‘Priceless,’ he says. ‘Bloody priceless.’ There’s a lot of huffing and wiping of the mouth again.

Finally he slams his hand down on the tablecloth. The Lapsang Souchong shakes in his cup. He scrapes back his chair and throws Frankenstein into his rucksack.

‘You’re as bad as your mother.’ I think he’s going to spit. Or use that fist.

But he doesn’t. He walks out. He walks out, and then it’s just me, the bill, and the ECG monitor clock. Tick. Tick. Tick.

seventeen: Howard, December, 1985

seventeen

Howard

December, 1985

The next night, I was late leaving work and I drove a little too fast on the way home. I listened to Radio 2 in the car. The mystery voice. It had gone on for weeks, that one. A man saying, ‘Of course, that was back in my day.’ There was a little laugh somewhere in his voice; a slight northern accent. No one could get it. They’d tried everyone from John Noakes to Brian Blessed.

I’d thought it might be a start, the apology. He’d had a day to mull it over, and I’d hoped that when he came back that night, we could all sit down together over dinner and Robert might even smile. He might see that I was willing to make an effort, at least.

But when I arrived home, having completed the journey in five minutes under my usual time, our house was filled with a strange smell. There was a reek of fried onions, and something else I couldn’t name.

‘What are you making?’ I called to Kathryn from the hallway.

‘Curry.’ Through the open kitchen door, I saw her glance at her recipe book. ‘Lamb curry. I thought I’d try it. To warm Robert up when he comes back from the farm.’

We’d never had curry before. As I removed my coat, I inhaled the other smell, something beneath the fried onion, something rounded and savoury. It’s stayed on my clothes ever since. Later that night, when I held my wife’s hands up to my face, I could smell it there, as if it was thriving under her nails. Kathryn told me, afterwards, that it was garlic.

I sat down with the news and the weather forecast. Even Michael Fish looked cold as he stuck the temperatures on the map.

‘Freezing again tomorrow,’ I called to Kathryn. She came in from the kitchen and stood in front of me.

‘Rob’s not back yet.’ She folded back the edge of her cuff and looked at her watch. ‘Shouldn’t he be back by seven?’ She was wearing two jumpers, I remember that. Her green polo neck underneath Robert’s grey school V-neck.

‘Will the dinner spoil?’

She looked puzzled. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No, the dinner won’t spoil, Howard.’