like the geezer who bashes the gong at the start of those old J Arthur movies I have a go at the Temple Chime and step smartly to one side as it crashes to the ground. Hardly has the first note rung out and the third piece of piping bounced halfway across the street than the front door bursts open and I find myself face to face with Dad. His bloodshot eyes gaze deep into mine and I see a look of haunted anguish that makes my worst fears come true. Here is a man living on the very edge of reason. A man practically unhinged by the return of a well-loved child given up for lost. ‘Dad!’ I say, throwing my arms around him.
‘Get off me, you git-faced twit!’ shouts my father. ‘Have you gone round the twist? Look what you’ve done. Do you know how much those things cost in the shops? Oh my Gawd!’
So saying, he casts himself on the ground and begins trying to retrieve pieces of the Temple Chime. Much as the thought distresses me, it is clear that its multi-vibes will never again be harnessed into one glorious ringing note.
‘I’m all right, Dad,’ I say, comfortingly.
‘You’re all right?’ screams Dad. ‘Who told you that? Let me know and I’ll have him certified. You’re not all right! You’re the most destructive little sod that ever drew breath and unemployment benefit.’
‘Dad! Please!’ I say. ‘Think of your heart.’
Dad shakes his head. ‘Every time I look at you, I wish I’d listened to your mother.’
‘Why Dad? What did she say?’
‘She told me to stop it!’ says Dad bitterly.
Before I can decide whether to question Dad more closely on this delicate subject, Mum appears carrying a dustpan and brush. She, at least, looks as if she has got her feelings under control. It is strange, but I have often noticed how women, who are supposed to be the weaker sex, can often show tremendous resolution in times of stress.
‘It’s fallen down again, has it?’ says Mum. ‘I told you it should have been fixed up properly. You ought to have got an electrician in.’
‘I’m back, Mum,’ I say.
‘I’m not made of bleeding money,’ says Dad. ‘Those blokes cost a fortune. It would have been quite all right if clumsy clot here hadn’t laid his lazy, no good hands on it.’
‘I’m back, Mum,’ I repeat. ‘From the snowdrift.’
‘You can’t blame him, Walter,’ says Mum. ‘The milkman had it down as well. It shouldn’t be hanging there, that’s the long and short of it.’
‘From the snowdrift on the desolate Pennine Hills,’ I say. ‘Mickle Fell.’
‘My bleeding door chimes fell, and all!’ says Dad. ‘What’s the matter with you? Why can’t you think of other people for a change?’
I am beginning to understand that concern for his door chimes has temporarily blinded my father to my absence. It is sad but not totally unexpected. I swallow my disappointment and turn to my mother. ‘Mum,’ I say. ‘I don’t wish to appear melodramatic but I have been lost for two nights in one of the worst blizzards the north of England has known. Have you at any time during that period experienced any feelings of what I might describe as unease?’ I watch my mother’s face consider the question for a moment and then shape itself into an expression of extreme distress. Perhaps I was too blunt.
‘Oh!’ she says. ‘Oh, no!’
Immediately, I feel guilt-stricken. I should have bided my time; let her come to terms with my return in her own way. ‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ I say. ‘I didn’t mean –’
‘What’s the matter now?’ says Dad peevishly.
‘His supper’s been in the oven for three days,’ says Mum.
I would not mind so much if she did not still expect me to eat it! I mean, I never reckoned her corn beef fritters much at the best of times. After three days in the oven they taste like coke butties. One thing I will say for them, they don’t crumble in your pocket – they rip the lining to pieces but they don’t crumble. I smuggle two out and I can’t force them between the bars of the drain they are so tough.
One thing I am surprised to learn, when Dad has stopped fretting about his chimes, is that we have been invited to supper by sister Rosie and brother-in-law, Sid. Not only supper but during a weekday, too. What is more, Rosie refers to the meal as dinner and thoroughly confuses everybody. Dad does put in a token appearance at the lost property office, most days, to see if there is anything worth nicking and Mum is quite likely to be queuing up for her favourite seat at the bingo during what we call dinnertime.
Of course, it turns out that Rosie is being toffee-nosed and referring to supper. She is not the girl she was when we were all living together in Scraggs Lane. The success of the boutiques and wine bars has gone to her head. Now she lives in Vauxhall, or East Westminster as she chooses to call it, she has become all classless and stripped pine. I even saw her with a ‘Vote Liberal’ sticker on her Fiat. Mum and Dad don’t know what to make of her and Sid has his problems. While she has gone from excess to success, he has floundered. None of his recent business ventures has prospered and I reckon that he must have sunk every penny he had in Noggett Transport. My load of glasses being written off could be the last straw. Poor Sid. How am I going to tell him? Well, not while I am by myself for a start. Just in case he turns nasty. It has been known to happen. If I wait till we go to supper then I will have Mum and Dad to back me up, or at least, get in the way if he starts throwing things. Then there is Rosie. She can always be relied upon to side with anyone against Sid. Yes, I will put off the evil moment until the evening.
Mum and Dad are very agitated about the forthcoming event. Dad even takes the day off from work to prepare for it. It is strange because he is always saying what a sponging git-face Sid is, yet, when he gets an invitation to his home, he doesn’t want to go.
‘We’d better take something, I suppose,’ says Mum.
‘Yeah, bicarbonate of soda,’ says Dad.
‘What do you mean?’ says Mum, all worked up. ‘I taught Rosie everything I know about cooking.’
‘That’s what worries me,’ says Dad.
Mum looks at him coldly. ‘I was referring to a gift. You have to take something when you go out to supper with people. It’s manners.’
‘Well, you buy them something,’ says Dad. ‘I can’t afford to. It seems stupid to me. What’s the point of receiving hospitality if you have to pay for it?’
‘Some of those mints,’ says Mum. ‘They’d be nice. I’ve seen them on the telly.’
‘They’re not on the telly now,’ says Dad.
‘I mean, advertised on the telly!’ says Mum. ‘Really, Walter, I don’t know how you hold down that job of yours sometimes.’
Mum keeps on at him and in the end he grumbles off to the newsagent’s. He is gone a long time so I know that he has been having a browse through the girlie magazines. The way his mince pies have gone all pink gives the game away as well.
‘Well, did you get them?’ says Mum, looking at his empty hands expectantly.
Dad dives one of his mitts into his raincoat pocket and produces a roll of mints. ‘Extra strong,’ he says proudly.
‘I didn’t mean them!’ screams Mum. ‘I meant the wafer thin ones. You can’t give those to people!’
‘Well I’ll have them, then,’ says Dad.
By the time six o’clock comes and Mum reckons it is time for us to leave, she is in a right flap. ‘Make sure you go to the toilet before we leave, Walter,’ she says.
‘What are you on about?’ says Dad. ‘They’ve got a toilet there, haven’t they?’
‘Yes, but I’d rather you used this