Seeing the Wires

‘Oh yes. Right. So I’ll pick you up about eleven then, and we’ll go and see what they’re up to these days.’

Wonderful, I thought. That’d be a smashing day out.

II

The next day I waited for my hangover to leave and Jack to arrive. My money was on Jack getting there first. Eddie Finch had turned up eventually, and he was better at drinking than I was. Reporters are like that because they don’t have to get up and go to work in the mornings. Although I knew I couldn’t out-drink him, it had seemed important to keep up. It was my competitive edge.

I fed the hangover coffee and Nurofen until it calmed down. Jack turned up late, driving his van. He’d had it for years, since we were seventeen. It had been his first car. It looked like it might have been his grandfather’s first car. The last time I’d seen it, it had been blue. He’d sprayed it white.

‘A white van gives you the freedom of the road,’ he explained on the way to my brother’s house. ‘People see a white van, they know it’s going to go all over the shop. White vans have their own rules. Cut people up, park on lawns, run over dogs and children. It’s accepted … What the fuck is she doing?’

‘The speed limit?’

‘Not in this baby, baby,’ he said in what he thought was an American accent.

‘Hasn’t your sister got a baby?’

‘Little boy,’ Jack admitted. ‘Called it Liam.’

‘Nice,’ I said.

‘No it fucking isn’t. Hold on, I can skirt round this lot.’

After a short and frightening trip, he pulled up on the pavement outside my brother’s house. My brother is older than me, and married, and has a child. For those and other reasons he thinks he’s more grown up than I am. He may be right. I never fancied growing up. There didn’t seem to be an alternative, though, unless you killed yourself young.

The last time I’d seen my brother we’d argued. It’s what brothers are for. When we were young we used to quarrel over anything – what colour the curtains were, how high the sky was, anything at all. Ten minutes later it’d be forgotten. We always got over them.

Jack rang the doorbell. I looked at the front garden. Tidy, with children’s toys. A plastic tractor, a deflated ball, a duck on a stick. A wooden one. The door opened and Tony, my brother, stood looking at us, confused.

‘What?’ he asked.

‘Visiting,’ said Jack. ‘Thought I hadn’t seen you for a while. Nor your Caroline. She in, then? And I’ve never even met the sprog. What is she now, two?’

‘Going on five,’ said Tony, giving me a grim look. Perhaps he hadn’t got over our last argument after all. Caroline appeared behind him, carrying a tea towel and a small child endowed with her mother’s blonde hair and her father’s brown eyes.

‘Whassit?’ asked the child, giving us a look. She didn’t seem shy. She looked at Jack.

‘Whassit in his face? Why’s pins in it?’ She reached out a small hand. Jack leaned closer.

‘All right there kiddo,’ he said. ‘I’m your uncle Jack, and this is your uncle Sam, but we won’t worry about him.’

‘Jack!’ cried the child.

‘Sam,’ said her mother, with considerably less enthusiasm. ‘Been a while. Didn’t get your letters. Suppose the post office must have lost them.’

‘Too busy with keeping out of the way,’ said Tony. His expression was easing. ‘Come in then, the house prices’ll drop if you stay outside. Is that your van?’

‘Mine,’ admitted Jack.

‘Good. It’ll piss them right off. They’re all scutters down the road.’

He led us to a small, comfortable lounge. There were fewer chairs than people. To make room Jack sat on the floor, wincing on the way down. At once the little girl toddled over to him and poked at him with a podgy finger.

‘Look!’ she said, tugging at one of his facial rings.

‘Is she okay doing that?’ asked Caroline.

‘Sure,’ said Jack, ‘she could do it for England. Here hold on, trouble, let’s pop one out and you can have a look at it. What’s this one’s name, then?’

‘Samantha,’ her mother said.

‘Named her after your brother-in-law? Lovely gesture.’

‘You must be joking,’ said Tony, brightening. ‘Fine start in life that’d be, named after the ugly one in the family. Named her after someone I used to know, as a matter of fact.’

Caroline gave him a hard little look, which he pretended not to see. The house smelt like a laundry, I noticed. There were drying clothes on all the radiators. Jack unsnapped an eyebrow ring and gave it to Samantha who examined it intensely.

‘Jack!’ she exclaimed, handing it back to him. ‘Another!’

‘I haven’t got that many I can do in polite company, sweetheart,’ he told her. I always felt awkward around children, as though they might vomit on me or ask me something appalling. Jack seemed suited to it. I suppose he was colourful.

Tony disappeared into the kitchen and returned with tea in sad mugs. Mine had faded Muppets on it. I took a sip. It tasted strange. I thought about the pranks on the building sites. Some of those had involved tea with added ingredients.

‘Milk powder,’ explained Caroline. ‘The little monster gets all the real milk.’

‘Not a monster!’ explained Samantha. ‘Jack’s got fings in his face.’

‘Things,’ Tony corrected her. ‘Not fings. And we don’t talk about people.’

‘Do,’ said Samantha. ‘Do too.’ She looked at Jack. ‘Mummy and Daddy talk about Sam,’ she said. ‘Not me. A bad one. Is she here?’

‘I think she might be,’ Jack said, looking at me. I could see him storing that one up for later use.

‘Here, I’ll put the television on,’ said Tony. ‘We like the television, don’t we?’

‘Jack!’ said Samantha, and then forgot she was standing and fell over. ‘Bump,’ she said, ‘ouch.’

Tony and Caroline exchanged a look. It was the sort of look you only get to exchange once you’re a parent. I like children, although I don’t think they fit in with my lifestyle. Being single makes having children difficult, especially for men. Caroline hoisted Samantha up and aimed her at Jack, and Tony ferreted the remote control from under a cushion and turned on the television. It crackled.

‘Growly,’ explained Samantha. ‘Jack? Whassit in the nose?’

Jack began to reach to his face, before being distracted by the television. I looked to see what had caught his interest. It looked like Dudley Castle.

‘Dudley Castle,’ the narrative informed us, ‘has not survived intact.’

‘What’s this?’ asked Tony. ‘Can’t be Time Team, that’s Sundays. And I can’t see anyone in a woolly jumper.’

‘They have a lot of woolly jumpers,’ said Caroline.