In the morning he stuffs a Nike sports bag with a few shirts, a pair of jeans, socks and underwear, and some softcover non-fiction, but nothing about music. He decides to pack as though he will be gone for only a few days, knowing that if he decides to stay longer then he can always buy additional things. He double-locks the door behind him, and then tumbles down the stairs and out on to the street. He takes a tube that is crammed with semi-comatose commuters who squeeze up next to each other and idly scan the back of other people’s newspapers, while those lucky enough to find a seat simply slump and allow their heads to bounce gently in all directions. Once he reaches King’s Cross, he realises that if he hurries he can catch a train that leaves in ten minutes. Unlike the tube, the train is relatively empty and he imagines that most of the commuting is in the other direction, into London. The view out of the window is not particularly interesting as they lumber past the back of endless rows of houses, but eventually it begins to rain lightly, and the drizzle spatters the window of the now speeding train so that a hundred rivers soon run in all directions on this map of an unnamed country. He closes his eyes and tries not to worry about the fact that Lesley has chosen not to reply to him. Maybe she hasn’t yet looked at her emails or, despite all his efforts, perhaps she has taken offence at some perceived impropriety in his tone or phrasing.
The ticket inspector wakes him up by pushing his shoulder with the palm of his hand.
‘Look, mate, you better get off unless you’re ready to go back to London.’
He looks around at the empty carriage, then climbs quickly to his feet and retrieves his holdall from the rack above his head. The station is an old Victorian edifice, with huge vaulted ceilings where the birds are constantly disturbed by the roar of train engines and fly in crazy circles. Once he passes out on to the concourse he joins the long line for a taxi and pulls his jacket tight around himself, for the rain is bucketing down. The taxi driver listens quietly to the local BBC news station, while he sits upright and alert in the back seat and looks at what should be familiar streets. However, with each passing year the streets are becoming increasingly difficult to recognise for there seems to be a vogue for replacing the old brick buildings with tall structures of steel and glass. These days his city appears to be trying hard to reinvent itself as a modern hub of commerce and opportunity, but the evidence before his eyes leaves him unconvinced for the people pounding the streets seem to be the same folks as before and, as far as he can see, all that has changed is the scenery. However, he doesn’t live here any more and so he feels no necessity to debate the issue, even with himself.
He knocks a second time, but he knows that his father probably can’t hear him above the noise of the television set. He takes two steps to his left and taps on the living room window, but it is impossible to see anything through the discoloured net curtain. His father’s hand pulls back the yellowing material, and his unshaven face is now visible in the window. He can immediately see that the older man has aged. His father is clearly baffled to see his son standing before him but, furrowing his brow, the bemused man points towards the door.
‘All right, Dad.’
His father is not yet dressed, but he holds the door wide open. His pyjamas hang loosely from his thin body, and the socks on his feet are full of holes. He stares at his son as though unsure of what to say.
‘Well, you’re not going to leave me standing outside in the rain all morning, are you?’
‘You can’t call and tell me you’re coming?’
‘I wanted to surprise you.’
‘Well you managed that all right.’
He pours the water on to the teabag and waits for it to steep. There’s no getting around it: the house smells as though it hasn’t been cleaned or aired in a long while. From the kitchen, he can hear the studio-based morning chat show on the television, and he imagines that his father has settled down to resume watching. The topic for the day is teenage pregnancies in schools. Apparently there is an epidemic of them, particularly in the so-called immigrant communities. He removes the teabag and stirs three spoonfuls of sugar into his father’s tea, before carrying the mug through into the living room. He places the tea on an old wooden stool that is clearly a substitute for a table, and then he collapses down into the shapeless armchair to the side of the sofa. It is nearly two years since he last visited, and that was only because he was in the north of England for a conference and it seemed somehow wrong not to at least stop by and say ‘hello’. The greeting back then had been equally unenthusiastic, but at least his father and the house had appeared somewhat presentable. As his father continues to watch television, he looks around and is alarmed to see the decline in both his father and his living conditions.
‘What happened to your helper?’ He tries to ask the question without it coming across as accusatory.
‘She says she wants some time off, and so I say fine, then go. The council don’t send anybody else yet, but I’m doing just fine for now.’
‘Well I can give you a hand, if you like. Let me just put my stuff upstairs then I’ll start to give things a going over.’
‘Why don’t you just relax yourself and things can fix later on? No big rush. Anyhow, the less I have to do with those people from the council, the better. They think that I don’t know what is going on. First, they send some stupid little man around saying that he is part of the “befriending scheme”. You know, they pay them five pounds an hour to come and talk with you, or take you to the pictures or to some park, like you is too stupid to think for yourself. Then the next thing you know the damn council want to take what little money you have and push you into some place like the Mandela Centre.’
‘You mean supported living?’
‘I don’t care what fancy name they give it, it’s a home and they jail you up in a little flat. The place is full of crazy people wandering the corridors looking for relatives who abandoned them years ago. What the council don’t take from you the other residents thief from you when your back is turned.’
‘But there are people there to look after you and give you medical care. Anyhow, I don’t see what your problem is with the Mandela Centre. Half of your friends are in the place and you go down there, don’t you?’
‘I go down there to pass the time, but I don’t reach the stage yet where I need to be locked up and looked after. I already had enough of that in my life as it is.’
His father looks directly at him and he can see in his eyes that he is fiercely resolute.