see an orange glow and feel his shins getting scorched as he used to with a coal fire.
‘What?’ he said. I’m sure he heard me perfectly well, but like most deaf people he’s got in the habit of saying ‘what?’ automatically to every conversational gambit - I notice myself doing it sometimes.
‘How have you been?’ I said, more loudly.
He grimaced. ‘Not too good. Never get a proper night’s sleep these days.’
‘You should get a new mattress,’ I said. This was a familiar topic, and the conversation took a well-trodden path, which went something like this, with much repetition and shouting:
‘There’s nothing wrong with my mattress.’
‘I’ll pay for it, Dad.’
‘It’s not a question of paying for it. I’ve got plenty of money.’
‘You would sleep much better on a firm mattress.’
‘It’s nothing to do with the mattress. It’s because of my . . . how’s your father. What d’you call it?’ He glanced down at his groin.
‘Prostate.’
‘That’s it. I was up four times last night.’
‘Have you been to the doctor about it?’
‘Old Simmonds? Oh yes. He says there’s an operation you can have. I said no thanks very much.’
‘Well, I don’t blame you, Dad.’ I essayed a joke: ‘I believe it can affect your sex life.’ But he didn’t hear and I didn’t feel like repeating it.
‘He gave me some tablets,’ he said.‘I suppose they’re sort of astringent. You know, to shrink the . . . whatsit. They don’t seem to make much difference.’ He shook his head gloomily. Then as usual he found a thought with which to cheer himself up: ‘Mind you, I can’t grumble. Eric for instance, he had it the other way.’ Eric was a second cousin who died several years ago. ‘He couldn’t go at all. They had to rush him to hospital. Put a thing up his . . .’ He mimed the insertion of a catheter with a wincing expression. Then after a pause, he said mildly: ‘No, I’ll get a new mattress one day. There’s no hurry.’
I could no longer restrain myself from commenting on his clothes. ‘I hope you’re going to change before we go out.’
‘Of course I’m going to change!’ he said crossly. ‘You don’t think I’d go out in these, do you?’ In truth I didn’t, but it irritates me when he dresses like a down-and-out at home, perhaps because there’s such a clear family resemblance between us. It’s as if he’s presenting to me a mocking effigy of myself. We’re both tall, bony, with high, stooped shoulders, and lined, long-jawed faces, so looking at him dressed like a guy on Bonfire Night is like seeing myself in dire straits twenty-odd years from now. He was wearing a pair of filthy high-waisted trousers, made of checked tweed so thick, and so stiff with dirt and stains of various kinds, that I imagined he stood them upright in the corner of his bedroom when he took them off, a soiled beige cardigan with holes in the sleeves at each elbow, and a frayed plaid shirt with the top two buttons missing, revealing his scrawny Adam’s apple and a crescent of yellowish undervest. With the possible exception of the undervest these clothes were not, I knew, worn-out items that he had long had in his possession, but fairly recent acquisitions scavenged from charity shops and jumble sales. On his feet he wore a pair of shabby carpet slippers trodden down at the heel.
‘Well, I wonder why you wear them at all,’ I said.‘Anybody would think you haven’t got any decent clothes.’ I knew that upstairs he had two wardrobes full of respectable clothes in good condition.
‘What’s the point of my dressing up when I’m indoors?’ he said indignantly.‘I don’t see anybody here from one day’s end to another.’
This was a covert appeal for pity, and not without effect, but I felt obliged to continue on the offensive. ‘You knew you were going to see me this morning,’ I said.
‘That’s different,’ he said. ‘Anyway, I’ve been doing jobs.’
‘What kind of jobs?’
‘Cleaning the stove.’
‘How are you getting on with it?’
The electric cooker is a new acquisition, though not a new appliance. I had offered to buy him a new one but typically he insisted on getting a reconditioned cooker from a shop up the road, the kind that has white goods displayed outside on the pavement with handpainted placards boasting bargain prices. It was certainly cheap, but there was no manual with it, and I wasn’t able to get him one since the manufacturers have