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His daughter comes dancing back down again and says daddy can you get my clothes for me, of course he says and he lets her lead the way up the stairs to her room. His steps are heavy and slow, and when she gets to the top she turns around and looks down at him, giggling, saying come on daddy come on.
Her hair, it is the same.
Her hair is long, and dark, and it shines. She is an excitable girl, she talks a lot and she is always busy with something, a song in her head or skipping in the street, but when he sits her down and pulls a brush through her hair she is still. It is the only time, she is still and quiet and learning patience. Or perhaps she understands, even at her age, what happens to her father when he kneels behind a chair and runs a brush through long dark hair until it shines. She is young, she is too young to remember, but sometimes he thinks she understands. She does not often ask questions.
He reaches the top of the stairs and makes a growl like a gorilla, swinging his arms and stamping his feet and chasing her along the landing. She shrieks and runs into her room, and by the time he arrives she has hidden herself in the wardrobe, laughter bursting out of her like air from a punctured tyre. He says where are you? in a big scary gorilla voice, he says I’m coming to get you, he stamplestomps around the room.
He waits a moment, and then he says oh dear she must be somewhere else, in his own voice, he opens and closes the bedroom door.
He waits a moment more, and as the wardrobe door swings
open he swoops his arms down around his daughter and hoists her awkwardly into the air, smothering her shrieks against his chest and they both laugh and shout and enjoy the press and tangle of each other until he slumps back onto the bed and says enough now.
Every day it is the same, this hide and seek when it is time to dress her, and every day it exhausts him. He would like to be a better father, to play wrestle games and run in the street and be the gallivanting shoulder-carrying super papa man, but it is too much for him. He is tired so quickly.
He sits and gets his breath back and his daughter watches, she says daddy are you okay and he smiles and nods. Now, what would you like to wear today he says, and they move through the motions of getting her ready for the day, the lifting of arms, the wriggling of cotton vests over reluctant heads, the rolling of socks and the put your feet in here now. The two of them, moving around the small room, circling, from wardrobe to bedside and back again, clothes lifted and held up to the light, clothes dropped to the floor and scooped into a heap. The two of them, a father and a daughter. A man without a wife dressing a four-year-old child.
He crouches at her feet, pushing her shoes on, fastening the velcro straps with a nudge of each wrist. When she learns to tie shoelaces it will not be from him. He says lovey you be good today yes? Every day he says this, and nearly every day she is. She looks him in the eyes and nods, carefully. She is a very solemn child sometimes he thinks, it is strange, and as she leaves the room and walks down the stairs he thinks but I am often a very solemn father. He thinks about what food he will prepare for lunch, how long it will take, he thinks he should begin soon. But first he kneels at the side of his daughter’s bed and lets his face press into her bedding, holding his aching hands out into the air.
He looks as though he is praying, but he is not. He holds out his hands, but they are held out to no one.
The young girl from number nineteen, the sister of the twins, she is back in the street outside, holding her balance on one leg. A voice behind her says excuse me now lovely and she looks up to see the old couple from number twenty standing in front of her. She hops out of the way, still with her arms stuck out, and they walk slowly past. As she watches, the old man turns around, lifting his hat from his head like a magician, and winks. She giggles, and the couple continue their procession.
Up in the attic flat of number twenty-one, the woman with the henna-red hair is watching the old couple. She is standing naked at the small high window, a length of hair turned in her fingers, she is looking at the old couple and smiling. She calls through to her boyfriend, in the kitchen, she says have you seen this come and have a look at this, it’s those two from number twenty, they’re all dressed up for something, it’s sweet, and his voice comes back saying yeah yeah in a minute in a minute. But in a minute they will be gone, and so he won’t see them, arm in arm along the pavement, heads held high, stepping slowly and precisely. She was wearing a proper dress, not like a granny dress but some kind of elegant fifties thing, and a blue hat with a ribbon, and she had a matching shoulderbag and shoes, this is what she will tell her boyfriend in a moment. And he was wearing a sharp suit, like in a black and white film, he had a white handkerchief in his breast pocket, and a trilby like Sinatra she will say.
And she looks at the two of them, so proud-looking, she wishes she had a camera so she could take a picture, she wonders where they might be going dressed up like that. She watches them until they round the corner into the main road and then she turns away.
You’ve missed it now she says to her boyfriend.
Outside, the twins have found a couple of milk crates in the tangled front garden of number fifteen and are busy dragging them out to make a wicket with. Their sister is back on two legs, walking carefully behind the old couple, following them around the corner.
The sun is high enough to light up the windows on both sides of the street now, the shade retreating to the cooler paving beneath the trees. The only clouds are pale and thin, hung as high as they can manage, like cobwebs in the high arches of a stairwell, and the sky is a freshly scrubbed blue, as permanent-looking as the first day of the holidays.
The girl sidles around the corner and leans against the wall, peering at the old people in their fancy clothes.
They stand at the bus stop, this couple, this husband and wife of fifty-five years, and they look at each other. Have you got the right change she says, and he pulls a handful of money from his pocket and counts it out in the palm of his hand, nudging the coins aside with a quivering finger. Yes love he says, and he drops it all back into his pocket.
We’ve not missed it have we she says, and he looks at his watch, unhooking it from his waistcoat and holding it up to his face like a pocket mirror. No love he says, and he looks down the empty road to where the bus will appear.
Do you think the weather will hold out she says, and he doesn’t even glance at the gleaming blue sky before he says yes love I’m sure it will love. It’s going to be a good day he says, and he turns to her and he puts his hands round her shoulders, just you wait and see he says, and then the burr of the bus creeps up behind him and she points her eyes at the opening door and they step aboard, pay the fares, and take their seats as the bus moves away up the road.
And if either of them were to look over their shoulder now they would see the young girl standing on the corner, watching the bus grind its way up the long hill out of town, lifting an imaginary hat from her head and trying to wink. But neither of them are watching, they’re too busy settling themselves in their seats, she straightening her dress, he removing his hat and smoothing his thick white hair, both of them shuffling into a comfortable position.
And behind them, on the corner of her street, the young girl tries again, two winks coming out at once, and she frowns and holds one eye open with a finger and a thumb while she lifts an imaginary hat from her head.
Chapter 17
Sarah called me at work yesterday, when I was in the middle of thinking about my mother and what I was going to do next, she said why didn’t you call me back?
I said I’d been going to, and it sounded like a lie.
She said she’d been at a party with some people from university and she’d met this guy who’d been asking after me.
I said what party, which people?
She said oh it was nothing really, not really anyone you knew.
But this guy she said, he was asking me how well I knew you, he was asking me where you were living now.
