known what was going on or had any idea how significant his own arrival was, even before it had quite occurred. It’s just as well, perhaps, that memory waits for us further down the road from our birth. But do these things somehow filter through anyway? I’ve often tried to put myself in the position of Grannie Helen in that brief period when your father would have been the unborn consolation in her womb.
I was waiting, further down the road, for your father. I know it sounds silly. I was waiting, too, for him to be born.
Was there always a little gap, a discrepancy, between your dad and his dad? You’ve noticed it too? Was it just the gap, the edgy stand-off that exists between any son and father, or was it that niggling gap of around five months? His dad had tried to close it, perhaps, with those twelve bottles of champagne. Perhaps for a while he succeeded. I think your dad may have wept a little when he read that message: “Have Fun.” What an odd reaction to such a message. And he certainly wept, as you yourselves saw, at his father’s funeral, in Birle churchyard, eighteen months ago. It was the first time you’d seen your father weeping, and they say it’s not good for children to see their father in tears. I’m not so sure. And I’m not so sure your father wasn’t weeping for a different sort of gap.
As it happened, it wasn’t until the year I met your dad that Grannie Helen ever really spoke to him about that time before and just after he was born. Did that have something to do with me? Your dad told me, anyway, that he’d had this chat with his mum, at Christmas. He let me in on a private conversation with his mum.
And you told me, Kate, that he brought it all up again with you
last
Christmas—the first one without Grandpa Pete. Grannie Helen was dozing in our living room. You and Mike had volunteered to do the washing-up. Nick and I decided to take a walk round the block. I can see how all the circumstances would have primed your dad. You told me, Kate, that he told you about a Christmas years ago when Grannie Helen had told him about that time when Grandpa Pete wasn’t around.
I may have looked at you rather oddly—as I did that time at Carrack Cove—and you may have wondered why. But you just said to me, “Dad’s really missing Grandpa Pete, isn’t he?” Good, sweet, daughterly words. And true.
“Yes,” I said. “The first Christmas, it’s tough.”
I didn’t say, though I might easily have done, that I could remember the first Christmas without
my
dad. I’d had a major consolation, a double consolation: you and Nick were in my womb.
I just said—as if it needed to be said—that Grandma Helen would be missing him too. Your dad and Grandpa Pete always used to do the washing-up at Christmas. They’d roll up their sleeves and put on aprons, a ritual, two-man chore. Now, this year, for whatever reason, your dad had chosen you. It was another wobbly moment.
You may both have noticed that there’s a bit of a gap too, these days, between your Grannie Helen and me. I mean, there’s always been a bit of a gap: she’s my mother-in-law, it’s a ritual thing too. I always got on better with Grandpa Pete, I think I get on better with men all round. But now there’s an extra gap between Grannie Helen and me, just when, perhaps, there shouldn’t be. I ought to be offering her comfort and support, and I’ve done my best. But I’m afraid of her, if I’m honest, I’ve become a bit afraid of her.
Is she lying awake too right now, just like me, but by herself, listening to the rain?
It seemed just a touch romantic, I’ll admit, when I first heard it from your dad: that his dad had once been “missing,” then returned as if from the dead, to lift his son in his arms. If it never really quite squared with the man I’d get to know who ran a factory in Sidcup, or the man who’d sometimes do those strange little comic double-acts with his old pal, Charlie Dean—“Uncle Charlie”
I was waiting, further down the road, for your father. I know it sounds silly. I was waiting, too, for him to be born.
Was there always a little gap, a discrepancy, between your dad and his dad? You’ve noticed it too? Was it just the gap, the edgy stand-off that exists between any son and father, or was it that niggling gap of around five months? His dad had tried to close it, perhaps, with those twelve bottles of champagne. Perhaps for a while he succeeded. I think your dad may have wept a little when he read that message: “Have Fun.” What an odd reaction to such a message. And he certainly wept, as you yourselves saw, at his father’s funeral, in Birle churchyard, eighteen months ago. It was the first time you’d seen your father weeping, and they say it’s not good for children to see their father in tears. I’m not so sure. And I’m not so sure your father wasn’t weeping for a different sort of gap.
As it happened, it wasn’t until the year I met your dad that Grannie Helen ever really spoke to him about that time before and just after he was born. Did that have something to do with me? Your dad told me, anyway, that he’d had this chat with his mum, at Christmas. He let me in on a private conversation with his mum.
And you told me, Kate, that he brought it all up again with you
last
Christmas—the first one without Grandpa Pete. Grannie Helen was dozing in our living room. You and Mike had volunteered to do the washing-up. Nick and I decided to take a walk round the block. I can see how all the circumstances would have primed your dad. You told me, Kate, that he told you about a Christmas years ago when Grannie Helen had told him about that time when Grandpa Pete wasn’t around.
I may have looked at you rather oddly—as I did that time at Carrack Cove—and you may have wondered why. But you just said to me, “Dad’s really missing Grandpa Pete, isn’t he?” Good, sweet, daughterly words. And true.
“Yes,” I said. “The first Christmas, it’s tough.”
I didn’t say, though I might easily have done, that I could remember the first Christmas without
my
dad. I’d had a major consolation, a double consolation: you and Nick were in my womb.
I just said—as if it needed to be said—that Grandma Helen would be missing him too. Your dad and Grandpa Pete always used to do the washing-up at Christmas. They’d roll up their sleeves and put on aprons, a ritual, two-man chore. Now, this year, for whatever reason, your dad had chosen you. It was another wobbly moment.
You may both have noticed that there’s a bit of a gap too, these days, between your Grannie Helen and me. I mean, there’s always been a bit of a gap: she’s my mother-in-law, it’s a ritual thing too. I always got on better with Grandpa Pete, I think I get on better with men all round. But now there’s an extra gap between Grannie Helen and me, just when, perhaps, there shouldn’t be. I ought to be offering her comfort and support, and I’ve done my best. But I’m afraid of her, if I’m honest, I’ve become a bit afraid of her.
Is she lying awake too right now, just like me, but by herself, listening to the rain?
It seemed just a touch romantic, I’ll admit, when I first heard it from your dad: that his dad had once been “missing,” then returned as if from the dead, to lift his son in his arms. If it never really quite squared with the man I’d get to know who ran a factory in Sidcup, or the man who’d sometimes do those strange little comic double-acts with his old pal, Charlie Dean—“Uncle Charlie”
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