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Count out his meds. Pour a shot of Teacher’s in the stained cut-glass tumbler. How much fuss was there letting me near the whisky? Dragged himself to the locked cabinet until I persuaded him I don’t even like it. All about me subtly doing more and more.
I put the drink and pills on the table. Flick the ash off the fag, put it back between his fingers.
‘Don’t deserve a lass like you.’ Eyes filling with gooey tears.
‘Fuck’s sake, Schmaltzy Daddy don’t suit you.’
‘Social workers traced me when Alice died.’ He clutches at the whisky glass with no attempt to drink. ‘I’d no idea she’d had a kid, Jez.’ His body rigid as he tries to sit up.
‘It’s alright, Ken, we’ve been through this.’
I feel the hard knob of his shoulder bone as I rearrange the pillows. He stares ahead, breathing jerky. I rescue the biscuit squidged down the side. He hardly touched his breakfast, either. I’ll ask Sandy to help me change the bedding later.
He tries another suck on his dead-looking fag. I take it from him and get it lit again, guide it to his mouth for the last drag. His lips like sandpaper against my fingertips. He coughs out the smoke in a terrible rattle. Reaches for the water bottle and pours a bit on his lips and down his front. Leans back clutching both bottle and glass.
‘This place goes back to the Corporation when I’m gone,’ he carries on.
‘Here, have your meds, will you?’
‘You can’t wait for me to nap. With your fancy coffee and motorbikes.’
Wey-Hey, we’re back to normal.
I take the fag-end and water. Put the beaker of pills in his hand. He pops a pill, then downs a sip of whisky. The power of routine! Another pill, another sip, emptying the beaker. He lays his head back. Eyes shut. His skin is right thin and papery over his thick-set face. You could stick your finger through it.
‘You was already settled with that foster family and they wanted to adopt you,’ he whistles a whisper, clenches his fists. ‘I was, divorce, nowhere to live, proper kids turned against me. I would’ve took you…?’
‘I never knew owt different.’
‘Makes you wonder though, don’t it?’ He opens his eyes, bulging like marbles in their dark sockets.
‘Things were as they were, Ken.’ I move to the sink.
How routine is this conversation? Refuse each time to get into What Ifs. Now I catch myself wondering how would I have been like brought up by him, his proper kids, all that?
‘Sixteen grand on a bleedin’ motorcycle? To get splattered across a blind corner.’
‘You think I’ve got sixteen grand? Go to sleep.’
I rinse out the pots, listening for his breathing to steady. But it gets raspier, more uneven. Forcing me to look over.
‘Spice rack,’ he waves like a maniac at me.
It’s one of them seventies orange-varnished jobs loaded with bottles of faded spices. Welded to the wall with the grease like everything.
‘It’s behind it,’ he gasps, falling back on the pillows.
‘It’s behind you!’ I do panto, looking closer at the rack.
Then I spot a small grease-coated envelope stuffed behind the oregano and paprika.
‘I want you to have it,’ he says.
It’s a fuzzy old Polaroid of a young woman with bleached blond hair piled up. Pale thin face, like she’s sucking her cheeks in. I lean back on the kitchen counter. Stare at the heavily made-up big grey eyes. They look caught unawares. I feel my breath squeezed, tight in my chest.
Ken beckons me over. Squints at the photo, then at me.
‘Pretty lass, she were. Delicate, like. You get your big bones from my side.’ He gives a wheezy chuckle.
