by Monica Ali
‘Don’t think so.’
Ted got up using his cane and Gabe for leverage. They leaned against the wall.
‘I’d always a mind to tell,’ said Ted. ‘Mebbe I thought you were too young to hear when we came out them Sunday walks. And by the time you weren’t too young … well.’
‘Ghost story, is it?’ said Gabe.
Ted shook his head. ‘You read the papers, these days, look at the television, them reality programmes, all as they show is the worst of people.’ He drew his lips into his mouth.
‘Dad, are you telling the story or what? Not too young now, am I?’
‘These three lads,’ said Ted, ‘they set off one Saturday afternoon from Sleepwater where one of them lived. It’s thought they was headed for Duckworth Fold, though others says Higher Croft and that makes sense n’all because William’s uncle lived at Higher Croft Farm. Anyway, it was winter and a snowstorm sets in, worst anyone could remember, and there’s folks not long since passed what’d tell you the snow came up high as a bedroom window, and that were down in t’town. Up here, you can imagine it were whiteout. Whiteout.’
‘When was this?’ said Gabe.
‘Nineteen twenty-one,’ said Ted. ‘Three lads. Herbert Haydock and William Railton, both sixteen years of age, best friends, so it’s said. Roger Wolstenholme were Herbert’s cousin. Only just ten, a little boy.’
‘This where they died?’
‘Found William in near reach of Rough Hall. Gone for help and almost made it, though you’d not see yer hand in front yer face. Few days before they found t’others. When there were a bit of a thaw. Drifts ten feet deep, mind. Easy enough to lose all direction when you can’t see that tower. Herbert Haydock were over that direction, if I recall …’ Ted waved his stick. ‘About three hundred or so feet from his cousin. Froze to death, right enough. He’s decided to try for help. Course he didn’t get far – when they found him he’s only got a thin jacket and shirt.’
‘Not very sensible in a snowstorm.’
‘Came up quick by all accounts. Weren’t a storm when they set out. And he had a thick overcoat, Herbert, when they left. He’s give it to the little un, wrapped it round, made his cousin comfortable as he could, up against this wall. Did right by him, you might say.’
‘I would,’ said Gabriel. He looked at Ted, watched the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed, the tightness in his cheeks. ‘I would say.’
‘We’ve to look sharp,’ said Ted, moving, ‘we want to miss the rain.’
‘Bet it was quite a funeral,’ said Gabe.
‘So it’s told,’ said Ted. He looked at Gabe and then looked away as he spoke. ‘You’re a good lad, Gabriel. We’ve to say these things while there’s time.’ He nodded and walked away.
Gabriel trailed a short distance behind turning over the things he should say in return. You’re a good dad, he decided, plain and simple. But he should have said it straight away. To say it now, it would sound false, as if he’d taken all this time to come up with it, as though it was something he had to force himself to say. The rain began to spot.
‘Dad,’ he called, ‘what about Christmas pudding? Is Jenny bringing one tomorrow or should we stop at the shops?’
Ted and Nana dozed in their chairs in the afternoon while Gabriel, inert on the sofa, drugged by the television, the gas fire, the impossibility of truly living in a room stuffed with tinsel, old people and rubber plants, tried to make a plan to go into town for some last-minute presents. He was still alive, wasn’t he? He could drag his sorry hide off the velour upholstery. He still had a pulse. Maybe. But he felt like someone, something, had sucked the marrow out of his bones.
Ted snored loudly, jerked half awake, and settled down again. When his father had answered the door yesterday evening Gabriel had almost cried out, confronted with a skull on a stick. After an hour or so his eyes had adjusted, the horror had gone, and a newly drawn father had emerged. He was like the old Ted, after all, only sharper and tighter and the soft sachets beneath his eyes were looser and rippled as he walked. But he ate his dinner and his breakfast, and with his appetite returned he would, Gabe thought, put on weight again. This morning he’d managed a walk. Perhaps Ted was in remission. Gabe hadn’t found a way to ask but when Jenny came tomorrow she would fill him in.
Nana, her feet on the tapestry stool, was in bedsocks and a flowered garment that was possibly a dress, could be a nightie, and had much potential as an armchair cover. In her sleep she oozed from every visible orifice. Gabriel jacked himself up to the edge of the sofa, reached the tissue box on the occasional table, and was choosing between eyes, nose and mouth when Nana woke up and pulled a handkerchief from between the buttons on her chest. She wiped her nose.
‘Is it washday?’ said Nana. She moved her lips a while longer but didn’t say anything else.
‘I think so,’ said Gabe.
‘It’s our Nancy’s turn to lead the range. Don’t forget I did it last week.’
‘That’s right. You did.’
‘Aye, well,’ sighed Nana. ‘I don’t mind a bit.’ She drifted off in some opiate dream.
Gabriel changed channels. He found a news review of the year. They had some business types talking. ‘Speaking personally,’ said one, ‘it’s been a lean sort of year.’
Gabriel’s stomach contracted. What if it was Dad who was right about the economy? Living in a dream world, he’d said. How long can it go on? If there was going to be a recession, the restaurant trade would be in the shit. All his savings – well, it was too late now.
‘Hark at him,’ said Nana, waking. She screwed up her face, achieving the seemingly impossible feat of multiplying her wrinkles. ‘Wouldn’t know the meaning of the word. Lean! He’s no idea!’
She struggled to sit up, listing to one side and clinging to the chair arms as if being tossed on ocean waves. ‘In’t it shocking,’ she cried. ‘The waste! Is that our Gabriel? Is it? Well, they’re not brought up right these days.’ She pushed her lips around her face. ‘Two bob a week, feeds a family of four does that. She were a champion cook, our mother. D’you remember, Gabe? Champion baker. We’d lick the bowls, you and me and Nancy. A sheep’s head every week, and it’s an economical cut and no mistake. Brains for Dad with a nice bit of bread and butter. Press the tongue for butties. Veg and barley in with the head and, ooh, it makes a lovely broth. Lovely, lovely … have I to be somewhere soon?’
‘No, Nana, you’re all right. You’ve got ages yet.’
But what did Dad know about economics? Fairweather knew, and he’d said the City was booming. Hadn’t he? And the City led the way.
‘It’s my grandson,’ said Nana, twinkling. ‘He’s getting married to a lovely girl.’
‘I know,’ said Gabe, putting his hand over hers. ‘But not for a while.’
Nana touched the fragile blue-grey curls at her temples. She sank back in her chair.
They stared at the television. An anti-war demonstration in London. BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW read one banner. UK OUT OF IRAQ said another.
‘OUR BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS,’ read Nana. ‘These what-sits, Muslims, there’s no understanding them, is there? I mean,’ she said, her voice rising, ‘we’ve took ’em in. We’ve give them a home.’
Gabriel looked at Ted. Still asleep.
Mug shots, terror plots, training camps, grainy videos.
Nana mopped her eye. ‘What have we done to them? And we’ve to check under our beds every night. Not safe, none of us. Are we? Not safe in our own beds.’
The only thing Nana would find under her bed was a chamber pot. Maybe a Trebor mint. Our own worst enemies, Charlie had said. Worrying over nothing. That was what she meant. Something like that anyway.
The news review moved on to a celebrity package. WHAT’S HOT, WHAT’S NOT. WHO’S WED, WHO’S FLED. WHO’S MINTED, WHO’S SKINTED. Every five seconds a spinning tabloid headline.
‘I’ve got to nip out,’ said Gabe. He needed a cigarette, needed to get his shopping done. ‘Will you
be OK?’
‘Course I’ll be OK,’ said Nana. ‘I’m not ga-ga you know. Now what’s all this? What they showing now? Why don’t they just give over, these Muslims? Protesting this and protesting that.’
‘No, it’s a parade, Nana. An Eid festival, earlier this year, right here in Blantwistle. I think they’ve gone over to the local stations.’
‘Look how they’ve blocked the road,’ said Nana. ‘There’ll be no traffic down there today. It’s dreadful, in’t it? It is.’ Nana clacked disapprovingly on her sweet. ‘I was saying to Gladys only today, I said, Gladys, how is it these Pakistans take over all them houses, buy up the whole bloomin’ street, and you know, they’ve not a mortgage between them, they club together, that’s what, though how they get the money I do not know. And Gladys, well, I’ve known her all me life, and she says to me, Phyllis …’ Nana’s face trembled, her lips parted and closed. ‘Phyllis …’ Perhaps she had remembered that Gladys was dead, that there was, in fact, nothing they could have said to each other today. ‘Ooh,’ she said, taking refuge in the television. ‘Ooh, look at all them children. They’ve ever so many, haven’t they?’ Nana looked at Gabe, anxious to know that this time she was speaking sense.
Gabe hesitated. She peered up at him as if from beneath the edge of a cliff. Would he stamp on her fingers or lend her a hand? ‘Yes, Nana,’ he said, ‘that’s right.’
Nana sighed. She was back on solid ground. ‘No one can call me a racialist. I don’t hold with any of that. But I tell you one thing I’ve noticed about the women. When they go shopping, know what they do, they squeeze all the fruit and all the vegetables. And then we’ve to buy what they’ve touched and left behind.’
The high street was strung with lights and garlanded with decorations. The wet pavements spooled colours into the drains. Pedestrians slapped this way and that under the influence of heavy bags or alcohol. A couple of squad cars stood by.
Our religious festival, thought Gabe.
‘Merry Christmas, mate.’ A man in a tracksuit and gold chain greeted Gabe. No reason, just friendly. You stopped expecting it when you’d been in London so long.
‘Merry Christmas,’ said Gabe. He smiled.
‘Merry Christmas,’ said the man to a woman almost entirely blotted out by a large black sheet, a black veil over her head.
The woman turned her face to the ground and quickened her step.
‘And a happy New Year to you,’ said the man, still amiable.
The woman didn’t acknowledge him. She turned down a side street. Gabe paused to watch her beetle away, a black shell, a solid casing, broken only by the flick-flack of her heels.
Fuck you, he thought.
He didn’t think that. No. He hadn’t thought it, as such. He was thinking about the kind of reaction people might have. Like your foot flying up if the doctor hits a certain spot on your knee. A thought flying into your mind. Not his mind, but other people’s. Well, it wasn’t right, but you could understand sometimes.
The thing was, that woman – those women – they’d decided there was only one way to look at things. Black and white. This is who I am. This is what I am. Easy. All your answers, ready made. Not like the rest of us. We have to make it up as we go along. Maybe Fairweather had that right.
Fuck you for having what I don’t.
No Whitsun Walks any longer, no Mothers’ Union parade. Kids in shined shoes and new clothes, it still happened, but only for Eid. Large families, clubbing together, kinship and community … all the things that Nana missed most.
When Gabriel got back to Plodder Lane, Dad was in the kitchen making a shepherd’s pie. The potatoes were on to boil. Dad was emptying a packet of mince into a frying pan with some chopped onions. Gabe would have recommended softening the onions and browning the meat separately.
‘What can I do?’ he said.
‘Wouldn’t say no to a brew.’
Gabriel filled the kettle. On the windowsill was a reindeer he’d made at primary school out of a toilet roll, pipe cleaners, lolly sticks and cotton wool. He gave it to Dad as a Christmas present and Dad brought it out every year.
Ted scattered some gravy granules into the pan and stirred the mixture vigorously. ‘Stick a bit of hot water in here.’
Gabe poured some from the kettle.
‘Nana likes it with a touch of ketchup cooked in.’ Ted squeezed out a dollop, closed the lid, flicked it up again and added a dollop more. ‘Look about right?’ he said.
‘Ah,’ said Gabriel. ‘About right, yes.’
‘I’ve to break down these lumps,’ said Ted. ‘They clog her teeth.’ He worked carefully, bending close to the stove.
This was what it was all about, thought Gabriel. All those cookery programmes and glossy magazines, the food porn. True, they’d never feature someone like Ted Lightfoot, cooking for someone like Nana, with ketchup and gravy granules. But this was what it was about, not filling a hole in a stomach but filling a hole in a life.
‘Dad, I’m sorry I haven’t been around more.’
‘We manage. We don’t do so bad.’
‘I don’t mean just now. I mean …’
‘When yer mum were alive.’
Gabe scratched his head. ‘Yes. No. All of it. Dad?’
Ted smiled. He wiped his hands on his butcher’s apron. ‘You got things to ask, son, I wouldn’t put it off too long.’
‘Do you … I’ve got this memory … Mum with the rag-and-bone man. He brought her home. I don’t know. Do you remember? Do you know the time I mean?’
Ted reached in the cupboard. He was so thin he was painful to look at, sketched in a few brisk strokes. ‘There it is,’ he said. ‘Flour. Spoonful for the thickening – Nana taught me how.’
Answer enough, thought Gabe. He said, ‘When Mum was on the medication …’ Should he say it? Where was the point in raking over old ground? ‘She changed so much, it was like she lost her personality. Like she wasn’t her any more.’
Ted took a fork and tested the potatoes. He drained them and the steam that rose from the colander for a moment obscured his face.
Gabe thought, no, he won’t reply.
‘I agree with you,’ said Ted. ‘In a way. Point is, she wanted it. She were tired. It were exhausting being her all the time.’
Ted clattered the pan into the sink. Gabe took over and did the mash. The rain tapped on the window. The lino squeaked under their feet.
It used to be Mum with Nana in the kitchen, the two of them cooking the tea. They clacked away like a pair of knitting needles, never lost for something to say. There must be a trick to it, a knack, which Gabe and Ted hadn’t stumbled on yet.
‘I’ll fix those tiles behind the taps tomorrow,’ said Gabriel.
‘Christmas Day tomorrow,’ said Ted.
‘Oh yes.’
Ted moved slowly, gathering crockery for the table, a head of broccoli from the fridge. His brown slacks looked so empty it was difficult to imagine a pair of legs inside. He was shorter than he used to be.
‘I heard about Hortons,’ said Gabriel. ‘Closing down.’
‘Aye,’ said Ted. ‘That’s right.’
‘That’s a shame,’ said Gabe. ‘Last of the mills.’
‘Aye. Last one.’
Gabe opened an overhead cupboard to find the cooking salt. The handle pulled loose in his hand.
‘Dad?’ he said. ‘That’s bad, isn’t it? Hortons going down.’
‘Can be done cheaper elsewhere, Gabriel, that’s all there is to it. Economics, in’t it, when all’s said and done.’
‘They were good jobs, though,’ said Gabe. ‘The area needs good jobs like that.’
‘Noisy, dirty places, is mills,’ said Ted, with his hands in the washing-up bowl.
Why didn’t he get his hands out of the soapsuds? Ted always ran his hands firmly over the nearest hard surface when he wanted to make a point.
‘Steady employment though, wasn’t it?’ said Gabe. ‘Not like this casual work Harley picks up.’
/> ‘It were on a cycle,’ said Ted. ‘Cotton industry … seen that many booms and busts … There was times …’ His voice trailed away.
The back of Gabe’s throat was scratchy. He coughed but it didn’t clear. ‘I remember the works outings,’ he said, ‘when we went to the panto, all of that. People doing stuff together, you know, something to be said for it.’
Ted dried his hands on his apron. The band of white hair around his bald head was longer and fluffier than Gabe had ever seen it, making it seem like even his skull had shrunk.
‘Community,’ said Ted, ‘I suppose we had that. There were …’
‘Go on, Dad. Go on.’
‘Always another side to everything, that’s the truth.’ Ted spoke quietly. ‘Community’s good for those what’s on the inside, but if there’s some inside there’s others what’s out. I’m thinking of yer mother. Thinking of my Sally Anne.’
Gabriel went to bed early. The curtain seemed to stir, but it was only the play of the moonlight behind the thin fabric. He lay on his back, hands under his head, feeling pleasantly drowsy. He wasn’t doing too bad. He’d recommend a heart attack (perhaps not a real one) to anyone. It was galvanizing. He’d got a lot done in the last week. Here, with Dad and Nana, of course he was a little more lethargic. But what could he expect? As soon as he walked into the sitting room he was half asleep from the ticking of the carriage clock, a little faint at the smell of polish and sherry and mints. But he’d talked to Dad, that was the important thing. Had a couple of long talks. Dad wasn’t his old self. He kept hesitating. Gabe wished he’d go back to being sure of everything, though he’d never liked him that way.
He switched the lamp off. He turned on his side and flipped the pillow over to lay his cheek against the cool. Michael Harrison. Now what did happen to him? There was a kid you could point at, label, say he won’t come to any good. But it was up to Michael in the end, wasn’t it? Jenny said she’d ask around, someone would know. Tomorrow, he must remember: find out about Michael, and get the turkey in the oven by quarter past ten.