Blitz

Roberts was trying to read the Observer Magazine, an article about ‘Wagonistas’. It’s sobriety but not the old-fashioned recovering addict, AA meetings stuff. This was being sober for a great lifestyle, for fashion, for economics. It was ten in the morning; Roberts lifted his mug, drank some of the red wine. He’d read once that it was good for the blood and heart. Though, if you drank it all day, maybe you were missing the point.

He was certainly missing his mouth.

A tremor caused the mug to hit the bridge of his nose and the stuff to spill down his front. He jumped up, trying to brush the liquid off. Wearing a pink dressing gown belonging to his wife, he hadn’t shaved or washed in days, knew he was going down the toilet but couldn’t summon up the energy to care. His daughter had been on a flying visit and borrowed fifty quid, then asked,

‘Are you going to sell the house?’

‘What house?’

She’d sighed eerily like her mother, then,

‘This house. You can’t live here, not with all Mummy’s things.’

‘And where will I go?’

‘To a bedsit, like all solitary older men.’

He thought he’d misheard, repeated,

‘Old... me?’

‘Oh, Daddy, you were always old. Tariq says you should be retired.’

‘You’re still with him then?’

‘Of course, he’s my karma; we’re going to Bombay to meet his family.’

Roberts felt a great weariness, said,

‘Bon voyage.’

Now she near shrieked:

‘We need money, we need you to sell up.’

Roberts counted to ten then tried,

‘You tell Tariq to come and see me. We’ll have a little chat.’

His daughter threw her eyes to heaven, then,

‘Talk to you? Nobody can talk to you. Mummy said it was like talking to a brick wall.’

He didn’t know how to proceed, so he said nothing. This riled her further. She spat:

‘Oh, you’re so pathetic, I hate you.’

And stormed out, slamming the door. He wanted to shout:

‘Oh yeah? Give me back my fifty quid then.’

It crossed his mind to have Brant drop in on Tariq, expose him to that mind-set. Instead, he’d gone to the drinks cupboard and found nothing but bottles of red wine. He vaguely remembered going out the day after the funeral and buying another batch. Now he surveyed the empty bottles and thought he’d better shape up. Managed to stand under the shower and felt a degree better. Then he looked in the mirror and the shock made him gasp. An unshaven, red-eyed lunatic was staring back. That was it for any hope of shaving. He put on a crumpled suit, a grubby shirt and headed out, resolving to stock up on groceries, household goods, all that citizen shit. When he got to Safeway, the security guard eyed him closely. He hurried in, got a trolley and began to move down the aisle. He was lost. The shelves seemed stacked with huge amounts of washing powder. All he wanted was soup — as in one packet — some milk, bread and maybe a few slices of ham.

Heard someone whisper,

‘Guv?’

Turned to face Falls. She was dressed in a white tracksuit, emphasising her blackness. She looked in his empty trolley, asked,