Billy shifted in his chair wondering what to say, and looked to Greg for help.
‘Billy’s a podophobe, Uncle Frank.’
‘Good God in Heaven!’ Uncle Frank cried out. ‘A child molester? Bloody Nora! What the hell are you thinking of, Billy? You’ve got a child of your own, for God’s sake!’
Greg burst out laughing.
‘What are you laughing at?’ Uncle Frank challenged him. ‘There’s nothing funny about child molestation!’
‘He’s not a child molester, Uncle – he’s afraid of feet!’
‘How can anyone in their right mind be afraid of feet?’ Uncle Frank said. ‘I’ve never heard anything so daft!’
‘I don’t know, Uncle Frank, but Billy’s managed it.’
‘Well, thanks a lot,’ Billy said to Greg, before turning to face his uncle. ‘At least I’m not planning to rob a bank. Podophobia’s a condition – not a criminal offence!’
‘Why did you tell him that?’ Uncle Frank asked Greg. ‘It was supposed to be a secret!’
‘And my podophobia was supposed to be a secret too!’ Billy said.
‘Look,’ Greg said, now on the defensive. ‘We shouldn’t have secrets from each other – we’re family. If we can’t trust each other, who can we trust?’
‘Okay, you tell us one of your secrets then,’ Uncle Frank dared him.
‘I don’t have any,’ Greg replied honestly. ‘I did all my screwing up in public. Remember?’
The three of them stared at each other and then Billy spoke.
‘Okay, but we’re all agreed that these matters stay with us – they don’t leave this room? Jean doesn’t get to hear about it and neither does Betty.’
Uncle Frank and Greg nodded, but Billy wanted further confirmation.
‘And you two aren’t going to start making stupid cracks in front of them about me putting my best foot forward or falling on my feet? You’re not going to say things like I wouldn’t want to be in Billy’s shoes, or tell them I never put a foot wrong?’
‘Of course not,’ Greg said. ‘Why would we say anything like that?’
‘Because that’s the type of thing you used to say in front of Jean. You were forever making horse jokes.’
‘You knew we were doing that?’ Greg asked, surprised that his brother had picked up on their joke.
‘Of course I did. I’m not stupid, Greg. You’re just lucky that Jean didn’t twig what you were up to.’
‘Greg started it,’ Uncle Frank said. ‘It was his idea – not mine.’
‘Jesus Christ, Uncle Frank!’ Greg protested.
‘I don’t care who started it,’ Billy said. ‘You were both as bad as each other. Now, do I have your words on this?’
Uncle Frank and Greg gave Billy their assurances, and then the eyes of Uncle Frank and Billy fell on Greg; remained there and silently accused him of betrayal.
‘Why don’t we take a look at the television?’ Greg suggested casually.
Billy went to the television, put the plug in the socket and turned on the set. Static! He played with the controls. Nothing! He opened the doors of the cabinet below the television and looked inside.
‘Where’s your Freeview Box, Uncle Frank?’
‘What did he say, Greg? I can’t hear him from here.’
Greg turned the radio down. ‘He asked you where your Freeview Box was.’
‘What’s a Freeview Box?’
‘I don’t know,’ Greg shrugged. ‘What’s a Freeview Box, Billy?’
‘Something you need to pick up digital transmissions. The old analogue signal was turned off and you need a box to decode the new signal. New televisions have them built in, but old sets like this won’t work without a box.’
‘Whose idea was it to change the signal?’ Uncle Frank asked.
‘Well, the government’s I suppose,’ Billy said.
‘I knew it! I damn well knew it!’ Uncle Frank said triumphantly. ‘People laughed at me when I said the government had turned off my television, but I was right, wasn’t I? I’ve been right all along!’
‘It was the same for everyone,’ Billy said. ‘They sent leaflets to every household explaining what they were doing and what people needed to do; and because of your age, they’d have sent someone to your house to connect everything. You did get a leaflet, didn’t you?’
‘Anything pushed through the letterbox without my name on it goes straight in the bin,’ Uncle Frank said. ‘You wouldn’t believe the junk I get. And I’m about sick to death of those plastic bags. I got four last week asking for my clothes! Who do these charities think I am – Donald Trump?
‘Anyway, I don’t want any government officials coming into my house and poking their noses around. They’d start suggesting I get Home Help or Meals on Wheels, and before you knew it they’d have me in a home. I’m never going into a home! I’d rather be shot! And Frank Bowman doesn’t need anyone’s charity, either. He pays his own way. He doesn’t need a free View Box. He’ll pay for it himself.’
‘They’re not free, Uncle Frank,’ Billy said. ‘You have to pay for them.’
‘You mean the government’s going to charge me for what used to be free? That’s not right. What’s the damn licence fee for?’
There were times, Greg thought, when a pneumatic drill was required to get either sense into Uncle Frank’s head or oddball ideas out of it. He looked at his watch. ‘We need to get moving, Billy. We have to be at the Probate Office in an hour.’
‘One more question, Uncle Frank,’ Billy said. ‘Is the upstairs radio a digital radio?’
‘I don’t know,’ Uncle Frank said. ‘It used to be your Auntie Irene’s.’
Probate
They parked at the edge of the city centre on a piece of land that had once been the site of Billy’s old grammar school. The school had burned down some fifteen years earlier, but by then the school had moved to a new location and the building had been taken over by the Department for Work and Pensions. Billy had gone to sign on there after the mill closed down, and the irony of the situation hadn’t been lost on him.
In the days when few students went to university, the school had mounted ornate wooden boards in the assembly hall to honour those of its students who had. Their names were written in gold-coloured paint and listed in alphabetical order and by year of graduation. When the school relocated to another part of the city the boards were left behind, and as the Department for Work and Pensions was there only on a temporary basis, it too left the boards in situ and simply partitioned the assembly hall into small offices.
The honour boards now provided the backdrop to the offices and when Billy first visited the repurposed building to sign on for the dole, he’d found himself sitting in an office staring at a board with his name on it. He recognised then that life didn’t always run to plan.
‘You know this was the original site of your school too, don’t you?’ Billy asked.
Greg didn’t.
‘Well it was. Your school moved to where it is now in 1920 and the building here was supposed to have been torn down. But in that year my school went up in flames and everyone had to be moved here. It was only supposed to be for a short time because the building had already been condemned. There were large wooden buttresses propping it up at the back.
‘I can still remember the stone steps inside the school. They were grooved on both sides, worn down over the years by thousands of feet. We were supposed to always walk to the left and in single file, and a prefect stood at the top of the staircase to make sure we did. If you came up two at a time you got sent back down to the bottom again, and if you overtook someone you’d be given an order mark. Three order marks in one week and you were on detention.’
‘I was always being placed on detention,’ Greg said. ‘How about you? Did you ever get it?’
‘No, but a prefect on
ce gave me two order marks for just leaning against one of the buttresses. That struck me as being a bit unfair, but you could never appeal their decisions. I’ve never understood why schooldays are supposed to be the happiest days of your life. They weren’t mine. I hated gym and I hated exams. I can still remember walking to school one exam week and passing an old bloke up a ladder cleaning windows. He was whistling away to himself as happy as Larry. I’d have done anything to trade places with him that day.’
At Greg’s suggestion, they left the car park and school day reminiscences behind them and set off for the Probate Office.
What was most noticeable about the city centre Greg walked through was how unnoticeable it was. Most of the buildings were still there but the bustle was gone, and there was no evidence of any commerce worthy of the name. The shopping areas were decimated and countless premises abandoned. The large stores and familiar names he remembered had all but disappeared and only the bargain shops remained to compete with the thrift stores that now dotted the streets of whitewashed windows.
He glanced at Billy, and Billy read his thoughts.
‘I know. Depressing, isn’t it?’
It wasn’t just depressing, Greg thought, it was heartbreaking – like going to visit a loved one in the hospital and realising for the first time that they were going to die. The centre was no longer the thriving nucleus of a proud city, but the residue of a city that had missed out on the nation’s booms and shared in all its busts. The few people they passed were lumpen and bedraggled, joyless and ragamuffin and walked without purpose: the remnant of an army defeated in economic battle whose only recourse was now to appear on The Jeremy Kyle Show.
‘Try not to make eye contact with anyone,’ Billy advised. ‘People carry knives these days.’
They walked past their fourth Romanian accordionist of the day and entered a building at the rear of the city hall and took the lift to the fourth floor. They gave their names to the receptionist at the desk and took seats opposite an elderly Asian couple dressed in traditional salwar kameez. The woman was wearing a headscarf and the man a Sindhi cap.
‘Hey, what’s happening?’ Greg said.
‘My wife’s father died,’ the man said, mistaking Greg’s greeting for a question.
‘My brother wasn’t meaning to pry,’ Billy apologised. ‘It’s just that he lives in America and that’s the way they greet each other there.’
He then fell silent and hoped Greg would do the same.
‘I like the hat,’ Greg said. ‘Where did you get the hat from?’
‘From a shop,’ the man replied.
‘Does the hat have a name?’ Greg persisted.
‘It’s called a Sindhi cap,’ the man said.
‘Well, I’ll be,’ Greg said. ‘I’ve got a girlfriend called Cyndi. I ought to buy her one.’
Billy wondered if his brother was as cheery and talkative as this in a doctor’s surgery. There were places where conversation was neither welcomed nor appropriate, and to his way of thinking the Probate Office was one such place. There was, however, something familiar about the old man sitting opposite him and it slowly dawned on him who he was.
‘Mr Aziz?’ he asked.
The man looked surprised and nodded warily.
‘I don’t know if you remember me, Mr Aziz, but I’m Billy Bowman. We worked at the mill together.’
Mr Aziz broke into a broad grin and stood to shake Billy’s proffered hand. ‘Mr Billy,’ he said. ‘How are you my old friend?’
‘I’m well, thank you. And you – how are you?’
‘Old as the mountain I can no longer climb,’ Mr Aziz laughed. ‘But I’m well enough. My health remains and I draw a pension.’
‘Mr Aziz was one of the foremen in the mill,’ Billy explained to Greg. ‘He was one of our best workers… this is my brother Greg, by the way, Mr Aziz.’
Greg and Mr Aziz shook hands, and Mr Aziz then introduced them to his wife.
‘It was a sad day when the mill closed down, wasn’t it, Mr Aziz? What did you do after that?’
‘I drove a taxi, Mr Billy. The money wasn’t good, but at least it paid for my daughter and son to go to university. They have good jobs now, but live far away. No work for them in this city. What you do now?’
‘Well, I got married, and I have a daughter called Katy who’s seven. I sell textbooks for a living – travel to universities and talk to lecturers. What I’d really like to do though…’
One of the office doors opened and the names of Mr and Mrs Aziz were called.
‘Nice people,’ Greg said, once the Aziz’s had entered the office and the door closed behind them. ‘Why was he calling you Mr Billy? Was the mill you worked in a leftover from the Empire or something?’
‘It was his idea,’ Billy said. ‘I told him to call me Billy, but he insisted on calling me Mr Billy. I think he felt more comfortable doing that, and it was his way of showing respect. I wish the other workers in the mill had been as well-mannered. They could have taken a leaf out of Mr Aziz’s book.’
‘Why, what did they call you?’
‘Billy Bonkers, if you must know,’ Billy said. ‘I once found some graffiti in the men’s toilet that said “Billy Bonkers has no Conkers”. Can you believe that?’
Greg smiled. He found it very easy to believe.
The probate hearing was straightforward. Their father’s estate was small and uncomplicated, and as Lyle had died intestate – his letter of intent having no legal standing – it passed directly to Billy and Greg. They were named as co-executors and told that the certificates of probate would arrive early the following week.
Greg and Billy walked back to the car and drove to a small retail park at the edge of the city to buy a Freeview Box, a digital radio and a DVD player for Uncle Frank. Billy chose them and Greg paid for them. They packed the boxes into the large boot of Billy’s car and returned to their uncle’s house.
Greg and Uncle Frank watched as Billy connected the box and the DVD player to the television and tuned in the stations.
‘How many channels did you say, lad?’
‘About sixty, Uncle Frank,’ Billy said. ‘But most of them aren’t worth watching.’
‘By heck, did you hear that, Greg? Sixty! There’ll be no point in me going to bed at night.’
Billy carefully stuck labels to the remote controls (TV, FV, and DVD) and then demonstrated the functions of each arrow and every button. His explanations were clear and unhurried, and very soon Uncle Frank was handling the clickers with the adeptness of a professional gunslinger playing with his revolver. Greg and Billy watched for a time as he surfed through the channels and then left him in the capable hands of Judge Judy.
The next day, Billy left for London to meet with Dr Haffenden and Greg started to clear the house. He looked through drawers, cupboards and wardrobes, and filled cardboard boxes and plastic bags with the detritus of his father’s life. He loaded his car, drove to the tip and dumped them all into the same skip. If the practice had been good enough for his father and was still good enough for Syd Butterfield, it was certainly good enough for him. The country of his birth was no longer his responsibility, he decided. It could sort itself and its rubbish out. His hands were already full with Billy and Uncle Frank, and besides, he now lived in America – though as a non-voter, he didn’t feel any responsibility for that country either!
He was woken the next morning by a loud knocking on the front door. He quickly pulled on his jeans and T-shirt and went downstairs to investigate. He found two men standing there and a large lorry parked on the road.
The men greeted him cheerily – far too cheerily for eight o’clock in the morning. ‘I think you’re expecting us, Mr Bowman. We’re here to fix the wall-ties.’
Greg had completely forgotten.
‘I’ll warn you now, Mr Bowman, it’s going to get noisy,’ one of them s
aid. ‘You might want to leave the house for a while.’
Greg made the men coffee and told them he’d play it by ear.
‘A wise choice of words, Mr Bowman,’ the man smiled.
Greg washed and changed, and then poured himself coffee. He’d planned to finish clearing the house that day but, as the lorry was now blocking his car in the drive, decided instead to sort through his father’s papers. He took the brown manila file from the sideboard cupboard and went to the front room.
He’d just spread the documents from the first section on to the settee when the drilling started. The noise was relentless and ear-splitting, and the house vibrated. It was as if the man with the drill was standing right next to him. Greg decided to take the workman’s advice and leave the house for a few hours. But where to go? Uncle Frank’s was the obvious choice, but he opted instead for the local park. The day was warm and windless and, unlike Uncle Frank’s house, the park would be peaceful. He needed to concentrate, and listening to birdsong would be a lot more conducive to thought than Planet Rock.
He quickly put the documents back into the file and went outside to tell the workmen of his decision. He told them the back door was unlocked and that they were welcome to use the downstairs toilet and help themselves to tea or coffee. He then set off for the park, the manila file under his arm and his ears ringing.
The park was at the top of a long tree-lined avenue about a mile from the house and close to the junior school he’d attended. It had been there for over a hundred years. The large iron gates, which were locked shut at night, had already been swung open and Greg took the path that led down to the lake. He passed the bowling greens and tennis courts and chose a bench by the lakeside that was shaded by a large oak tree. There were no rowing boats now but the ducks were still there. At night they nestled on a small island in the middle of the lake, but during the day splashed and quacked closer to shore.
Greg opened the file and started to work through the papers. His father, he soon realised, had organised the documents alphabetically rather than in subject order. Consequently, he found gas and telephone bills in the ‘B’ compartment (British Gas, BT), electric bills in the ‘N’ compartment (npower), and water bills in the ‘Y’ compartment (Yorkshire Water). Bank statements, however, which he’d expected to find under ‘B’ for Barclays, were in the ‘M’ compartment – presumably for Money, and because the ‘B’ compartment was already jammed to capacity.
The Last of the Bowmans Page 21
