us at eighteen.
Woke up very confused. You were there; you were real, in sharp focus. Amazing how a dream can bring back the past with such clarity. As soon as I got home I dug out the old Canon. Too emotional to try it, but there in its case was my favourite photo of the most beautiful woman ever, taken with said camera. I thought I’d lost it forever.
Even now I’m welling up. Just SO in love with you and captured on film.’
Nick
Nick pulls his car into the flagged driveway of his childhood home feeling a mixture of relief and guilt. Relief that he’s left it; guilt for feeling relieved.
Being the much younger child hasn’t been easy. Although Patrick visits their parents regularly, he moved to his Cheadle flat years ago, leaving young Nicky Quinn with their doting parents. Of course, Nick didn’t mind then; he was cushioned and loved. But he returned after university and found himself glued, a strange sticky mixture of love and dependency.
‘You need to break free from your parents, obviously,’ Lisa said, not long after they met. ‘But they need it too. I’ve seen it with other people’s parents. Their kids finally leave home and they have to learn to live with each other again. You know, without the crutch of a child. Your mum and dad are getting older, so they need to adjust before it’s too late.’
He moved into Lisa’s small semi two months before the wedding, but spent some time each evening at home with his parents.
‘I get it; a weaning period,’ she said. ‘But after the wedding you’re all mine.’
It was how he saw it too. He knew the umbilical cord had to be cut, but felt the severance wouldn’t be complete until he was married to Lisa, until he’d said the vows out loud to everyone listening in the church. But now he’s done it, he suspects life isn’t quite so black and white. He’s glad he’s left, and of course he’ll always love his parents, but he craves their approval as much as ever.
He rings the bell and stands at the frosted-glass door, rubbing his hands against the cold evening as he waits. Eventually he sees the smudged outline of his father leaning down to insert the key in the lock. There’s a latch on the door but his parents have taken to locking it with a key even during the daytime. It finally opens, revealing the addition of a safety chain since he was last here.
It feels like reproof.
A blast of warm air fragranced with emulsion and cooking hits his face. ‘You should at least leave the key in the lock, Dad. If there was a fire or an emergency you’d have to find the key. The delay could make all the difference.’
‘That’s what I’ve been telling him,’ his mother calls from the kitchen. ‘He won’t take a blind bit of notice. And he can never remember where he’s put them. Now you’ve mentioned it, no doubt he’ll listen.’
Breathing in the oily smell of roast potatoes, Nick thinks about crutches. The bickering between his parents had got pretty bad before he left; he can’t imagine it has got any better.
His father turns away and hobbles back towards the small sitting room at the front of the house. ‘You finally decided to visit, then? I believe you’ve been back for a week,’ he says over his brushed cotton shoulder. Then after a moment, ‘Arsenal and Spurs. Two nil. Are you coming to watch?’
‘Hello, love,’ his mother says, pulling him into a hug. ‘Careful of the walls. They should be dry by now, but you never know. Oh, it’s lovely to see you. How was the honeymoon?’
He looks around the hallway. Sees the usual Artexed white walls behind the Lowry prints. He opens his mouth to say something nice, but his father’s voice interrupts.
‘Where are you, Nicky? Watch this replay.’
‘It’s fine, love,’ his mum says. She throws a crisp tea towel over her trim shoulder. ‘Dinner is ready in ten minutes. Then the television is going off, football or no football. We can talk then.’
After a few minutes of sport, Nick takes his usual place at the dining table, his back to the manicured square of grass through the open curtains of the large window. ‘How’s Patrick?’ he asks over the prawn cocktail starter. ‘I sent him a text. I thought he might be here to say hello. I’ve brought him a bottle of Barbadian rum.’
‘Not tonight. He still comes on a Wednesday for his dinner,’ his mum replies, offering him buttered triangles of brown bread. ‘You know how he likes his routine. So, tell us about your honeymoon. Was it as lovely as you’d hoped?’
Nick tells his parents about Barbados, the unrelenting sunshine, the glossy hotel and their room looking onto the almost white beach. The fabulous food, especially the soup, the cheeky small birds that begged at the table, the symphony of crickets at night. And even though he says we, he’s conscious when he mentions Lisa’s name. Lisa, who is now his wife, as though she doesn’t belong. He should have brought her with him tonight; he should have insisted.
The main course is his favourite food; roast beef and Yorkshire puddings, even though it’s a Friday and his parents usually eat fish. His mum puts the last two crispy potatoes on his plate and passes him the gravy. He feels inordinately full from potatoes and nerves.
‘Nicky, be a good lad and find out the half-time score when you’ve polished them off,’ his father says.
‘Really, Harry. Can’t we just talk? A whole meal without football?’
‘It’ll only take a minute.’
‘He’s here to see us, not the football.’
‘Nicky wants to know, the same as I do, don’t you, lad?’
Nick leaves the table and spends a few moments in the sitting room, staring at the muted television screen and just breathing.
‘How’s Lisa?’ his mum asks when he returns with the goal update. ‘It’s a shame she couldn’t join us tonight. Is her tan as nice as yours?’
Nick finds himself flushing. ‘She’s fine and sends her apologies. She’s out with some of her nursing friends. They arranged it months ago—’
‘Oh, don’t worry. She has her own life. Of course she does. And it’s lovely to have you all to ourselves.’
He fluffs his hair, his fingers catching the scar line on his crown, then glances at his mum as she heads to the kitchen. Does she know he’s lying? Her face is warm and placid but he doesn’t want her to think badly of Lisa, to assume the lie is because she doesn’t want to visit. He had hoped Patrick would be here, so he could ask all three of them his burning question and watch their faces. ‘Who is Susan?’ he wants to demand. ‘Auntie Iris mentioned someone called Susan at the wedding. “Your Susan”, she said. A small girl who could bring Patrick around. Who is she and why has she never been mentioned?’
His mum’s voice cuts into his thoughts. ‘Your favourite for dessert, love.’
He lifts his head to an apple and blackberry tart crusted with sugar. She
