to go over and help Nanna Beth when she’s got a performance tomorrow and she should be saving her voice. The performance Mum was talking about is the local theatre’s rendition of Chicago, but nonetheless … apparently she’s been working on it for weeks now.
‘She’s a part-time actress, yeah. Never quite made it to the West End, but she’s done a few bits on television and stuff like that.’
‘Wow. That’s amazing.’
‘She’s hoping to get a job on one of the cruise ships, so she’ll be away for ages.’
‘That’ll be weird for you,’ Alex says, looking up at me through his dark fringe.
I shake my head. ‘She was always away a lot when I was growing up.’
‘With work?’ He looks at me, head slightly to one side, his expression thoughtful.
‘Um,’ I frown a bit and fiddle with the wooden coffee stirrer. It’s not something I talk about very often, but there’s something about Alex that makes me feel it’s safe to open up. ‘She wasn’t great at the whole birthdays and Christmases thing, so my grandparents kind of picked up the slack there. And sometimes she had boyfriends who weren’t that keen on children – well, on me – so I ended up spending more and more time with my grandparents, until it ended up being pretty much a permanent fixture.’
‘Wow.’ He sort of sits back a bit, looking at me. ‘That must’ve been hard then. I mean, when your grandpa died, it was like losing a parent.’
I chew my lip and look across at where the little girl is playing. She and her dad are heading off down the canal-side now. She’s meandering on her bike, unsteady on two wheels, and he’s got his hand at the small of her back, protecting and guiding her. I blink hard, because for a strange half-second I feel tears stinging at my eyes.
‘Yeah.’ I look down at the table for a moment, gathering myself, then look up at Alex. He’s got such a kind face. ‘It was hard, because it was like we lost him twice – first when the dementia set in, and then again when he died.’
Alex nods. ‘I get it. When my dad died I felt guilty because the first thing I felt was relief. He’d been sick for ages – and cancer just seemed to change him. He wasn’t the same person at the end.’
‘That’s exactly it.’ I let out a sigh. ‘And so you decided to retrain as a nurse.’
He nods. ‘I know everyone thinks it’s insane. It’s just – I saw the difference they made to Dad. To everyone in the ward. And I watched him fading away and I thought about all the stuff he’d done, and how he made a difference – the buildings he worked on are actual, concrete things. There’s a children’s hospice in Liverpool that he worked on, and they took the parents’ and the children’s views into account when they built it, because he said that mattered.’ He looks away then for a moment, and I reach across the table, forgetting myself, and put a hand on his arm. He looks back and his eyes are shining with tears, which he wipes away with a sleeve, making a self-deprecating face. ‘Sorry.’
‘God, don’t be. That’s so lovely.’
‘Yeah. I haven’t ever really talked about that, you know?’ He rubs his nose for a moment and then picks up the other wooden stirrer and starts snapping it into tiny pieces. ‘Thing is I wanted to do something worthwhile. Corporate law wasn’t it. I want to do something that I can be proud of, if …’ He tails off.
‘I get it.’
He looks at me then, holding my gaze for a second. My hand’s still on his arm and I move it away, feeling suddenly shy.
He smiles and stands up, holding his hand out to me to pull me up to standing. ‘I’m glad you do.’
We walk home together through the gathering dark of the February evening. There’s still the tiniest hint of spring streaking across the sky as the night falls, and I feel happy. Properly, straightforwardly happy. It’s a good feeling.
When we get back, the house is in uproar. Emma is standing on one of the kitchen chairs, holding a loaf of our home-made sourdough bread and swearing profusely.
‘Um,’ says Alex, looking at me and raising his eyebrows. ‘Hi?’
‘There’s a – thing – eating my bread.’
I look at Alex and burst out laughing. ‘You didn’t take a bite after working a long shift yesterday?’