We watched the extended Brexit edition of Channel 4 News, and my dad pointed out some politicians he thought were fucking bastards and some other politicians he’d previously thought were just bastards but now thought were fucking bastards too. Then we went into the other room and my dad picked up the piece of stone again. ‘NOW THEN,’ he said. ‘SIT NEXT TO ME. AND LISTEN.’
‘I need to nip to the loo first,’ I said.
‘IT’S ALWAYS THE SAME,’ said my dad. ‘PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS LEAVING ME.’
‘I’ve already been holding it for half an hour just to be polite.’
‘DON’T WEE IN THE TOILET. GO OUTSIDE AND DO IT IN THE BUCKET IN THE SHED. I NEED IT FOR MY COMPOST.’
My dad had found the piece of stone while he was doing what he calls fossicking. This is when, after very heavy rainfall, he walks down to the river to find good firewood that has been washed down it by the flood waters. After picking the stone out of the shallows, he had taken it to the swimming pool to show Pat, whose experience as a mining geologist, my dad thought, might enable him to identify it.
‘You took it to the actual swimming pool?’
‘NO, JUST TO THE CHANGING ROOMS. I FORGOT MY TRUNKS THAT DAY AND HAD TO BORROW SOMEONE’S SPARE ONES. BUT THAT’S NOT WHAT I TOLD THE HAIRDRESSER THE OTHER DAY. I TOLD HER I SWAM NAKED BUT JUST KEPT MY LEGS REALLY TIGHT TOGETHER THE WHOLE TIME.’
‘And what did Pat say about the rock?’
‘HE SAID, “It’s just a bit of limestone, Mick.” BUT I WASN’T SATISFIED WITH THAT. SO I SHOWED IT TO MY FRIEND PHILIP. HE USED TO BE AN ARCHAEOLOGY LECTURER. HE KNOWS ALL SORTS OF THINGS. HE’S SIX FOOT FOUR AND USED TO LIVE IN A THIRTY-TWO-ROOM HOUSE. HE LOOKED AT IT AND TOLD ME IT’S A BIT OF MASONRY THAT WAS MEANT TO BE ON A MEDIEVAL HOUSE. THIS BIT HERE WAS A JAMB, AND THIS BIT WAS MEANT TO GO IN A WINDOW, BUT WHEN THE MASON GOT TO THIS BIT, WHICH IS CALLED AN OOLITH, HE REALISED IT WAS THE WRONG SHAPE AND CHUCKED IT. AND NOW IT’S MINE. EVERYTHING IN THIS WORLD HAS GOT A STORY TO IT. GENGHIS KHAN DIED OF A NOSEBLEED ON HIS WEDDING NIGHT. NOT MANY PEOPLE KNOW THAT. SOME PEOPLE ARE INTERESTED IN OTHER PEOPLE’S STORIES AND SOME PEOPLE AREN’T.’
‘Yeah, that reminds me. I was going to the—’
‘NOW LISTEN CAREFULLY, YOU, BECAUSE THIS LEADS ON TO SOMETHING ELSE. BUT I’VE FORGOTTEN IT NOW BECAUSE YOU’VE TALKED SO MUCH. I’LL HAVE A THINK AND COME BACK TO IT IN A MINUTE.’
My mum and I stepped back outside into the garden. The day had started wet, but now a fuzzy blanket of transparent warmth hung over my mum’s plants. Everything seemed four times as fragrant as it had a few hours ago. The light had almost completely faded, but the stoned bees still clung to the giant scabious in cuddly gangs. Below it were three pots of lager: my mum and dad’s attempt to control the garden’s current slug population. My dad had offered me some of the same lager – which, bought in bulk, worked out at around 20p a can from Asda – and I’d declined. I asked my mum if my dad was still shouting in his sleep.
‘Not as much. But he did wake me up by saying, “A FORTY-HOUR WEEK AT FOUR POUNDS AN HOUR? WHAT’S THAT?” the other night.’
George bounded up behind my mum and me, then cut in front and thwacked his strong tail possessively against our shins. I spotted a metal grass roller, passed down first to my granddad and then my dad, that my great-granddad had made – when? During the 1920s? Thirties? I’d never given it much thought before and now I felt like a short-sighted ingrate for never having done so since clearly this was one of the most amazing and precious things on my life’s periphery. A few yards from it I spotted a familiar steel dish with a duckling pattern moulded into the outside. In it were a few chunks of leftover cat food.
‘I remember that dish!’ I told my mum. ‘Didn’t you used to feed the cat from it when I was a kid?’
‘It was actually your baby dish,’ she said. ‘I use it to feed the hedgehogs cat food now.’
I’d gone through a brief phase a few years earlier when I wanted to get rid of all my possessions and live an entirely unencumbered life. That had changed and, even before it had, I’m not sure I was ever fully down with the idea of getting rid of my books and LPs. I still understand the whole ‘You can’t take it with you’ philosophy but I’m not quite as emphatic about the way I subscribe to it. I know you can’t take it with you but I still wouldn’t mind having a small amount of it, for a bit. I can see how stuff can be a burden, but I like some stuff: stuff that doesn’t boast of its intention to alter your life, but then proceeds to do so in small ways. I’d found a horseshoe on Dartmoor and attached it to my house late the previous year. It’s just an old rusty
