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By Root 134 0

He’s stationed in Hamburg, and has piles. He writes regularly, boringly, but regularly. His letters say, “Can you please not send me any more fruit cake?” I asked her why Dad left the army. “His old firm Associated Press and Slavery wanted him back as soon as possible to work him like a nigger” at 7 pounds a week. In doing so he had lost thousands of pounds. He would have had to do one more week in the army to qualify for an officer’s pension, but then he was Irish: a nation of people given to leaving the army one week early. Mum has to go and get dinner ready. I’m left to the wireless and those books from my boyhood, now on foreign shelves. Music While You Work is fighting to escape from our one-valve wireless. I put my feet up and blow the Players cigarette smoke into the air, helping to foul the room, darken the ceiling and prepare my parents for lung cancer. Though I can’t see the hole, I’m bored, I need action! I leap to my feet and walk briskly to the fireplace. No, it isn’t enough, I still need action, so I walk briskly back again to the couch. Outside it has been, as father said, a ‘Golden Autumn day’.

By the time he returns it is a dark rainy night and he’s been working like a nigger. I welcome him home dripping wet and shagged out. My dear dad, home from the office, home from the wars, home one week too soon for his officer’s pension. He was something special, both clown and romantic, kind and gentle. He smiles that smile which twists halfway up the side of his face, showing his huge teeth with the gold filling.

“Ah my son, my son,” he says. So he remembers me too. “Well, well, son, home at last eh?” Yes, I’m home at last eh. It’s amazing that after two years away we don’t have anything to communicate. After “how are you keeping”, I ask him how he is keeping. He says “Fine, fine,” and I say “Fine, fine.” Well, well, home from the wars eh, son? Well, well, yes, and I’m fine, well, well, my son home from the war. When mother comes into the room it becomes “our son home from the war.” I save the presents until after dinner. “Thanks son,” says Dad, lighting up an Edward the 7th cigar, while my mother clutches rosary-blessed-by-the-Pope-number-sixty-seven. My Father: “Must hear the nine o’clock news.” He’s just come from bloody Fleet Street and he wants to hear the news! Would I like a sherry? We all make a little toast, they to my home-coming, and me to the man who assassinates the vintner that markets the sherry. It’s like rat’s piss. So, sipping my rat’s piss, we talk about the empty years between. “The Associated Press are working me to death,” he says. If that is true they should pay him more. “The Americans work the British like niggers. And that is the end of the nine o’clock news.” Dad and Mum retire. He has to get up early to be worked to death like a nigger.

It’s too early for me. There’s nothing wrong with Reigate, there’s always the streets. “There’s a nice pub over the Green,” says Mum. OK. The key is on a string in the letterbox. Don’t be late and ruin your health. Yes, The Bell, I’ll go there for a drink. You never know. It’s full of stockbrokers, and what appears to be a Morticians’ Convention. I alone am in uniform. The medals do it. Was I in the Invasion, son? Yes, I was killed the first day. What will I have? A whisky and a blindfold. They won’t let me buy a round. I am really quite a nice young man. What’s that decoration? That’s Mentioned in Despatches. Why? I don’t know, someone just mentioned me in despatches. Sometimes they mentioned me in the canteen, sometimes in passing, sometimes in the Naafi, on this occasion in despatches. Time gentlemen please!

I walk out and smell that damp autumn musk. It’s misty and cool. I make my fun-loving way across the Green to 40 Meadow Way.

“Is that you son?” Yes Mum. “Have you ruined your health?” No mum. “If you’re hungry there’s plenty of bread and cheese in Sainsbury’s in the High Street.” I hear my father snoring, plaster falls from the ceiling. 40 Meadow Way, Woodhatch, is not for the faint of heart. I sleep soundly, and in great purity.

Father