‘But Haze is right,’ Rob says. ‘Boris seems more like a normal person.’
‘Yeah!’ Haze says. ‘Not one of these robot guys, never giving a straight answer or anything. Just, just …’ Haze flaps both hands. ‘Yeah, like …’ His voice trails away.
‘You would have fucking voted for him, wouldn’t you?’ Hol says, looking straight at Paul.
‘I just told you I didn’t.’
‘Yeah, you’re contractually bound not to because after giving it a lot of thought you’ve plumped for Labour for your political career. I bet you would have if you could, though. And for all we know—’
‘Like I say—’
‘Look me in the eye, you twat, and tell me you weren’t tempted to vote for him. Especially against Ken; you’re more of a Blairite than that lying, war-mongering scumbag is himself. I bet you had to grit your teeth, if you did vote for Ken. Tell me you didn’t want to vote for Boris.’
‘Never even occurred to me.’
‘You lying bastard.’
Paul spreads both arms, looks round at everybody else, as though appealing to them. He even looks at me. ‘Holly,’ he says, when his gaze returns to her, ‘I don’t know what to say to you when you’re in this sort of mood. I don’t know how to handle you. Politics is politics and there are some decent people on the other side just like there are some twats on our side, and until you accept that you’re always going to sound like some Spartist caricature. Get a fucking grip, why don’t you.’
‘Can we talk about something else?’ Alison asks.
‘I’m not arguing there are no decent people in the Tory Party,’ Hol says to Paul. I think she’s trying to keep calm now. ‘But they’re like bits of sweetcorn in a turd; technically they’ve kept their integrity, but they’re still embedded in shit.’
‘There you go,’ Paul says, laughing lightly.
‘Yeah, come off the fence, Hol,’ Haze says. ‘Tell us what you really think!’
‘Things have changed, Hol,’ Rob tells her. ‘Phase-changed, even. We’re just not where we were.’
‘I’m being serious here,’ Alison says. ‘Can we talk about something else? I mean, does any of this really matter?’
Hol shakes her head. ‘What a choice: Neo-Labour, the toxic Agent-Orange-Book Lib-Dems or the shithead rich-boy bastardhood that is the Tories. We really are all fucked, aren’t we?’
‘Finally a note of realism,’ Paul says, shaking his head.
‘There’s always UKIP, Hol,’ Haze says.
Hol looks at Haze as though she’s about to say something, but then her face sort of screws up and she just makes a sound like ‘Tschah!’
A bell rings in the hall, not the kitchen. It’s the special one we put in last year. Guy isn’t in the room with the rest of us right now; he left about five minutes ago, pushing on his Zimmer frame and refusing help.
While he’s been absent, I have been asked again about exactly how Guy is. I’ve done my little speech about how he has good days and bad days and good weeks and bad weeks, though month-on-month he’s very obviously heading downwards, and the good days and good weeks now are like the bad days and bad weeks of just a few months ago. Everybody seems satisfied with this.
The thing is, with Mrs Gunn gone, I’ll have to answer the bell if it goes again (we have a code), though I’d rather not. I’d rather stay here with the others, even though I’m just sitting on the edge of the group and only listening, not taking part. This is where I’m comfortable, being with a few other people rather than just with Dad, but not actually having to do much except listen.
The numbers have to be right. Too many people – more than ten or twelve, say – and I clam up anyway, confused by all the different voices and the interrupting and the trying to work out what people mean behind what they say and what their facial expressions and body language are telling me, but, on the other hand, if there are too few people, then they seem to feel they have to try to involve me in the conversation, because they don’t want me to feel left out, or because they don’t see why I should get to listen in without contributing something.
I’m still waiting for the other bell, dreading it. I am Pavlov’s dog, though instead of salivating I have a little jolt of fear in my guts each time it rings.
‘And don’t think I didn’t hear that bit about “For all we know”,’ Paul is saying to Hol, pointing at her. ‘You didn’t actually get to the point where you might have impugned my word, but you sailed pretty close to that … to that particular waterfall.’
‘What the hell are you—’
‘Seriously,’ Alison says, ‘can we talk about something else?’
‘And who the fuck uses words like “impugned” amongst their pals, for Christ’s sake?’ Hol asks, sounding angry. ‘Is that, like, lawyer talk or something?’
‘All I’m saying—’
‘Or is it politico lingo?’ Hol is asking Paul. I think she’s still angry but she makes a sort of small laughing sound as well. ‘Have they put you through some sort of Talking Like a Politician induction course? Is that Spad-speak? Now you’re probably going to be an MP, are you going to start talking about straw men, and things getting knocked into cocked hats? Is that how it works?’
‘Politilingo? Polingo?’ Haze is saying.
I have seen Hol and Paul argue and talk and shout like this before. According to Guy they were always the same.
‘Anyway. Think I’ll get another drink,’ Haze says, standing. ‘Anybody else need another drink?’
‘Yeah, that’s what this conversation needs,’ Pris says. ‘More alcohol.’
The sitting room is probably the most civilised space in the house, and the warmest. It has that long rectangular coffee table made of wood in the middle; the one with the flower vase at its centre. A three-seater couch faces each of its long sides and an easy chair faces each of its short sides. One of the couches and a chair are matching blue velvet; the other couch is brown, pretend leather. The other seat is a swivel chair made of stretchy red fabric pulled tight over an expanded polystyrene moulding. Pris has told me this is a piece of authentic seventies batwing kitsch and so old it’s been back in fashion at least twice. Or would have been but for the tears in the fabric and the stains on it. (Last time we talked, she wasn’t sure of the current position of such furniture – she said she’d have to consult a magazine called Wallpaper. Which I found confusing, because we’re talking about a chair.) Anyway, the red chair and brown sofa don’t match anything else in the room.
Guy was sitting in the red chair until he left. He used to always sit in the blue velvet armchair when we had guests, until his back got so bad and getting out of the chair became so difficult. Paul is sitting there instead. Hol and Pris are sitting on the blue velvet sofa. Alison, Haze and Rob are on the brown one.
I’ve pulled out the blue velvet pouffe that usually squats under the table in the bay window. I’m sitting on it, hunched, with my hands clasped between my pressed-together knees. The pouffe has lost a lot of its stuffing, or it’s compressed over the years, so you sit quite near the floor on it, plus it makes a sort of crackling noise when you sit on it and you have to kind of waggle your bottom to get comfortable, but I don’t mind.
I’m sat by the side of the blue velvet sofa, near Hol. Hol has said a couple of times I should sit up on the couch with her and Pris but I don’t want to; I’d feel too big and obvious and people might expect me to join in. From here, low down, I can watch and listen without disturbing anybody.
Hol has put on a faded orange cardigan instead of the green fleece, and big thick blue socks. Paul is wearing neat-looking blue jeans and an open-necked pink shirt. Pris wears tight glittery trousers and a baggy black jumper, Rob wears black chinos and a grey polo neck, Alison is in a black knee-length dress with thick black woollen tights, and Haze has olive trousers and the same dark green Therapy? T-shirt and loose padded tartan shirt he arrived in.
Pris is pretty and curvy and the colour of coffee with milk, with dark
eyes and shiny black, scraped-back hair with lots of ringlets. Rob is about average height but quite wide; gym-fit, Hol has said. He keeps his head shaved but he has brown hair, I think. Alison is small and blonde and always wears make-up. Hol says Alison used to be fat and now exists in a state of perpetual semi-starvation. Haze is nearly as tall as me, though he doesn’t carry himself that way. He’s been slowly putting on weight ever since I’ve known him and his thin brown hair is receding in an orderly fashion straight back from his eyebrows, which are usually slightly raised.
Hol’s face looks a little flushed, as does Paul’s. This might be because they have been arguing, or because they have been drinking wine. Paul arrived with a crate of red wine from the French region of Médoc, and so far four bottles have been opened and three finished. I tried some, though I prefer sweet white wine if I feel I have to drink. Drinking isn’t really for me. I suffer from acid reflux but more importantly I don’t like the feeling of losing control. (I think most people drink because they’re not happy with their sober self and wish to alter matters, whereas I am quite happy with who I am.)
Though Hol looks flushed, she seems more alive than she did before, her facial expressions both more animated and drawing from a longer menu. Paul appears deliberately relaxed, as though his instinct is to shout and gesticulate but he’s decided not to.
Guy put on what he calls his Sunday Best to be with the others: the trousers and waistcoat of an old three-piece, lavender-coloured suit and a dove-grey leather bomber jacket. These clothes date from twenty years ago when he was a size thirty waist the first time, but they hang off him now, he’s grown so gaunt. Most people who knew him from the old days and who haven’t seen him for the last few years tend to go quiet and look shocked when they see him because he’s lost so much weight and his face, which was always thin, now looks cadaverous. There are dark circles under his large, blue, hooded eyes and his skin is dry and flaky. His lips look bruised all the time.
The people who don’t go quiet and look shocked when they first see him usually haven’t recognised him at all, and think he’s somebody much older.
He wears a hat knitted from brown wool, to hide his baldness after the chemo treatment. He used to have long blond wavy hair he was very proud of. Originally the hat had a sort of woolly bobble on top like a little fronded pompom, but Guy thought that looked silly so he cut it off with a kitchen knife. As a result the hat has started to fray and unravel at the top, so you can see a little of his baldness through the two-pence-sized hole. Mrs Gunn and I have both offered to repair this – she was going to darn it (I’m not sure what that involves) and I could at least have sewn it back together – but Guy has refused so far. He can be stubborn. Hol says this is where I get it from.
There’s no second bell, so I start to relax.
‘Did I hear a bell there?’ Hol asks nobody in particular.
‘Just Guy letting us know he’s on his way back,’ I tell her.
‘Ah.’
‘Well, there is stuff we could talk about,’ Paul says, glancing at me. ‘But maybe not with Kit here.’
‘Ah,’ Haze says, ‘yeah. The, ah …’ He sticks a finger in his ear and waggles it this way and that. ‘The video. The tape, the … yeah.’ He looks round at the rest of them. ‘Yeah, that.’
‘Don’t see why we have to excuse Kit,’ Hol says, though she doesn’t sound very sure.
‘Oh,’ Paul says, smiling, ‘I think we do.’ He smiles at me. The rest look or glance at me.
I’m feeling hot.
Silence. Suddenly Alison leans over and glares at the bottom of the couch she and Rob are sat on, concentrating on the little fringe of grubby green tassels that hang down almost to the threadbare rug. ‘I thought I could feel a draught,’ she says. She nods at the fringe. ‘Those … That fringe is moving.’ She stands, then uses her knees and hands to push the sofa back, making it scrape on the floorboards.
‘Now what are you doing?’ Rob asks her, tutting as he’s moved back along with the couch. He is holding a glass of gin and orange juice.
‘Yeah, don’t offer to help or anything, lover,’ Alison says, pulling the rug back. ‘Look!’ She nods down at the floor. ‘There’s a damn great hole.’
We all sit forward, crane our necks; whatever. There is a fist-sized hole in the floorboards there.
‘That’s where a large knot fell out,’ I tell them. ‘Out of the floorboard,’ I add, which is probably unnecessary, though on the other hand they are all quite drunk. ‘Though if you ask Guy he’ll tell you a rat gnawed it.’
‘What?’ Alison asks, looking horrified.
‘Definitely a knot, though,’ I tell her. ‘No teethmarks.’
‘Jesus,’ Alison says, and starts trying to pull the sofa back to where it was, grunting.
‘Fucking place is falling apart,’ Paul says, looking around.
‘Yeah, well,’ Haze says.
‘Guy says he doesn’t think they’ll need to actually pull the house down,’ I tell them (they all look at me). ‘Says it’s only held up by us being in it; him and me. Once we’re gone, once we stop believing in it, it’ll fall down all by itself.’
‘Plausible,’ Alison says, tugging at the sofa. It’s harder to move it that way; I think it’s the grain of the wood or something. She gets the couch to jerk forward a centimetre.
Rob tuts again, licks at his hand. ‘Do you mind?’ he says. ‘You’re spilling my fucking drink.’
‘Oh, help her, Rob, for goodness’ sake,’ Hol says.
Rob shrugs. ‘Wasn’t my idea to start moving the fucking furniture around.’ He drinks his drink. ‘This happens at work, too, you know,’ he tells Hol. ‘She starts out on some irrelevant, seat-of-the-pants new project, causes chaos everywhere and then I have to come along and clean everything up. I’d probably have advanced a lot further in the company if I didn’t spend so much time sorting out Ali’s messes.’
Alison smiles widely at Hol. ‘That’s Rob-speak for I initiate some bold new venture taking the company in an exciting, fresh but entirely course-complementary direction and then he breezes in when all the hard work’s done and takes the man’s share of the credit. I’d be a couple of rungs further up by now if I didn’t have him constantly in tow.’ She tugs hard at the couch, grunting.
‘Jesus!’ Hol says, getting up and going round the back of the couch to push it. It slides back to where it was. Hol looks at me as she sits back down again. She’s frowning. I wonder what I’ve done wrong now.
Then there’s a double ring on the hall bell.
Shit. I don’t want to have to go. On the other hand, I sort of do want to go now.
I stand up. ‘Excuse me.’
‘Kit,’ Hol says, extending one hand towards me, ‘you don’t have to—’
‘Yeah, Kit …’ Haze says.
‘No,’ I say, pointing to the door, ‘I have to … Excuse me.’
‘Is there blood?’
‘There is a little blood.’
‘Well, what does that mean? What does “a little” mean?’
‘It means there is a little blood.’
‘Don’t be fucking smart, Kit; just tell me how much blood there is. And what colour? Red? Brown? Black?’
‘Are you sure you can’t turn round and take a look?’
‘Not without going out into the fucking hall, waddling, with my trousers round my ankles and my cock hanging out, so, no.’
‘If I had a smartphone I could take a photo and show you.’
‘I’m not buying you a fucking smartphone. Will you shut up about the fucking smartphone? You don’t need one. And you’ll just post the photos on Facebook. Or find a way to sell them in your stupid game.’
‘Course I wouldn’t,’ I tell him. ‘Though you could have Faecesbook, I suppose,’ I add. Well, you have to try to lighten the mood.
‘Oh, Christ.’
‘There’s only a smear,’ I tell him. ‘And it’s red.’
‘Good, fine. Look, just, just, you know, wi
pe me off and … Christ, this is … Just, would you? Okay?’
This doesn’t happen all the time but, sometimes, I have to wipe my dad clean after he’s moved his bowels. He can’t stretch round or underneath any more to do it himself; even on the opiates the pain is too much now that the cancer has moved into his spine. Often Mrs Gunn will do this. She is paid to be a carer now, though I’m not sure this whole arse-cleaning thing is really within her remit. Guy cried following the first time she performed this service for him. He doesn’t know that I know this; I heard him through his bedroom door, afterwards.
The first time I had to help Guy wipe himself I tried to do it with my eyes closed. This was unsuccessful, and messy. My compromise these days is to breathe through my mouth so I don’t smell whatever might be in the toilet bowl (I resent being made to look in there but Guy feels a need to know whether there is blood in his stool). Obviously I am wearing a pair of blue surgical gloves; we keep a box by the door. I can let myself into the downstairs loo because it has a relatively modern mechanism that can be unlocked from outside via a slot in a small metal stub projecting beneath the handle. You use a screwdriver, or a penny.
The bell that Guy rings when he needs help in here is attached to a length of string that rises from beside the toilet bowl, goes through a couple of U-nails hammered into the ceiling and out to the hall through a hole I bored using our electric drill. The bell in the hall hangs from another grey galvanised U-nail. It is spherical and from a budgie’s cage, so it’s quite quiet.
You have to listen for it, and once or twice I’ve tried to pretend to myself that I haven’t heard it, but then it’ll ring again, and again, and even if I leave it for half an hour Guy still keeps ringing it and still can’t wipe himself and so I have to go in the end. When I do eventually go to help him he is sometimes crying, and always grateful, not angry, and that is how I know, I think, that he really can’t do this simple thing by himself and really does need help and isn’t just doing it to be cruel to me.
In theory we could just keep our mobiles about us and he could phone or text when he needs me, but Guy is not very good with mobile phones and frequently forgets to carry his, or keep it charged. I’ve tried reminding him about this sort of thing and have offered to make sure he always has his phone and it’s properly charged, as well as taking over responsibility for his meds (he forgets to take his medication, a lot, then sometimes takes too much), but he just accuses me of trying to run his life and tells me to back off.