Cosmic

by Frank Cottrell Boyce

  “They think,” I explained, “that you are with me. And that I am your dad.”

  “No. You’re kidding! Do they? Do they, honest?”

  “Yes.”

  “But this is brilliant.”

  And she was right. We could do anything, so we did. That Saturday and every Saturday from then on we played on the lifts, messed about in the photo booth, went into Total Games and tried out all the new releases. We even went into Newz and Booze, which is “Strickly no unaccumpanid children under eny sercumstance’s.” Florida loved it in there because she could browse through all the celebrity magazines while I bought a newspaper to make myself look more dadly. Sometimes she used to give me a pound before we went inside so I could buy her chocolate.

  I said, “Buy your own chocolate.”

  “Girls do not buy their own chocolate when they’re out with their dads. Dads buy it for them.”

  She even tried to get me to buy her cigarettes.

  “Dads don’t buy their children cigarettes.”

  “My actual dad would. He’d do anything for me. He’s going to buy me a pony.”

  “Ask your actual dad then.”

  Once I went in there without her and the woman behind the counter said, “Where’s your little princess today then?”

  How much did Florida love that when I told her. “Princess is brilliant. You have to call me Princess.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not? My dad calls me Princess all the time.”

  “We’ll talk about this another time,” I said.

  “Whoa, you really sounded like a dad when you said that.”

  “Thanks.”

  Another time she brought her little sister, Ibiza, with her.

  “Oh, another one,” said the woman in Newz and Booze. “I didn’t know you had two. I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but it’s lovely to see a young dad spending time with his girls the way you do. And they’re both a credit to you. Aren’t you lucky girls to have such a good dad?”

  And she gave them a Chomp bar each.

  It was a golden time and maybe we should have stopped there. But if you play a lot of games, then the moment you get good at something, that feels like Level One. You start itching to level up.

  One day Lisa had to finish early because her dad was ill. We could have spent the time in the Strand doing all the usual things. Or we could have used the extra time to look for Level Two.

  The 61 stops right outside the parish hall and goes all the way to Liverpool’s celebrated city center. So there it was. The way to Level Two.

  Being a grown-up in the Strand was fun. Being a grownup in Liverpool’s celebrated city center was totally cosmic. The moment we got off the bus a woman in a white mini-skirt and a red sash came up, said hello, and gave me a free sample of a new yogurt drink. “Here,” she said, “have a couple more for your little girl.” We hadn’t even finished drinking them when another woman gave me a free newspaper and another one—in a trouser suit—asked me if I had five minutes to answer some questions.

  The questions were mostly about how we had got to town and what our favorite shops were. Then there were a few about what year I was born and what I did for a living. I gave her my dad’s birthday and told her I was a taxi driver. She said, “Would you like to come in here with me and taste a new sandwich spread we’re developing and on which we’d value your opinion?”

  She took us to a really nice room and gave us free sandwiches and fizzy water. Afterward we had to fill in questionnaires and we were allowed to keep the pens. Florida asked for more sandwiches. The woman in the trouser suit laughed and said, “I guess that’s all the feedback we need.”

  “So can we have some more then?”

  “No.”

  Which is how we ended up near the world-famous waterfront, looking in the window of the Porsche showroom. Florida said, “That would be going too far, wouldn’t it?”

  “Let’s find out.” I was getting that Crispy New World feeling again.

  It was my first time in a car showroom. I’d never seen a car on a carpet before. It was like being in the living room of the Posh Car Family. The cars looked smaller and glossier than they usually do. A man in a suit saw us come in and said, “Be with you in a minute, sir. Help yourself to coffee.”

  There was a coffee machine and a plate of biscuits—disappointingly mostly plain digestives. Florida nabbed the only Bourbon biscuit. Then she walked around dropping crumbs on their carpet. There was one really nice, sleek-looking car. Florida said, “Take a picture of me with your mobile.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s what dads do.”

  So she leaned on the hood and smiled while I took her picture. Straightaway the man in the suit was standing next to us. “I admire your taste,” he said.

  Florida said, “This is the Boxster. Wayne Rooney’s got two like this, in red.”

  “He has indeed,” said the man in the suit, “and he bought them both here. You’re a very well-informed little girl.” Then he asked me how old she was.

  I said, “She’s eleven.” Then I thought I should say something grown-up so I said, “I’m not sure about this color.”

  “There’s a red one like Wayne’s over here. Come and have a look.”

  So I did.

  “I’ve got to agree with you. A car like this was born to be red.” It was nice of him to agree with me even though I didn’t remember saying that. “She costs a bit…”

  “I know.” The price was written on the windshield.

  “…but she’s worth it.”

  “Yeah. Oh. Yeah.”

  “Are you looking to buy or just looking?”

  Yes, I know what I should’ve said. But “to buy” sounded older.

  “Would you be bringing your old car in, in part exchange?”

  “No. No, I like my old car. I’ll probably keep my old car. It’s a good car.”

  “I know the score. The other one’s a family car. That’s for when you’re being a proper grown-up dad. This is for when you’re playing racing cars. Isn’t that right?” He winked at Florida. “Men, eh? We never grow up, do we?”

  “He definitely hasn’t,” said Florida.

  “Well,” said the man in the suit, “let’s pretend we have grown up. Just for a minute. What’s your income?”

  “I’m not sure. Varies really.”

  “You’re right. You are so right. I’m too nosy. I mean you haven’t even said you want her yet, have you?”

  “No. No, I haven’t.”

  “I’m always giving it the hard sell. A car like this, you should let it sell itself.”

  That’s when Florida said, “Can we sit in it then?”

  He looked at her for a second and she said, “Please?”

  “Go on then.”

  We both got in. She whispered, “You should’ve told me to say please.”

  “You did say please.”

  “Yeah, but you should’ve told me before I got the chance. That’s more dadlike.”

  “Okay.”

  The man in the suit looked in, winked at Florida and said, “Comfy?”

  “Yeah,” said Florida.

  I said, “Yeah, what?”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  And then the man handed me the keys. “Go on,” he said. “You know you’re dying to. Just nudge her out onto the forecourt. See how she handles.” Before I could say anything he was asking the other salesmen to move the other cars out of the way and open the big doors so I could take the car outside.

  “I’ll need to push the seat back a bit for you. You’re a big lad, aren’t you?”

  I could’ve said, Yes, I am a big lad but that doesn’t mean I’m old. I didn’t say that. I said, “Thanks,” and added, “mate.”

  “Have you got your license on you, Mr….?”

  “Er…Digby. No. No, I haven’t.” I tried not to sound too happy about this.

  “That’s all right, Mr. Digby. I trust you. Thousands wouldn’
t.”

  He waved me into the seat, crouched down next to me and gave me a guided tour of the dashboard—“There’s your MP3 player, your ergonomic seat thing, your satnav, in case you actually want to go somewhere.”

  I had a thought. “I’ve got DraxWorld on my phone. Can I hook that up to the satnav?”

  He was impressed. He said, “Not sure. Give it a go.”

  I got DraxWorld up on my phone and chose a Waterloo.

  “Waterloo,” said the man. “No, this doesn’t work. Waterloo’s about fifteen minutes from here. This is showing a journey time of three days.”

  “Actually,” I said, “that’s Waterloo in Sierra Leone, Africa.”

  He looked at me like I was talking pure poetry. “Wow,” he said, “Africa. And it’s in your favorites? What would you do? Shoot down through France? Over the Pyrenees…” He was gone, imagining the whole journey in his head—the rivers, the mountains, the ferries, the desert. “Mr. Digby,” he said, “you deserve this car. If I could, I’d give it you.”

  So I turned the key in the ignition. The car made a sound like a cat purring. The man stepped aside and pointed to the hood. “Engineering perfection.” He smiled.

  It is at the moment, I thought. But in five minutes’ time it might well be a load of scrap metal. The thing about Level Two of course is that it has new and unexpected dangers. So you stand a much better chance of being killed.

  I looked down at the pedals. I knew one of them was the accelerator. I just wasn’t quite sure which one. One lesson that World of Warcraft teaches you is that if you want to succeed on the next level, you need to acquire new skills. Don’t level up until you’ve skilled up. Sadly this was a lesson I had forgotten. I was pretty sure though that the accelerator was the one in the middle. I had my foot on it when the door on the passenger side opened and a very familiar voice said, “You. Out. Now. Come on.”

  I probably didn’t mention this at the time, Dad, but, on balance, I was pleased to see you.

  When I climbed out, you were shouting at the man in the suit, telling him that I could have been killed and asking him why they don’t check ages.

  “How was I supposed to know?” wailed the man.

  “By checking his license.” Good point, Dad.

  “He didn’t have one.”

  “Of course he hasn’t got one. He’s twelve years old.”

  “Look, mate,” said the man in the suit, “don’t go blaming me because your son’s a freak.”

  I thought Dad was going to hit him then. He growled, “He is not a freak. He is normal. But tall.”

  “It wasn’t just his height. It was the fact that he seemed to have a daughter.”

  Dad’s got this little statue of St. Christopher stuck to his dashboard. When he was shoving me into the taxi on the way back from the town center I bumped against it and it rolled onto the floor.

  “Pick that up,” snapped Dad.

  “Okay, okay. You’ve knocked the baby Jesus off his back.”

  “Just don’t talk to me, Liam.”

  I said okay, but there was something I wanted to ask him. I waited till we were on the Dock Road, then I said, “How did you know where we were?”

  “I’m your dad,” he said. “If you act funny, I notice. If you get on an unexpected bus instead of going home, I follow you, even if that means turning down fares and having the boss bawling at me on the radio. I’m your dad. It’s what dads do.”

  Thinking about that now makes me wonder if you’re out there, somewhere behind us, charging after us through the wastes of space in your taxi. But no. No taxi would be able to generate the necessary escape velocity.

  In case you are interested, by the way, this is how Dad located us that day. When he gave me his old phone, he bought himself a new one but he kept his old number. So there were two phones—phone one (Dad’s) and phone two (mine)—with the same identity. So, if he was ever worried about me, he could fire up DraxWorld and request “present position of phone two,” and that would tell him where I was.

  So my phone looked like a phone but it was really an electronic tag.

  Because we shared a phone number, I used to get all Dad’s messages from Pine Planet, telling me that my new kitchen units were ready for collection, and Dad used to get messages from members of my World of Warcraft guild saying stuff like, “Been attacked by dragons—need yr healing powers now!” and “Captured fifty goblins. Kill? or hold for ransom?” A nervous person might’ve thought, Blimey, we’re being invaded by mythical creatures, and maybe gone and hidden away in the woods behind the golf course. Dad just thought, This phone’s gone funny. I’ll turn it off and turn it on again.

  That’s Dad’s solution to any technological problem. Microwave, satnav, computer, dishwasher—turn it off and back on again and it’ll be okay. To be fair, it usually works. I’d try it now, but I’m not sure this rocket has an Off switch.

  My Planet Panda Pop

  The school-assembly incident was bad. The Porsche-showroom incident was like being killed and sent back to Level One with no spare lives. “All we wanted,” said Mom, “was for you to learn some social skills.”

  “Social skills?” said Dad. “Well, let’s see—he got a little girl to pose as his daughter, and he persuaded a salesman to lend him a Porsche. He’s got social skills. He’s got too many social skills. We asked him to learn some and he learned too many. That’s the problem.”

  It turned out that Dad was right about visible friends being different from cyberfriends. If someone doesn’t turn up on Warcraft, you can always just recruit someone else. But when I walked through the New Strand Shopping Center on Saturday mornings, even though there were thousands of people there, it was really noticeable that none of them was Florida.

  Mom got really stressed about the whole thing. “Liam,” she kept saying, “what are we going to do with you?”

  Dad looked on the Internet for self-help groups for people with unusual problems. About an hour later he came back and said, “What about this—popular coastal resort, Tunisia? A hundred and fifty pounds a head.”

  “Tunisia’s a bit far,” said Mom. “I was hoping there’d be a group in the library.”

  “No, I’m talking about a holiday. That’s what we need, isn’t it? The three of us. Go somewhere no one knows us. And just unwind.”

  I was completely excited about this. I’d never been abroad before. I spent the whole week reading holiday brochures and even went with Mom and Dad to the travel agent, which was a disaster because when I get completely excited I talk too much. For instance, when Tunisia was mentioned, I said, “Yes. Four-star accommodation, all meals and we could go and see the Sahara Desert!”

  Mom said, “The Sahara Desert? You are joking. The Sahara Desert is a desert. People get lost in deserts. They starve to death and see mirages and get eaten alive by ants. Oh no, no, no, no. We’re not going to a desert.”

  The travel-agent woman said, “If you did choose the optional desert excursion, Mrs. Digby, you would be accompanied by our trained local staff in a fully air-conditioned coach. It’s a very well-organized trip.”

  “No one ever,” said Mom, “INTENDS to get eaten alive by ants. But Accidents Happen. Especially in the Sahara Desert. What else have you got?”

  “Tenerife is already quite warm.”

  Although it is politically part of Spain, the island of Tenerife is off the coast of Africa and is therefore hot all the year round. Especially in the south. It’s more rainy in the north because of this big pointy mountain in the middle of the island. It’s so tall that it has snow on top, even in the summer. It’s called Teide. Mom looked interested when I told her all of this. I probably should’ve stopped just there and not gone on to mention that Teide isn’t just an ordinary mountain.

  “A volcano!?” said Mom.

  “An extinct volcano,” said the woman from the travel agency, very quickly.

  “Extinct or dormant?” said Mom, surprising everyone with her unexpected geological knowled
ge.

  “What’s the difference?” asked the travel-agent lady.

  “The difference,” said Mom, “between life and death.”

  The travel-agent woman held up a brochure for Florida.

  “Very popular.” She smiled, without going into detail.

  Mom looked at me. I said nothing.

  She looked at the travel agent, who just kept smiling.

  She looked at Dad. He tried to keep smiling too. But she raised an eyebrow and he just can’t cope with that. In the end he admitted, “Alligators.”

  After that there was Turkey (earthquakes), Cyprus (poisonous triggerfish), Italy (the Mafia) and Greece (shipwrecks). Then we were standing outside the shop with Mom taking a deep breath and saying, “Well, I haven’t even gone anywhere and I’m already glad to be home.”

  They decided to forget about the holiday and redecorate the kitchen instead. Dad pointed out that a holiday only lasted a week or two whereas a new kitchen would last forever. So instead of going on a well-organized, air-conditioned trip of the Sahara, we went to Nothing But Drainers and looked at granite work surfaces.

  “This one’s a bit pricey,” said the man, “but you get what you pay for and this is real Italian granite.”

  It was mostly blue. I remember looking at it, thinking, That’s igneous rock. That came from way underground in Italy. That drainer has had a more exciting life than I have.

  Dad said, “What d’you think, Liam?”

  “Good. You can’t go wrong with igneous. It is igneous, isn’t it?”

  The man said, “I don’t think so. These are new in today from our supplier in Turin.”

  I said, “It’s made of crystallized magma.”

  “No, son. This is real Italian granite. It’s not made at all.”

  “It was made by magma bubbling up from the Earth’s mantle millions of years ago. The molten magma cooled in the crust and turned into crystals, then probably sat, being squeezed into flat beds for about a billion years until it was dug up by Italians. All that trouble and then it’s chopped up and sent to Nothing But Drainers, where my mom will look at it for five minutes and say, ‘I’m not sure about this color.’”