have loved to have had sons . . . but they couldn’t conjure him back, no matter how hard they tried.
Sheepishly, because he thought it might seem a bit daft, Albert knocked and came into Nell’s bedroom one evening and gave her the team photograph that they’d had taken the previous year, the year they’d almost won the challenge cup. ‘And we would have done if Frank Cook hadn’t missed that shot, daft bugger-excuse-my-language. Jack Keech sent him a perfect cross, it was an open goal,’ Albert said, shaking his head in disbelief, even now, a year later. Nell asked, ‘Which one was Frank then?’ and Albert told her the names of all the players and stopped abruptly when he came to Percy, and finally said, ‘Death’s awful when it happens to somebody young,’ which was what he’d heard someone say at the funeral and not what he thought at all because Albert didn’t really believe in death. The dead had just gone away somewhere and were going to come back sooner or later – they were waiting in a shadowy room that no one could see the door to, and being ministered to by his mother, who was almost certainly an angel by now. Albert couldn’t remember what his mother had looked like, no matter how hard he screwed up his eyes and concentrated. But that didn’t stop him missing her, even though he was nearly thirty years old. Alice, Ada, Percy, the lurcher he’d had as a boy that fell under a cart – they were all going to jump out from the waiting-room one day and surprise Albert. ‘Well, night-night, Nelly,’ he said finally, because he could tell from the way that she was staring at the photograph that she thought the dead were gone for ever and weren’t hiding anywhere.
Nell found it strange looking at Percy in the photograph because in real life he had seemed so distinctive and different from everybody else, but here he had the same vague, slightly out-of-focus features as the rest of the team. ‘Thank you,’ Nell said to Albert, but he’d already left the room. Frank Cook looked like anyone else, standing in the middle of the back row, but Jack Keech was recognizable, he was the one crouched down at the front with the ball. She knew he was a good pal of Albert’s but it was only when Nell came home from work one evening and found the pair of them together in the back yard that she recognized Jack Keech as the man who had helped them with Percy Sievewright’s mother when she’d collapsed at the graveside.
The sun trapped in the back yard at Lowther Street was hot even though it was only May and Nell paused for a second on the threshold, feeling the warmth on her face. ‘There you are, Nell,’ Albert said as if they’d both been waiting for her. ‘Brew up a pot of tea, there’s a good lass – Jack’s fixing the bench.’ Jack Keech looked up from wrenching out a nail and smiled at her and said, ‘Tea’d be grand, Nell.’ Nell smiled back and went into the house without saying anything and filled the kettle.
She put the kettle to boil and then walked back to the stone sink under the window and rested her hands on the edge and watched Albert and Jack Keech through the window. While she waited for the kettle she moved her toes up and down inside her boots and felt her ribcage moving as she breathed and when she put the back of her hands up to her cheeks she could feel how hot they were.
The bench was an old wooden one that had been in the back yard ever since they moved into the house. There were several slats missing from the back and the arm had begun to come away. Jack Keech was kneeling on the paving-slabs of the yard, sawing a block of clean, new wood with a stubby saw, and through the open door Nell could smell the resin from the pine. A lock of Jack’s thick, dark hair kept falling over his forehead. Albert was standing over him laughing. Albert was always laughing. His angelic blond curls had never gone away and his baby-blue eyes looked too big somehow under the sweep of pale
Sheepishly, because he thought it might seem a bit daft, Albert knocked and came into Nell’s bedroom one evening and gave her the team photograph that they’d had taken the previous year, the year they’d almost won the challenge cup. ‘And we would have done if Frank Cook hadn’t missed that shot, daft bugger-excuse-my-language. Jack Keech sent him a perfect cross, it was an open goal,’ Albert said, shaking his head in disbelief, even now, a year later. Nell asked, ‘Which one was Frank then?’ and Albert told her the names of all the players and stopped abruptly when he came to Percy, and finally said, ‘Death’s awful when it happens to somebody young,’ which was what he’d heard someone say at the funeral and not what he thought at all because Albert didn’t really believe in death. The dead had just gone away somewhere and were going to come back sooner or later – they were waiting in a shadowy room that no one could see the door to, and being ministered to by his mother, who was almost certainly an angel by now. Albert couldn’t remember what his mother had looked like, no matter how hard he screwed up his eyes and concentrated. But that didn’t stop him missing her, even though he was nearly thirty years old. Alice, Ada, Percy, the lurcher he’d had as a boy that fell under a cart – they were all going to jump out from the waiting-room one day and surprise Albert. ‘Well, night-night, Nelly,’ he said finally, because he could tell from the way that she was staring at the photograph that she thought the dead were gone for ever and weren’t hiding anywhere.
Nell found it strange looking at Percy in the photograph because in real life he had seemed so distinctive and different from everybody else, but here he had the same vague, slightly out-of-focus features as the rest of the team. ‘Thank you,’ Nell said to Albert, but he’d already left the room. Frank Cook looked like anyone else, standing in the middle of the back row, but Jack Keech was recognizable, he was the one crouched down at the front with the ball. She knew he was a good pal of Albert’s but it was only when Nell came home from work one evening and found the pair of them together in the back yard that she recognized Jack Keech as the man who had helped them with Percy Sievewright’s mother when she’d collapsed at the graveside.
The sun trapped in the back yard at Lowther Street was hot even though it was only May and Nell paused for a second on the threshold, feeling the warmth on her face. ‘There you are, Nell,’ Albert said as if they’d both been waiting for her. ‘Brew up a pot of tea, there’s a good lass – Jack’s fixing the bench.’ Jack Keech looked up from wrenching out a nail and smiled at her and said, ‘Tea’d be grand, Nell.’ Nell smiled back and went into the house without saying anything and filled the kettle.
She put the kettle to boil and then walked back to the stone sink under the window and rested her hands on the edge and watched Albert and Jack Keech through the window. While she waited for the kettle she moved her toes up and down inside her boots and felt her ribcage moving as she breathed and when she put the back of her hands up to her cheeks she could feel how hot they were.
The bench was an old wooden one that had been in the back yard ever since they moved into the house. There were several slats missing from the back and the arm had begun to come away. Jack Keech was kneeling on the paving-slabs of the yard, sawing a block of clean, new wood with a stubby saw, and through the open door Nell could smell the resin from the pine. A lock of Jack’s thick, dark hair kept falling over his forehead. Albert was standing over him laughing. Albert was always laughing. His angelic blond curls had never gone away and his baby-blue eyes looked too big somehow under the sweep of pale
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