‘Bills’, ‘Bank’, ‘Savings Certificates’, etc., but it stands unused on the floor in a corner of the room, empty apart from a few fliers offering discounts on double glazing and garden furniture.
‘I couldn’t get on with it,’ he says, closing the flap of the bureau and sending a small avalanche of papers sliding into its interior, his preferred filing system. ‘Will you have a cup of coffee?’
‘I’ll make it myself.’
‘Yes, make it yourself, I don’t know how much to put in.’ He means how much of his instant coffee, an economy brand called ‘Instant Coffee’, best taken black with a little sugar. He follows me into the kitchen, which is in a dispiriting state of dirt and disorder. ‘Will you have a cup?’ I ask, searching for one that isn’t cracked or chipped or covered in grease.
‘No thanks, coffee goes right through me.’
‘The usual place for lunch?’
He looks worried. ‘Well I’ve got a bit of cold scrag of lamb left from the weekend, but it’s not enough for two.’
‘No, do you want to go to Sainsbury’s for lunch?’ I say, raising my voice. His face lights up with relief, and he bares his false teeth in a smile. ‘Yeah, that would be nice.’
‘Well, go and have a shave and get changed.’ While he is upstairs I put on a very dirty floral apron that is hanging behind the door, and a pair of yellow rubber gloves, and try to clean up the kitchen a bit, beginning with a stack of soiled dishes on the draining board which I realise belatedly have already been washed up, but not so that you would notice.Then I tackle the work surfaces with a scrubbing brush and some cleaning fluid I find under the sink. I notice a new burn mark next to the stove. I don’t hear Dad coming down the stairs.
‘Have you seen my brown suede shoes, dear?’ he says from the kitchen doorway, behind my back. I turn round, startled by this mode of address, and see his expression change from enquiry to surprise and then disappointment. He is shaven and fully dressed apart from his feet, which are in thick woollen socks. ‘I thought you were Norma,’ he says. ‘In that apron. And the gloves.’
‘Sorry, Dad,’ I say. ‘I didn’t mean to . . .’
‘You haven’t seen her, have you?’
‘Mum?’ He nods. ‘Mum’s dead, Dad,’ I say gently. ‘She died thirteen years ago.’
‘Did she? Yes, of course she did. Course she did . . . But I hear her, you know, moving about upstairs when I’m down here. I hear the floorboards creaking. And when I’m upstairs I hear her in the kitchen, washing up.’ He doesn’t appear to regard these experiences as unusual or disturbing - on the contrary, they seem to have relieved his loneliness. I am moved as well as worried by his account.
We take a minicab down to Sainsbury’s. We both have fish and chips with peas in the cafeteria, and when he has finished his pudding, apple pie and ice cream, and seems to be in a good mood, I float the idea of his moving into a residential care home somewhere near us. Immediately the corners of his mouth turn down and he shakes his head emphatically. ‘No, son. Thanks, but no thanks.’
I take out of my pocket a brochure for the most attractive-looking of the homes I have contacted in the last week or so and show it to him, pointing out the pictures of bright, well-furnished bed-sitting rooms with en suite bathrooms, the comfortable lounge, and the dining room with separate tables. ‘You have your main meals cooked for you, but there’s a little hotplate and kettle in the room so you can make your own breakfast and snacks.’
‘How much is all that going to cost?’
‘Never mind that now,’ I say. ‘You could afford it, and if necessary, I’ll make up the difference.’
He looks at the brochure as if trying and failing to imagine himself inhabiting the place it pictured. ‘No, son, it wouldn’t suit me. I like my own home. I know where everything is . . .’
‘You don’t, Dad,’ I say, rather unkindly. ‘You don’t know where your savings certificates are, or your suede shoes. You can’t find anything when you need it.’
‘That’s because I’ve got such a lot of gear. What would I do with all my things in a poky little place like that?’ He prods a picture of a bed-sitting room in the brochure.
‘Well, you’d have to get