‘CAN YOU PUT ROLLING NEWS ON THE TELLY FOR ME?’ he asked, handing me the TV remote. I noticed the toenail was still not fully off. It really did look like it was about to detach now, but recent events had told me not to get too excited. It could be months yet.
On the second morning of my parents’ stay I asked my dad if he wanted a cup of tea. My dad has not to my knowledge ever had a cup of tea, but I sometimes ask him if he wants one just to wind him up.
‘NO, I WANT A COFFEE,’ he said. ‘STRONG, WITH A BIT OF COLD WATER SO I DON’T BURN MY OESOPHAGUS. YOU’VE KNOWN ME THIRTY-EIGHT YEARS. YOU SHOULD KNOW THAT BY NOW.’
‘I’m forty,’ I said.
‘YEAH, BUT YOU DIDN’T REALLY KNOW ME FOR THE FIRST TWO YEARS.’
Increasingly, my dad’s visits to my home are about recreating the rituals he enjoys in his own as assiduously as possible: the extravagantly bubbly baths, the loud radio, the bars of chocolate hidden under sofa cushions so – in his own words – ‘THEY ARE FUN TO FIND LATER.’ He also likes to go for an early-morning swim at the friendly local pool, which has an old-fashioned Speedo clock and doesn’t appear to have been redecorated since the seventies. Today being Boxing Day, though, the pool was closed. We’d only got out for a very short walk the previous day, and I knew it would be important to exercise my dad, in much the same way it’s important to exercise a German shepherd, so I suggested that he, my mum and I went for a walk along the seafront at Dawlish. I offered to drive, but he declined and said we’d go in his and my mum’s car. I told my dad that I could easily navigate us to Dawlish from my house, just thirty-five minutes away, but he insisted on using his satnav.
After the female voice on the satnav had directed us down a farm track for the second time in ten minutes, my dad called her a bastard, told her to ‘FOOK OFF’ and permitted me to direct him the final quarter of the way. ‘THIS CAR’S GOT AUTOMATIC BRAKING ON IT,’ he said. ‘IT GIVES ME MORE CHANCE TO WATCH OUT FOR FOOKWITS AND LOONIES.’ As my dad drives, he tells stories from his life, slowing the car down dramatically as he gets to a climactic or highly descriptive point in the narrative, to the frustration of any drivers behind. On this occasion he told a story about an old man who recently went into a skid and flipped his Land Rover over on the main road not far from my parents’ village. A farmer had been first on the scene and, upon helping the old man out of his Land Rover, noticed that the old man’s dog was crushed beneath the vehicle, one floppy ear sticking out heartbreakingly from beneath the bodywork. After he pulled the old man to safety and discovered he was not seriously hurt, the farmer gave him the bad news. ‘I don’t have a dog,’ replied the old man. The farmer and the old man walked back to the Land Rover. ‘That’s just my fur-trapper hat,’ said the old man, pulling the floppy ear and releasing the remainder of the hat from beneath the wreck.
There were no exhibits or statues on the seafront at Dawlish so my dad did not stop to air-box or wrestle as we walked. It was also too cold for him to pause for a spontaneous nap in a starfish position. The stretch of railway line that runs in front of the beach here, where Deepest Devon ends and the cliffs turn red, is the Elizabeth Taylor of train tracks: beautiful but constantly troubled. When you’re on the train, passing along it, you feel like you’re in the sea itself. On a windy day, waves will often crash into and over the side of the train. This had been a rare winter when the sea hadn’t broken the track into bits, causing lengthy closures and replacement bus services. Nonetheless, the wind was fierce, gnashing at our cheeks as we walked west, the waves thudding angrily against the track’s new rocky defences. There were lots of other families walking the footpath but I noticed that, unlike mine, the dads in those families did not periodically shout ‘KEEP AWAY FROM THE EDGE’ as they strolled beside the steep drop to the beach.
‘Have you been to get your bad tooth looked at yet?’ my mum asked me.
‘KEEP AWAY FROM THE EDGE!’ said my dad.
‘I was thinking that bamboo I gave you might be best planted on the far side of the garden – the same side as the oil tank,’ said my mum.
‘KEEP AWAY FROM THE EDGE!’ said my dad.
‘Mick, stop saying, “KEEP AWAY FROM THE EDGE!”’ said my mum. ‘We’re miles away from it.’
‘YOU’RE NOT. LOOK AT TOM. TOM, STOP DOING THAT. YOU COULD FALL IN AND DIE.’
During the drive back to my house my dad asked if I had used my new headtorch yet, a present he’d bought me for Christmas but had delivered to me several weeks early because he was so excited about it. I admitted that I hadn’t and apologised. ‘WHAT?’ he said. ‘I CAN’T BELIEVE IT. USE YOUR HEADTORCH. AND WHAT’S THIS YOUR MUM TOLD ME ABOUT YOU TURNING DOWN THE CHANCE TO GO ON BREAKFAST TELLY?’ I told him I had no interest in ever being on telly, detailing another couple of opportunities I’d turned down in the last six months. ‘I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU. YOU’RE UNFOOOKINGBELIEVABLE. YOU’LL BE BACK WORKING IN TESCO IF YOU’RE NOT CAREFUL.’ The rest of the evening passed quietly, in contrast to the previous time my parents had stayed when, in his sleep at 3 a.m., my dad had shouted, ‘THEY LET ME OUT SOMETIMES, YOU KNOW.’ The next morning he got up early, threw some more cooked meat at the cats and packed the car, ready for the long journey back to Nottinghamshire. My mum checked my dad had not erroneously put any of my possessions in their suitcase, such as the four clean pillowcases he took last time. I felt much as I always do when I’ve seen my parents: tired, ready for a quiet sit-down, but sad to see them go and wishing I saw them more frequently. ‘WOFFAL!’ said my dad, which was the acronym version of ‘WATCH OUT FOR FOOKWITS AND LOONIES!’ that he’d become fond of using lately. ‘WEAR THAT HEADTORCH!’ he added as he and my mum walked to the car. I promised I would and tried to remember where I’d put it. I asked him if his black toenail had fallen off yet and he said it hadn’t. When they arrived home five hours later, the wooden head was on the ground in front of the door.
My dad’s black toenail finally fell off about four weeks later. Over the phone, my mum told me that it had dislodged in the swimming pool changing room, upon which my dad had proudly shown it to all the regulars. ‘Was this before or after his swim?’ I asked. ‘Before, fortunately,’ my mum said. I asked her where the toenail was now and she began to repeat the question to my dad, who was upstairs.
‘IS THAT TOM? TELL HIM TO WOFFAL,’ I heard my dad shout.
‘I don’t need to tell him. I’m sure he can hear you. He wants to know where the toenail is,’ said my mum.
‘IT’S ON A SHELF UP HERE IN MY OFFICE,’ said my dad.
‘Why?’ said my mum.
‘I WANT TO KEEP IT AND GET IT FRAMED. IT CAN BE A MEMENTOE. MEMENTOE! DO YOU GET IT?’ said my dad.
‘Yes,’ said my mum.
My mum told me she had some other, bigger news: they had solved the mystery of why the wooden head kept falling on the ground. ‘You will never guess,’ she said, and she was right. I had turned all the facts over in my head numerous times, and even the most logical conclusions I had drawn – that the head contained the reincarnated spirit of an Egyptian demon from the year 11 BC, for example – seemed wildly improbable.
‘Your dad caught Casper from next door throwing it at the door.’
‘But . . . how?’
‘He kind of scoops it up with his paw then flicks it at the handle. I think he just wants to be let in.’
My mum and dad’s neighbours’ cat, who is all white
