were in swimming trunks holding ice-cream cones, vanilla ice-cream smeared around their smiling mouths. Dennis kept the photo in his pocket and looked at it secretly every day. His mum looked so achingly beautiful in it, even though her smile was uncertain. Dennis stared at it for hours on end, trying to imagine what she had been thinking when it was taken.
After Mum left, Dad didn’t say much, but when he did, he would often shout. So Dennis ended up watching a lot of television, and especially his favourite show, Trisha. Dennis had seen a Trisha episode about people with depression, and thought maybe his dad had that. Dennis loved Trisha. It was a daytime talk show where ordinary people were given the opportunity to talk about their problems, or yell abuse at their relatives, and it was all presided over by a kindly looking but judgemental woman conveniently called… Trisha.
For a while Dennis thought life without his mum would be some kind of adventure. He’d stay up late, eat take-aways and watch rude comedy shows. However, as the days turned into weeks, and the weeks turned into months, and the months turned into years, he realised that it wasn’t an adventure at all.
It was just sad.
Dennis and John sort of loved each other in that way that they had to because they were brothers. But John tested this love quite often by doing things he thought were funny, like sitting on Dennis’s face and farting. If farting had been an Olympic sport (at time of writing I am told it isn’t, which I feel is a shame), he would have won a number of gold medals and probably received a knighthood from the Queen.
Now, reader, you might be thinking that as their mum had left, the two brothers would be brought closer together.
Sadly, it only drove them apart.
Unlike Dennis, John was full of silent rage with his mum for leaving, and agreed with Dad that it was better never to mention her again. It was one of the rules of the house:
No talking about Mum.
No crying.
And worst of all–no hugging.
Dennis, on the other hand, was just full of sadness. Sometimes he missed his mum so much that he cried in bed at night. He tried to cry as quietly as possible, because he and his brother shared a room and he didn’t want John to hear.
But one night Dennis’s sobs woke John up.
“Dennis? Dennis? What are you crying for now?” demanded John from his bed.
“I don’t know. It’s just… well… I just wish that Mum was here, and everything,” came the reply from Dennis.
“Well, don’t cry. She’s gone and she’s not coming back.”
“You don’t know that…”
“She’s never coming back, Dennis. Now stop crying. Only girls cry.”
But Dennis couldn’t stop crying. The pain ebbed and flowed inside him like the sea, crashing down on him, almost drowning him in tears. He didn’t want to upset his brother, though, so he cried as quietly as he possibly could.
So why was Dennis so different, I hear you ask? After all, this boy lived in an ordinary house, in an ordinary street, in an ordinary town.
Well, I’m not going to tell you why yet, but the clue might be in the title of this book…
Dennis’s dad jumped up and down and shouted with joy. Then he pulled Dennis into a tight hug.
“Two nil!” he said. “We showed ’em, eh son?”
Yes, I know I said there was no hugging in Dennis’s house. But this was different.
It was football.
In Dennis’s house talking about football was easier than talking about feelings. He, John and Dad all loved football, and together shared the highs and (more often) lows of supporting their local third-division team.
But as soon as the match finished and the referee blew his whistle, it was as if that sound also signalled a return to their strict no-hugging policy.
Dennis did miss being hugged. His mum had hugged him all the time. She was so warm and soft, he loved being held by her. Most children can’t wait to grow up and get bigger, but Dennis missed being small and being picked up by his mother. It was in her arms that he had felt most safe.
It was a shame Dennis’s dad hardly ever hugged him. Fat people are good at hugs, they’re nice and soft, like a big comfy sofa.
Oh, yes, didn’t I mention? Dad was fat.
Really fat.
Dad worked as a long-distance lorry driver. And all that sitting down and driving had taken its toll, only stretching his legs to go to the service station café and eat various combinations of eggs, sausage, bacon, beans and chips.
Sometimes, after breakfast, Dad would eat two packets of crisps. He just got fatter and fatter after Mum left. Dennis had seen a Trisha episode about a man called Barry who was so fat he couldn’t wipe his own bum. The studio audience were told about his daily food intake and “oohed” and “aahed” with a strange mixture of delight and horror. Then Trisha asked him, “Barry, does the fact that you have to get your mum or dad to wipe your… underneath… not make you want to lose weight?”
“Trisha, I just love me food,” was Barry’s smirking reply.
Trisha put it to Barry that he was “comfort eating”. Trisha was good with phrases like that. She had after all been through a lot of difficult times herself. Barry cried a bit at the end, and as the credits rolled Trisha smiled sadly and gave him a hug, though it was hard for her to really get her arms around Barry as he was the size of a small bungalow.
Dennis wondered whether his dad was comfort eating too, having one more sausage or slice of fried bread at breakfast to–in Trisha’s words–“fill the emptiness inside”. But he didn’t dare share that thought with his dad. Dad wasn’t keen on Dennis watching the show anyway. He said, “It’s just for girls, that.”
Dennis dreamed of one day having his own Trisha episode, with the title, “My brother’s farts smell well bad” or “My dad has a chocolate Hob-Nob problem”. (Dad ate a whole packet of the admittedly more-ish biscuits every day when he got home from work.)
So when Dennis, his dad and John played football, Dad would always go in goal, because he was so fat. He liked it because it meant he didn’t have to run around that much. The goal was an upturned bucket and an empty beer keg, a remnant from a long-forgotten barbecue they’d once had when Mum was still around.
They didn’t have barbecues any more. These days they had battered sausages from the local chippy, or bowls of cereal, even when it wasn’t breakfast.
What Dennis loved most
