By five in the afternoon, Ken was asleep in the reclining armchair in his house, his head thrown back, his mouth open. He looked like he’d received two thousand volts. June was sitting on the sofa with her coat still on, her ankles and hands crossed, looking at the carriage clock on the mantelpiece. After a moment, she gave a loud cough. Still he did not stir. From under the sofa cushion she pulled out the Kays catalogue, and she sat there, moistening the pad of her thumb to turn the pages, occasionally folding over the corner of one and running her thumb along it to keep the place.
Over in Fairlight, at Longwinter Farmhouse, Matt was in his room at the computer screen, biting a fingernail, waiting for a download. He was thinking about the time they took his grandfather and June to visit his other grandmother, Lyn, in the nursing home. He could see his father with his hand on the roof of the car, the door open, his face sweaty and hopeful, asking Ken to change his mind and come in. Ken would not. Matt was sitting in the back with him and June. He remembered the smell of talc from June and, curiously, the smell of a hot-water bottle. He remembered the door slamming and the car shaking, and then he looked out of his window at the man with a melted ear. Like something out of the ‘Thriller’ video, the deformed old fellow had come to the car with his cronies – some limping, some hobbling – as soon as they parked up. The man with the melted ear stood mouthing something at them; next to him was another man with a goitre. Up on the balconies, the old girls were gawping.
‘It gives me the willies,’ his grandfather had said. ‘Sod this.’ He’d squeezed Matt’s hand.
When the Yahoo page came up on the screen, Matt sprang forward in his chair. He put it in again, the word ‘euthanasia’.
‘For the benefit of that person,’ he said aloud.
Emily was sitting in the toilet, looking out through the small side window and holding the bunched-up curtain against her nose. She was thinking about the girl called Laura who was her age and whether she was in some way a cousin and whether or not to put the Build-A-Bears into the attic when this girl came round. She was thinking how Astrid ran a spa. She’d go in there one day, and come out different – with long blonde hair, in curls – and people would say, ‘I totally didn’t recognize you!’
Dave and Marina were sitting in the kitchen. Marina was on the small sofa and Dave was in the wing-backed chair opposite. He was sitting with his head down, his feet planted wide, looking at his hands. He had been like that for half an hour. Marina turned the pages of the magazine, all the while keeping an eye on him as she would a pot on simmer. When his shoulders rounded over, she got up and kissed his head.
‘Issa dreadfor terribor fing,’ he said, mimicking Ken. He looked up at her and cracked a grin.
For that was the way Ken had put it to Dave, over mugs of tea at Pelham Circle, with the old man sitting on the threadbare stairs of their latest development.
‘Issa dreadfor terribor fing.’
‘What is?’
‘To ’ave a son and not be close to ’im. You’d never do that, wouldya?’
‘Matt’s a good kid.’
‘Yeah. He is, innie?’
‘Do you want a biscuit?’
‘Naargh. Gets under my plate. It’s the worse fing. There ain’t nuffing worse, if you think about it.’
‘Pass them back then, if you don’t want them.’
‘Than losing your son, is what I’m saying.’
‘No. I s’pose not.’
‘Issa failure, innit?’
‘Mm-hmm.’
‘A cock-up.’
‘Yup.’
‘All right!’ He’d given him his peeved look. ‘If you don’t mind!’
‘Eh?’
‘Snarky. Rubbin’ it in!’
‘Sorry, Dad.’
‘But what he done was wrong, wonnit? It was him what broke the family up.’
‘He was only eighteen.’
‘This long-life milk you put in ’ere? Leaves a funny taste, dunnit?’
‘You tried,’ said Marina.
By five, things had changed. Matt was playing with a cricket ball in the garden; Dave was in the shed, finding the cricket bat; Marina was wiping the place mats; Emily was using a razor on one eyebrow.
June was in the hall of the bungalow behind Ken, describing developments in bus services in Hastings as detailed in the free paper and matching the company names to the new routes.
Ken was going as slowly as an iceberg through the hallway towards the front door. He parted his lips and ran his tongue across them. The words he wanted to say were moving ahead of him. The sunshine seemed to thicken behind the frosted patterned glass. When he got there, he found he had overtaken the words and lost them. He opened the door and felt the pain of the steel tread through his thin socks. The name plaque had fallen to the ground.
‘He’ll be ’ome by now,’ he said. He stared out on to the forecourt at the place where the great black car had been just hours before. He put his hand on the light bristle of his chin and dragged on it.
He turned back into the fug of the hallway that smelt like cheese footballs and closed the door behind him. He picked up the phone and, squinting between numbers, going carefully, he dialled the number from the list on the wall.
When the phone was answered, his face changed.
‘Oi! Big’ead! I’ll tell you what you are! You’re nothing! You’re a stuck-up, jumped-up . . . embarrassment, that’s what you are! Cambridge University? Fuck yourself ! Advice? Don’t make me laugh! Stuff it! You always was a big’ead, even as a kid. No. You and me, mate, we’re finished! We’re through! Not a penny! Not a single penny from me. I’ve got money you couldn’t even dream of. You’ve no idea, have you, how much I’ve got. Gary? You there? Gary?’
He left the phone on the hall seat and went into the living room. He looked at June in bewilderment. ‘I think he’s hung up on me.’
‘Is it making a funny noise?’
‘Is what making a funny noise?’
‘The phone. Is it making a noise, Kenneth?’
He went back to it and listened. ‘It’s going “doo-ort”.’
‘He’s hung up on you then.’
He put it back to his ear and spoke. ‘Can you hear me? Son?’ Then he slammed the phone back on to its wall cradle. It fell
off and he slung it back harder. He stood and looked at it, ready as a boxer. It stayed. He faced her next with a snarl. ‘What you got your coat on for? Eh? You going somewhere?’
‘I’m not saying a word, Kenneth, not a word. I shan’t get myself into trouble that way.’
‘Oh, you! You think you’re so clever! Don’t cha? You’re no use to anyone. More lonely livin’ with ya than without ya,’ he said, and he went back up the hallway, this time closing the door between the front room and the hall, and punched more numbers into the phone.
From her new position, crouching and bending by the side of the door where she was just looking for something round the back of the hostess trolley, June could hear him quite clearly.
‘Put Matt on, will you, please?’
She touched her chest; it was not his fancy woman from the funeral parlour then.