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 cuts a huge slice and smothers it in cream. And his father is talking. He’s warming to a story from his school days with Uncle Derek that Nick’s heard before. A holiday to Scarborough, just the two of them. How he had the brains and the charm but Derek had the looks and the brawn; that between them they were a winning team, ‘both on and off the pitch of life’. The story is a long one and not without humour.
Apple pie and anecdotes. His regular safe life. Nick knows he won’t ask his question.
They go back to the television and Arsenal win 3-1. His mother stands, points the remote and the room falls silent.
‘You can’t turn it off now, Dora. We need to hear the summary.’ His father’s voice is high-pitched, like a child’s. ‘Give me the remote.’
‘Nick doesn’t live here now, Harry. We should be enjoying his company. I’m bringing in the coffee and we can play cards for a while. Nick has his own home to go to.’
When his mum leaves the room, Nick picks up the remote, turns on the TV, reduces the volume and places it in his dad’s bony hand, then crouches at the cupboard to find the cards. But his eye catches the framed photographs of him and Patrick in chubby-cheeked school poses, fifteen years apart. They are always there on the pale wooden top, a fixture he rarely notices, but when he does he feels wistful, the whiff of loss still there from when Patrick left home.
Returning with drinks on a tray, his mum tuts at the almost muted TV screen.
‘Tell you what,’ he says quickly, wanting to avoid the inevitable squabble. ‘Instead of playing cards, let’s look at some old photographs. Have you any of Rhyl? Remember when some drunk bloke came into our hotel room one night and wouldn’t accept it wasn’t his room?’
He sits next to his dad on the two-seater sofa and his mum kneels at their feet, sorting through photographs from an old shoebox, each packet carefully labelled in her neat handwriting. She selects one marked ‘Rhyl’ and hands it to him.
‘You were only three, love. Can you really remember the man in the hotel room?’
‘Family lore.’ He smiles, flicking through the snaps. ‘I feel as though I can remember, but the story has been told so many times, who knows? By Patrick, particularly, he likes that one.’ He holds up a photograph. ‘I remember this beach. Playing cricket and rounders. Did we go with the cousins?’
He gazes at the snap. It’s of him and Patrick on a damp sandy beach, standing next to a large sandcastle, the wind blowing their fair hair in their eyes. Then another of them between their parents with the same backdrop of the pale choppy sea. His father’s hair is still brown and his mother looks young and pretty, yet he remembers a whole childhood of people assuming Dora and Harry were his grandparents.
‘Whole childhood? Really? They’re not that old,’ Lisa laughed when he told her. It was probably no more than a handful of times, but each one had hurt because he saw the slapped look on his lovely mum’s face.
His father swaps his glasses and takes the picture. ‘What about when you fell from the landing? You must remember that. Climbing over the bannister when no one was looking—’
‘Oh, don’t, Harry. It makes me feel queasy, even now.’ She puts her hand to her chest. ‘Only three or four. You cracked your poor little head open and it bled terribly. You had to have stitches. It was a miracle it wasn’t any worse.’
More family lore. Nick puts a hand to his hair, his fingers finding the small scar. ‘No, I don’t remember, though Patrick’s version about me trying to be Superman makes me laugh.’ He glances at his mum’s wretched face. ‘How about school days?’ he asks, changing the subject. ‘Do you still have the sports day photographs?’
That makes her smile. ‘As if I’d throw them out, love. It’s a shame Lisa isn’t here to see your skinny legs.’ She selects the top photograph from the wallet labelled ‘St Mark’s’ and passes it to Nick. ‘There we go. You were twelve then. Do you remember, we called you the A Team? You, Daniel Maloney and William Taylor. You won the relays every year.’
‘Hundred, two hundred and four hundred,’ his dad says, taking off his glasses and placing the snap close to his eyes. ‘I could relax for the relay, but the individual races … There’d always be trouble. Sulking and the like when one of you boys had to win. And that was just the fathers!’
His dad tells the story with a fond smile. Nick has heard it many times before, but each time there’s the slightest embellishment. All the fathers would watch their offspring and shout, bets would be laid. Alex Taylor would spend his winnings buying a round at the pub and Jed Maloney would give it to Dan.
He feeds his dad the line: ‘And what about you, Dad?’
‘I invested it wisely.’
It’s what he always says, but today there’s a pathos about him. His father’s working days are over; his status as a respected bank manager long gone.
‘Oh, and here is one of you, Daniel, William and Jennifer O’Donnell. Look at her pretty dimples!’ Dora smiles. ‘We called her the honorary boy. Thick as thieves, the four of you.’
Nick twists his wedding ring, still tight on his finger. ‘And probably still are.’
His mind flits to the blip, surprised his mum hasn’t mentioned