His mother looked desperate. ‘What about Maggie? What about her job at the Crucible? She loves her job at the Crucible …’
‘There’ll be opportunities in London,’ Maggie said, sounding a little flat. ‘I’ve worked there before. There are always exciting things happening there. They were sad about it, but they understand.’
Their mother looked lost. ‘Well, if it makes you happy.’
‘It’s not about that, Mam.’
This was the moment Maggie felt obliged to express a little of her inner commentary. ‘Well, what is it about, Wilbur? Why can’t it be about happiness?’
‘Maggie—’
‘Aye,’ added Edith, ‘the lass has a point.’
‘It’s business. I have a real shot here of creating something truly special. Of changing the British high street for ever.’
His mother tutted. That was the trigger for Wilbur. ‘Mam, just come out with it.’
‘There are things more important than business, that’s all.’
The Dreamer was only looking at himself a little over two years in the future but he was noticing a change. ‘Why do I look so angry?’
‘Yes, Mam, and there are things more important than going to Oxford and everything else I have ever wanted to do too …’
Maggie reached across the table and placed her hand on hisforearm. ‘Wilbur,’ she said sternly, ‘please …’ Then she turned to his mother. ‘I’m sorry, Edith.’
‘Ah, no. Don’t be, pet. I know when I’m a burden.’
Wilbur was now trembling with a barely restrained fury.
‘Mam. Just for once in my life, can I do what is right for me? Jesus, Mam, I’m thirty-one years old. I’m not a child any more. I can make my own decisions.’
His mother sat there, her face as tough as it could be, holding back an ocean. ‘Aye. Aye. You can make your own decisions. Aye. And Dougie was right. He said you’d always run away from us.’
‘Why do you have to bring Dougie into it? Bloody hell, Mam.’
Maggie, caught in the middle, just stared at the salt and pepper pots and pleaded: ‘Wilbur, please, go easy. Your mam’s upset.’
‘Oh,’ said Edith, ‘I know how it is. I know he wants to be on every high street in England rather than the Ecclesall Road.’
‘Edith, I think that’s a bit far—’
‘A bit far? Yes, it is. Two miles away and he still can’t drive down it or see it or anything else. But it’s still there, just as it was in sixty-four.’
Wilbur stared at the clock on the wall. The one with pointed rays sticking out from the circumference, designed to make it look like an exploding star, surrounded by the yellow, orange and brown striped wallpaper. His mother had only been there for fifty minutes and it already felt like a lifetime.
‘Do we have to talk about Dougie right now?’
Edith sighed. ‘No, no. No. We don’t ever have to talk about him. What about that?’
‘Mam,’ Wilbur said through a clenched jaw, ‘you have to move on.’
‘Ah yes, move on. Move on. That’s what the world is about nowadays. Moving on. It’s like the council. Oh, they could have rebuilt the city after Hitler’s destruction, but, no, no, they just fill it with concrete nonsense and those ugly underpasses. But it’s nobetter in London, lad. That’s the home of it. All those ugly tower blocks.’
‘Mam, I’m not moving for the architecture.’
‘No, I know. Well, it’s funny.’
Maggie tried to be a neutral voice amid the tension. ‘What’s funny?’
