‘I’m alright, thanks, think I’ll head up.’ I click off the radio.
He takes out two glasses and sloshes an inch in both.
‘For the love of God, Mikey, just have a drink with your old man, eh?’
He sits down at the table and slides the drink across. I’m not really a whiskey drinker, but I take a sip anyway.
He swirls the amber liquid before taking a large swig. ‘How’s the new job going?’
‘It’s fine. Pay’s shit.’
‘Aye. Well, it’s just a way in, ey? There’s a spot open at Barrow Beck if you’re interested?’
The whiskey burns in my stomach. If there is one thing that I’m most definitely not interested in, it’s working in the mines like my dad and my grandfather before him. But I don’t say that. He reaches for the portrait of Alice, a wracking cough held back behind his fist. My hand itches to take the paper back but instead I take another drink, bracing myself.
‘Pretty girl.’
‘Aye.’
‘You’re not bad at this drawing lark.’
‘It’s just a hobby, is all.’
He takes out a packet of fags and sparks up, blowing the smoke across the room. ‘Did I tell you when I was a lad I wanted to drive trains?’
My eyebrows lift. ‘No?’
He smiles. ‘Swore I’d leave this place, could see myself all togged up in uniform, blowing the whistle on the station and all that.’
‘So why didn’t you?’
‘Met your mother, didn’t I?’
He pulls another drawing towards him. He holds it closer, cigarette hanging loosely in his hand, so close that one wrong movement could set the paper alight.
‘Maybe you still could, you know? Be a train driver…?’
He laughs. He doesn’t say it; he doesn’t need to. Black lung disease has put pay to Dad ever working full time again. He passes me back the paper, drains his drink and stubs out his smoke.
‘There’s a time when you have to give up all that fancy. Dreams don’t put money on the table, lad. You’d do well to remember that.’
I finish my drink and glance up at the clock. It’s almost midnight. Alice’s face looks up at me from the table. It’s not right – I haven’t captured the humour behind her eyes, the confidence. I take the paper and rip it in two.
I sit back down and reach for a clean piece of paper and instead of drawing I begin writing.
Dear Alice,
Do you ever feel trapped? Like you’re living a life that you’re not supposed to be?
It’s only when I head up to my room that I see the application to St Martins sitting on the desk. Mum must have seen it when she put my clean undies away.
I hold it in my palm, and begin to scrunch it into a ball, but a car drives past, the headlights leaking in through a crack in the blinds.
And the sapphire of Alice’s ring glints against my chest.
A shard of light in the darkness.
9
