Game Over

the reverse is true of a man trying to impress a woman. My mother’s approval is a grade A turn-off. Mrs Smith can’t drag her eyes from my skirt and mutters something about her ‘being sure it’s all the rage’ in London. Linda, by contrast, greets me in a manner with which I am much more accustomed – unadulterated praise and flattery. She loves my hair, likes my bag, adores my skirt and would die for my shoes. Her mother tuts impatiently but I answer all her questions about where I got everything and I let her touch the fabrics. Poor kid, she probably hasn’t ever seen anyone dressed in anything other than a shellsuit before. I offer to take a B&B so as not to inconvenience Mrs Smith but she won’t hear of it and in fact appears offended that I’ve suggested it. She says that Darren can share Richard’s room and I can have Darren’s old room. Linda enthusiastically offers to take me to it straight away and I agree. I haven’t touched up my lipstick since I arrived at Darlington.

Linda is a delight to be with. Adoring me is obviously a point in her favour and she has all the advantages that youth can offer – buoyancy, an uncynical view of the world, hardly any wrinkles and an ability to be oblivious to the humiliation of slavishly following fashion. Besides, she – like Darren – has won the gene lottery jackpot. I much prefer to be surrounded by beautiful people. Linda has thick black curly hair that she wears shoulder-length. She has Darren’s to-die-for eyes and Bambi lashes and she’s slim. Perhaps her most attractive feature is that she seems to have no idea how beautiful she really is. It’s a shame she lives in the armpit of nowhere and won’t ever be seen. In London she’d be a hit. She could get a job in media, modelling or working in the city, all of which require more than a pretty brain. Instead she’ll be consigned to marrying young, raising a football team of children and counting her stretch marks. Blissfully unaware of her fate, she chatters vivaciously and non-stop as she guides me to Darren’s room.

The house, like the county, is a diverse mix of ancient and modern. I spot a warehouseworth of electrical goods: three TVs, two videos, a computer, a number of computer games, radios, hi-fi systems and all white-good mod. cons. Yet the wallpaper and carpets must have been hung and laid before the war (and I’m talking Crimean). I take in endless brass wall hangings and crocheted doilies and make a mental note that next time we are producing a period piece the props department would do well to consider Mrs Smith as a source. Whilst the fixtures and fittings are old-fashioned and, frankly, ugly, they are immaculate. My mother could run her finger along any skirting board or wardrobe top and fail to find cause for concern.

At first I’d been embarrassed by Mrs Smith’s insistence that I stay in their family home. I don’t do family homes. I occasionally stay over at Josh’s but his parents’ houses (note the plural) are so big that there is never any danger of bumping into a parent on the stairwell. Anyway, you can’t justifiably call Josh’s places ‘family homes’. His parents are only together in a nominal sense, negating the term family. And the term home. They both take advantage of the size and number of their abodes to avoid each other. If his mother is in the country, you can put money on his father being ‘up in town’; if his father is in the country, his mother is ensconced in their Spanish villa. Married bliss. Yet despite my reservations about accepting Mrs Smith’s invite I do have an inexplicable, but overwhelming, curiosity with regard to Darren and so I am delighted at the prospect of sleeping in his childhood bed. I casually try to establish if the room I am about to be shown has always been Darren’s and Darren’s alone. Linda assures me that it has: ‘This room has seen everything from bed-wetting to’ – she hesitates – ‘well, bedwetting, I suppose.’ Too much information.

She pushes open the heavy wooden door and we both struggle to get my (extremely large) case into the (extremely small) room. Like a lot of parents, Mrs Smith has lovingly preserved the shrine of her eldest son’s childhood. I feel I’ve just been handed Darren’s diary. The room is a thumbprint. There is a skinny, hard-looking bed pushed up to the wall under the window. It gives the impression that sleeping was a low priority for the youthful Darren. I can’t help but wonder if the same still holds true. There’s an ancient wardrobe and a small hi-fi/dressing- table unit. It’s from MFI and I expect the twelve-year-old Darren demanded it as an act of rebellion against the fifties’ bedroom suites. There are posters on the wall that I would expect in the room of any male who had grown up in the seventies and stagnated in the eighties. Original Star Trek, the A Team and Starsky and Hutch, then Debbie Harry and Pam Ewing. These are the only nods towards a conventional bedroom. The rest is an Aladdin’s cave meets Treasure Island meets Batman’s cave. There are zillions of books. They line the windowsill and countless shelves, and the overflows are piled in precarious, wavering, waist-high stacks around the walls of the room. There’s everything from Beano Annuals to a Reader’s Digest collection of Charles Dickens’s work. His taste is wide but the thing that all the books have in common is that they are well thumbed. Lying on top of the books are a number of models that have obviously been made by a young Darren. I think his mother has arranged them in date order as the ones nearest to the door are childish (although charming in their naivety) – rockets and submarines, made from loo rolls and cornflakes boxes. Then Darren must have introduced elastic bands and Dairylea tubs to make helicopters and combine harvesters. The models grow in complexity and size until finally, in the corner opposite the door, there is a massive Meccano model about three foot high and two wide.

‘It’s a replica of NASA,’ explains Linda. She must realize that I’m none the wiser because she starts dropping small marbles into buckets, which turn a wheel, which activates a pump, which motivates an engine, which launches a rocket etc. It’s fascinating and it’s more complicated than Mouse-Trap.

‘It must have taken him hours to build.’

‘It did.’

‘Didn’t he have any friends?’

‘Hundreds,’ she grins cheerfully, oblivious to my implied insult. ‘But he’s always been fascinated by ecology and wider than that, the universe, and—’

‘The reason we are here.’ I can hardly keep the smirk out of my voice.

‘Absolutely,’ enthuses Linda. She reminds me of the Americans – they don’t get sarcasm either.

She smiles at me expectantly and, unusually, I’m shamed. I’m forced to mutter, ‘It’s very good.’ Which is honest enough.

The piece de resistance is the ceiling. Darren has painted a night sky. I look closer at the pattern of the stars and realize it’s an inaccurate rendition of the Milky Way. Scientific accuracy aside, it’s gorgeous. Linda smiles.

‘Mam won’t paint over it. Darren did it when he was thirteen and Mam loves it.’

I can’t decide if this interior decorating proves that Darren is the saddest man I’ve ever met or…

The most amazing.

No, definitely a loser.

I look out of the window, which is encased with sparkling net curtains, hanging straighter than Issie.

‘Is that his tree house?’

‘Yes, it’s mine. I built it myself,’ says Darren. I jump and turn to face him. Linda looks infuriated that he’s crashed our girl time. I, on the other hand, can’t help but be pleased to see him.

‘It’s very fine,’ I say. ‘Most people settle for one storey and forgo the plumbing.’ But I beam, making it clear that I’m impressed. Darren smiles back, and I, for once, am devoid of a sparkling putdown.

We return to the kitchen, which appears to be the epicentre of the Smith household. Mrs Smith hands me a huge mug of strong, sweet tea. I mean to tell her that I prefer black coffee or Earl Grey but I can’t quite find the opportunity. The kitchen is a hive. The radio is tuned into some local station. The DJ has the strangest accent. The washing machine, dryer and dishwasher are all whirling at once. Yet despite this industry there are also great mounds of dirty plates in the sink and clean ones draining on the draining board. There are piles of ironing on at least two chairs. No one is sitting on any of the other chairs, as they are inhabited by fat, lazy, sleeping cats. Intermittently the dog, an aged Labrador, jumps up from its basket and barks at some sound outside. It amazes me that he can hear a sound outside. I can barely hear myself think. There isn’t a pause in the conversation. In fact, conversation is a generous description. It seems to me that everyone is talking at once, about different things and without regard for anyone else. Yet despite this no one, except me, seems to be struggling to keep abreast and answer the correct people at the appropriate time. Linda and Mrs Smith regularly try to force food on me, which I try but fail to decline. I quickly realize that it’s easier to accept the cakes, biscuits and sandwiches and leave them untouched, on the side of my plate. I do quietly sip my tea, which is surprisingly pleasant. Sarah and her husband and kids explode on to the scene. Sarah unceremoniously drops the baby she is carrying on to Mrs Smith’s knee and flings her arms around her brother. The two older children, girls who are probably between three and nine years old (it’s hard to guess, unless you’re into kids), follow suit and climb all over Darren. Sarah’s husband quietly melts away and goes to join Mr Smith watching TV in the front room.

The kitchen, bubbling before, is positively effervescent now. I desperately need a glass of champagne, or at