‘Ah, but it wasn’t a real prayer,’ Cecilia said. ‘Winifred has never regarded patience as a virtue to be cultivated. She was born impatient - the shortest labour of my four.’
This was the most interesting conversation I had ever had with my mother-in-law. In the course of it Dad stirred, levered his long body upright, switched off his radio, and went out of the room without saying anything or glancing in my direction. I presumed he had gone to the toilet, but he didn’t come back, and when I went looking for him I discovered he had gone to bed.
28th December. I took Dad home today. He was in a better mood this morning, having swallowed some of his liquid paraffin last night to good effect. ‘We got a result,’ he told me at breakfast, in a hoarse stage whisper which Cecilia pretended not to hear. He was all packed and ready to leave by ten o’clock. Fred, perhaps feeling a little guilty for being sharp with him yesterday, gave him a food parcel to take home: slices of turkey breast and ham, wedges of cheese, mince pies, apples and oranges, all wrapped separately. He thanked her warmly and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Thanks for everything, my dear,’ he said. ‘Goodbye Celia,’ he said, shaking Cecilia’s hand. ‘Goodbye, Mr Bates,’ she said. ‘Have a safe journey. And a happy New Year to you.’ ‘Yes, happy New Year, Harry,’ Fred chimed in. He grimaced. ‘Oh, well, I won’t be sitting up for it, I can tell you. New Year means nothing to me now. A happy New Week is the most I hope for.’
‘Yes,’ he said reminiscently, as we drove away from the house, ‘New Year’s Eve used to be the one night of the year when everybody in Archer Street would have a gig, no matter if they were one-armed drummers or tone-deaf sax-players, and at double the usual money.You got booked up months ahead for New Year’s Eve. Not any more.’ And he went into a familiar riff on the decline of live dance music. On the motorway he fell silent, and I thought he had dozed off, but he suddenly surprised me by saying: ‘What happened to that man who was at your house last night?’
‘What man, Dad?’ I asked.
‘There was a man in the lounge last night, talking to Celia.’
‘That was me, Dad. I was the only man in the lounge, apart from you.’
‘No, it was another bloke. I didn’t say goodnight to him because I’d forgotten his name. I wanted to apologise to him this morning, but he must have gone.’
This delusion worried me, but I did not press the point.
The journey was not too bad. I had taken the precaution of putting a wide-necked bistro-style wine decanter under the passenger seat for emergencies, but there was no need to use it. We stopped at three service centres on the way at carefully calculated intervals, and got back to Lime Avenue at about three in the afternoon, as the winter daylight was already fading. The house, with all its curtains drawn, seemed dark and cheerless inside, and I felt a spasm of compunction at delivering Dad back to this depressing habitat, even though it was his own choice. The only mitigating factor was that it felt reasonably warm. ‘Gawd, I left the hall radiator on!’ Dad said, putting his hand on it as we came in. ‘I could swear I turned it off.’ In fact he had - turning it on again was the last thing I did before leaving the house. But the kitchen with its greasy oilcloth and chipped Formica, and the dining room with its threadbare carpet and sagging chairs, reminded me of stage sets for early plays by Pinter. ‘Wouldn’t you rather be in that nice clean, bright place we saw yesterday?’ I said.‘With somebody else cooking you a hot meal?’ ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m glad to be home. And I’ve got all that lovely grub your wife gave me.’ We’d bought some milk and bread at one of the motorway services shops, so he was indeed well supplied for the time being. I had a cup of tea with him, and took my leave.
I drove back with the radio on at high volume - Jazz FM in the London area, then Radio Four and Classic FM on the motorway - stopping once for a meal and a short nap in the car, and got back home at about nine-thirty. Fred