rang. It was Oliver.
‘How we doing, Olly? I’m sitting down on the bed
and so hit me if it’s a code red and I can make the neces-
sary arrangements.’ He smiled, half admitting to himself
that the thought of having to drive to see Oliver for an
emergency might actually be preferable to going to a pub
quiz with a gut full of nerves and no idea of what to wear.
‘Very funny!’ Oliver chuckled. ‘No code red. I’d say
we are all green at the moment.’
‘Well, I’m very glad to hear it.’ He felt his stomach
unbunch.
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‘Just thought I’d give you a shout and see what you’re
up to.’
‘Funny you should ask.’ Nick looked at his reflec-
tion in the mirror. ‘I’m about to go to the Blue Anchor
for a quiz night with Eric and a few people from work
and your Auntie Jen, although apparently I’m not al-
lowed to join her team. I think she’s still worried I
might embarrass her in front of her friends, even after
all these years.’
‘You’re going to the pub?’ Oliver’s tone was sharp,
surprised and if Nick was hearing it correctly, carried a
slight edge of disapproval.
‘Well, Eric asked if I fancied it, and I must admit I
feel a bit nervous. It’s the first time I’ve been out since…’
He let this hang.
‘You never go to the pub.’ Oliver’s voice now qui-
eter, his tone reflective, and Nick felt his pain. And he
got it. Oliver was a kid who whilst he wished his dad
no ill, didn’t want things to be moving on, worried no
doubt that they were starting to pick up where they left
off before Kerry got sick, fearful that she might in any
way be slipping from her position as the first thing he
thought about. This Nick understood because these were
his worries too. It felt like a disservice.
‘I don’t know if I’ll go even.’ He paused. ‘I think Eric
was just trying to get me out of the house.’
There was a beat or two of silence before Oliver spoke
up. ‘You should go, Dad. Eric is right, you should get
out of the house.’
‘Do you think so?’ He held the phone close to his face,
wanting at some level to hear Oliver’s approval.
‘Yes, go, have a nice time.’
‘Thank you, son. What have you been up to?’
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‘Not much.’ He yawned. ‘Seeing Tasha, working a
bit, reading.’
‘Ah, reading, good – you’re working your way through
your overwhelmingly long list?’
‘I am actually.’ Oliver laughed.
‘And seeing Tasha, you say? Is she … Are you…?’ He
wasn’t sure how to phrase it, concerned that words like
‘dating’ and ‘going out’ might have gone out of fashion
a long time since.
‘I like her, Dad.’ Nick could hear the smile in his son’s
voice and it made him smile in return.
‘Well, that’s good, and for the record I thought she
seemed really nice, what I saw of her.’
‘Did you like Mum instantly?’
The question caught him a little off guard. ‘Yes, yes, I
did. I mean I was aware of her for a while, as we were in
a lot of the same classes at school, but when I did finally
speak to her, when we were a little bit older, then that
was it for me.’ He remembered the first time he became
aware of her, feeling drawn to her in a way that wasn’t
logical. It was no more than the look of her, the way her
hair fell across her face and the way she shone to him
across the classroom, like she was the only other person
in the room. She had filled his thoughts and his torturous
nights and the day he finally got to hold her, kiss her,
that was the day he felt like he’d won the best prize the
world had to offer. To him she was perfect. He hated
that the glow of that prize had tarnished over the years.
Their imperfections revealed to each other with every
year that passed, and Kerry’s secrecy; running up debt
that nearly crippled them had almost been the hatchet to
their marriage. He would not have liked to predict what
might have become of them had her illness not bound
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them with ropes fashioned from duty, kindness and an
almost forgotten love.
‘That’s kind of how it was for me with Tasha. I saw
her that first time with you and then I bumped into her a
couple of times at fresher events, but now I just can’t seem
to disconnect from her mentally, it’s like she is always in
my head. Do you know what I mean, Dad?’
‘I do.’ It was Nick’s turn to be a little surprised. He
could only think of Oliver as their little boy, young, rid-
ing his bike down the street with a wobble, minus his
stabilisers, or jumping into his lap when the house was
plunged into darkness during a power cut. He could still
remember the feel of his small body in cotton pyjamas
curled into his lap and how he had held his boy close,
sound asleep, long after the lights had come back on …
and now here he was, attending fresher events with a girl
in his head. It was a jolt to be reminded that when he was
Oliver’s age, Oliver was a toddler.
‘I knew I liked her and so I had to figure out how to
take things forward.’
‘I see.’ He beamed at the boy’s confidence and, ap-
parently, initiative. ‘So what did you do to move things
forward?’
‘I snogged her mate.’
‘You snogged her mate?’ Nick let out a loud burst
of laughter, which Oliver echoed. ‘Jesus, Olly, I wasn’t
expecting that. I think things might be a bit different to
how they were when I was trying to land your mum. I
think snogging her mate would have seen her running
for the hills!’
‘I was talking to Joe, who is on my corridor, and he
said the best way to get a girl to like you is to make her
jealous, and so I snogged her mate, and then I told Tasha
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I was drunk, which I was, very, and that I didn’t really
like her mate, and then Tasha posted a picture on Insta
of her about to go out and I liked it with smiling cat eye
emojis and that was that.’
‘Olly’ – Nick gathered his thoughts – ‘I have no idea
what you’re talking about.’
It was Oliver’s turn to laugh out loud.
‘I’m glad you and Tasha have … become friends, but
I think if I had to give you one piece of advice—’
‘Oh god,’ Oliver sighed. ‘Not advice.’ He elongated
the word like it was something toxic.
Nick ignored him. ‘If I had to give you one piece of
advice, it would be don’t play games with people or their
emotions. That wasn’t the nicest thing to do to Tasha’s
mate. People aren’t disposable. Be straight, always tell
them
how you feel and remember that we all bruise
in the same way, be kind, respectful.’ He assumed that
Oliver’s silence meant he was contemplating his words.
He hoped so.
‘So did Mum like you instantly?’
‘I don’t think so. I don’t know.’
The two men sat in silence across the miles, each
sliding into the dark void of loss they could never fill
with knowledge, as the only person they could ask was
no longer here.
‘I’d better go, Dad.’
‘Sure, thanks for calling, Olly.’
‘No worries.’
And just like that the call ended. Nick sat on the edge
of the bed and thought about his boy, a boy taking giant
leaps into adulthood.
Snogged her mate … He laughed again, shaking his head.
The front doorbell rang and Treacle barked accordingly.
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‘Shush, Treacle!’ he yelled as he raced down the stairs
and opened the door to Eric.
‘You ready, Judith?’ His friend rubbed his hands to
stave off the cold.
‘I thought I was meeting you there?’ Nick left his mate
in the hall and went to grab his trainers from the kitchen.
‘You were, but I know you and thought left to your
own devices you might bottle it.’
‘And you might have been right,’ Nick confessed as
he shut Treacle in and closed the front door. ‘Just spoke
to Olly. He’s got a girlfriend.’
Eric stopped walking and stood on the pavement.
‘Jesus H Christ! Don’t tell me that! How in the world can
Olly have a girlfriend; he’s only six! And I’m a grown-up
and I don’t have one!’
‘Ah, apparently you might have been going about it
all wrong. The answer is to find someone you like and
snog her mate.’
Eric looked skyward, as if taking the suggestion ser-
iously. ‘I’m trying to think of which of Jen’s mates I
could snog.’
Nick shook his head. ‘Give it up with the Jen thing.
It ain’t never going to happen or it would have by now.’
Eric tapped his nose and walked briskly. ‘I’ve told
you before, it’s a waiting game. We have a connection.’
‘You do not have a connection!’
‘We do! There is much more to us than you know
about.’ Eric looked into the distance.
‘Is that right?’ Nick looked at him quizzically.
‘Just you wait and see.’ Eric smiled, undefeated.
The pub was busy with the right hum of chatter
and the nostalgic scent of beer and cologne, which he
hadn’t smelled for a while. It took him back to underage
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drinking in the pub with Kerry, the two of them supping
illegal pints and walking home hand in hand, feeling like
the grown-ups they were desperate to become, hurtling
towards adulthood and all the responsibilities of which
they were unaware at a million miles an hour. He looked
around and spotted familiar faces: from work, old friends
from school, Barney who worked at the petrol pumps up
at Mackie’s, and Jen and Beverly sitting at the bar, laugh-
ing, doubled over with glasses of wine in their hands.
‘Pint?’ Eric made a beeline for Jen and Nick saw
Beverly nudge her in the ribs with a warning dig, sup-
posedly to let her know that Eric that was incoming. Jen
spun around on the stool, facing the bar, and he felt for
his mate who surreptitiously brushed his hair with his
fingers, still, after all these years, trying to make the very best impression. He followed Eric.
‘Evening, ladies.’ Eric smiled. ‘Can I get you a drink?’
he asked casually, the swallow of his Adam’s apple sug-
gesting that inside he wasn’t feeling quite as confident as
he presented. It made Nick feel less self-conscious about
the nerves that swirled in his gut.
‘No, but thanks, Eric, we just got them.’ Beverly lifted
her glass in proof. ‘Whose team you on, Nick?’ she asked,
before sipping her drink.
‘Eric’s, I suppose.’
Jen turned to her brother and kept her voice low,
speaking from the side of her mouth. ‘You okay, Broth?’
He nodded.
‘We just need to keep things as normal as possible.
You’ll be fine. But I have my eye on you. And so does Eric.
I know coming out tonight is a big deal and if you’re not
okay’ – her tone was sincere, her eyes searching his – ‘just
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give me the nod and I’ll have you home on that couch
chatting to Treacle quicker than you know.’
‘Thanks, Jen.’ He smiled at her. Her support was as
reassuring as it was welcome. ‘That means a lot.’
‘Oh, don’t get mushy.’ She shuddered, turning to
Beverly and raising her voice, ‘I reckon a definite win
for us tonight then, Bev, if dweeb and dweeb junior are
teaming up.’
‘You can come on our team if you like, Jen?’ Eric
ignored her jibe and asked with boyish enthusiasm in
response, to which Jen rolled her eyes.
‘Ladies and gentlemen!’ Big Brian from the British
Legion, a barrel-chested man with an impressive mous-
tache, who spent six months planning the Remembrance
recounting it to anyone he bumped into, now called
out across the bar and everyone fell silent. ‘This is your
ten-minute warning for all those here for the pub quiz:
get registered, pay up, dump your phones in the box and
take your seats!’
Eric handed him a pint. Nick sipped the foamy head
and savoured the hoppy, bitter, wheaty taste on his lips.
He hadn’t drunk a proper pint in the pub for a long, long
time. He had to stop himself from necking it.
‘Right, I’ll go pay and ditch our phones.’ He took
Nick’s device from his hand. ‘You go sit with Alex and
Ellie.’ He pointed across the room to their old mate and
his wife, who might have been the best-looking girl in
the youth club, but whom they had quickly learnt was a
fun sucker. And it wasn’t only her own fun she sucked,
but sadly Alex’s too. Alex, who had very much been
an active shareholder in Half Bike and a proper laugh
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throughout his teens, had very quickly after he and Ellie
waltzed up the aisle turned into a shadow of his former
self. He was a man obsessed with paint colour charts and
spent his Sundays at the garden centre. His natural and
ready laugh had been replaced with a self-conscious smile
that was always quickly followed by a glance in Ellie’s
direction, as if approval or, worse, permission were needed
for this show of happiness. He worked in administration
for a small insurance company in Northallerton and was
someone who always looked like he had lost a coin and
found a button. Nick watched Alex finger the collar of
his polo shirt, pushi
ng the tips flat against his breastbone, and knew it was most unlikely that he would ever own a
Harley Davidson and ride it around Market Square. Nick
tried to imagine Ellie’s face if he did.
‘It’s nice to see you out, Nick,’ Ellie offered with
kindness, and he felt mean for having thought about her
‘fun sucker’ status.
‘Thanks, Ellie. Feels odd,’ he confessed.
She made a ‘humph’ noise and adjusted bra strap
before speaking with her jaw jutting. ‘I don’t doubt that
if it was me who’d popped me clogs, he’d be out on the
town before the sandwiches at me wake were curled.’ She
nodded her head in Alex’s direction, tight-lipped and with
her hands clutched in her lap. Nick smiled, and his flash
of guilt disappeared as quickly as it had risen.
Alex looked at him with an expression of resignation
and Nick pictured the boy who used to be the life and
soul. He couldn’t imagine spending time with someone
who made you feel the way Ellie seemed to, the very
opposite of supportive. He thought of how Kerry and he
had nearly always liked each other’s company. At least that
was the case until the winter of 2008, when Kerry had
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had a moment of crisis, flirting with a man who wasn’t
him and racking up a monstrous debt on store and credit
cards, all of which came as a massive shock to him. Her
actions had threatened to derail them, leaving long shadows
over their marriage that her sickness had largely erased –
largely but not completely. And it was in this shaded grey
area of hurt that his thoughts sometimes strayed during
the early hours when he stared at the ceiling, trying to
make sense of it all. He had liked it in the beginning of
their marriage when Kerry had felt like a safe harbour.
He looked around the bar and felt her absence keenly. It
had been decades since he had been in a social situation
as a single man.
The tables quickly filled, the noise level rose and spec-
tators either too chicken to play or too tight to cough up
the three-quid subscription clustered around the bar. Big
Brian took up his seat between two stony-faced adjudica-
tors and tapped the tabletop microphone in front of him.
This was serious business. Eric sidled next to him and
raised his shoulders in excited anticipation in the way he
always had, like when they were small and standing in
the queue waiting for the ice cream van.