Stories We Could Tell

‘Cocktail sausage?’ said Terry’s mum, holding out a plate of shrivelled chipolatas bristling with little sticks. ‘Take two, love. They’re only small.’

Terry thought it was so strange to see Misty parked on the brown three-piece suite in the front room of the pebbledash semi where he had grown up. When Terry was small, his father had worked at three jobs to get them out of rented accommodation above the butcher’s shop and into a place of their own, but he knew that what was a dream home to his mum and dad must have seemed very modest to a girl like Misty.

There was flock wallpaper and an upright piano in the corner and a wall-to-wall orange carpet that looked like the aftermath of some terrible car crash. There were matching pouffes for them to put their feet up on while they were reading Reveille (Mum) and Reader’s Digest (Dad). Misty perched on the middle cushion of what they called the settee in what they called the front room about to eat what they called their tea.

Strange for all of them. Front room, settee, tea – it even felt like his parents spoke a different language to Misty.

Terry’s dad stared bleary-eyed at the dead TV, a cocktail sausage on a stick forgotten in his hand. He had just woken up, and was getting ready for another night shift at Smithfield meat market. Even if he had been more awake, small talk wasn’t really his thing, unless he was around people he had known for years, like the men at the market. But Terry’s mum could have small talked for England. She busied herself in the kitchen, conversing with Misty through the serving hatch, like a sailor peering through a porthole.

‘I do like your frock,’ Terry’s mum said, her eyes running over the white dress and down to Misty’s biker boots. ‘It’s a lovely frock.’ She passed no comment on the biker’s boots. ‘Would you like chicken or beef curry, love?’

Misty almost squealed with delight. ‘I can’t believe that you’ve gone to all this trouble!’

But Terry knew that the curry was no trouble at all. His mum would just drop the bag of Birds Eye curry in boiling water for fifteen minutes. He knew that wasn’t the kind of curry that his girlfriend was expecting. He knew she was used to real Indian take-aways.

Waiting for tea, Terry had the same sinking feeling, that preparation for humiliation, that he had once felt after PE in the junior school when Hairy Norton had hidden his trousers. Unable to locate his missing pair of grey shorts that were stuffed behind the urinal (thanks, Hairy) Terry had made the long walk into the classroom, fully dressed apart from his trousers.

‘Please, miss…’

The rest had been drowned out by the mocking laughter of thirty eight-year-old children. That’s how he felt waiting for his mother to serve them their curry. Like Hairy Norton had hidden his trousers in the toilets all over again.

And the funny thing was his mum was a good cook.

When Terry had been living at home, tea (Misty would have called it dinner) and Sunday dinner (Misty would have called it lunch) was always meat and two veg, with a nice roast on the Sabbath.

Apart from Sundays, the meal was always consumed in their favourite chairs, the toad in the hole or shepherd’s pie or pork chops and their attendant soggy vegetables wolfed down in front of Are You Being Served? or The World at War or Fawlty Towers or Nationwide or The Generation Game.

‘Nice to see you, to see you – nice!’

But something had happened since Terry had left home. Now it was all convenience food – Vesta chicken supreme and rice, Birds Eye Taste of India, ‘For mash get Smash’ – spaceman food, dark powders or a solidified brown mass that required either the addition of or immersion in boiling water.

When Terry was a boy, his mum had baked bread, and it was the most wonderful taste in the world. The smell of a freshly baked loaf or rolls had made little Terry swoon. Now his mum no longer had time for all that business. Terry’s dad blamed women’s lib and Captain Birds Eye.

But his mum had pushed the boat out tonight, or at least as far as the boat would go in these modern times, and Terry loved her for it, even though it seemed he never had much of an appetite these days.

They sat themselves at the table that was usually reserved for Sundays and Christmas, paper napkins, folded into neat triangles, by best plates, the prawn cocktails in place. A bottle of Lambrusco had already been unscrewed.

‘So you work at night,’ Misty said to Terry’s father. ‘Just like us.’

Terry’s dad shifted awkwardly in his seat, considering the prawn drowning in pink sauce on the end of his teaspoon.

‘Hmmm,’ he said. ‘Night work. Working at night. Yes.’

‘You hate it, don’t you, the night work?’ Terry’s mum said, prompting him. ‘He hates the night work,’ she told Misty in a stage whisper.

‘Why’s that then, Dad?’ Terry said, rearranging his prawn cocktail with his teaspoon. His father had been working night shifts for as long as Terry could remember. It had never occurred to him that he would have preferred working during the day. ‘Why do you hate working nights, Dad?’

The old man snorted. If you stirred him from his silence, he could be brutally frank. ‘Because you’re working when everyone else is asleep. And you’re asleep when everyone else is awake. And then you get up when the day’s gone, and you don’t get cornflakes or a nice fry-up for your breakfast, you get prawns.’

He smiled at his wife with a mouthful of prawns, to draw the sting from his words and show her that he was grateful for her efforts. Misty smiled and nodded as if everything was wonderful.

‘Salad, anyone?’ said Terry’s mum.

‘Not for me,’ said Terry.

‘I’ll have a bit of salad,’ said Terry’s dad.

‘He likes his salad,’ said Terry’s mum.

Terry knew it wasn’t real salad – he knew that what his parents called salad was really just tomatoes and cucumber and lettuce, with a radish or two chucked on top for special occasions, such as today. He knew that Misty would expect a salad to come with some sort of dressing. Vinaigrette or thousand island or olive oil or something. He knew this because joining The Paper had been a crash course in food and restaurant lore, as every press officer on every record label in Soho Square had rushed to buy the new boy lunch on their expense account, until they realised that he was going to slag off their rotten acts anyway.

But here was another thing he was learning about Misty. Salad dressing didn’t matter as much to her as making his mum feel appreciated, and that touched his heart. By the time his girlfriend had pronounced his mother’s boil-in-a-bag beef curry to be delicious, Terry was more deeply in love with her than ever, if that was possible.

‘So how did you like Berlin, Tel?’ his mum said, sinking a bread knife into a Black Forest gateau. If she had noticed that her son was only force-feeding himself enough to be polite, she gave no sign.

‘It was incredible,’ Terry said.

His mum waved the bread knife expansively. ‘Lovely to go travelling all over the world and get paid for it. You were in Germany, weren’t you?’ she said to his dad. Terry realised that many of his mum’s observations ended with a question to his dad, as if she was afraid the old man’s natural reticence might mean he was left out of the conversation.

‘Bit different in my day,’ said Terry’s dad.

‘Why’s that, Mr Warboys?’ Misty asked.

Terry’s dad grinned ruefully. ‘Because some bugger was always shooting at me.’

Misty shook her head with wonder. ‘You’ve had such an interesting life,’ she said. She touched the hand of Terry’s mum, the hand where she wore her engagement ring, her wedding ring and the eternity ring she had got last birthday. ‘You both have. Depression…war…it’s like you’ve lived through history.’ She looked at Terry. ‘What has our generation ever seen or done?’

Terry’s parents stared at her. World war, global economic collapse – they thought that was all normal.

‘Lump of gateau?’ said Terry’s mum.

They took their Black Forest gateau to the settee, and Misty perched herself on the piano stool, lifting the lid on the old upright.

‘I had lessons for ten years,’ she said. ‘Five to fifteen. My mother was very keen for me to play.’

Terry smiled proudly. He had no idea she played piano. His smile began to fade as it became clear that she didn’t, not really. Misty picked out the worst version of ‘Chopsticks’ that he had ever heard.

‘Ten years?’ Terry’s dad chuckled with genuine amusement. ‘I reckon you want your money back, love!’

‘I’m a bit rusty, it’s true,’ Misty smiled, seeing the funny side.

‘Don’t listen to him, darling,’ said Terry’s mum, and she sat next to Misty. ‘Shove up a bit. Let me have a go.’

The piano had belonged to Terry’s grandmother – his mum’s mum, back in the days before television when every sprawling East End family had their own upright in the corner and a chicken run out back. You made your own entertainment and your own eggs. There wasn’t really room for a piano in that little front room, but Terry’s mum refused to get rid of it, especially now that Terry’s nan was no longer around.

His mum cracked the bones in her fingers, smiling shyly, then began to play one of the old songs, about seeing your loved one’s faults but staying with them anyway. She had the easy grace of the self-taught and she started singing in a soft, halting voice that made them all very still and quiet, although Terry’s dad wore a knowing grin on his face.

‘You may not be an angel Angels are so few…’