‘You can’t.’

‘No?’

‘No one’ll accept it. Anyway, it’s not for spending. It’s so you remember.’

‘What?’

He took a moment. ‘When I was nineteen I went to England.’

‘I never knew that.’

‘Got a job and saved a bita money. Bought a ticket, six weeks on a steamer. The Orion. Heard of it?’

‘No.’

‘Anyway, arrived in London, got drunk, worked in a meat-packing store, saved some more money, travelled around—Stonehenge, Edinburgh—all over the place.’

‘Why’d you never say anything?’

‘Met a nice girl, but a week or so later …’

I studied the pound note. I thought I knew why.

‘Time was up. I came home, met yer Nan, got a job and settled down. And that’s how it’s been, ever since.’ He took the note. ‘And this … this was the last pound I come home with. The only one I didn’t spend.’

‘So it’s pretty old?’

‘Pretty.’ He returned it. ‘You keep it.’

‘Why?’

‘To remind you.’

‘What?’

‘Fifty years I been lookin’ at it, and every time I’ve thought, I shoulda stayed longer, or shoulda gone back, travelled to America, France, all over the place. It’s a big world, Clem.’

‘I’ve heard.’

‘Staying here, that’s okay, but you only live once, eh?’

I put it in my wallet. It seemed strange, carrying a regret in your pocket for that long. ‘You reckon I should travel?’

‘Yep, go see it all. Don’t believe what they say about university, or getting a good job. That’ll all come in time, but you gotta go. Sit on the lion in Trafalgar Square.’

‘You reckon?’

‘I think back now, that was the happiest day of my life. Sittin’ there, nothin’ to do, no money.’

Silent, again. He wasn’t forgetful. There was no Alzheimer’s.

‘Mortgage, that’s what kills a man,’ he said. ‘Mort, from the Latin for death. That’s what it is: a little death, every day, till you forget.’

He’d given me a present. But old blokes like Pop only did something for a reason. Old Spice, because he wanted to give me a pound. And now it was done there’d never be another present. Which was okay.

He’d had enough. ‘We need to fill those water drums, make sure they don’t leak.’

‘Done it.’

‘Righto. We’ll need plenty of warm clothes, even in September. Middle of the desert. Plenty of them explorers died of exposure.’

We saw the dog first: Fi-Fi, staring at us, a little yelp, then Ernie looking down the drive. ‘Hey, Doug.’

‘Quick, shut the door,’ Pop said. He stood, dropped his smoke and reached up.

‘What you up to?’ Ernie asked, starting down the drive.

‘Nothing.’ He turned to me. ‘Help, will yer?’

I reached for it and started pulling it down, but Ernie was already there.

‘What’s all that gear?’ he asked.