‘Never there,’ Mum jokes, but she’s not wrong. I was always out with friends at that point or hopping on National Express coaches to see Blondie in Birmingham or Kate Bush in Hammersmith.
He’s really listening, like always, and looking closer at the picture. ‘What’s that you’re holding?’ he asks.
‘That?’ I draw my face close to the glass. ‘That is a red Sony Walkman. Tell me you know what a Walkman is, for God’s sake.’
He bursts into laughter. ‘Of course I do. I’m forty-nine, not fourteen. Be worth a fortune now if you’d kept it. What do you think you were listening to that day?’
I know exactly what I was listening to, as clear as day. ‘Bit of Madness, some Gary Numan, and The Specials.’ I search his expression for recognition, and thankfully he’s pulling an impressed face. ‘I suppose you were rocking out to “The Birdie Song” around about this time.’
‘No, actually.’ He acts offended. ‘I was a cool kid.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘I was at the very least into Adam and the Ants.’
‘When you were… seven?’
‘Yeah!’ he insists. ‘Asked my mum to paint on a white stripe and everything.’ He draws a fingertip over the bridge of his nose to his cheek.
‘Ahem!’ Mum interrupts us from the phone screen. I’d almost forgotten she was there.
To stop her sharing any salacious conclusions she might be drawing, I tell her I’ll have to call her back later when I’m doing the evening’s baking. ‘I’ll need some pointers about this flying gingerbread sleigh I’m trying out,’ and she squints her eyes at us but thankfully only says she’ll be waiting by her phone when I’m ready. I tell her I love her and hang up.
‘You OK?’ Patrick asks in the silence afterwards.
‘Uh-huh, just thinking.’
‘About?’
‘Doesn’t matter.’
We’re still side by side in front of the visual reminder that Wheaton’s street party days of neighbourliness and celebrations are long gone, but he’s not looking at the picture. I let my eyes lift to Patrick’s and realise he’s reaching a hand to my hair.
‘Cobweb,’ he says, brushing his fingers close to my temple.
I feel myself frozen for a moment.
I don’t know how to act. It’s not fair, this younger guy acting all friendly, not knowing the effect he has on me. I lift my own hand to my hair, then look to 1980s Margi in the picture. ‘Bit different-looking these days.’
‘Are you? You look about the same to me.’
‘Hah! What is it Lucy says? I’m a “boomer” now – only without the baby – and she’s a “millennial”, apparently. What does that make you?’
‘Dunno.’ He shrugs, his eyes alive like he couldn’t care less about all that stuff.
‘You don’t have an older brother, do you?’ It’s out before I know what my mouth’s doing.
I think he’s going to laugh but he’s firm when he replies. ‘No.I don’t.’ He seems to think for a moment, then adds, ‘Have you eaten? I’m starving.’
The awkwardness is suddenly over and we’re back to what we had been before whatever that little moment of uncertainty was. ‘Me too. And I’m freezing. Pub?’
‘Pub,’ he agrees.
Once we’re outside in the dark locking up, someone approaches. They come all the way up the steps to meet us.
Patrick makes the introductions. ‘Ah, Mr Bold, our new head teacher; this is Margi Frost, chair of the gingerbread grotto committee.’
‘We’ve met,’ I say, trying to keep the grimness out of my voice.
