a couple extra for Joseph, but he was smiling. Joseph took them out for a drink after dinner. There was a quiz night on in the bar at the snooker club, and they were talked into staying. Phil, one of his dad’s old workmates, was doing the questions, and half of them were about the cars they used to assemble and the union they belonged to. Most of the regulars at the snooker club worked at the plant or used to, but there was a younger crowd in too, and after a while they started whistling and heckling. Phil threw in a couple of telly questions to keep them happy, but then his mates started in on him, and there was more banter than quiz until he threatened to hold over the prize pot until next weekend. It made Joseph laugh, seeing how much his dad enjoyed it, all the kidding, and how much about his old job he still remembered. They came second, won a set of glasses, it got late and Joseph had had too many to be driving, so his mum made up the bed in his old room upstairs.
The mattress was narrow, and Joseph knew that Benslept there now, if Eve and Arthur stayed over. He couldn’t get to sleep for a long time: had to be up early, but he’d had too much to drink, and so he spent too much time thinking about what it was like when he and Eve still lived here. The estate was out in one of those dog-end bits of London, always felt nearer the coast than the centre. Not great, but not so bad either. Rows of brick-and-tile semis built after the war, roads laid out in crescents with endless pavements, their kerb stones dipping for the countless driveways. Shops on one side, primary school on the other, and beyond that came the industrial units and the railway siding. Their house was in the middle, where the gardens backed onto each other. They were mostly kept neat these days, but Joseph remembered long grass and low fences when he was younger, all sagging and ignored by the kids, their games played across and through them.
Hadn’t thought about any of this in years. He’d maybe caught it off being with Alice so much, listening to her, and telling her about himself. Joseph wasn’t used to it. Lying in his old bed, he couldn’t stop it all coming, and there were plenty of good things to remember too. Kids’ things mostly, wouldn’t mean much to anyone else, probably, but he enjoyed thinking about it all again. Walking to school the long way by the canal, after his paper round, football and cigarettes at the rec, Sunday dinners with everyone at his nana’s house. Auntie Jean, who wasn’t really his auntie but lived next door, her kids grown up and gone. She looked out for him and Eve after school when his mum was working, took the fence down between their bits of back lawn. His mum and Jean used to sit together on the back step, smoking in the evenings after his dad left for work, and Joseph liked to listen, not to what they were saying so much as thesound of their talking. Lying on the rug in the front room with the gas fire on; cool air and warm cigarette smell from the open kitchen door; half-listening to his mum laughing, half-watching the telly.
None of that was what Joseph expected to be remembering. He knew something was on its way back to him: it was like he’d been waiting all week, getting ready, but then all this stuff from when he was a kid surprised him. He lay in his old bed and thought this wasn’t such a bad way to be feeling, they were happy enough memories and he should be glad of them. Usually it was different. Days ahead he could predict it, and he’d felt it happening this week too: going home, not answering the phone, avoiding Alice. He’d been crawling into himself, and that meant he had to be careful.
Saturday and early, but there were kids out already on the estate, playing, standing at the street corners when Joseph was driving away from his mum and dad’s place. It was quick, the memory, when it came, and he was ready for it.
Up in Portrush, two days on R and R, halfway through his tour, end
The mattress was narrow, and Joseph knew that Benslept there now, if Eve and Arthur stayed over. He couldn’t get to sleep for a long time: had to be up early, but he’d had too much to drink, and so he spent too much time thinking about what it was like when he and Eve still lived here. The estate was out in one of those dog-end bits of London, always felt nearer the coast than the centre. Not great, but not so bad either. Rows of brick-and-tile semis built after the war, roads laid out in crescents with endless pavements, their kerb stones dipping for the countless driveways. Shops on one side, primary school on the other, and beyond that came the industrial units and the railway siding. Their house was in the middle, where the gardens backed onto each other. They were mostly kept neat these days, but Joseph remembered long grass and low fences when he was younger, all sagging and ignored by the kids, their games played across and through them.
Hadn’t thought about any of this in years. He’d maybe caught it off being with Alice so much, listening to her, and telling her about himself. Joseph wasn’t used to it. Lying in his old bed, he couldn’t stop it all coming, and there were plenty of good things to remember too. Kids’ things mostly, wouldn’t mean much to anyone else, probably, but he enjoyed thinking about it all again. Walking to school the long way by the canal, after his paper round, football and cigarettes at the rec, Sunday dinners with everyone at his nana’s house. Auntie Jean, who wasn’t really his auntie but lived next door, her kids grown up and gone. She looked out for him and Eve after school when his mum was working, took the fence down between their bits of back lawn. His mum and Jean used to sit together on the back step, smoking in the evenings after his dad left for work, and Joseph liked to listen, not to what they were saying so much as thesound of their talking. Lying on the rug in the front room with the gas fire on; cool air and warm cigarette smell from the open kitchen door; half-listening to his mum laughing, half-watching the telly.
None of that was what Joseph expected to be remembering. He knew something was on its way back to him: it was like he’d been waiting all week, getting ready, but then all this stuff from when he was a kid surprised him. He lay in his old bed and thought this wasn’t such a bad way to be feeling, they were happy enough memories and he should be glad of them. Usually it was different. Days ahead he could predict it, and he’d felt it happening this week too: going home, not answering the phone, avoiding Alice. He’d been crawling into himself, and that meant he had to be careful.
Saturday and early, but there were kids out already on the estate, playing, standing at the street corners when Joseph was driving away from his mum and dad’s place. It was quick, the memory, when it came, and he was ready for it.
Up in Portrush, two days on R and R, halfway through his tour, end
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