In the Kitchen (27 page)

'Which is what?' said Gabriel indulgently. 'Let's have some coffee and then I'll take Nana out.'

'There's nothing there, that's what I mean. Nowt to get hold of at all.'

'But "having character", that was just a way of saying you did what was expected of you. It's almost the opposite of having a character, a personality, of your own. Now you've got to know yourself, what you really are.'

Ted nodded. 'That what it is, eh? I wouldn't want to be starting out today.'

He picked up the Mary Rose and inspected the hull. 'We used to build ships in this country, Gabe. That was part of who we were. We built merchant shipping for the world over. I reckon when you built a ship you knew you'd done a job.

There's no ships built on Teesside these days. It's a breaker's yard now. They send ships there from all sorts of places, full of asbestos and oil and God-only-knows, and they break 'em up.'

'That kind of manufacturing ...' It was hardly worth finishing the sentence.

Gabe got up and patted his father on the shoulder. 'I'll get us that coffee now.'

Nana wore a mustard-and-brown fur coat which, though Gabe did not remember them, must have seen better days. It was somewhat chewed and balding, and resembled a number of mangy tabbies sewn together. The thing smelt like a dead cat too. 'Lovely coat, Nana,' said Gabriel, wheeling her along Plodder Lane.

'Is it real?'

'Real?' shouted Nana. 'Real? Of course it's real. Real fur coat, is this.' She looked about her, this being information worth disseminating more widely, but there was no one else to tell.

'Lovely day,' said Gabe. He was beginning to sound like Nana. 'Turned out nice.' There was an icy sort of sunlight in the air but the day was hardly lovely. Across the valley there was mist on the moors; the wind was cold and damp.

'Lovely,' said Nana, chin in her coat, hands in her pockets, boots splayed indecently on the wheelchair footplates. 'Lovely, lovely, lovely.'

Gabriel stopped for a moment and looked down across the town, the houses and mill chimneys and spires huddled for warmth in the basin, the streets that marched crookedly up the hill, the long sheds of the industrial park where Jenny clucked down the phone, the bright cars scattered across the grey and brown canvas like spatters of metallic paint.

'She's a lassie from Lancashire,' sang Nana, vibrato. 'A flounce on her petticoat, a comb in her hair ...'

Gabriel started wheeling. He picked up the pace.

'Oooh,' sang Nana, turning a streaming eye to Gabe. 'If those lips ...' Her mouth continued to work, but it was a few seconds before the sound was restored. 'If those lips could only speak. Ta-da dedum da-dum.'

'We'll cut down this way, shall we, Nana? Down the side of the park?'

'Gabriel! Gabriel!' shrieked Nana. 'I've forgot me hat. I can't go to church without a hat.'

Gabriel leaned over her but carried on pushing. 'It's all right, we're not going to church. You wanted to go to the market, have a look around.'

Nana sniffed loudly. 'I am perfectly aware of that.'

The houses on Park Street were Victorian mansions with porticos and sweeping bay windows, which had been turned into care homes, social security offices and temporary employment agencies or given over to charities. Only a few remained as family homes, and they belonged not to wealthy mill owners but to wealthy Pakistanis who owned the local bingo parlour, a string of convenience stores, a pickle factory and curry houses either side of the East Lancashire Pennines. As they came closer to the centre of Blantwistle the streets began to narrow and steepen. Gabriel slowed his pace, fearing a skid that would send Nana flying off down the hill. They were nearing Astley Street now, passing through the old back-to-backs with the front doors that gave straight to the street, front windows that displayed overstuffed lounges crammed with fake leather suites and gargantuan TVs. Some of the houses, in an advanced state of disrepair, stood empty. Others, equally dilapidated, had steamed-up windows and slamming doors.

'We used to sit in front of the fire a Sunday night,' said Nana, 'after me mother had been baking, and we'd bread and barm cakes all round the skirting boards. Ooh, the smell, it was lovely. But we hadn't to eat them, because warm they weren't good for your tummy. But we did sometimes, when Mother weren't looking, we'd smuggle a barm cake up our jumpers and take it up to bed.'

At the corner a group of young Asian men, some in skullcaps, some in hoodies, were engaged in kicking a portable television to pieces. They appeared to take little pleasure in the task, which they performed with an air of weariness as if, were it up to them, it would be the last thing they would choose to do.

They were on Astley Street now, the row of two-up, two-downs where he'd begun his life. Here they were, passing the house. HAPPY EID was spelled out in tinsel across the ground-floor window and an old man sat on a chair in the doorway, a tiny child on his knee.

Gabriel was expecting Nana to comment – on how the Asians had depressed the house prices, how they never scrubbed their doorsteps, how they butchered goats in the backyard. But Nana was lost in her childhood, not seeming to notice where they were.

'I had it across here from me mother, many a time, for answering her back. She were a good woman, right enough, and she knocked the goodness into me. I've her to thank for that. And we'd respect our elders then. Fetching and carrying, with no excuses. I'd try one, now and then, and she'd never let one slip by. "That's a tackler's tale," she'd say.' Nana popped an Extra Strong Mint in her mouth; it clacked between her dentures.

'In and out each other's houses, we were. Well, that's how we lived. Never locked the door. And we helped each other out, clubbed together, you know.

Funerals were the best. There'd be a whip-round and there'd be a wake, and the body'd be in the parlour, that's the way we did it then. Oh, there were some right good funerals, and all the adults would sing, especially when they'd had a few.'

Gabriel looked down on the delicate eggshell of Nana's skull, visible through the nest of hair. 'You'll have to show me some photos, Nana, of the old days.

Let's get the albums out when we get back.'

'Are we meeting Sally Anne?' said Nana. 'Are we meeting her here?'

They had just wheeled into the covered market. The place had a distinct smell of vegetation and decay, like wet and rotting leaves. Gabe, startled by the mention of Mum, failed to make a reply.

Nana turned to him in agitation. She seemed to sense something amiss, half fearful, half embarrassed, and at a total loss. 'Sally Anne,' she said, 'Sally Anne.'

'We'll see her later,' said Gabriel. 'After we've got the shopping done.'

They trundled slowly over the flagstones, between the stalls selling halal meat, pork pies, discount electronics and undergarments in stupendously large sizes. Christmas lights dangled between the girders. They were unlit, which suited the atmosphere of scrimp and save. The shoppers were elderly and white or young Asian families pushing prams, the more mobile having fled long since.

Gabe and Nana were overtaken by a motorized wheelchair, its occupant mountainous and old. 'Mind where you're going,' shouted Nana. 'The size of her,' she grumbled. 'Stop a minute,' she said as they came to the next stall.

'We'll get some cold meats for lunch.'

Gabe surveyed the slabs and rolls slapped down on the metal trays. There was black pudding, lunch tongue, jellied veal, corned beef, luncheon meat, pressed beef, boiled ham, potted meat and ox heart; all slightly grey at the edges.

Nana wanted ox tongue and jellied brisket and Gabe said 'lovely' and hoped she'd forget about them by the time lunch came around.

They sat at Granny Bun's for a cup of tea. 'It's grand to be out,' said Nana, lifting her shoulders the way she did when performing her most dazzling smile.

'What would you like for Christmas, Nana?'

'We used to hang our stockings up,' said Nana, 'and in the morning there'd be a tangerine and some nuts inside, maybe a toffee as well, and maybe a ball and maybe a peg doll and hair ribbons and, oh, we were overjoyed. All the things they get given these days.'

'I think I could stretch to a peg doll,' said Gabe. He'd call Lena when they got home, just to check everything was OK.

'We'd not get new clothes for Christmas, though. We'd new clothes for Whitsun, you see, and then they'd be Sunday best. D'you know, those Whitsun Walks ...'

Nana trailed away, her eyes closed and her chin drifted down to her chest.

Gabe was wondering whether to wake her or push her home still asleep when she lifted her head. 'Maytime, they were, and everyone turned out just so, whole town dressed to the nines, and we'd more processions in June. I've walked in many a procession, girl and woman, we'd walk with our churches, well, you'd a chapel on every corner, I'm going back of course. The Catholics had theirs too, you see, they'd march for Our Lady, first Sunday in May. The Sacred Heart's been pulled down. But they were lovely days for families, all these marches. You know, many's the time I walked in my wedding dress under a banner, Mothers' Union, and I was proud to do it. Yes, oh yes, we took pride.'

Gabe said, 'Did you march with your mother? Did she wear her wedding dress too?' The distant past, it seemed, grew brighter as the recent past began to dim. It was a place of safety now.

'She were a weaver,' said Nana, 'on a shoddy loom, making plain cloth, it's all it'd make – you just threw the shuttle across. But she stopped work when she had her children, because Father said that's the most important job a woman could do.'

Gabriel thought, soon I will have a wife. He could scarcely believe it so he said, 'I'm getting married. You're the first to know.'

But Nana didn't hear him. She cocked her head to one side and seemed to be listening to something far away or long ago. 'We'd go to New Brighton for our holidays. Sometimes Blackpool, but Mother preferred New Brighton because Blackpool could be a bit coarse. Wakes Week, you see ...' The very words seemed to put her into a trance. 'The whole town shut down, all the mills, and we'd that week for enjoyment and we knew how to enjoy ourselves.' She smiled and looked at Gabriel and then all around, seeming increasingly doubtful and concerned. 'Gabe,' she hissed. 'Gabe! What time's the appointment? Here we are chatting on in the canteen.'

'What appointment?' he said, stupidly. He should have got the hang of her by now.

'We're at the hospital, aren't we?' said Nana in her best voice, all proper and strangled. 'For my check-up with Dr Patel.'

At twilight a red sun sank behind Rileys and a paper moon floated over the shell of Harwoods, that once-mighty rival, the few remaining shards of window glass glittering like tears. A flock of starlings fretted and swooped in the distance, a black kaleidoscope constantly shaken against the blood-tinged sky.

It was just past four and Gabe and Ted were going to Rileys because there was nothing else to do.

Coming towards them up the hill an old man in an army surplus coat, left over perhaps from the Crimean War, bent his back to the incline at a remarkable angle, snailing forwards with the top of his head on show. To keep moving seemed like something of an achievement, given the shopping he was carrying, the deep stoop that he suffered, and his broke-back shoes which were only loosely appended to his feet.

When they reached each other Ted stopped and the man, to Gabe's surprise, instantly straightened up. Greetings were exchanged. 'You remember my son,'

said Ted. 'Gabriel, you remember Mr Nazir?'

'Ah,' said Gabe, who didn't, 'good to see you.'

'Fine boy,' said Mr Nazir. 'Strong like an ox.' He giggled and set down his bags.

'Rileys,' said Ted to Gabriel, seeing he hadn't a clue, 'twenty year or more.'

Mr Nazir giggled again and if Gabe had closed his eyes he would have heard a young girl rather than this old and bearded man. 'Yes, yes,' he said, 'twenty-two.'

'Wind's picking up,' said Ted, folding his arms behind his back.

'Chilly,' said Mr Nazir. 'How is your grandson? And your granddaughter too?'

'Bailey's all right, she's a Saturday job at Rileys, settling down, you know.

Harley, well, Harley's out o'work ... he's a good kid, but sometimes I think ...'

'Right in the heart,' said Mr Nazir, grooming his beard, 'but wrong in the head, isn't it?'

'Aye,' said Ted, gravely. 'Aye.'

'They don't want to listen to us old ones,' continued Mr Nazir. 'They think they will never be old.'

'How're your grandsons? All right?'

'Asif is difficult. Very difficult. Always telling me what is written in the Qur'an. The Qur'an says this, the Qur'an says that. I say, Asif, you are not the keeper of the light. This is my religion too.' He shook his head. 'These young people. Thinking they know it all. No humility and no respect, this is the problem. It's the western values they pick up, wanting everything their way.'

'This is it,' said Ted. 'Yer not wrong there.'

'What is the point in blaming?' said Mr Nazir. 'I was the one to come here.

For everything there is a price.'

'What about Amir?'

'Amir was in the newspaper. His case has gone to court. Charge is vandalism –

spray painting, breaking window, damaging a car. Even in crime he lacks ambition. His mother cries for him.'

'The devil makes work,' said Ted. 'The lad needs a job.'

Mr Nazir involved his fingers in his beard. 'He needs a job,' said Mr Nazir, 'but where is the job for him? I myself am taking him for job at that distribution place, at the warehouse, everywhere, but nowhere has job for him.

Always they are taking the Poles.'

'I've heard it often enough,' said Ted.

'They say these Polish are good workers, and they don't care what they do, undercut the wages, sleeping fifteen, twenty, to one house.'

'This is it.'

'This is it.'

'Well, you'll freeze stood 'ere.'

'Catch our deaths,' said Mr Nazir, giggling. He grabbed Gabriel's hand and shook it with startling vigour. 'But tomorrow will be fine, isn't it? Red sky at night, shepherd's delight.' He released Gabe's hand and picked up his bags.