Seventeen Gifts for Frannie and Jess

by Nasser Hashmi

  ‘It’s not paint, they were drawn with chalk. It comes off quite easily but I decided to leave them there.’ I pause and pick up a blueberry, placing it into my mouth carefully. I recall the defacement of Donald’s picture in the campaign leaflet. ‘I suppose this is a form of graffiti too.’

  ‘No it isn’t. But Gillian did tell me about that bastard who spoiled Donald’s picture in that leaflet. You should have called the police.’

  I almost choke on my blueberry. ‘Well, you were down there, why didn’t you report it?’

  ‘It’s for Chiltern’s finest to deal with it not the Met. Mine could have become an international incident because it happened in the Olympic Park.’ He picks up a cookie and hastily takes a bigger bite than necessary. He opens the scrapbook and some of the crumbs land on the pages. He swats them away with his fingers. ‘I wanted to show you this, Francesca, because there’s probably a lot of pictures in here you haven’t seen. I used to take my camera with me to matches even though it annoyed Donald. I don’t regret it for a moment though. We caught some wonderful moments.’ He eases the book towards me.

  ‘Why are you showing this to me now, Lawrence? I’m sure you’ve had it for a while.’

  ‘Yes, but I’d completely forgotten about it. William found it in the attic a couple of days ago when he was going through some of his own stuff because he wants to leave home. It was on the same day of the incident at the Olympic Park. He showed it to me and, after I’d looked through them for a couple of hours, I realised how stupid I’d been. It was one of the reasons I later handed myself to police. I felt guilty about treating you so badly after everything you’d been through. I had to make amends.’

  I don’t reply and start working my way through the scrapbook instead. On the first page, there is a glorious, striking picture of Donald and Lawrence bending down with their arm round a very young William outside Edgbaston cricket ground. There are literally hundreds of people around them, waiting to go into the ground, including a sizeable number of West Indian fans. The colour and vivaciousness of this picture makes me feel that I am almost there, hearing the musical instruments and sensing the lush grass about to be graced by a red cricket ball. I turn the page and it’s a grubby-looking scorecard from the same match, followed by a newspaper article. Gradually, I become attuned to the scrapbook’s rhythms. Plenty of scorecards, stadium memorabilia and media articles – but it’s the pictures of Donald that draw me in. One of Donald, arm in arm with an elderly umpire, another with him in the member’s enclosure watching the white-kitted cricketers walking out onto the field and a third showing a delirious Donald and William playing their own shortened game in a completely empty stadium as the rain lashes down. I focus in on Donald’s face; he seems so happy in that moment that I wonder if he ever felt the same way anywhere else.

  ‘How did you get that picture?’ I ask. ‘The place is deserted. You’re the only ones there.’

  ‘It had been raining for two days on the run. So we went on the third hoping we’d see some play but that was rained off too. Everybody went home but we got our bat and ball out and got as close as we could get to the middle. We wouldn’t even get to the boundary these days. A goon in a high-visibility jacket would stop us immediately.’

  I go through to the end of the scrapbook and close it. I sigh and eat some more blueberries. I savour their tangy juices on my tongue. I lean back in my chair and look at Lawrence.

  ‘Can I keep this?’ I ask. ‘It’s the least you can do after everything that has happened.’

  ‘Well, it’s not really yours is it?’

  ‘Maybe it isn’t. But you admit you’d completely forgotten about it until William fished it out.’

  ‘True, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t special to me…’

  ‘…Have a funny way of showing it.’

  He finishes off his cookie and licks his lips. He closes his eyes and enjoys the taste. ‘Lord God, that’s wonderful Francesca. I wish Gillian could still make delicacies like this.’

  ‘She can, she’s just got other things on her mind.’

  ‘Don’t tell me: the library campaign,’ he says, picking up his cup of coffee and taking a sip. ‘It’s destroyed our marriage. It’s not her dad, William or her constant whingeing about my hours, it all comes down to the books. She’s always loved them more than me…’

  ‘Donald was a bit like that too…’

  ‘No, no, they were part of his life but not the be all and end all. He did like his stats though; the cricket scorecards, the innings totals, a batsman’s average. I think he picked all that up from the army; a sense of order, a sense of team play, a feeling for the numbers around you…’

  ‘Thanks for filling me in on Donald’s character,’ I say, with a smile. ‘I only lived with him for 46 years!’

  ‘Much obliged,’ he replies, raising his coffee cup. ‘Men can only properly understand each other in a truly sporting context.’

  ‘So sport is a great unifier then? Like the Olympics?’

  ‘I wouldn’t go that far. Cricket has a unique heartbeat and it’ll be here long after the Olympic roadshow has left town. I still find those sports hard to get into. Of course, I’m proud of the British success but it’ll all be forgotten by next month.’

  ‘I don’t think so. This is different.’

  ‘You’re in the loop so I can understand you think that way but the rest of us will quickly be locked into the whirlpool of work again – and it will just become a nice, but distant, memory.’

  ‘Why do you keep on working in a place you obviously don’t like?’

  He sighs and takes a long, lingering drink of his coffee.

  ‘Because I’m trapped, that’s why. I’ve been there for more than 21 years now and if I leave where am I going to go? I can’t retrain as anything now, not at my age, so I’ve just got to get my head down and get on with it. I’ve also seen the age of our employees come down dramatically and a lot of them end up in senior positions. I feel I have to act up sometimes just to keep up with them.’

  I pause and dip a cookie into my coffee, glancing up at him as I take a bite of the soaked biscuit. ‘You need Donald back so you can go down to the cricket with him.’

  ‘Maybe that’s what I miss, I don’t know. I have no friends in London, only colleagues because I don’t socialise or attend any events there. Here, I know a few people but I’m not interested in their small-time jam-making sessions or parish meetings about the latest planning application.’

  I shake my head and sigh. ‘I think you’re lost, Lawrence. You’re family’s breaking up and you’re taking out your frustration on everything around you. I think you should take a long, hard look at what you still have and cherish it.’

  ‘Jack…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Jack. He’s the only one who understands his father. As you know, he does marketing and PR for a private healthcare firm in north London, and has just bought a new flat there. He earns money, respects me and we speak regularly on the phone, sometimes two or three times a week. He’ll be visiting us on Sunday.’

  ‘Hmm, Sunday? I haven’t seen him for a while…’

  ‘Why have you got something planned?’

  ‘Sort of, it’s the last day of the Olympics. But why do you think Jack understands you better than Gillian or William do? Or is it because you’ve helped him with the flat in terms of the rent and the furniture? I know it’s expensive around there.’

  ‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear the second part of the question. I’m here to apologise so I must bite my lip.’ He finishes off his coffee and wipes the side of his mouth with a serviette. ‘Generally, I’d say, he’s entered a similar kind of workplace that I have; pressurised, intense and highly competitive, so that’s why he can relate to the things I’ve sacrificed for the family. He even visited me in Docklands on a couple of occas
ions. We had lunch together. They were the best hours I’ve spent together with any family member in the last decade.’

  ‘Even Gillian?’

  ‘Our relationship has been non-existent for the past decade…’

  ‘So what now? Is the divorce final? Can no heads be banged together at this late stage?’

  He rolls his index finger around the empty cup of coffee. ‘It’s up to Gillian. I want the family to stay together. I want William to remain in our home. But it’s up to her. She wants a divorce so bad that I think she might be having an affair…’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake Lawrence,’ I say, nearly spilling the plate of cookies onto the floor with a brush of my arm. ‘Not that old chestnut again. She is not having an affair. You really must get that poisonous thought out of your head. It was the same when all that disgusting stuff came up with Donald when he’d just started at the library; that she was seeing him and that she liked former army types and all that rubbish. It was and still is very distressing, don’t you understand that?’

  He crosses his hands abruptly and looks up at me. ‘I understand that utterly and comprehensively but you, too, have to understand that if Gillian leaves me it is akin to what happened to you when Donald passed away. A bereavement, simple as that. She will be gone forever and I’m not sure I can take that. I just can’t…’

  Three hours later, Lawrence and I are still in the garden as Jessica finally comes home. She is shocked to see Lawrence sitting by my side and ambles towards us with uncharacteristic hesitation. She stands by our side and then reaches down to pick up a blueberry from the bowl.

  ‘The fruits probably gone off now,’ I say. ‘We’ve been here for a while. How was the shift today? Not too taxing, I hope.’

  ‘Finished on a high,’ she says, picking up two more blueberries. ‘The women’s hockey team won a bronze by beating the Kiwis 3-1 this afternoon so I’m well chuffed for the girls. I’ve texted a couple of them already.’

  ‘Shouldn’t they have won gold?’ asks Lawrence, looking up at Jessica. ‘Home crowd and all that. William said they lost to Argentina or something in the semis. Did the pressure get to them?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ says Jessica, finally pulling up a chair and sitting down. ‘Argentina just scored more goals.’

  Lawrence laughs and shakes his head. ‘Oh so glib, Jessica. Is that what you do for a living?’

  Jessica looks at me and I raise my hand slightly to suggest any response to Lawrence on this occasion will be futile.

  ‘Lawrence came round today to apologise to the both of us, didn’t you Lawrence?’ I look at him and he shifts in his seat. ‘He’s already spoken to me at length and I’ve accepted his apology. He did wrong and he’s acknowledged it. Now you must do the same with Jessica.’

  Lawrence does not reply immediately – and instead fixes his eyes on Jessica. She reaches for the scrapbook on the table.

  ‘What’s that?’ she asks, picking it up and flicking through the pages. ‘Looks ancient…’

  ‘It’s not that old,’ says Lawrence.

  ‘Old enough.’ She keeps flicking through the pages and reaches one that makes her smile. ‘Jesus, look at the picture of William in there! He looks like a Smurf.’

  ‘So subtle as usual,’ says Lawrence.

  ‘Like you were…’ she says, peering up from the scrapbook, ‘…when you nearly beat us up in the Olympic Park?’

  Lawrence gets up and pulls back his chair which ends up about four feet away near a wall. ‘If it wasn’t for people like me you wouldn’t have a fucking Olympics!’

  ‘Okay, come on, calm down please,’ I say, raising both hands and trying to mediate. ‘You’re in my house now so I won’t stand for any of this nonsense. Jessica, please give Lawrence a chance. He did come here in good faith and we should let him apologise in a civil manner. I don’t want these wonderful two weeks to be spoilt by petty things this late in the day.’ I look at Jessica. ‘Please let him say what he wants.’

  ‘I’m not stopping him. He’s got the cob on, not me. If he doesn’t like his son chasing after me then what can I do?’

  ‘You’re an arrogant so and so aren’t you,’ says Lawrence, with his hands on his hips. ‘Where is he anyway? I haven’t seen him since breakfast.’

  ‘Gone to look at our new flat in Leeds, I think. He went up on the train this morning. Said he’d be back by seven but could be some delays, I don’t know.’

  Lawrence puts his hand on his forehead and starts to pace around the garden. ‘For fuck’s sake,’ he says, more to himself than to anyone else. ‘When is this shit going to end?’

  ‘Now, if you let it,’ I say, getting up and walking towards Lawrence. I put my hand on his shoulder and ease him back to the table. He is hesitant at first but then lets me take control. He sits back down and folds his arms, looking down at the ground. I sit down by his side and watch him as he stews. A couple of minutes pass in complete silence and then, without prompting, he looks up at Jessica.

  ‘I’m genuinely sorry for putting my hands on you in an aggressive manner that day, Jessica. It was wrong. I shouldn’t have been drunk and I shouldn’t have been frustrated. There are no excuses for that kind of behaviour. You two were enjoying a good day at the Olympics. I spoiled that in a big way. It shouldn’t have happened and I’ll probably regret it for the rest of my life because I’ve never had dealings with the police before. It’s why I went to them almost immediately. I hope you can forgive me.’

  I feel almost elated that Lawrence has apologised to Jessica in such a singular manner, with no excuses or caveats. I look at Jessica and she puts down the scrapbook. She reaches over the table and offers her hand. Lawrence hesitates but then looks up and shakes Jessica’s hand vigorously.

  ‘Genuinely sorry,’ he says, finally breaking out into a smile.

  ‘So am I if there have been any misunderstandings,’ says Jessica. ‘Particularly where my relationship with William is concerned.’

  ‘…And how deep does that relationship go?’

  ‘We’ll probably be living together in Leeds by next week. Is that deep enough for you?’

  Lawrence lets go of Jessica’s hand and looks at me. His prolonged stare makes me feel, for the first time ever perhaps, that I understand what’s he’s thinking at this precise moment.

  ‘Sometimes you have to learn to let go,’ he says. ‘Francesca’s done that. Maybe I need to do the same with William.’

  DAY SIXTEEN

  Rob raises his fist in the air and shouts ‘Ka-yakkety-yak!’ as he celebrates Ed McKeever’s gold medal at Eton Dorney. He asks a group of gathered spectators to join him and repeat this strangely seductive mantra which quickly descends into laughter and horseplay. Eventually, about 40 people end up shouting ‘Ka-yakkety-yak!’ with Rob as their conductor, prancing around like some Pink Panther figure who knows exactly which buttons to press. Then he flashes his fingers to denote how many gold medals Team GB have won. Twenty five! Then they all sing: ‘Twenty Five, Ka-yakkety-yak!’ There are people nearly falling about, unable to contain their laughter. I admire the way Rob engages with a crowd. I still can’t do that – even after this sumptuous fortnight. Perhaps, I’ll get a chance on Sunday with all those people coming to my house? Watching Rob makes me feel curiously upbeat about the prospect.

  When the spectators have melted away, Rob walks towards me, out of breath and sweating. He stops by my side and uses my shoulder as a leaning mechanism.

  ‘Jesus, that was more tiring than I thought,’ he says, using his name badge to wipe some sweat from his brow. ‘Now, I know why all those conductors went mad, you know, Mozart and the like.’

  ‘But they were geniuses too,’ I say, with a smile.

  ‘If you say so.’ He takes his forearm off my shoulder. ‘What’s this I hear about a party at your place on Sunday? You sure that’
s a good idea?’

  ‘Did Jessica tell you about it?’

  ‘Not only that but she threatened to cuff me to a post if I didn’t come.’

  ‘It’s not a party really,’ I say, folding my arms. ‘It’s just a way of saying thank you to some of the volunteers. I wasn’t enthusiastic, at first, but Jessica’s won me round.’

  His expression turns serious for the first time. He moves a bit closer and bends down to ensure contact.

  ‘Are you sure about this Frannie? Two weeks ago, you were at rock bottom, almost unable to speak. You wanted to be alone in the house, quite understandably.’ He pauses and puts his hand on my arm. ‘But now you want loads of people there? If that’s what you want, great, but I just want to make sure it is completely your decision and your arm hasn’t been twisted by the blonde bombshell. She does have a habit of getting what she wants.’

  ‘She hasn’t twisted my arm. I think she just wants to preserve some memories, that’s all.’ I pause and offer a polite, reassuring smile. ‘I do too.’

  Rob breaks out into a smile and steps back. ‘Like this memory?’ He raises his fist and shouts: ‘Ka-yakkety-yak! Come on, Frannie, after three, you can do it too…’

  ‘But I don’t want to,’ I say, hoping that no other spectators are watching this grisly spectacle. ‘And besides I don’t even know which event Ed McKeever won? All your yakking makes no sense to me.’

  Rob falls to the ground, laughing so hard I think he’s going to be ill. He does a motion with an oar.

  ‘Some form of rowing?’ I say.

  ‘No, it was the men’s 200 kilometres…’ he says, almost in hysterics by now and holding his stomach to quell the laughter. ‘In Ka-yakkety-yak!’

  ‘I’ve got it: Kayak!’

  He is unable to speak but nods his head in sheer, intense delight. As I look at him, rolling about on the ground, I do wonder if this is appropriate behaviour for a team leader. But when a young boy in a baseball cap, clutching a notebook and pen, asks for his autograph, I realise Rob has helped make these Games what they are: fun-loving, free-spirited and quietly inclusive. Letting oneself go has been the mantra (despite what the Ka-yakkety-yaks say).