Bloody hell, it’s cold. Why is it so cold? The heating should’ve come on, I set it last night. I know I did. Back’s still bad, always bad in the mornings. Five o’clock. Not again. Why do I keep waking like this? Can’t get up yet, still too tired. Can’t get back to sleep now either though. Don’t like to look at her side really, the shape of her still there. You’d think after all these years. No point in dwelling on it though, is there? Can’t turn back the clock. Where’s the paper? Did I finish the crossword last night?

           Can’t remember.

Oh yes, there was that one clue I just couldn’t get, something about an outbuilding, six letters. I used to ask her, she’d be reading her book, me with the paper, she always had an opinion, knew all the answers. She didn’t of course, but best to just agree. In the end she couldn’t even hear if I shouted the clue at her four or five times. Couldn’t do anything really.  Anyway, water under the bridge. Should just get up. Have some breakfast, shower, watch a bit of telly. That should take up at least an hour or so.

           What’s the weather like?

If it’s not raining, I could go for a walk to the shops, buy something for lunch, get the paper, maybe stop off for a coffee. Hope that woman’s not there, that busybody from church, all holier than thou, asking questions.What’s Louise up to these days? Abroad, eh? I see. My daughter, she’s very good, just down the road, nice really. Sees me more as a friend. Well good for you. Good for bloody you. Would be nice if Louise came home more but it’s her life, isn’t it. Anyway, I wouldn’t want her here all the time, bossing me around. Why’s the house such a mess, put this away, why is that there, why are there holes in your jumper, your slippers falling apart. That hard little face of hers. Never smiles, just rolls her eyes like she’s still fourteen sometimes,still just the same. When she was little she’d snuggle up on my lap to watch telly, say Daddy tell me about Trevor the traction engine and Billy the bus.Just made it up off the top of my head, probably never made sense, but she laughed and she liked it. I’d bounce her on my knee, what shall we do with the drunken sailor wahey and up she rises wahey and up she rises earl-ai in the morning. Or when we went to the park, feeding the ducks. Her little hand in my hand. I remember, Daddy look, she’d say, there’s a baby one, a little yellow fluffy one. Throw them crusts of bread with her little hands. Then I’d piggy-back her home. You can’t go back though now, can you? All grown up. Just an old man to her now. They always think they know best. Joyce was just the same with Mum back in the day, arguing with her, the shouting, the fights. Joyce was always saying to me, you’re the favourite, Mum loves you more than me, but I don’t know. Mum just kept to herself really, hid away in the kitchen. Hard on her, I suppose losing Daddy like that. No life insurance. Suppose she had to marry Wilks really, what else was she going to do? Threw his weight around, mind.

           Insurance. It’s stable, reliable, it’s a career.

           It’ll do you good.

           If you won’t stay at school, then you need to work.

I wanted to be a chef. Or a painter. I liked painting, drawing. Still do. Maybe I should get the watercolours out, try that again. Might be nice. Mind you, wasn’t much good last time I tried. Not exactly a talent.

           Anyway.

           Wonder what’s the time now?

           Still only six.

           Could get up now.

           I could murder a boiled egg, cup of tea.

           Spitting feathers.

Why didn’t the damn heating come on? Should get it looked at I suppose. Maybe I’ll get that handyman to come and look, what’s his name again?I’m just not practical like that. Joyce always said we were born the wrong way round, her the girl, me the boy. She was always bigger, stronger, tougher, rougher, always doing, always making, always working, me, I just wanted family. Look where we are now. Wife dead, me, all on my own, not how it was supposed to be, not what I thought. But then you just don’t, do you, when you’re young. In love. She was so perfect back then, those hips, that blonde hair. Took her to that Italian on the ringroad, wore a suit even didn’t I? Picked her up in a taxi to impress her. Didn’t have my own car, only that daft scooter and she’d never have been seen dead on the back of that. She was all dressed up to the nines with her hair in, what do they call those things? Curlers. Make-up maybe a bit too much, but back then all the girls were the same. Her nails painted blue, pretty blue eyes, but a mouth on her mind, she’d argue black was white. Come for tea at mine she said, meet Mummy and Daddy. Hello Cecilia, hello Frank, lovely to meet you, brought you flowers. Oh, thank you, how nice. Her brothers,four of them, all kids back then, shouting, fighting, hitting, screaming, get off that’s mine, give it back Adrian, I want a choc-ice, no I won’t eat sprouts, don’t want sprouts. Her dad yelling, you get to your room, speaking to your mother like that! No tea for you. Crazy how they could live like that, allover, on top of each other, too much for me, but nice in a way, I suppose, being part of a clan. She’d have liked three, four, five kids of our own, it just didn’t happen though, tried for years but it just didn’t happen. Then boom, out of nowhere, suddenly we’re pregnant! We’re having a baby! Going to be a daddy! Dashing round telling everyone in the office, anyone who’d listen, I’m going to be a daddy. Best day of my life. Or the day she was born maybe. Little red screaming thing all covered in hair like some kind of ape creature. But beautiful. So beautiful. Can’t remember what happened then really, they took her away, put her under a lamp for the jaundice, or being too cold, something like that. Then they brought her back, gave her to me to hold in my arms. My baby girl, tiny, so tiny, surely I’ll break her with my big clumsy hands? She just looked at me with those bright blue eyes. 

           She was always so happy.

           Always good.

           Always did well at school.

We were so proud of her, at parents’ evening they always said she’s so clever, her mind’s like a sponge, just absorbs it all, we don’t need to teach her. Top of the class. And so pretty. Shame she ruined it by getting so thin.Did she think she looked good? I don’t know, women are strange about things like that. And all those fights with her mother. Oh I know Angela would argue, but me, I just walked away, didn’t let her go on. Louise wouldn’t let it go though. She was vicious when she put her mind to it, slamming doors, screaming, going at it hammer and tongs, I’d come home from work and shout at her, what’s going on? What did you say to your mum, she’s in tears, are you proud of yourself? You know she’s ill, you’re making her worse. She could just have done what I did, walked away from it, didn’t always have to shout back. All that yelling and screaming, just made Angela sicker, even got her on antidepressants. Didn’t help though. None of that business really works, just messes with your head. Like when they sent me for counselling after she was dead. Little grey-haired old woman with that awful cardigan. Finding her like that must have been hard, traumatic even? They don’t really want to know, they just nod at you. What can they do? She said she was tired, just going to bed. I suppose I shouldn’t have left her really.

           But I couldn’t have known, could I?

Just went back to the bar for a drink, not very long, an hour or so, chatted with those girls from Liverpool by the bar. Too young for me anyway, they wouldn’t look twice.

           It wasn’t long, only a couple of hours.

           Then I went back and the key wouldn’t go in the door.

           Had to fiddle around with it.

           TV was still on.

           She was always doing that, leaving it on.

She was just laid on her back, just like that, on top of the bed. Still had her shoes on. Funny smell in the air. Strange.

           So I shook her, didn’t I? Slapped her face, not hard, just enough. That’s what you do, isn’t it? Wake up, wake up, Angela, Angela, wake up.

           Nothing.

           Gone.

That was that. Just sat with her grey hand in my lap. Thirty-two years. Up to me to deal with, wasn’t it? And where was Louise? Abroad somewhere. Always abroad somewhere.

           Anyway.

           Thinking about it’s not going to bring her back, is it?

Mum didn’t need counselling after Daddy died, just put her head down and got on with it, didn’t she? None of this self-pity, woe-is-me, isn’t life depressing nonsense. Death’s a fact of life,no point dwelling on it. Joyce didn’t believe it though, not until she was clearing out Mum’s house and found the death certificate. She thought he’d just left us, gone off with another woman, had another family maybe, but that he was still out there somewhere. Fifty-year old Joyce, solid, robust, no-nonsense suddenly howling like a baby because now her daddy’s really gone for good, even though he’d been gone over forty years already.

           It was me who found him though.

           Found the body.

           Not her.

Running into the room shouting, Daddy we’re back, Daddy, wake up, wake up, but he doesn’t move, just lies still looking cold, grey. What’s wrong? Where’s Daddy gone? Mum comes in, screams, shoves Joyce, shoves me, pushing us out the door. I curl up on the floor in a ball. Joyce is prodding my back asking what’s going on John, what did you see? Mum crying, whispering on the phone, Albert’s dead. He’s gone. What’ll we do now? Joyce, she remembered they sent us away somewhere, with Nana and Auntie Enid maybe.

           We were happy enough though, mostly.

           Didn’t have much, but you didn’t need much in those days.

I remember dangling my feet off the railway bridge, the brick scratching the backs of my knees. And then the train! Here it comes! Hang on tight! Chest fluttering, belly flipping. Steam hugging my face, clouding my eyes, coughing, spluttering. Mum shouting, John get down off there, what are you doing, you’ll kill yourself. You have to be careful, you know, your heart. Slapping me around the legs. Get inside and to bed with no tea for you, that’ll teach you, little devil just do as you’re told.

           I did once.

           Die.

           Apparently.

           For a few minutes anyway.

They were going to fix my heart, they said. Just lie still now, don’t cry, it’ll be over soon, you won’t know anything about it, you won’t feel a thing. Counting back from a hundred, ninety-nine ninety-eight ninety-seven ninety-six. The black hole swirling down, drowning in dark voices. Daddy. His hand on my head, patting, good boy John, good boy, holding Joyce on his knee, smiling, kissing the top of her curly brown hair. Warm. Soft. Bathing in the dark, feeling the beat of a heart, hearing a voice, piano keys tinkling. Daddy’s hand on mum’s shoulder, her fingers drifting, the light in her eyes. Then the bright lights. Too bright. Voices too loud. Try to scream, try to move, but my body’s playing dead. I hear Mum crying, it comes and goes. I dangle my feet on the edge of the world.

           Wait for the train.

           Then music. Radio. She loves you yeah yeah yeah.

They did bring me back, eventually. Touch and go though. Got my heart beating, lungs breathing again, but I stayed in that coma for weeks, or at least that’s what Mum said. All I could think was, I’m starving.

           Can I have tea and toast?

The food in that place was disgusting though, that apple crumble like dust. I made Mum bring me custard. Then the convalescent home, horrible place. Everything stank of wee. That girl in the iron lung. Terrifying, really. And what was his name, that scrawny little bugger with the squint and the harelip?  Can’t remember. Shame really, got on with him quite well.

           Wonder if he’s still alive even.

           Didn’t think I would be.

           Anyway.

           Annexe. Outbuilding. Six letters.

           She’d never have got that.

           What time is it now?

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