by Grace Dent
Something has shifted.
Christmas Day, 2018
I’m standing in the kitchen in the bungalow in the Lakes drinking Cava and placing chipolata sausages wrapped in bacon onto a sheet pan, wearing felt antlers that jangle as I move. We had sourdough crumpets with smoked salmon for breakfast – very fancy, just like they do at Balmoral – and now Christmas dinner is going to happen. Mam is having one of her good days; she feels strong.
She’s watching Jane McDonald’s Christmas special and wowing at the glittery frocks as Jane croons through a festive special of contemporary classics in a red Hollywood-starlet number.
‘’Ere, you should have this show!’ Mam says. ‘You could do this.’
‘I can’t sing, Mam,’ I say.
‘You sang a lovely song once in a Bishop Goodwin assembly about a horse who lived in a lighthouse,’ Mam says.
‘I was seven, Mam,’ I say.
‘You’re still seven to me,’ she says, grabbing my hand. ‘Well, more or less.’
Our entire home smells of turkey fat. Paul O’Grady is on Radio 2 chatting between Christmas classics. As the poppa-poppa-poms of Jona Lewie’s ‘Stop the Cavalry’ begin, I feel my eyes fill up. I take a deep breath and distract myself with a box of Paxo. My iPhone beeps. It is a message from a lovely man I’ve been seeing called Charles. He has been at least one very good addition to my curious world.
Dave’s car pulls in to the driveway outside the kitchen window.
He gets out and winks at me, then walks around to the passenger seat and leans in with his strong body-building arms. Then, carefully, he walks up the drive carrying a very small bundle of coats.
David is enormous; the body inside the coats is small and frail, but I can see its face laughing.
Mam appears beside me at the window, laughing.
‘He’s got him!’ she shouts.
We all shout, ‘Hello!’
Dave carries Dad gingerly through the house and plonks him down in the lounge in a big chair next to the telly.
Dad sits blinking, trying to get his bearings.
He is just a skull with a little bit of hair and a very thin body.
I crouch by his chair and say, ‘Hello. Hello. It’s Grace. It’s Grace, Dad. Hello.’
He says, ‘Oh! Throw. Throw. Throw.’
He splutters on his teeth, then stops, as if that made perfect sense.
I say, ‘Yes!’
I know from the intonation that, if Dad had any of the words left, he’d be making a joke. My sister-in-law hands him a small glass of port. Dad uses my face on the front of the Guardian Weekend magazine as a coaster.
I say, ‘How are you?’
He says, ‘You here train? Train?’
I say, ‘Yes, train.’
I sit down. We sit in silence, staring at each other.
I say, ‘I love you, Dad. I love you.’
I hold his small, bony hand. He starts to cry.
I say, ‘It’s OK, Dad. Come on. No cry. Best dad. Best dad.’
He says, ‘Sometimes I feel like – am – I am – ppphhh.’
I say, ‘Shall we have a bit of chocolate?’ I take the bar of Dairy Milk Fruit & Nut we got him for Christmas.
His eyes light up.
‘My chocolate,’ he says, and he pretends to take it off me.
We both laugh.
Epilogue
Grace Dent won the 2019 Guild of Food Writers’ Award for her essays on junk food and class. She continues to be restaurant critic at the Guardian, and is currently trying to make sense of socially-distanced restaurants and the future of eating out.
Mr Dent Snr’s care home went into lockdown measures in March 2020. He has been tested twice for Covid-19. His favourite chair is viewable from the street, so at least his family can see he’s alive. By day, he mainly sleeps with a copy of the Mirror on his lap. Although he can no longer read it, he finally got to have his newspaper in peace.
Mrs Dent Snr is currently self-isolating in a small flat close to her family in the Lakes. She is stable and has found comfort during lockdown in the QVC Shopping channel, Angel Delight and long daily phone-calls with her children. She thinks Hungry is more evidence of her daughter’s over-active imagination and is irked that her Franklin Mint Victorian figurine collection was not included in the home-décor passages.
In July 2020, the UK Government banned advertising of junk food, both on TV and online, before 9 p.m., as well as Buy-One-Get-One free deals on high fat, salt and sugar products.
Acknowledgements
Thank you especially to Katya Shipster at HarperCollins for your patience and skill during this project and much gratitude to Dawn, Fionnuala, Jessie, Sarah, Holly, Julie, Anna, Tom, Alice, Ben, Ammara, Oli, Kate, Adam and Roger.
Thank you to Dylan for your eagle eye and help with the audiobook.
Thanks to Cathryn Summerhayes and Luke Speed at Curtis Brown, for their belief and enthusiasm.
Thank you, Charles, for your calmness and love.
Thank you, Tam, for everything you do.
Thank you to Matt, Tom and Courtney for your friendship.
And, of course, thank you, Mam and Dad, for everything.
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