Canvey Island (27 page)

It was a scrappy game, Gascoigne fired up and going in too hard, Nottingham Forest taking the lead and Tottenham only equalising after Lineker had missed a penalty. I never thought we'd actually win; and even then it was after extra time and a Des Walker own goal.

Dad was unimpressed. ‘Two–one. Just scraped home, I suppose.'

‘Plenty of incident, Dad.'

‘I suppose so.'

We watched Gary Mabbutt hold the cup aloft but then Dad wanted to get home and beat the crowds.

‘Not much of a victory.'

‘It could have been worse, Dad.'

‘Gascoigne was a disgrace. And Lineker missing a penalty! He took it too quick, that was the problem. It was like he wanted to get it over with. He should have taken his time.'

‘We won, Dad, that's all that matters.'

‘Don't suppose I'll be coming to one of these again. Another thing to tick off …'

‘You never know, Dad …'

‘I do know, son. I'm as creaky as the Tottenham defence these days.'

Three years later, I tried to persuade him to move down and stay with us. We could have built an extension or converted the basement, but it was far from his friends and, besides, he told me, ‘It's a different coast; I'm Canvey. I don't want to be with dying charlies in the south. I've always hated Eastbourne.'

‘Not Eastbourne: Brighton, Dad.'

‘Lot of actors and nancy boys …'

‘It's not like that …'

In the end, we found a residential home on the island that claimed to offer every comfort: own furniture if wished, wheelchair access and stair lift, pets by arrangement. It was a well-proportioned building with a glassed-in widows' walk and a conservatory facing the sea, promising ‘the peace and tranquillity your loved-ones deserve', which might, I realised, mean silence and despair. But at least it wasn't far from his favourite pub.

The home had once been a hotel that had made the mistake of setting its standards of décor too low for a family holiday and its morals too high for adultery. The two-star wallpaper remained together with the swirling carpet and the linoleum in the hallways. Now it had gained the fustiness of rooms without air, the faint but persistent scent of urine and the bright efficiency of a matronly woman in a blue suit which looked like a uniform but wasn't.

Mrs Harrison was a less fortunate version of Vi, with well-groomed hair, sharp nail varnish and a laugh so loud that I imagined it hid the desperate sadness of a once-lost love. Her bright smile said only one thing: ‘Please, please, don't talk to me about the past.'

I walked past the other old boys in the home: those who had made the mistake of never marrying, or of being the youngest child in a family where everyone else had died; of not being rich, or of not having children. One of them was singing a Scottish ballad to companions whose hearts were kept going by surgery, stents and pacemakers. Another was scratching at his scalp, letting the dandruff fall before his eyes.

‘Still snowing,' he laughed.

Dad sat in a motorised wheelchair, his herringbone coat on, a tweed cap by his side.

‘Hello, son.'

‘I'm not late?'

‘No. Not late,' Dad echoed, his voice made distant by emphysema. ‘But the pub'll be open.'

‘Where are we going?' I asked.

‘Where do you think? We'll find a corner in the Canute. It's too hot to be outside on a day like this, don't you think?'

‘You could take your coat off.'

‘I like my coat.'

I looked at the old studio photograph of my family on the wall: Lucy in a gingham dress, Claire and me smiling behind her.

‘I booked the chair with Mrs Harrison,' said Dad. ‘It was my turn anyway. I won't be able to walk back after a skinful.'

‘I hope you'll be careful,' the housekeeper said.

‘Well, I've had enough time to get ready. Don't get many visitors round here, son. Only you and Vi. She's still at the house in Cedar Road: you remember?'

‘Of course.'

‘No Claire?'

‘She has to see her parents. And she's working.'

‘Doing what?'

‘She's training to be a therapist.'

‘I thought she was the one that needed the therapy.'

‘Don't, Dad.'

‘What about Lucy?'

‘She's at school. You know that.' I decided not to reveal that she had been sent home after a particularly challenging assembly in which she and a group of friends had turned the Monkees' ‘I'm a Believer' into ‘I'm a Crack Dealer'.

‘Still at least you're here. You've got the time. That's one thing.'

‘I've been busy too.'

‘Oh, you're not busy. You've never put your arm out straight.'

He wheeled past the conservatory and the men without visitors, residents no longer in control of their lives. They could not choose the meals, or their timing, or the colour of their room. They could not decide what they wanted to watch on the telly, or the volume,
or the chair they sat in.
God
, I thought,
they can no longer even decide when to put on their socks and shoes, their pants or their shirts, so dependent are they on the routine of others
.

‘Come on, son, what are we waiting for? Open the door.'

Dad revved his wheelchair and sped out through the French doors and into the street. He had decided, long ago, to treat old age as a sick joke which could only be countered with a steady supply of alcohol. He was determined that both its benefits and its disadvantages should outrun any possibility of Alzheimer's. It would be the quicker oblivion.

‘I never expected this,' my father called back as I struggled to keep up.

‘What do you mean, Dad?'

‘Being old, what do you think I mean? It's like they've changed the rules of the game without telling me.'

‘You're all right.'

‘Sometimes I can feel my own dead body growing inside me.'

He turned down into Long Road and approached a group of schoolboys lighting up. They were blocking his path and didn't look like moving but Dad rang a little bell on his wheelchair and wheezed out, ‘Coming through.' He had no intention of stopping and the boys were at first annoyed, and then amused, by the speed at which Dad made his royal progress through the streets.

I wished I could have talked to him as an equal: when he was at his best, as a young man with hope and love before him.

‘You never know when the ref's gonna blow the final whistle, son. You can't even tell when it's half time.'

‘I'll get you a pint, Dad.'

‘Be all right with some beer inside me.'

There was a table free by the door, directly in the draught, but I knew Dad would like the breeze.

I went to the bar and ordered two pints of IPA from a girl in a black-and-white striped top. The pub was scattered with single people sitting at small round tables smoking or silently staring into space, their activity confined to picking up a pint, lighting a cigarette, or turning the page of a newspaper (GERMAN FISH FINGERS ARE BEST, SAY TESCO).

I returned with the drinks and watched Dad survey the scene, his
large waterlogged hands resting on the edge of the table. I could not imagine that I would ever think like my father, or be like him; and yet now here I was, with my daughter looking at me in the same way that I looked at my father and Vi: with disbelief, and with a hint of pity and revulsion; how could anyone be so
old
?

‘Here you go, Dad.'

How long
, I thought,
how long will it be till I am like him?

I couldn't decide what Martin was up to. I only hoped his visit wasn't an excuse to see Linda again. You could never tell with him.

‘Give us a fag,' I said.

Martin produced a packet of ten, bought to con himself that he no longer smoked twenty a day.

‘I read in the paper they're going to make the health warning bigger,' I said. ‘They think smoking lowers your sperm count.'

‘Bit late for that.'

‘Oh, I don't know. I don't like to tell tales but one of the boys, Chuckie, gets helped out by the nurses.'

‘Not Mrs Harrison?'

‘No. Another one. Georgia.'

‘The one who's not quite all there?'

‘Well, she makes up for it, I can tell you. Ten quid. Extra relief.'

‘You're joking.'

‘Why would I do that? God's truth. He told me himself. “The lift may not go to the top floor, Lenny boy, but it stops in all the right departments.” '

‘I don't believe it.'

‘Told me I should try it.'

‘You're seventy-eight.'

‘So? A few years ago one of the boys got the clap. Imagine.'

‘That can't be true.'

‘Then another. Nurse Georgia was making a fortune. I should think she could get through four in an hour. That's forty quid on
top of her wages and no harm done. Wouldn't take her long. Not with those boys.'

‘I'd have thought some might have difficulties.'

‘Not with Georgia. She's some nurse, I can tell you.'

‘Next thing you'll be telling me you're saving yourself for her …'

‘The lads thought it was Christmas. Then someone read in the paper that regular ejaculation helps stop prostate cancer and they were all at it. Getting your leg over has become a medical necessity. People will start asking for it on the NHS. Do you think I'm making this up?'

‘It has been known.'

We looked at the menu: a full English breakfast any time; a ploughman's with Cheddar, Red Leicester or Wensleydale; honey-roast gammon; quiche …

‘I'll have the widow's comforter,' I said.

‘What?'

‘The sausage. And another pint.'

I began to assess the clientèle: a woman in a black polo neck with dance instructor written all over her; a thin pale man like the vicar we used to have, the one with the neck rash: ‘Call me Terry.' He ran a series of self-defence classes and called them ‘Boxing for Jesus'.

A waitress in a low-cut T-shirt that reminded me of Vi in her prime served the food.

‘What are you thinking about, Dad?'

‘Nothing,' I said.

‘Dad …'

‘What, son?'

‘It's about the house.'

‘You want to sell it, I suppose? Is that why you've come?'

‘Things are a bit tight. I'm the only one that's earning, Claire's training and soon there'll be university for Lucy. I'm sorry but I had to mention it. We don't have to sell it, of course. We could wait …'

Until I am dead
.

‘A lot of memories in that house.'

‘I know, Dad.'

‘It's all right,' I said, ‘I understand.'

‘If you could just have a think about it.'

‘I'm dying as fast as I can.'

‘Don't say that …'

‘You could always help me out, I suppose: a quick pill, or the pillow over the head.'

‘Stop that, Dad.'

‘All right. Get me another pint and I'll sign whatever I have to sign. I take it you've brought it?'

‘What?'

‘The legal document. Power of attorney. We all talk about it. The boys always joke that they can tell from the look on the relatives' faces when they come. They're always after something, trying not to show that what they really want is the money. Sometimes the boys string it out and pretend to be gaga when they're not. Chuckie signed his “Neville Chamberlain”. His daughter thought she'd come too late.'

‘It's not like that.'

‘Will you give me pocket money?'

‘Don't be daft.'

‘Half a crown a week. Drinking money. Some duty-free fags, perhaps …'

‘You can still write cheques. And I can too.'

‘If there's any money left over it might pay for a few sessions with Georgia.'

‘Who?'

‘The nurse I was telling you about. I imagine you'd get quite a lot for a hundred grand.'

‘Don't, Dad …'

‘Why not? It's a long time since I've seen any action. Everyone was so much better-behaved in my day. Girls were fast if they caved in too soon. Didn't have the pill. Or the morals. Not like you and Linda.'

‘I don't see Linda. I've told you.'

‘Yellow card. Lucky it wasn't red.'

‘I don't have to be told.'

‘Well, I won't then. But I need some air, son. Bit of a wheel about.'

We left the pub and set off down the high street.
This used to be a
nice place
, I thought, remembering when the island was full of day-trippers buying jellied eels and Canvey rock. Now it was falling apart: aggressive boys and pregnant teenage girls, all swearing away without any thought to who might be listening.

‘I saw her only the other day, you know …' I said.

‘Linda?'

‘She was visiting her old mum in the home next door. She lives in a narrowboat, I think. The creek, you know, up by King's Holiday Park.'

‘She married?'

‘Didn't say. But you are.'

The house had been empty for so long that it was impossible to imagine its former life. It smelt of gas, damp and stale cigarettes. Unwanted post had jammed the front door with months of free local newspapers, pizza-delivery fliers and prize draws guaranteeing my father an annual income of half a million pounds for the rest of his life.

I opened the paper to look at house prices but could only find personal columns and trade directories; lawnmower maintenance next to massage services.

Desperate divorcee, forty-eight years with great body, seeks fit males. I'm eager for fun
.

Stunning female, forty-four years, still good-looking, in need of thorough service after long boring marriage
.

Eager-to-please ex-model, sixty-two years. Fancy meeting me? I'm 100 per cent genuine, better fun than younger women, and won't mess you around
.