The barmaid smiled at him as he sat down. Banks ordered a large Shiraz and settled on his stool. He wasn’t a great rugby fan, and he had no idea who was playing, but he did enjoy watching a game now and then. He’d played rugby union at school, had even been good enough to make the school team as fly-half, being wiry, slippery and reasonably fast. Nevertheless, sometimes he wasn’t quite fast enough to prevent one of the hulking prop forwards from flattening him. He played once a week in regular games periods, and once on a Saturday morning for the school, no matter what the weather. Some weeks he was sloshing about in the mud, others slipping on the frozen earth.
It felt odd being back in his hometown and not visiting his parents, but they had sold the council house he had grown up in and moved into a private care home near Durham to be closer to Banks and their granddaughter Tracy, who lived in Newcastle. They were well into their eighties, and still healthy enough, but slowing down. Banks’s father told him before the move that their cruising days were over; his angina bothered him and he had suffered a minor heart attack only a few months ago. Also, most of their friends on the estate had either died or moved away, so there was nothing to keep them there. Moving wasn’t as much of a wrench as it would have been a few years earlier. With the money left to them by Roy, Banks’s brother, they could afford the best care in a beautifully restored Victorian manor house with a fine view over the River Wear. They still had their independence. The one-bedroom flat had a large well-equipped kitchen, and Banks’s mother still prepared the meals. They could come and go as they pleased, and there was always a registered nurse on duty, just in case. They said they had everything they needed and seemed happy enough, though Banks’s father complained that some of the other tenants were either too posh or too gaga for his liking. He also wasn’t much of a joiner and didn’t sign up for quiz night, sing-alongs or exercise classes. Banks’s mother got along just fine with the posh folk; she had always had aspirations beyond her class.
Just then, a small group from the party across the hall came in and clustered around the bar. A wedding group, Banks noticed. The men wore ill-fitting tuxedos with buttonholes, and the women were resplendent in lush cream satin gowns of ivory or peach. The bride and groom stood at the centre of the group. Someone ordered a round of pints and G&Ts. One of the men had a loud grating voice and, of course, he was the one who talked the most. The bride had a laugh like a braying horse. The loud-voiced man told a dirty joke and they all doubled up laughing. Someone else made a witty comment about the groom’s mother-in-law, which raised more guffaws, especially from the mother-in-law herself, who seemed well in her cups. Fortunately for Banks, it was a short break. They downed their drinks quickly and headed back to the reception. The barmaid glanced at Banks and pulled a face.
Banks drank some more wine and saw that he had almost finished the glass. Checking his watch, he calculated that he had enough time to get another one down and asked for a refill. He took a long slug of Shiraz, and though his eyes were fixed on the rugby game, he wouldn’t have said he was actually following it. He was thinking about those Saturday mornings long ago, towards the end of the sixties, when he still cared enough about being one of the lads to run around in the terrible weather week after week, risking a broken arm, cartilage damage or a wet rugby ball between the legs. It wasn’t so bad, he reflected. You got a hot shower at the end of the game, and most Saturday afternoons he went into town record-shopping with his mates Dave, Graham, Steve and Paul. All dead now, except Dave. You could buy used 45s at a stall in the open-air market, he remembered, but the discs were recycled from jukeboxes and the middles had been punched out, so you had to buy flimsy plastic inserts which didn’t always work. The 45s were often scratched, too, and they tended to skip. Caveat emptor. There was a second-hand bookstall in the market, too, where he had hunted down old Saint, Toff and James Bond paperbacks with lurid covers.
But the best thing about Saturdays back then was the nights. On Saturday nights he would usually go to the pictures with Emily: Emily Hargreaves, the first girl he had ever loved, the girl whose coffin he had just seen rolling towards the flames.
‘It wouldn’t be for long,’ Ray Cabbot was saying. ‘A week or so at the most. Just until I find somewhere suitable.’
Annie Cabbot put her knife and fork aside. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I mean, you know how small the cottage is.’
‘I wouldn’t get in your way, love. I promise. I wouldn’t cramp your style.’
Annie laughed. ‘My style? What’s that supposed to mean? I don’t think I have one. Anyway, it’s not that...’ But she was a bit worried about the effect a house guest might have on her relationship with Nick Fleming, a DI from County HQ. It was relatively new and had come after a lengthy drought. But she wasn’t going to tell her father about that. ‘What’s wrong with the colony?’
‘Nothing. I just feel like I’m getting a bit too old for all that sort of thing. These young turks.’ He grinned. ‘Nobody paints or sculpts any more. It’s all concepts and attitudes. You could walk in an art gallery and piss on the floor and claim it was a work of art these days. Next thing they’ll be wanting is a bloody lathe or a 3D printer for making installations. No, love, it’s time to move on.’
‘And you used to be so Bohemian, so avant-garde. Getting conservative in your old age?’
Ray Cabbot huffed. ‘Everyone has to draw the line somewhere.’
‘You’re not in any trouble, are you?’
‘What do you mean, trouble? Of course not.’
‘It just seems so sudden.’
‘Believe me, I’ve been thinking about it for some time.’
‘Besides,’ Annie added after a swig of beer. ‘You’re not old.’ She thought Ray seemed a lot younger than his seventy-plus years.
‘Thanks for saying that, love.’ Ray ran his hand over his hair. It was silvery-grey, the same colour as his straggly beard, but he still had enough of it to wear in a ponytail. ‘Maybe I’m just tired.’
‘But why Yorkshire? You’ve always lived in Cornwall. It’s home.’
‘I know. It’s just... well, you’re here.’
‘Don’t be so soft, Dad.’ It was rare that Annie called Ray ‘Dad’. Ever since she’d been a little girl, after her mother died, she had got into the habit of calling him Ray, and he had seemed to like it. It was all part of the Bohemian atmosphere of the artists’ colony outside St Ives, where she had grown up.
‘It’s true. You’re all I’ve got, Annie. All that’s left of... It’s all right. I’m still fit and healthy. I don’t have cancer or anything. There’s nothing physically wrong with me. I’m not moving up here so I can use you as my nursemaid, if that’s what you’re worried about.’
‘It’s not. And I wouldn’t make a good nursemaid.’
‘No bedside manner?’
Annie grinned. ‘That’s right. It has been criticised, at any rate.’ She picked up her fork and speared some more salad. They were having lunch in the Black Swan, in the village of Harkside, where she lived. It was a small, quiet pub behind its whitewash and timber facade. Annie didn’t eat there often, but she had to admit that, as salads went, this one was a cut above the usuaclass="underline" avocado, quinoa, grape tomatoes. It didn’t go with the pint of Swan’s Down bitter very well at all, but that was something she could live with.
‘When would you want to start this house hunt, then?’ she asked.
‘Soon as possible. Right away.’
Annie dropped her fork. ‘You mean... like now? Today?’
‘That’s what right away usually means. Not today, perhaps, but after the weekend. Monday. Why? Is there some problem?’