“Where we going then James?”
“I’m Alex, granddad! James’ nephew?”
“Of course you are”
We’re just gonna pop up the road. I thought since it was your birthday we’d go
for a little drink.”
“What?”
“In a pub”
“Really?” His face
lit up.
“Yeah! Why not? Not
sure mum would like it, but then…”
“… She’s not here is she?”
“Exactly!”
Alex put the two pints down on the table. Ale for himself, a dark stout for his
grandfather. The liquid lopped down the
side of the glass and discoloured the lacquer of the table, making it grey,
white, like skin too long in the bath.
He dropped the bag of crisps he’d been holding in his mouth and tore
them up one side, exposing the contents and placed them in the middle of the
table
“There you go!”
“Oh, you’re a good kid aint you? Now you sure you can afford…”
“Look, I told you mum left me some money for shopping and
whatever. I think its alright to spend a
bit on you, so let’s not hear any more about it”
“God, you’re your mother’s son alright”
“How do you mean?”
John just smiled and shook his head.
“You seem pretty at home in a pub, don’t you?”
Alex shrugged.
“Go there sometimes at lunch in college. We’ve got one near us that doesn’t really
care”
“You get served alright here?”
“Yeeeeeah, no
problem”
The chatter in the public house got louder. It was about this time that Alex realised
that he had no idea he was. The man sitting opposite him. He knew his granddad, he knew his mum’s dad,
the old man with a voice like gravel and was the benchmark of everything that
was factually and morally right and correct… but he had no idea who this man
John was. It was hard to think of him as
a man, as someone who had loved and desired
“How’s your pint?”
“Oh lovely, lovely. I
haven’t had a nice black stout for year and years”
“So how are you getting on in there granddad?”
“Where?”
“In the home”
“The… oh the home.
It’s ok. I have the paper each day. I’ve got my books, the art classes are nice.”
“I dunno. The place…
it seems so stilted. Like it’s not your
own place…”
“Well, it’s never gonna be like the home I made, is it? Look… Alice used to be a social worker
OK. Watchu call them now… social fluidity
agent? Social correction officer? Kind of like that type of thing. Less… I
dunno. More well meaning. It seemed so anyway. Well, she saw some things. Some real dives. We’re talking about… forty years ago
now. It was like a different world in
many ways, but even now… you have to understand that this was before all the
big ecological reforms, population control… medicines for the body were getting
better but there wasn’t much for the mind.
Still isn’t really. Hah. Look at me.
I just start…”
“You were saying grandma was a social… worker?”
“Oh… yes… oh….”
“About housing”
“Yes… I was just… I
don’t think elderly care has ever been a priority in any society. It’s an awful hypocrisy… Look, even with all
this technology, the amazing things they can do these days… even with all the
energy consumption legislature, even with the… look, we’re still in a society
that doesn’t appreciate individual worth… it just makes you believe it
does. It’s still a capitalist
dictatorship marauding under the guise of some kind of freedom, democracy
and… What I’m saying is that passed the
age where you’re useful to society, it stops giving a damn about you. Because I was a teacher… it’s a job that
directly benefits society, and it’s also a job that no bastard wants to do…
especially not in a city… so I was guaranteed care in my older life that was of
a certain standard. You read about the
teaching crisis of ’48?”
“What, all the marches? And the riots?”
“That’s right. That
kind of perk for social sector jobs came as a result. Well, between mine and your gran’s pensions…
that place is OK. I’ve heard stories
about awful, awful places that are still far about the legal minimum…”
“That’s terrible”
“That’s right. That’s
right. So do something.”
“What do you mean?”
“Write a letter, make a phone call, talk to people. If not about this, about something else… I’m
not saying fight this cause, just… look further, look deeper, look behind
things… I’m sorry, I’m going off. Just don’t think you have to accept things if
they’re not right. You’re a good kid you
know.”
The babble swelled up again.
“Did I ever tell you about my mum… your grandma”
“Great grandma”
“Of course, yeah”
“Not really. I didn’t
meet her”
“No she died well before you were born. She was an amazing artist, you know. Had me young.
Very young, barely 20 years between us.
Did it on her own.”
“You didn’t have a dad”
“Not…I mean… no. No.”
A pause.
“She… she could have been a great artist. She was, but you know what I mean. She worked hard to support me. I never wanted for anything, not attention or
anything. She loved to draw and paint,
to sculpt. But she loved me more. It was only when I had your uncle and your
mother that I appreciated what she had done, how hard it must have been. When I
look at you and your sister. It seems so
easy now… not to say that it is, but this is the position you’ll find yourself
in one day. Able to look back and say everything was either much better or much
harder. Heh. But, I mean, you guys are
OK. I helped make sure. You’re dad’s got a good old job… Uh what is
he?”
“He’s… it’s kind of like archaeology. Preservation, restoration, documentation…
They’re looking at some of the places that they’ve reclaimed
after the flooding, working out the structures...”
“Blimey… that’s… its… it’s interesting, it just feels a bit
beyond me. But this is what I’m talking
about, in as many ways as the world is different, its changed so much. It wasn’t easy back then. The infrastructure
of the country was collapsing, the world was changing too quickly and no one
really knew how to handle it. The
climate. Everyone was saying things and no one was doing anything. Hundreds of thousands of people were dying
each day and no one would even talk about it.
Famines, floods, earthquakes. There’d
be TV appeals, but nothing would really happen.
When I think back on it, it seems like it was around the time that
Castro stepped down… You know Fidel Castro?”
“Um… he was…”
“He was the leader of the communist party in Cuba”
“Oh right. So why was
that then?”
“Timing maybe? The Maybe
nothing at all. I don’t know. I think
everything was heading to shit anyway, but looking back, when I started to take
some kind of interest in it. You have to think I was very young when what I’m
talking about happened. For some reason it feels like that was the point of no
return”
It pleased Alex that his granddad would swear like that in
front of him. So thoughtlessly, not shielding him. It was perhaps the first time he’d been
treated as an individual, as a man. He
felt proud that this was his grandfather. That they were together at this
moment.
“Can I get you another one?”
“What’s the hurry?”
Alex smiled.
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