stretching out
in front of me with nothing to do and the sun was out, I’d
be a bit happier. Look at you both! You look like you’ve
lost a sixpence and found a shilling.’
Nick and Eric exchanged a look; they had absolutely
no idea what a sixpence or a shilling was.
‘Mags, have you seen the mardy faces on these two?’
His dad now spoke to his mum, who came into the kitchen
with an armful of dirty laundry.
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‘They’re fed up because they can’t find wheels or a
saddle,’ she surmised as she dropped to her haunches and
fed the dirty clothes into the washing machine.
‘Is that right?’ His dad sat up and put his mug down.
‘Have you tried looking?’
‘Ye-es! We’ve looked everywhere, Dad!’ Nick propped
his head on his fist. ‘We’ve been to the scrap yard three
times and the man there said we are not to go back as we
just get in the way and it’s dangerous.’
‘Plus he’s got a really scary dog,’ Eric chipped in.
Nick nodded energetically. This was true. ‘And I asked
the bin man if he ever saw wheels lying around and he
said if he did he’d sell them himself for scrap.’
‘That’ll be Henry.’ His dad raised his eyebrows at his
mum.
Eric backed up his friend’s story. ‘We go to the Rec and
up to the Old Dairy Shed every day, in case anyone has
dumped any. So far we’ve found an old fridge and a tractor
tyre, and there’s always mattresses and stuff on the floor.’
Again, Nick saw his parents exchange a look.
‘But we’ve never seen any wheels,’ Eric huffed.
‘ And we went up to the bike shop next to the butch-
ers,’ Nick continued to explain, ‘and I asked the man
in there if he had any old wheels he didn’t want or ever
threw any away.’
‘What did he say?’ His dad leant forward with his
forearms on the table. Nick wasn’t sure how to phrase it.
Eric, however, had no such compulsion.
‘He told us to sod off.’
‘Right.’ His dad took a swig of his tea, but Nick could
see him smiling behind the rim of the mug.
‘Well, you know what they say, lads; energy and per-
sistence conquer all things. Keep looking.’
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‘The thing is, Dad, we’ve only got two weeks of the
summer holiday left and if we don’t get the wheels soon,
we won’t even finish the bike before we go back to school,
let alone get a chance to ride it!’ He cursed the sting of
tears that threatened. His words only served to highlight
their predicament and it felt hopeless.
His dad stood and took a deep breath. ‘I’d best get
going or Mr Siddley’ll have my guts for garters. See you
later, love,’ he addressed his wife. ‘And for goodness’ sake, you two, cheer up!’
Alex stepped up and down the kerb as they made their
daily pilgrimage up to the Rec in search of the elusive
wheels.
‘Do you think your mum and dad will get divorced?’
he asked Eric out of the blue.
Eric shrugged. ‘Don’t know.’ Eric picked up a small
round pebble and lobbed it as far as he could. It hit the
wall of the church and settled on the pathway.
Nick didn’t fully understand what divorce entailed,
but he knew that Will Pearce’s mum and dad were di-
vorced and didn’t live together anymore and Will had
to have two sets of uniform, one at each house, and last
year he had to eat two Christmas dinners as he spent half
the day with his mum and half with his dad. It didn’t
sound so bad.
‘Do you think your mum might stay in Derby?’ Nick
asked.
‘Don’t know.’ Eric shrugged again, preoccupied with
pulling the small branches from the stick he had now
picked up. What was it with him and sticks? It seemed
he always wanted one in his grip to bash, tap or poke his
way through the world, like an explorer.
‘What does your dad say?’ Alex, like Nick, was curious.
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‘Not much, but I think he’s sad. He sits on the sofa
and drinks cans of ale like he did when my grandma died,
and then he starts singing.’
‘What does he sing?’ Nick tried to picture the tall,
quiet man breaking into song and couldn’t.
‘“You’ll Never Walk Alone”.’
The boys were quiet and Nick wondered if the other
two, like him, were singing the song in their heads.
‘If my mum and dad got divorced, I would go and
live wherever Jen wasn’t,’ Nick asserted.
Alex and he laughed.
‘I like your sister,’ Eric said softly, looking into the
middle distance, as if he was miles away. ‘I think she’s
dead pretty.’
Nick and Alex stopped walking and pulled faces,
staring at their mate in horror.
‘She’s a witch is what she is!’ Nick said loudly.
‘A scary witch!’ Alex added for good measure, with
his hands raised and his fingers bent.
‘I don’t think so.’ Eric gave a gentle nod and carried
on walking to the accompanying tune of Nick and Alex
singing loudly; ‘Eric and Jenny, sitting in a tree…’
* * *
‘Well, marvellous!’ his dad offered sarcastically, as he stood
in the kitchen with his hands on his hips and shaking his
head. ‘I leave for work with two of you sitting there with
long faces, and I get home from work to find the only
thing that’s changed is that there are now three of you.’
‘Hello, Mr Bairstow,’ Alex sighed.
‘Have you been sat here all day?’ His dad washed his
hands at the kitchen sink.
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‘No.’ Eric sat up. ‘We went round the Rec searching,
and then we looked in the bins at the back of the bike shop.’
‘What did you find there?’ his dad asked.
‘Empty egg boxes, a cat litter tray and some Chinese
takeaway boxes with noodles in them.’
‘I see.’ His dad dried his hands on the tea towel and
leant against the sink. ‘I don’t think you’ve been looking
hard enough.’
Nick hated the feeling of disappointment in his gut,
like he had in some way let his dad down. It was the very
worst and to be reminded of this in front of his friends
felt doubly galling.
‘We did, Dad! Honest! We’ve looked all day! But
we can’t find wheels or a saddle. The rest of the bike is
ready. We’ve got the paintwork good and the chain and
everything is really shiny!’
‘And we all put in and bought a can of oil to keep the
gears and everything in good shape.’ Alex also tried to
demonstrate their commitment to Half Bike.
Nick pictured the tussles they had over whose turn
it was to administer the oil through the narrow plastic
spout with the little red cap on the end.
His dad took a deep breath and reached into his pocket.
He pulled out three narrow metal tins and handed them
out.
‘Wow!’ Alex beamed. ‘Thank you!’
‘Is it for keeps?’ Eric asked with a note of disbelief, as
if this gift was too good to be true.
‘It is, lad. One each.’ Nick’s dad smiled.
Nick felt his melancholy fade, replaced with something
close to happiness, not only to be on the receiving end of
a gift, but also that his dad had got the same for his mates.
‘Open them up,’ his dad instructed.
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Each boy used his thumb to pop open the thin metal
tin lid with a satisfying thunk and ran his finger over the
neatly packed contents.
‘This is everything you will ever need to fix a punc-
ture,’ his dad explained. Nick pictured riding the moors
with the little tin in his pocket, nestling next to his multi tool. He knew that with his very own transport and these
things on his person, he would feel invincible and even the
thought sent a rush of joyous excitement through his veins.
His dad sat in the spare seat at the kitchen table and
pointed into Nick’s tin.
‘You’ve got a tube of rubber cement – careful, mind,
once you’ve squeezed some out it seeps and it can be
murder to get that little black nozzle off next time you
need it so clean the top before you put the lid back on.’
The boys nodded.
‘There’s a piece of chalk for marking any punctures on
the inner tube, and those you’ll find by holding the inner
tube in a washing-up bowl full of water and squeezing it
gently all around under the water until you see where the
bubbles come up from. There’s a square of sandpaper to
rough up the surface so that the rubber cement keys to it
better and a selection of patches to cover the puncture –
round, rectangular and square, and it’s important to pick
the right one for the right hole.’
Nick and his friends listened intently to the instruc-
tions from this grown-up who seemed to know all there
was to know about punctures.
The Light in the Hallway (ARC) Page 18