Patrick
BOLTON
I wouldn’t normally switch on my computer on a Monday morning before work. Not at 6:30 a.m. But my sleep patterns have gone crazy. The couple in the flat below are screeching at each other and clomping about, which isn’t exactly conducive to a good rest. Plus, I can’t stop thinking about Granny V.
I thought there’d be something more in that diary. Something about what happened to baby Enzo—my father, baby Enzo. The guy I got my skin tone from, and who knows what other traits? I know Veronica gave him up for adoption, but it just doesn’t make sense. From the diary, it looks like she totally doted on him. And she’s not a wimpy kind of girl, not the sort who would be persuaded into it by those nuns or anyone else.
The whole wretched thing keeps banging around in my brain, and what with all the noise from downstairs, there’s no way sleep’s going to be an option. So I’m sitting up in bed trying to distract myself by surfing the Internet. I’ve explored a few interesting websites on electric circuits and LED lights, and I’ve watched a couple of YouTube vids about the structure of bridges. It’s nearly time to get up.
I check my e-mails before logging off, and what do you know, there’s one from penggroup4Ant. I wonder if there have been any more penguin attacks on handbags. Or maybe something about Granny V’s latest mission, the little penguin she’s adopted. But it’s something I wasn’t expecting at all, and suddenly I feel a bit sick.
“What’s wrong, mate?”
There’s me, thinking I’m smiling and looking cool, but you can’t get much past Gav. I tell him about Granny V.
“Bad?”
“Yup. Seriously bad. Like, the end.”
He puts a hand on my shoulder. “I’m so sorry, mate. That’s rough. Just as you were getting to know her, too.”
That’s pushing it a bit. I was hardly getting to know her. I’d met her a sum total of two times. I’d got right inside her teenage head, though, reading those diaries.
“She’s stuck in polar regions with three scientists and five thousand fricking penguins for company. What a way to go!” I’m trying to make a joke of it, but neither Gav nor I are laughing.
“Harsh,” he says.
I drag the sandwich board outside the shop and set it up then come back in to see what’s on today’s repairs list.
“Are you going to go out there?” Gav asks.
I look at him blankly. “What?”
“Are you going to go out there? To Antarctica, to say goodbye to her.”
“We’ve scarcely said hello yet,” I point out. What a bizarre idea. Me, in Antarctica!
“Well, it’s not such a bizarre idea,” he says, reading my thoughts. “She is your grandmother. And your only living relative.”
“C’mon, mate. It’s hardly practical. Three reasons: (a) She wouldn’t want me there, (b) she’d probably not last till I got out there anyway, (c) cash flow won’t allow and (d) I can’t stand the cold.”
“That’s four reasons, mate.”
We get through the morning in the usual way. A family of five comes in, wanting to know if there’s going to be an offer on electric bikes anytime soon (there isn’t). We sell a few bits and pieces. A lad comes in who’s lost the key to his bicycle lock and just wants a new key that fits rather than buying a new locking system. It takes a long time trying to explain to him that the whole point of locks and keys is security, so no, the same make of key won’t fit into his old lock. Even if this was the case, we don’t sell them separately. I am beginning to lose the will to live, so Gav steps in. Very diplomatic, is Gav.
I manage to concentrate on and off; mostly off, to be honest. I wish I could have said something to Granny, met her one more time in person, just to say . . . Well, I don’t know what I’d say, but I’d say something.
“Still thinking about your granny?” Gav asks as I take my sandwiches out the back for my lunch break.
“Yup, I guess. Just wishing I’d known all this other stuff about Granny V sooner. And wishing I had a few more answers, now that I know which questions to ask. And wishing she was nearer so I could, like, make things better between us before . . . you know.”
“So you do want to say goodbye?”
“I would if I could,” I admit. “But, like I said, cash flow and that. I can only just cover the rent. The journey out there must be at least a grand.”
“But you’d go all the way out to Antarctica if you had the funds? Even though you hate the cold?”
I nodded. “Reckon I bloody would, you know. As you say, she’s my only family. I’ve just found her and I’m about to lose her. There’s a hell of a lot more to her than I realized. And I kind of feel like we have unfinished business.”
Gav takes a long look at me. “Patrick, mate, forgive me for being insensitive, but there’s a bright side to all this. Looks like you might be about to become a millionaire.”
I won’t say the idea hadn’t crossed my mind. But I’d bundled it out again because, well, it all seemed pretty far-fetched, to be honest. Anyway, I wasn’t going to count chickens.
“You reckon Granny’s going to leave me her millions?”
“I do.”
“Come off it, mate. She hates my guts.”
He shakes his head. “I think not. You made the effort to go and see her at the airport, didn’t you? I bet she was touched by that, even if she didn’t let on. And she sent you those diaries. They were all locked up, you said, with a padlock and code, so they’re clearly not something she bandied about all over the place. Then she sent you the code. Nobody else has read those diaries, mate, not even her trusty carer, you told me. C’mon, Patrick, it’s obvious she’s going to leave you her money!”
I suppose it does make sense when he puts it like that. Holy shite! Me a millionaire is even more bizarre than me in Antarctica. I give a little leap in the air with the thrill of it. Gav puts his hand up to be slapped, and I give him a high five.
The moment doesn’t last long, though. I hate to think of Granny V dying out there in the cold.
“Listen, Gav. I kind of do want to go and see her. I don’t suppose there’s any way you’d be prepared to . . .”
“What, mate? Spit it out.”
Money’s such a bind. I can’t be sure of anything. Granny V is eccentric and impulsive; I know that much. It’s possible she’s left me her entire inheritance, but on the other hand, she might have gone and left it to an orphanage or something.
The words come tumbling out of my mouth. “You wouldn’t, er, consider lending me enough for the airfare, would you?”
He gives me a slap on the back. “Of course, mate. Thought you’d never ask!”
God, what am I playing at? Am I a complete idiot? If the orphans get Granny’s inheritance, how am I ever going to pay Gav back?
“Maybe you want to think about that answer,” I find myself saying.
Gav’s not having it. “No, you’re all right, mate. In fact, the timing couldn’t be better: my mum’s inheritance has just come through. I’d like to make good use of it.”
We argue back and forth. I seriously don’t want to be in Gav’s debt in the event that Granny V doesn’t leave me a penny. He’s an unstoppable force, though. Says I can pay him back anytime within the next twenty years. In installments or whatever. Says in the great scheme of things it isn’t that much. Says he owed me big-time anyway because the bike shop would never have survived without me. He’s stretching a point here.
As he speaks, I’m actually getting quite into the idea of zipping off to Antarctica. Beginning to see myself as a bit of a hero. Me, Patrick the Brave, embarking on a valiant quest to bring peace and harmony to the troubled soul of an old woman. But then I remember something.
“Hang on a mo, mate. What about young Daisy? Shouldn’t you be spending this money on the latest treatments for her? If anything can be done to make her better, that’s a hell of a lot more important than sending me off to the other end of the planet.”
He won’t hear of it, though. There isn’t a treatment Daisy can have beyond what she’s already having, apparently.
I still feel bad. “If not a treatment, how about treats?” I hate to think of Daisy missing out because of me.
“Daisy has tons of treats. And there’s plenty of money to buy her more. Just shut up, will you, and get that flight booked!”
I’m not going to argue anymore. I’m going to make things right with Granny Veronica.
Antarctica, here I come!