The Stromness Dinner E-Book

Peter Benson

• Herausgeber: Seren
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 335

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Ed Beech is one half of Beech Building Services. He's based in Bermondsey but no job's too small, no distance too great. So when he's asked to do some work on a house in Orkney, he loads the van with paint, tools and sandwiches, and takes off. He gets nervous around farm animals and large ships, and he's never been so far north, but when he's joined by Claire, his client's city banker sister, he discovers that in Stromness, anything is possible.Peter Benson's compelling new novel continues his exploration of unlikely relationships, and paints a vivid picture of a place where all is not what it seems, but might be."What's on the menu at The Stromness Dinner? Small plates, big flavours. Peter Benson has the miniaturist's eye for the tiny details that bring grand themes alive: the love of food, the love of island life, and a love of love itself. His novel is humorous, humane and horrible good (as we say in Stromness.)" – Duncan McLean"Benson's snappy novel rattles along with irresistible pace and panache... his story will captivate and entertain and the happy ending is a great treat during the current pandemic nightmare." – Val Hennessy

Leseprobe

THE STROMNESS DINNER

Although this story is based on things that happened, it is a novel. This means that in Orkney a lake is known as a loch, for example.

THE STROMNESS DINNER

PETER BENSON

Seren is the book imprint of

Poetry Wales Press Ltd,

Suite 6, 4 Derwen Road, Bridgend, Wales, CF31 1LH

www.serenbooks.com

facebook.com/SerenBooks Twitter: @SerenBooks

© Peter Benson, 2020

The rights of the above mentioned to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organisations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used ficticiously.

ISBN: 9781781725962

Ebook: 9781781725979

A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted at any time or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the copyright holder.

The publisher acknowledges the financial assistance of the Welsh Books Council.

Cover image by Eilidh Warnock

https://eilidhwarnock.wixsite.com/mysite/

Printed by Bell & Bain, Glasgow.

CONTENTS

One

We were Beech Building Services

I Was Parked and Met Marcus Bowen

The Jam Factory and London’s Larder

In the Miller with Nurses

The Scar on her Flawless Face

Dad Won Brexit but Knew he was Beaten

The Wardrobe and the Key

The Jam Factory Kitchen Tragedy

Rammed Manze’s and Art

Another Call from the Jam Factory

Like a Holiday but not Sunset Chilled Carnage

The Yorkshire Grey to the Honest Cabbage to the Garrison

Driving North with the Rude Duke

Overtaken by Norwegians

Eat that Thing Like a Bad Fist

The Ounce Before Sleep

A Place for Some Aliens

A Numbered List of Boats i have Known

Two

On a Pier with a Timetable

The Air of Barley Sugar or Pear Drops

Smart Orange Beaks

Old Fashioned Tobacco

Organise Prep do Done

Lucie Rie was from Vienna

You do not Need Nets and/or Bean Bags to Work on a Roof

Plod Calls Sometime After Midday

The Bowl’s in Cyprus Being Rented Out to Tourists

I am the Brother and Father of Fire

A Dead Man’s Stuff

Have a Look at My Horror Hand

Yellow Jackets with Sticks

The Directing thing Men do

Magda Gets Ready to Text her Fabulous Tits

Cat in the Drizzle

The Dump is Open and has Floats

We had Your Lot and you were Rubbish

Milk, Six Sugars, Twenty Grand

Bought by Nobs, OBVS

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Whatever

Ellen does some Cleaning

Booty and Bowly

If Jesus had had a Gun He’d be Alive Today

Claire with a Hard Shell Case on Wednesday

Fat Naked Pagan Weirdos

Skiing Horses Eat Omelettes

Spag Tart

Observatory Crest

Claire Talks About Neolithic Electricity

I Cannot be Taken Anywhere, Nowhere

People who Sound or Look Like Sausage

Random Minted Lumps of Metal

The Sands of Doomy

Hermann Lautenschläger’s Hasenpfeffer Schlägt ES

Muttley Out of Wacky Races

Physics, Monks and Tits

The Doughnuts that Make you Faint

Quelques Fleurs Sur le Cou de Marie Antoinette

Warm Pastry

Riding into the Wall

The Best Dinner i Ever had without a Bar

The Echo of a Dead Woman’s Whistling

The Orcadian was First Published in 1854

Art is the Future of the World

Nets are not for the Dutch

Most of the Things didn’t Happen Because it was a Novel

A Booklet Comes with the Bottle

Claire’s Room at the Ferry

Goodbye

Drinking in the Pub

It didn’t Take Me Long to Finish the Job and Tidy Up

Three

Everyone and Every Place is the Same

Three Calls Running

Back in the Miller

A Nice Flat But There’s No Way i could Live There

We are the Stromness Dinner

ONE

WE WERE BEECH BUILDING SERVICES

My dad and I were Beech Building Services. We did all kinds of work. No job too small. You called us. You told us what you needed. We’d turn up with a tape measure and a pencil. We’d give you a quote. If you liked the quote, we’d do the job. If the quote didn’t suit, we’d leave you alone. We were easy. We were Beech Building Services. We were based in Bermondsey, which is an area of London.

Dad used to live in Margate, which is by the sea. When he was younger he used to come up to the city for weekends and spend time with his Auntie Carol who lived on Tower Bridge Road. One weekend he met Mum in a pub. They got on. When the weekend was over, he went home but promised her he’d be back. He kept his promise. He went back. He bought a ring. She said yes. He went great. They got married. He decided he didn’t want to go back to Margate so they rented a place on Crosby Row. They had me. Later, he bought a place on Crosby Row, and later, after he’d got going with the building and decorating, he rented a lock-up to keep materials and the bigger tools, and the mixer. Then they had Sally. Beech Building Services was a small firm, but we didn’t want to be any bigger. We were good as we were.

We did plastering, joinery, roofs and decorating. If we needed a plumber we used Bob from Eland Plumbing & Heating. If we needed a sparks we used P.G. Electrics. We had 17 reviews on checkatrade.com with an average score of 9.87. At Beech Building Services we were proud of the service we offered.

We were busy. In 2018 we worked on twenty five big jobs and a couple of dozen weekenders. We liked to work.

My dad is Jack. He’s big and bald. Have a look at his gut. Check his neck. He likes his food. I’m Ed. I like my food, but in a different way to the way Dad likes it. He likes it because it tastes good and fills him up. I like it because I like to think about it, read about it, cook it and eat it. I should also say that I’m bigger than Dad. People can see me coming. I don’t lumber in but I can be useful. I don’t work out but I keep fit. That’s being a builder for you. I stay around fourteen and a half stone. It’s a healthy weight for my size. When I was at school I was called “Oi” but only once.

I like food and I like being neat. I kept my room neat, I kept the lock-up neat, I kept my clothes neat. Okay so when I was working I had to wear overalls and they got to look crap after a while, and my boots were knackered, but everyone has to make exceptions. Dad sometimes said my neatness was annoying but I told him being neat made us a better team, and customers liked it. They liked it when a job was half done and they came home and their homes were tidy, and I did too.

My mum is Joyce and a hairdresser. She goes to old peoples’ homes and care centres and does the residents’ hair. She likes food but I don’t know where she puts it. She’s a bit round in places, but otherwise I don’t think her doctor would tell her to cut down on butter. My sister is Sally. She’s a nurse. She likes her work. It keeps her fit. Boys will like her but they don’t know her and she won’t tell them. They have to find out for themselves. The dog’s Barney. He looks like he couldn’t hurt a fly, but if we were on a job and he was guarding the van, you wouldn’t want to try and nick some tools. He’d have your hand for a snack and your balls for afters. He’s the most philosophical dog in Bermondsey. Everyone loves Barney. He loves food.

Have a word with my Mum. Even I can tell why you would. Have the wrong word with her, or try something tasty, and she’ll boil your toes. And if you’re feeling brave, have another word with Sally. Sally is gorgeous. Cross her and she will do you up.

So there you have us.

We are the Beech family.

Get in.

We would do your job.

I WAS PARKED AND MET MARCUS BOWEN

Dad and I had a van. We had it sign written. It said “BEECH BUILDING SERVICES. DECORATING. KITCHENS. EXTENSIONS.” on the side. Below that it had our number and an email address. We didn’t have a website but we’d thought about it. We’d put boxes in the local freebie and online but the van was the best ad. If you parked it outside a job you’d get a call or a note under the wiper.

So we were doing a job on Page’s Walk. It was tiling a kitchen, fitting new tops and doors, sorting the floor and doing other stuff. It was a usual Tuesday in May. It was warm, just right. I went down to the van to eat a doughnut and fetch a drill. As I was sorting out the bits, an Audi TT pulled up behind me and a bloke in a suit got out. I say “suit” but this wasn’t any old suit. This was fitted and sharp, blue so dark it was almost black, matched with a pressed shirt and a shiny tie with embroidered flowers on it. His hair was dark and floppy, and his shave was tight. Polished brogues. Class.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi yourself,” I said.

“I’ve just moved in over there.” He pointed over his shoulder. “The Jam Factory.”

“Nice,” I said.

“It is. You do kitchens?”

“Doing one now.”

“Excellent. So could you give me a quote? I’ll want new worktops, cupboards, bits and pieces.”

“We could do that.”

He fished for his wallet, pulled out a card and gave it to me. “I’m in tomorrow night. Half seven okay?”

“Sure.” I looked at the card. His name was Marcus Bowen. He worked for a firm in the City. The card said he was a Consultant Strategist. I was going to ask what that was but then I didn’t. It didn’t matter. I like people who get straight to the point. He might have been posh but I could tell he was sound. I said “See you then, Marcus…” instead.

“And you’re?”

“Ed.”

“Thanks Ed,” and he got back in his car and drove off.

I sorted the drill and the rest of the bits, gave Barney some biscuits and made sure he had enough water, and went “Grrr…” at him. He growled at me and ate one of the biscuits. He’s better than any alarm you could buy. He’d have your hand for a snack and your balls for afters. I’ve already told you this, but it’s worth repeating. Barney. He’s a philosopher.

So I went upstairs to this flat. It was okay. Dad was in the kitchen. It was knackered. We’d done most of the prep but needed to sort a couple of damp patches. I said “Here you go,” and put the drill and the rest of the bits on the worktop.

“Ta,” he said.

“Cuppa?” I said.

“Why not?”

I put the kettle on and as I fished for some tea bags and milk and sugar and mugs I told Dad about the bloke I’d met in the street. He nodded and said “You want me there?”

“Up to you.”

He picked up the drill and whizzed it once. The batteries were charged. I’d done that. Be prepared. That’s what I always think. He said “Reckon you can handle it?”

“Don’t see why not.”

“It’s yours then.”

Giving a quote is simple. We’d got it down. It’s not a fine art. I’ve been to Amsterdam and while I was there I spent at least an hour in an art gallery so I know what I’m talking about.

THE JAM FACTORY AND LONDON’S LARDER

Bermondsey used to be London’s larder. There were factories all over. Baking was big business. The area used to be called biscuit town. The world’s first canning factory was in Bermondsey. Then there was brewing and jam making. So when Mr Hartley the jam man from up north wanted to build a factory in London, he came to Bermondsey and ended up building one, then two, then three. They still talk about him because he was a top boss. The workers were paid over the odds, got a share of the profits and a pension, and a doctor was always on call. Mr Hartley organised outings to the coast, dances at the weekends, all sorts. The business went tits up in the 1960s, and although the buildings escaped demolition they got knackered. So when they were done up for flats it was sweet for the old bricks and the area, and the posh lot moved in.

There are people who say that when you get posh moving in the area takes a dive, but that’s bollocks. It does nothing of the sort. When I was a kid, the streets of Bermondsey were mental. Okay, so you’ve got to keep your wits about you now, but nothing like it was in the old days. And when my old man was a kid it was even worse. He was in The Pagoda once, and there were some blokes in there who’d come up looking for the Cuban boxers who trained in the gym on Leroy Street. Useful south paws mostly. So the blokes were brazen about it, telling the landlord they were tooled up and what was he going to do about it and okay he could have dealt with one or two on their own, there was no way he was handling some gang with razored bats. So when the Cubans came round it kicked off and then it was a riot, and there had to be thirty blokes kicking lumps out of each other in the middle of Tower Bridge Road. And that’s a busy thoroughfare, and when the police came they got fighting too, and by the end of the night there were people dead outside where the picture framers is now. These days you might get some lad called Harry having a fight with some lad called Timothy because Timothy looked at Harry’s girlfriend Amanda, but it’s just swinging and missing over some clam linguini and a glass of Chablis and no one’s even a useful south paw, and they go home arm in arm. And that’s not progress? I call it peace.

So the next night I went round and rang Marcus Bowen’s buzzer at half seven on the dot. That’s another thing. Start as you mean to go on. Be on time. Get in. He buzzed me up and I was in the lift. I’d not been in The Jam Factory since they did it up and I could tell it was quality. It worked. It was smooth. It smelt of gloss. I got out at the fourth floor and he was waiting for me at his door. “Hi,” he said, and I said “All right?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool.”

I slipped on a pair of disposable overshoes (always a good touch and punters never expect it) and just as well because the flat was immaculate – a two bed with one en-suite, separate bathroom and a lounge/kitchen/diner. There was exposed brickwork and a cast iron column between the kitchen area and the dining table. That was a nice feature. There were some great views towards the city, and the worktops and cupboards looked perfect to me, but he didn’t like the style. I could see what he meant. The doors were white and the worktops were 20mm black granite, and he said “I want something more in keeping with the original style of the place. More wood.”

“Okay,” I said. So there’s beech block, oak block…”

“Oak,” he said.

“Good choice.”

“And oak for the cupboards.”

I went to one of the cupboards and opened it. “The carcasses are good. You want to keep them?”

“Carcasses?”

“Yeah. The frame, the back, the shelves. We don’t need to replace them – all we do is fit new doors, sides and tops and you’re away. Hell of a lot less disruption and you’ll save big time.”

“Money’s not a problem,” he said, “but I can see the sense.”

“We’ll do whatever you want, Mr Bowen…”

“Marcus…”

“Marcus. But if we’re going to rip all this out we’re talking weeks.”

“How long if you’ve just replacing the tops and doors?”

“A week at most.”

“Okay.”

“Want me to measure up?”

“Sure,” he said, so I did. It took me fifteen minutes. He left me to it. He went to a bedroom to make a phone call. I could hear him talking. I heard him say “You know I do…” and “About half nine.”

When I’d done I waited for him to finish and looked at his stuff. He had photographs on the walls, and a framed poster for a place called The Pier Arts Centre. He had books I’d never heard of on light wooden shelves, and a collection of knick-knacks. I say knick-knacks but they weren’t the sort of knick-knacks Mum would have at ours. She likes things like glass puppies and birds on branches that look like real birds. Marcus Bowen had stuff that looked valuable. There was an angular sculpture with holes in it that could have been a man, and a copper star mounted in a block of granite. I think this was a miniature weather vane. There was a very carefully carved wooden house on stilts with windows made of pebbles, and a delicately inscribed silver apple. The man had taste, and when he’d finished his call and came from the bedroom, he said “Okay. Got all you need?”

“I think so.”

“I’ll have to get some prices, but I should have something for you in a couple of days.”

“Great.”

IN THE MILLER WITH NURSES

When I left The Jam Factory I went down The Miller, my local. It wasn’t the best looking boozer but it did me, my mates Stu and Mo and the doctors and nurses from the hospital next door. That’s Guy’s. Doctors and nurses like a drink. I’d seen my doctor a couple of weeks earlier because I’d stuck a screwdriver in the back of my hand, and he wanted to check it was healing proper. Once he’d done that he asked me how much I drank. When I told him, he said I should cut down. So when I told him about the doctors and nurses I knew in The Miller, he said “That’s as maybe.” Then he asked me if I smoked. I told him that I didn’t do fags but I sometimes had a toot on the weekends, but only weekends. “Can’t be blazed on a working day. Not with the tools we use.” He gave me a look over the top of his glasses and then said “Careful as you go.” He was a good bloke.

I’ve been out with a few nurses. One was called Hannah. When we were going out, she was working in the urgent care centre. She dealt with stuff like broken bones and burns and idiots who’ve stuck screwdrivers into the back of their hands. She had very gentle hands. She was Irish. She smelt of apples and pastry and had skin that looked like full fat milk. We were good together. We weren’t jealous which was just as well because she was well into anyone. She shared a flat with a nurse from South Africa called Charity, and one night they got hammered and ended up in bed together. Hannah was honest with me and told me all about it. I was well turned on. I told her that next time it happened she should text and I’d come over. It did and she did and I did, and it was mental. Nurses are the best.

Hannah moved back to Galway. She was born there. She got a job in the hospital. When we said goodbye I was sad but I was glad too because I could see she was happy to being going home, and London had never suited her. She said “Don’t miss me, Ed. And you’re always welcome to visit, you know that.”

“Thanks,” I said, and to cheer myself up I went to a top restaurant and had the best dinner ever. The next week I met an Occupational Therapist called Susan. She was the most flexible woman I have ever met. She could tuck her ankles behind her neck. She was from Wolverhampton. She wasn’t jealous either. I think it’s a nurse thing, this. They see so much dirt and death that they’ve learnt that nothing is forever, temporary is the state of the world and we spend our lives practising goodbyes. So they can’t be troubling themselves with the whats and whys of whether whoever they’re with is only with them and them alone. I suppose faithfulness does come to everyone one day, so there’s no point forcing it.

At the time when I was in The Miller after seeing Marcus Bowen about his kitchen I was seeing Magda. She was Polish and had been Catholic but had given it up after she found out the priest at her home had been off with choirboys. I told her I thought if God was so clever why are oranges sticky, and she couldn’t argue with that. She wasn’t a nurse. She worked in a restaurant in The Shard. The Shard is the tallest building in the country. It’s amazing. One day I met her there when she came off her shift and we had a couple of drinks. After my second I went to the toilet. The place where you took a piss was a glass wall and beyond that there was the window so it was like you were pissing onto the trains hundreds of metres below.

So I was in The Miller and I’d been to see Marcus Bowen in The Jam Factory. I’d had a word with Jim the landlord, bought a pint, found a seat and texted Magda. She rented a place round the corner. It was her day off. I thumbed “Fancy a pint?” Stupid question. She loved a pint. Ten minutes later she was pushing her way into the pub. She was with her brother who was over from Warsaw to see if he could get a job. He was an engineer called Natan and wanted to work on the underground. I bought a round and we went back to where I was sitting and while Magda texted whoever, I told him that I knew someone who worked at the Neasden depot and I’d give him a call. He said he’d already had an interview at Hainault, and reckoned he’d done all right.

So we were drinking and I was telling Natan about my day and how if the old man and I weren’t working on a kitchen then we were working on a kitchen, and he thought this was funny. He said something about loving the British sense of humour. I told him we loved Polish sausage. “There, you see,” he said. “So funny.” I don’t know if he was checking me out, making sure I was okay for his sister, but it didn’t matter because we were splitting up anyway. I knew it, she knew, we knew it but we hadn’t decided when and how, just definite. Which is probably the best way to go about these things. Just know it’s not working and say “See you later” even though both of you know that’s the last thing that’s happening.

My mum had a word with me about this, said “When Dad and I were your age it was different. We never behaved like you and your sister.”

“What you talking about?”

“Once we were courting that was it. There was no going back. It wasn’t a game to us.”

“I’m talking about Sally.”

“What about her?”

“You said ‘you and your sister’ like Sally’s on the game or something.”

Mum shook her head. “Typical. One rule for you, another for her.”

“Eh?”

“You know what I mean, Ed.”

I suppose I did. I suppose I knew she could do what she wanted, and if she wanted to she could do what she wanted, but she was my sister and she was twenty two and if someone took advantage of her they’d have a problem. Yeah I know, she can take care of herself, but I was her brother and if she needed me to have a quiet word, I’d have a quiet word. This wasn’t a soap opera, but it could have been.

So I was drinking with Magda and Natan and because he was staying I didn’t go back to hers after, and because our place is small I went back to mine on my own. I needed an early night anyway. It had been a busy week and I was knackered.

THE SCAR ON HER FLAWLESS FACE

A couple of days later I went back to The Jam Factory with the quote for Marcus Bowen’s kitchen. Once we’d gone through it he said “Looks good to me…” and offered me a beer. I said that I didn’t mind if I did and he passed me a bottle. It was exactly the sort I expected. Something from the Czech Republic with a name no one but a Czech person can say. We drank. I can tell a good beer and this was better than good. This was gold with balls.

We were talking start dates and stuff when the buzzer rang. A woman said “It’s me.” Marcus said “Come on up.”

“Thanks.”

“I’ll have to chuck you out in a minute,” he said. “That’s my sister, and we’ve got to talk family.”

“Of course,” I said.

“But I think Monday next would be fine.”

“I’ll have to check with my old man, but yeah, good…”

He stood up, patted me on the shoulder and went to the front door, and a moment later came back with his sister. She was a woman who looked like she understood power, money and threads. I expected her to look down her nose at me, but when Marcus said “Ed, this is Claire,” she smiled and put out a hand, and as we shook she said “Nice to meet you, Ed,” as if it really was. Her voice was posh but not too posh, and she had a faint lisp, and her hand was like crumpled tissue paper in mine. I was embarrassed that something so soft should have to touch something so rough. I said “Hi.”

She smiled at me. Her eyes were green and bright. I think she might have used some of those eye drops that are useful when you’ve been sanding and forgotten your goggles. Her hair was short and neat and brown. She had a tiny scar on her chin. It was the size and shape of a pared finger nail, and a shade lighter than the rest of her skin which was tanned but not too tanned. Not a bed tan. This was a tan from somewhere class and the sort of tan you get when you know how bad the sun can be. Just a touch.

She took off her coat and dropped it on the couch, and as she did the air blossomed with the scent of her perfume. I could try and tell you what the scent was, how it reminded me of a fruit cake without the cake, a bucket of ice without the water, and the back of the Tandoori at the top end of the Tower Bridge Road, but I wouldn’t be close. So I’ll add that it smelled of a dream though using the word “smelled” sounds wrong, because it really didn’t smell at all. It scented or chimed or maybe it hummed – I’m not exactly sure – but it was like a load of notes all played in harmony with each other, and although I tried hard not to stand there with my mouth hanging open like a drooling fool, I could not stop myself. She was wearing one of those suits you know cost five grand, and her blouse was blinding white, and she had little earrings that were circles of blue enamel set in a silver ring. Her watch sparkled and the scar on her chin made her face flawless. And as Marcus went to a cupboard and took out a wine glass, and went to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of wine, I said “Er…” and finished my beer. Then I said “Thanks for the beer, Marcus. Once I’ve got the materials, I’ll give you a call. Should be later this week.”

“Ed’s doing the kitchen,” Marcus said.

“Good for you,” Claire said. She crossed her legs. The air in the flat crackled. I opened my mouth to say something but the words were stuck in there like rubbish. I could feel them being crap. I went for the door. Marcus followed me. I could tell he knew. I suppose he’d seen it before. “Okay,” he said. I bent down to take off my overshoes. “Yeah,” I said, and stepped into the hallway outside the flat. “Laters.”

“Of course.”

I headed down the hallway and he closed the door. I reached the lift. I pushed the button. I heard it whirr. I looked back towards Marcus’s flat. The lift arrived. The doors opened. I stepped inside. The doors closed.

The lift was full of Claire’s scent. I stood there for a moment, closed my eyes and let it fill me. I opened my eyes. I looked at the buttons. I didn’t care about the buttons. They could have been liquorice allsorts or the eyes of a numbered beast. I was feeling weird. I wasn’t used to feeling weird. When I got outside, I stood on the street for a few minutes and took some deep breaths. It wasn’t raining.

Twenty minutes later I was in The Miller with a pint. That helped. Magda was working so I didn’t call her, but a couple of girls I’ve known since way back were there, so I went and talked to them. One was called Rachael and the other was called Jo, and they told me that some bloke we all knew from school had been shot in Dalston. I said “Dalston?” and they said “Yeah…” and I said “What was he doing up there?” and they said “Dunno.” I went to Dalston once, but going up there was like going to the moon. It was like “why?”

Rachael and I had something way back, but she’d gone solid muff so we were cool and both knew it. I think Jo didn’t give a toss either way but whatever, I thought, because all I could smell was Claire’s perfume, that long scent of flowers and spices and cake without the cake and ice and a dropped, beautiful coat, and that lift in The Jam Factory.

I bought a round and we carried on talking about the old days and how it was sweet The Miller was still a decent boozer. And later, when I was back home and in bed, I thought about how I was a lucky bloke and Bermondsey was a top place to live. Better than Dalston any day. You won’t get shot in Bermondsey for walking in a boozer and saying something wrong about someone you hardly knew. So I turned over and thought about Magda but the more I tried to think about Magda the more I thought about Claire, and as soon as I thought about Claire the scent of her perfume came back to me again, and I got confused. And the more confused I got the more I knew that unless I focused I would not be able to have a tug, and then I cursed myself and my 29 years. It was a good age to be, but fearsome.

DAD WON BREXIT BUT KNEW HE WAS BEATEN

We were lucky. Dad bought our place in the 1970s when no one wanted to live round here and all the houses were draughty, damp and cheap. Rats cruised the streets, you had to go to Italy if you wanted a cappuccino, and you could smoke on the tube. The house is an end of terrace and Dad paid something like £40,000 for it. One in the same road went for £760,000 in 2016.

It’s a three bed with a converted loft and a garden so we all had space, and Barney had his spot in the corner of the kitchen by the fridge. It’s in good nick – we did loads of work on it. Mum and Dad’s room is in the front, Sally’s got the loft and I had a room at the back. We all contributed and there was no mortgage. We were comfortable and we were lucky and the council took the bins. The neighbours were sound.

I say we got on but we had an argument when we needed to. Like Dad was well up for Brexit and the rest of us thought the whole thing was bollocks. He said stuff like “Them Polish builders are under-cutting us,” but Sally said that if we came out of the EU the NHS would collapse and then he’d be sorry if he had a turn. Mum said most of the people who looked after the old people she did in care homes were foreign because Brits were too lazy to do the work, and they were all brilliant too. I said the Polish builders were good for our business because they were all hard workers and did a good job mostly, and that meant we had to up our game. Dad just sat there and after a while he stopped arguing and said nothing because he knew he was wrong. And then, when Brexit won, even though he hadn’t changed his mind and still thought we were going to be overrun with Turkish or whatever country the paper had said were coming, he didn’t crow. He knew better than to do something like that. And the irony is that a week later we needed a plumber in a hurry and our usual one, Bob from Eland Plumbing & Heating couldn’t make it, so they sent a Czech bloke called Imrich, and he was the best plumber we ever worked with. He did the job in half the time we expected and when he left you wouldn’t have thought he’d been. There wasn’t a drip, a spot or a scratch. “He was good,” Dad said. “I’ll grant you that. And yeah, okay, blokes like him, they’re welcome, but not those scroungers.”

“What scroungers?” I said. “I don’t see any.”

“They’re in the paper.”

“Is that the same paper that promised us six months of snow last summer?”

“I don’t know.”

“And the one that said we’re going to be hit by an asteroid next Tuesday? Or was it Wednesday?”

Dad shrugged. He’d won Brexit but knew he was beaten. So it’s easier to believe convenient lies than an awkward truth, but whatever. I wasn’t going to let the biggest load of political twattery ever come between me and my old man. I think him and Sally had stronger words but she’s got more lip on her than me, which is just as well considering some of the people she has to deal with at her work. She works in A&E at St Thomas’s, and the stories she tells would make you go “no”. Blokes who turn up with sore throats, women with paper cuts from loading photocopiers, children who’ve bit their tongue instead of a biscuit. Someone bought their dog in because they thought it had swallowed a key and what was Sally going to do about it? “Tell you and your dog to piss off…” is what she was going to do about it, apparently. And when some gay bloke turned up with an old style Nokia up his arse and she laughed, the bloke threatened to take her to court until she told him she was gay too and was an old style Nokia all he could manage? Why didn’t he try an iPhone 6 Plus? So when Dad told her he was voting Brexit she got right on his back and stayed there until it was obvious he wouldn’t change his mind. I don’t know why she bothered. He’s a stubborn man and she knows it but she was that passionate about it and how it will screw us all up and what’s the point in trying to go back to some sort of nostalgic place that didn’t exist in the first place, or if it did it was full of scout masters who could fiddle with impunity and teachers who could beat a kid for laughing in assembly, and ward matrons with huge syringes, and smoking on buses and every copper was bent and every politician kept a whore in his back bedroom and if you wanted a telephone you had to join a six month waiting list and you could say “No blacks or Irish” if you had a room to let, and no one knew what pancetta was. Whatever, Dad. Let’s crack on.

Mum kept mostly quiet about the whole thing. She’s the quietest out of the four of us, but that’s not to say she’s not lively. If she wants to, she’ll tell you stuff you’d never think she’d know. As well as her hairdressing of old ladies she always has a course on the go. If it’s not something with the Open University she’s up the Thomas Calton Centre where the council do their adult education. She’s done making jewellery out of recycled stuff, and she’s done London history walks, and the last one was about writing her memories. She told us she had more memories of Bermondsey than anyone else in the street so it was down to her to write them down except she didn’t know how. So she said she’d find out.

The class was taken by a writer called Charles. He had written a book about the meaning of roads. I have no idea what the meaning of roads means, but he made Mum happy, except when he said that what writers did was important and could change lives. “You think what you do is important?” she asked him. She didn’t care.

“Of course. Creating is important. As a woman, you should know that.”

“Oh please. What you do means nothing to most people. Nurses – they do important work. And builders. Doctors. Bus drivers.”

“Okay. But if you think of the world as a person…”

“Eh?”

“Hear me out, please. If you think of the world as a person, it’s got to have a soul, right?”

“Why would I want to think of the world as a person? It’s the world. It’s just a big rock.”

“Listen.”

“Okay.”

“So writers, artists, composers, people like that, they’re contributing something that no one else can.”

“Says you.”

“They’re making the world a better place.”

“Oh yeah. Artists are so persuasive. What they do makes such a difference. They really change minds. Brexit. Trump. Putin. That bloke in Austria. They’ve really helped to make the world a better place.”

“We can make a difference.”

“Yeah,” said Mum, “and I can boil an egg. That doesn’t make me a chicken.”

I wasn’t there so I can’t promise that this was how the conversation went and what Mum said about chickens, but when she got back from the class she gave us word for word, so who am I to say that what she said isn’t true? And if some writer can get a gig like that and it keeps people happy and argumentative, what am I to do about it? I’m doing nothing. I’m going down The Miller and meeting Magda and having a few pints.