The Old Man
Train
One of them was flat out, a slim fist clamped around a can of Stella, head resting on a textbook. Law maybe, or medicine; the spine was tucked into the sleeper’s chest. The other three were supping cider, lost to their phones. The one whose enormous feet had laid claim to the aisle lurched from his seat and stretched his arms to the roof. Resting his hands on the luggage racks, he scanned his fellow passengers. His eyes met those of the man folded into a corner seat at the end of the carriage. The man switched his gaze to the window, but he was too late. Bigfoot returned his seat, worked his screen with a blur of thumbs and kicked the shins opposite.
When the man was their age, students had taken the coach. Mind and arse-numbing slogs on National Express; a penance for something or other, underwritten with rubbery cheques. You’d have your weekend before the bank could get hold of you, at which point you’d join the queue for the phone and call Mum and Dad. You’d cross your fingers and hope Mum answered. The old man’s lectures about grants (long gone, even then) and how so many people had nothing were too much to bear when the line was lengthening and none of the impatient throng was bothering to disguise the who-does-he-think-he-is nature of their conversations.
The sleeper was plucked from his reverie with a well-aimed elbow jab. His head and arm rose in union, but he righted the Stella in time, raised the can in triumph and took a slug. Four heads met in the middle of the table for a conference, and then they leaned back into their seats, consulting their phones or looking out of the windows. One of them checked his watch. The one with bruised shins announced that he was going to find the buffet car and hobbled past the man in the corner. Having put down his paper, the man was watching their reflections in the window. He could see Sore Shins behind him, gesturing to his friends: a thumbs-up and a less courteous action, to which he was well-accustomed.
‘The buffet car’s at the other end.’ He aimed his best smile at the student, baring his teeth for long enough to make the boy squirm.
‘Right.’
The sleeper spat Stella onto his textbook. He lifted it from the table to run a cuff across the cover. Family Law.
*
Station
The students clambered across the aisle as the train moved off. More gestures: some kind; and some not. A platform guard glanced over his shoulder. He let the whistle drop from his lips.
‘William. Billy. It’s you?’
‘It’s me.’ The man nodded, but carried on.
‘It’s me.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Jack Stanley. Jack the Knife.’ The guard fell into step at his side.
‘Jack the Knife. How long’s it been?’ The man stopped and rubbed his chin. A smile formed on his lips. His shoulders dropped.
‘Just after school, I suppose.’
‘It would be.’
‘You’re the one that got away.’
‘I’ve been back.’
‘You have?’
‘To see Mum and…’
Jack the Knife slapped his forehead. ‘Jesus Christ, I’m sorry William. I forgot. I mean, I didn’t forget, but seeing you, in the flesh, after all this time...’
‘Don’t be daft, Jack. I get you.’ The man put his hands on Jack’s shoulders. ‘Call me Bill. It’s good to see you.’
‘How’s your mum?’
‘Bearing up. We spoke on the phone.’
‘That’s your mum. Everyone knows how much she’s…’
‘Had to put up with? Yep, the old man and then me. A living saint.’
*
Four Streets to Home
1. Trafalgar Road
Bill Brady examined his palm as he waited at the crossing. His hand throbbed from Jack the Knife’s exuberant grip. The handshake had tweaked a muscle in his shoulder that had been giving him grief ever since he had barged a door during a sit-in. The old man had approved of this use of force against an inanimate object. Roll up your sleeves, son; get your hands dirty. You have to act. The lights changed and three sharp beeps called Bill to the other side of the road. He looked back towards the station, but Jack was gone. He remembered the nickname – who would forget that? – but little else. Maybe he was one of those who had worshipped the Great Man’s son.
He turned into Trafalgar Road, a long street that had been cobbled when the teenage Billy had delivered newspapers. The cars in front of the smart terraces suggested residents who might incline away from the red tops, perhaps towards tabloids that liked to pretend they were otherwise, and broadsheets of all persuasions. Bay trees in pots flanking the doors, sash windows painted in greens and greys: a perfect constituency for a certain kind of modern politician, for whom the old man had reserved so much scorn. Bill stopped by a house where he had delivered The Morning Star Mondays to Saturdays. Forty papers a day for a penny a paper. A dash around town on an ancient bike with a dynamo light that was useless when it rained, which it often did. The guilt that came with Christmas tips from those who could not afford to give them. Complaints during holidays when you dawdled or stopped to catch up with a mate who worked on the milk float.
2. Albert Street
He angled left into Albert Street, past the drain which flooded when it rained for longer than half an hour. Artisan pizza by the slice. A coffee bar that roasted its own beans. A one-stop-shop for tattoos and haircuts. A training centre – not sure what for – where an infant school had stood, hopscotch court fading on the tarmac. Not as much dogshit these days, but enough litter to keep the letter writers happy. A man in a cap talking to one in shirtsleeves at the bus stop. They paused to watch him pass.
‘The old man died.’
‘Saw it in the paper.’
‘It was on the news. Sudden.’
‘Getting on though. Couldn’t be a shock to any of them.’
‘Dressed for the occasion.’
‘Might have been the shame.’
Sudden, but not sudden. Shouldn’t have been a shock, but it had felt like a punch to the guts. A low blow. Too many things unsaid.
3. Mill Rise
He folded his jacket over his arm. Neither paperboy nor girl had ever been known to take on Mill Rise. The trick was to abandon your bike at the bottom, grab what you needed from your bag and sprint up the hill as fast as you could. Not so bad on a fine day, but when it rained you’d have to sling the bag over your shoulder to keep the papers dry. The bottom was where some of them had gathered for stolen cigarettes before pushing on to finish their rounds. Not Billy, who would never steal and whose father had never had a fag out of his mouth. The old man had been known to give speeches with a Regal dangling from his lips. Every once in a while he’d hawk up something terrifying from the depths of his chest, let it fly (or trap it in a hanky, depending on the company) and carry on. How had that not killed him?
Halfway up he felt sweat on his collar and under his arms. Back of his knees, too. All that time at the gym and he couldn’t manage a hill like this without breaking down. He’d be stinking by the time he reached home. Home? It’s what you called it even though you hadn’t lived there for decades. Where you returned until you couldn’t face it or no longer had reason.
‘Out of puff, son?’ A woman, perhaps his mother’s age, brushing her path.
‘A little bit. Just need a…’
‘No taxis?’
‘…glass of water?’
‘You look smart.’ She balanced the broom on her gate. ‘Give me a minute and I’ll fetch you one.’
He put his hand against the gate, knocking the broom off balance. He followed its slow descent to the ground where it settled next to a thumb of broken glass.
‘Kids.’ The woman had returned with a mug. ‘Here you go: cold water. There’s always glass everywhere.’
‘Thank you. Shame, when you keep it so nice.’ He pointed his free hand towards a patch of grass and some flowering pots. ‘Begonias.’
‘Never let me down. Not yet.’ She reached for the mug. ‘Something stronger?’
‘Pardon?’
‘I’ve got whiskey, brandy or sherry. You’re probably brandy.’
‘Oh.’
‘Big day. Got to keep your strength up.’
‘I’m sorry. Do I…’
‘No, but we all know you.’
‘Talk of the town?’
‘You were for a while, but life’s too short. When you get to my age you’ve seen it all.’
‘That’s kind of you…’
‘Must have been tough for them, though. Do you want that brandy? Your mother’ll be needing you.’
4. Maltravers Crescent
At the summit, he paused to catch his breath, suck on a mint and take in the view. Clouds were gathering on the opposite side of town. He searched for St. Michael’s steeple, but could not place it amongst the demolition sites and buildings new to him. He stood on the corner of Maltravers Crescent and checked his watch. It was too early for mourners, but there were two cars in front of the house. His sisters had beaten him to it. They will have been there since dawn, buttering bread, checking the booze, dragging tea pots and milk jugs from the cupboards.
The long front lawn was perfect, clipped as short as the old man’s back and sides. The grass was bordered with marigolds and dahlias and other flowers Bill did not recognise. A birdbath, covered in moss, had been positioned dead centre. Someone had put time and love into it. Front gardens were for growing food, that’s what the old man said. That’s why councils had put them in. The kerb had been lowered in front of several houses in the crescent, where cars nudged close to bay windows. It cost more to grow your own these days. He hesitated at the front door and raised a fist. It opened before he had a chance to knock.
‘Did you forget we don’t lock it? Come in, love.’
‘Hi Mum.’ He reached forward, arms open.
‘No time for that,’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘Come and help your sisters put the chairs around him.’
‘What?’
‘He left instructions.’
He followed her along the hall and into the front room, relieved to discover, as he inched his nose around the door frame, that the coffin was closed. His sisters, Rose and Maria, were making space around it, pushing chairs against the wall. A half-drunk mug of tea had been left on the coffin, above his feet.
‘He wouldn’t have minded.’ Rose clocked Bill staring at the mug.
‘Take that upstairs.’ Maria pointed to a side table.
‘How did they get him in?’
‘Never mind, take that upstairs, will you?’
‘Through the French windows.’ His mother put a hand on his back.
‘I bet that’s why he knocked it through. And I always wondered about those windows.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous Billy.’ Rose put her hands on her hips and exhaled. A card wobbled on the mantelpiece.
‘Well, why else? They’re a bit bourgeois…’
‘And you’d know all about that. Will you please get rid of that bloody table.’
‘Put it in your room, William. And hang your jacket up.’
‘You’d better be ready for later.’ Rose watched him climb the stairs sideways, table hugged to his chest.
He held his foot to the door and pushed it open. The room which had once housed a single bed, slim wardrobe, desk and shelves was now an office of sorts, a jumble of document boxes and books. The bed had come from a fallen comrade. An ancient PC had expired on the old desk and the walls were dotted with photographs of handshakes with Tony Benn, Scargill, Eric Heffer and others with whom Bill had competed for his father’s respect. He put the table on its side under the desk, closed the door and went into his parent’s bedroom. The old man’s side of the wardrobe amounted to no more than a quarter of the space, with a gap where his suit would have hung. Bill put his nose against the back panel and inhaled. Was that tobacco? No, his mother would never have stood for it. He slipped his jacket onto a wooden hanger and hooked it onto the curtain rail. As he leaned forward to open the window he noticed shoeprints in the flowerbed in front of the patio. The undertakers must have been searching for the right angle to get the coffin in. They’d be struggling again soon enough, perhaps in the rain. Those clouds had made their way across town.
Familiar faces in old suits trickled up the path, a few stopping to inspect the lawn. Cigarettes smoked on the patio, glasses clinked. Murmured conversations, the odd laugh and one or two hidden sniffles. Bill stood in the hall to greet the arrivals and get any tension or comments out of the way before the main event. Some of the old men still had a decent grip, but none of the handshakes matched Jack the Knife. Out of respect to the wife, Bill imagined, the brothers held their tongues. None of them seemed surprised to see him, even though he hadn’t been back since he had made the headlines in the same papers he had lugged up Mill Rise. His mother’s friends offered smiles and Aunt Olga held their hug for so long he thought she’d fallen asleep. You were always my favourite, Billy. When the time came to agree on a guard of honour for the pall bearers, the old man’s friends argued over which one of them would walk alongside his son.
*
Funeral
St.Michael’s steeple was dwarfed by the new hospital. As they flanked the coffin, cursing the rain and waiting for the priest to call them in, Bill listened to the old men behind him. His lot built that. Someone’s pockets got lined. Fantastic inside, though. That’s where they took him. He wouldn’t have liked that. He’d heard it all before, except the last bit, which had occurred to him to moment he had received the call. The old man wouldn’t have liked it, but he wouldn’t have had a say in the matter, what with him having died in the ambulance. Had that been his last stand? Would he have rather died than set foot in a hospital built with private money, with separate wards and rooms for those that could afford it? They’d had the argument several times and had never got as far as agreeing to differ. A festering wound, one of many the old man was taking to the grave.
The priest shook Bill’s hand and nodded to the others. He found the widow, supported by her daughters, and embraced her. He returned to the foot of the coffin and called the party into church with a prayer. The bearers heaved the casket onto their shoulders and shuffled towards the door. Bill walked ahead, the aisle being too narrow for the guard of honour. Union banners hung from the pillars at each side of the altar, and as the coffin was settled onto wooden supports, a woman came forward and draped it with a flag for Bensthorpe, the branch to which the old man had been apprenticed on leaving school. Bill took his seat next to his mother, at the end of the pew. The church was filling up, expectant.
Comrades read the lessons and the priest spoke about duty and loyalty. He talked of family. Bill gripped his mother’s hand; she squeezed her daughter’s; and she held her sister’s. He stared at the coffin, wondering if he had carried that same flag as a child. He had carried so many at rallies and galas up and down the country, enjoying the glory that came with being the Great Man’s son. He had sat at the old man’s side in hundreds of clubs and pubs, watching the men sup pints, witnessing debates and arguments and waiting for the singing. He’d loved the singing, at the bar and on the coaches on those long journeys home. After that, plenty of snoring and farting and the warmth of the old man’s side, father and son holding hands in the dark.
‘Billy. Go on.’ Maria stretched across her mother and poked Bill’s knee.
‘You’ll be fine.’ His mother squeezed his hand.
He let go of her hand and stood. He stepped around the coffin and climbed the steps to the lectern. He lifted his face towards the congregation and paused. There had been many speeches and several eulogies. He had faced down as many protests as he had led. He had shouted over barracking as often as he had harangued speakers. He had torn off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves and roared at crowds of hundreds and, once or twice, thousands. He had spoken from the heart and the head, sometimes both. He had learned from the old man how to silence hecklers, win over a mob and make angry people cry. He had been the speaker the party had turned to, until the party had turned its back on him. Pulling two sheets of thick white paper from his breast pocket, he began to speak, raising his voice against the rain pounding at the windows behind the altar.
*
Burial
They left him to his thoughts on the drive to the grave. He watched the streets slip by through a dense filter of rainwater as his mother and sisters went over the arrangements for the gathering at the Institute. The committee had agreed to relax the rules, allowing lapsed and banned members inside the main hall, but not in the back bar where memories were long and injuries unhealed. The limousine tracked the hearse into the cemetery, tyres squelching along narrow tracks until the cars stopped near a mound of soil as black as coal. They waited for the mourners to trek from the car parks, and when the stragglers had taken their places on the fringes of the saturated throng, the funeral director knocked on the window and mouthed It’s time.
He helped his mother to the grave, holding an umbrella over her as best he could. She refused a chair; a wise move, he thought, given the conditions. Imagine the widow sinking into the ground as the coffin was lowered. The priest appeared from nowhere, cloaked in vestments that would take forever to dry. He asked if anyone wished to offer a final tribute, perhaps mindful of the son’s botched eulogy. A hush fell upon the mourners until a man stepped forward, an instrument case hanging from his shoulder. He bowed to the family and lowered the case to his feet. He worked the catches, pulled out a banjo and began picking out some notes. As some of those gathered recognised the tune, voices began to sing one of the old man’s favourites, which Bill had heard in bars, on buses, and over and over again on the record player in Maltravers Crescent: Solidarity Forever.
*
Sandy Mitchell, a fellow junior minister, had texted Bill: They’re after blood. The following day, Bill took an early train home and sat down with his mother and father at Maltravers Crescent. The old man couldn’t understand why his son needed to claim any expenses. Don’t tell me they don’t pay you enough. There’s people in this town it takes five or ten years to earn what you do in one. Christ, the papers’ll be knocking on our door. And when they did, the old man had defended his son. What choice had he had?
*
Burial
The musician closed his case and disappeared behind three men wearing sashes over their suits. Rain dripped off tassels and noses and a rivulet of water ran from the men’s feet into the grave. Bill felt one of his sisters tugging at his sleeve as he stepped forward. He raised a hand to stop the priest beginning the final prayers.
‘I wanted to say how we may fail to live up to our parents, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. God knows he set impossible standards…’
‘William, please.’ Maria grabbed her brother’s elbow.
‘…but I’m glad he did and I’m sorry I didn’t manage…’
‘Does it have to be about you?’ Rose whispered into Bill’s sodden ear.
*
Away
‘How are you doing Bill? Tough day yesterday.’ Jack the Knife sat on the bench next to Bill. ‘It’s due in ten minutes. No delays so far.’
‘People were kind. Mum was glad to get it over with.’
‘You too, I bet. No luggage?’
‘I wasn’t planning on staying over.’
‘Coming back soon?’
‘Hard to say.’
‘You shouldn’t worry about what people say. Your old man wouldn’t.’
‘Mum said something about Christmas.’
The carriage was empty except for a father and a toddler. Bill settled into the corner seat and listened to the man answer question after question. Yes we can go to the park when we get there. If there’s a big slide, you can go on it. Yes I’ll hold your hand.