‘Well, that’s the beauty of it, son.’ His dad walked over
to the offending frame and ran his hand over its pitted
surface. ‘Not only is it the bike you have been nagging
us about, but it’s also a project. And it’s good to have a
project in the summer holidays. You and those two vaga-
bond mates of yours are going to have to use your wits,
find the bits you need to finish the job and build a bike.’
‘I don’t think we know how to build a bike,’ he whis-
pered, picturing Eric, who had the patience of a gnat and
the dexterity of an elephant. Plus, they had no money
to buy the bits they needed, even if they did have the
knowledge.
‘You will never know what you’re capable of until
you try, lad. The trying is good for you and the rewards
great if you take the chance. But mark my words: by the
end of the summer, Nicky, lad, you will have a bike. You
will succeed, if you want it badly enough.’
He watched as his dad reached into his back pocket
and pulled out a small brown leather case.
‘What’s that?’ This object lying in his dad’s palm, with
a sturdy zip, containing something precious enough to
be cased in leather – a grown-up thing! Now, this had his interest, going a long way to ease his disappointment.
His dad drew a slow breath and took his time in hand-
ing over the case, as if a little reluctant to part with it.
‘In this little pouch is everything you need to build
and maintain a bike.’ He nodded, and again came the hair
30
The Light in the Hallway
ruffle, which Nick gratefully received, tilting his head a
little like a happy dog whose owner has found just the spot.
Nick licked the blob of ketchup from the side of his
thumb and carefully undid the zip. Inside the case was a
steel tool, rectangular in shape, but with hexagonal holes
cut out of it at various points, a U shaped indent and a
sticky-out key shape with two mini prongs on the end.
His dad leant close and blocked out the light. Nick
could smell his workingman’s smell of sweat, the glue they
used up at Siddley’s and a scent he didn’t yet recognise.
It was the faint tang of fear that hung over the man in
a cloud, common to all who worked for the wage that
helped them ride the wave from one month to the next,
but were fully aware that one dry spell, one bump in the
road and the whole family would sink. It was the smell
of a man trapped on the hamster wheel of life.
‘My dad gave this to me. It’s a Raleigh multi tool or
multi spanner and it has seen some use, I can tell you.’
He smiled as if recounting some of the use it might have
had, and judging by the smile on his face Nick guessed
they were good memories.
‘What y’doing’?’ his sister Jen hung out of the back
door and shouted.
‘Nothing for you to stick your beak into, lass,’ his dad
responded, and Nick liked the way his comment isolated
his sister. This was between him and his dad.
‘Good, because I couldn’t care less anyway!’ Jen shout-
ed, but the quiver to her bottom lip and her shrill tone
suggested otherwise.
‘It’s man’s stuff.’ His dad chuckled and Nick smiled.
He felt invincible and excited.
‘Yeah, man’s stuff,’ he echoed over his shoulder.
31
Amanda Prowse
‘Shut up, you dweeb!’ Jen yelled before running back
inside.
Nick turned his attention back to the spanner; not
even his sister’s jibe could dampen his joy.
His dad pointed at the tool. ‘These holes fit over the
nuts and bolts to loosen and tighten them, and the big
scoop is for removing pedals. The little prongs will tighten
and loosen the brakes. You take good care of it,’ he added
sternly, his tone enough for Nick to feel the full weight
of responsibility as custodian of the tool. Man’s stuff … It went some way towards lessening the completely gutting
dissatisfaction he felt at being given half a bike.
‘I will, Dad.’ He nodded at the big man. ‘I will.’
With fish fingers no longer on his mind, Nick ran to
Eric’s house and the two of them went to call on Alex.
‘What’s up?’ Alex asked as he slipped from the front
door, stopping on the path to shove his index finger into
up his heel.
‘Wait and see.’ Nick built the tension.
‘Do you know, Eric?’ Alex was intrigued, as the three made their way back to Nick’s parents’ garage.
‘Nope.’ Eric frowned as he dragged a stick along the
wall. ‘He won’t tell me what the big secret is.’ He shook
his head, but with a spring in his step that suggested he
too was excited.
‘You’ll see in a minute.’ Nick liked this powerful
position in which he found himself, especially having
the little leather case nestling in his pocket.
‘You’re not the only one with a secret,’ Eric piped up.
‘What’s your secret then?’ Alex asked.
Eric looked up and down the road and without the
need for further coaxing, confident that he was not being
32
The Light in the Hallway
overheard, he beckoned his mates closer. ‘My mum has
got a secret new job.’ He beamed.
‘Is she a spy?’ Alex asked, wide eyed.
Nick didn’t know much about spying, but even he
thought it might be a stretch for Mrs Pickard to go from
working shifts in the care home in Thirsk where she
looked after old people who were really old, like forty,
to spying.
‘No,’ Eric laughed, ‘not a spy, but a secret job that I
can’t tell my dad about.’
‘What kind of secret job?’ Nick was curious.
‘A job with Dave The Milk.’
The boys all knew the local milkman, Dave.
‘Why’s it a secret?’ Alex asked the question for them both.
‘Because it’s a surprise – she’s earning extra and I
mustn’t spoil it,’ Eric explained, ‘but Dave The Milk comes
over on a Thursday night while my dad is at Billiards and
I’m not allowed in the house.’
‘In case you see their secret work?’ Alex asked.
‘Yep.’ Eric nodded, still dragging the stick over each
and every surface. ‘I bet she’s saving up to get my dad a
stereo for his car; he’s always banging on about one and
I think that’s the secret.’
‘What are you supposed to do when they are work-
ing?’ Nick couldn’t imagine being barred from his home
for any period of time, especially of an evening when in
the winter it would be dark and cold; he swallowed the
fear this conjured.
Eric shrugged. ‘Don’t know. Go up The Rec, come
to yours…’
Nick nodded, as if both of these sounded reasonable.
With the Bairstows’ garage in sight, the three boys
broke into a run, as if the anticipation were more than
33
Amanda Prowse
they could stand. They let themselves in via the side door
and immediately switched on the lamp on the workbench
and sat on the green canvas camping stools his dad had
given them to use on the condition they did not leave
the garage.
‘Okay,’ Nick began, as his two friends stared at him.
Carefully he reached into his pocket and pulled out the
leather case.
‘What’s that?’ Eric, impatient as ever, leant in.
‘Is it a nail scissor set?’ Alex guessed.
‘He’d better not have dragged me all the way over
here for a chuffin’ nail scissor set!’ Eric scoffed.
Nick and Alex laughed, not only at his anger, but the
fact that they knew there was nowhere else Eric needed
to be and that he would tramp all the way over for a lot
less than that.
‘It’s a Raleigh multi tool, also called a multi spanner.’
He liked demonstrating his knowledge.
‘Can I hold it?’
Nick nodded and passed it to Alex, who wiggled his
fingers inside the little holes and turned it gently over in
his palm.
‘What’s it for?’ Eric asked, while balling up a sheet of
newspaper and trying to throw it up over the steel beam
that ran the length of the garage.
‘It’s the tool for our project.’
‘What project?’ Eric sneered; Nick had made it sound
dangerously like work, and the summer holidays were
for anything but.
Nick stood and marched them to the garden, confident
his friends would follow.
‘This!’ He pointed at the frame still propped against
the shed.
34
The Light in the Hallway
‘Where’s the rest of it?’ Eric asked with typical candour.
‘That’s the best bit.’ Nick drew on enthusiasm he was
starting to feel. ‘We have to finish it, build it, and then
we get a bike!’
Alex ran his hand over the frame and nodded, as if he
knew what he was looking for and approved.
‘We need to find the parts and the bits we need and
then figure out how to fix it all together.’ Nick hoped he
made the task sound less Herculean than it felt.
‘So hang on a minute.’ Eric wiped his nose with his
fingers. ‘We find all the bits and parts and we build it
together…’
‘Yes.’ Nick confirmed.
‘So who will own the bike at the end of it?’
Nick pondered this.
‘We could all own a piece of it,’ Alex suggested, fair-
minded as ever.
‘Well, it’s my frame, technically, and I’ve got the tool.’
He banged it against his palm. ‘Plus we’ll be doing it in
my garage, so I think I should have half and you can each
have half of a half.’ His maths wasn’t that great.
‘So a half of a half each for us and whole half for
you?’ Alex clarified. Nick nodded; it didn’t occur to any
of them at that point that only one person could ride the
bike and so technically they would each have one hundred percent of the bike when they were on it.
‘Let’s shake on it,’ Eric suggested, and the three put
their grubby hands into the middle and clasped what they
could, heaving up and down with force.
‘Anyone want a cookie and some juice?’ his mum
called from the kitchen window.
Eric ran inside quicker than Nick could suggest they
should name their bike-building gang…
35
Amanda Prowse
Alex looped his fingers under one of the brake wires
and joggled it back and forth, shaking his head. ‘That
bike tool is really cool.’
‘It is, isn’t it?’ Nick turned the coveted object over
in his palm.
‘I don’t want to put anyone off, but it might be harder
than we think to build a bike. I tried to build an Airfix kit my Auntie Natalie got me for my birthday, but I couldn’t
finish it. It’s still in the box under my bed.’
‘The way I see it’ – Nick drew breath – ‘we will never
know what we are capable of until we try. The trying
will be good for us and the rewards great … At the end
of it we’ll get a bike!’
Alex stared up at him. ‘You sound like your dad.’
Nick smiled, unsure as to whether he was pleased or
offended.
‘You ladies comin’ in for snacks or what?’ Eric yelled
through the back door with a mouthful of custard cream.
36
CHAPTER TWO
Nick manoeuvred into the spot in the car park, pulled
on the handbrake and took a deep breath.
‘Flippin’ ’eck, I thought the whole idea of living in
halls of residence is that everything is provided for you.’
He looked up through the windscreen at the vast blue-
and-yellow Ikea warehouse and felt the ball of dread in
his stomach. Shopping was his least favourite activity. He
always found his attention wandering and a mild sense of
claustrophobia setting in after a few minutes. And whilst
a quick scoot around B&Q with knowledge of exactly
what he needed was just about bearable, shopping for soft
furnishings and homeware was his most dreaded thing.
‘I don’t know what we need from here.’
‘Dad.’ Oliver sounded a little exasperated and a lot
more like the adult out of the two. ‘It said online that in
my room there will be a bed and a desk and a chair and
a noticeboard, that’s it. I need to get a duvet and pillows,
duvet cover, wall stuff, fairy lights.’
‘Wall stuff? Fairy lights? What on earth?’
‘Dad! Everyone has fairy lights in their room. It’s a
thing.’
‘It’s not a thing in Burston. Crikey, when I was a lad
people thought you were posh if you bothered with a
lampshade on the big light.’ He laughed. ‘And besides, can
37
Amanda Prowse
you imagine what Eric and the like would say if they knew
you were buying lights from Ikea! They’d say “What’s
wrong with Siddley lights? Are we not good enough for
you now you’ve got a place at a fancy university?”’ He
smiled at the half-truth.
‘Okay, can I just say, don’t start any conversation with
anyone you meet at Uni with the words, “when I was a
lad” or “flippin’ ’eck!”’
‘Olly, you haven’t even finished your degree and you’re
already ashamed of me. This must be the great social div-
ide everyone speaks about.’
‘That’s right. And I am ashamed of you. I don’t want
Siddley lights; I want Ikea lights, and while we are on
the subject, don’t try to make a joke with anyone. Your
jokes aren’t funny, which makes them more like weird
statements.’ Oliver jumped from the passenger seat and
shut the door, laughing.
‘My jokes are funny,’ Nick huffed.
‘They’re not, Dad. It’s just that no one has the heart
to tell you.’
‘Well, you’re certainly all heart today, son.’
Nick followed him. This was a g
ood day. Not one he
had been looking forward to. Dropping his only child
in a city he had never visited was a fearful prospect, but
packing up the car to leave that morning, chatting en
route, stopping at the service station for a gargantuan
breakfast and even here, in this soulless car park, as their
light-hearted jibes flew back and forth, it felt as if a weight had been lifted, distracted as they were from the business
of grief by this momentous day.
Oliver grabbed a trolley and Nick felt an uncomfort-
able shiver at just how much money might be spent. They
had only been financially straight for a year or so, and since 38
The Light in the Hallway
Kerry had been ill he had worked his set hours and no more,
which meant no bonus and no spare cash. Not that he would
have changed a thing; spending as much time as possible
with her had of course been his priority, and neither did he
want to restrict his son in any way or put a dampener on
this day, but all that aside, with money tight, it was always at the forefront of his mind. His five-hundred-pound nest
egg was more quail sized than ostrich. They wandered into
the store and found themselves in the ‘marketplace’.
‘What on earth are these?’ Nick picked up the flat
square rubber trays that were stacked in a myriad of co-
lours, running his fingers over the jigsaw-shaped indents.
‘They are novelty ice-cube makers.’ Oliver held his
gaze, clearly waiting for the retort.
‘Of course they are. Who buys this stuff?’ Nick could
see no sense in spending good money just to have your ice
in the shape of a jigsaw piece or a ball, and who bothered
with ice anyway?
‘Everyone apart from us, Dad, that’s who.’
Nick laughed heartily. ‘Now that’s funny. I remember
you coming home from school and telling me you needed
a BMX because everyone had one apart from you, but you
were seven. I thought you might have grown up enough
to think of a more convincing argument.’
‘It was true, everyone had a BMX apart from me!’
‘Everyone?’ Nick raised his eyebrows.
‘Well, all of my mates and so it felt like everyone.’
‘When I was not much older than seven, my dad—’
‘I know. I know.’ Oliver raised his palm. ‘He made you
build a bike and it taught you a lesson, blah-di-blah-di-blah!
I really don’t need to hear the bike story again, but while
we are on the subject, everyone did have a BMX apart
from me.’