going to St James’s Church.’
We both have responsibilities.
‘Yes, you’d better get along then,’ he says.
‘I’m going now.’
‘Time doesn’t wait for the terminally ill.’
It is the sort of thing that I would say. I try and think of a reply.
‘Well, I’m off to do my duty,’ I say.
‘Good chap.’
I shout, ‘Bye!’ and close the front door loudly. I run along to the end of my street and turn left up Constitution Hill. Constitution Hill is cobbled, very steep and famously good for joyriding. My legs start to ache but I keep on running.
I turn first left again, coming back on myself along Montpellier Terrace, the street behind our house. I sprint until I recognize the tall frog-green gate that opens on to the upper level of our back garden. My parents usually bolt the gate closed and, as a further security measure, the high back-garden wall has been topped with broken glass embedded in concrete. From many days of forgetting my house keys, I have learnt that there is a certain spot on the wall where I can get a decent handhold without opening my wrists.
I stick my toes into gaps in the masonry and heave my head above the lip of the wall. I can see into the kitchen, the music room, the study and the frosted glass of the bathroom.
Dad is standing in his study. His right hand is on his belly through an undone button on his shirt. His left hand is a fist; he rubs his knuckles on his lips. He looks around at the things in his room: the inset bookshelves, the crane-neck lamp, the letter holder, the expensive painting of navy and yellow squares, the off-white filing cabinets that prop up the slab of hardwood that he uses for a desk. He is thinking: Just look at all this shit. What is any of it for? Lloyd! This is the moment to save your marriage. He puts a hand out for balance on to his pile of marking. He’s thinking: Fuck Graham! I love that woman – yes, that woman – and I’m going to show her how much.
There’s a whole soap-opera monologue going on in that freckled, pinkish skull. He’s gone; he’s walked out the door and left it open.
I jump down off the wall and stand in the road, feeling conspicuous, like a burglar scoping out a property.
I think about Dad busting through the double doors of St James’s Church, tearing his vest off, karate-chopping and elbow-dropping his way past twenty or thirty sweating henchmen. Mum’s in the pulpit, tied up at the hands and feet, a capoeira cord stuffed in her mouth. Dad rips off her restraints.
‘Welcome to the advanced class.’ Graham’s voice comes from the rafters.
Dad spins round, looks up. Graham’s in full capoeira costume, standing on a ceiling cross-beam.
With Mum clinging to his back like a shell, Dad defies gravity, leaping up on to a rafter.
‘First lesson: the cuckold kick,’ Graham says.
The world slips into slow motion. Graham launches a flying kick. Mum whispers something into Dad’s ear as she slides off his back; Dad sidesteps to the left and Mum to the right. They reach out and hold hands to create a formidable, romantic clothesline that catches Graham on his Adam’s apple, sending him coughing to the floorboards.
There’s a sound from the garden, in the top terrace. Someone treading, the rustling of leaves. I wait for the sound to subside before clambering up to have a peek. I see Dad walking down the steps with a fistful of rosemary. I watch him go back into the kitchen. The chopping board is out. There’s a lemon, a pestle and mortar and I think I can make out a bulb of garlic.
With his back to me, he has head-lock control over the pestle and mortar. He lines up clove after clove under the knife handle, smushing each one with a swift chop. The lemon squeezer is a torture device – he crushes two citric skulls.
So this is it. Marinating. If Die Hard 2 had ended like this I would have felt utterly cheated.
27.7.97 – summer holidays are go.
Word of the day: lemon – informally used to mean unsatisfactory, defective.
Dear Diary,
My mother tried. I saw that she tried.
Who can blame her for coming home after her grading, showering quickly and heading straight out again to a beach-party celebration with her capoeira mates. I managed to speak to her for a moment while she was looking for a beach towel.
She told me that