Another pause.
Then he says, “I wanted to be a firefighter when I was younger.”
I sit very still.
This is not something my brother has ever said to me before.
“You wanted to be a firefighter?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“When I was younger.”
“That is not an answer. That is a time period so vague it could include the invention of agriculture.”
He makes a quiet sound, almost a laugh. “When I did my A levels.”
“You never said.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because you would have been insufferable.”
“I am wounded.”
“You once told me my attempt at a fringe made me look like a nervous estate agent.”
“You did look like a nervous estate agent.”
“And there it is.”
I grin, then let it fade, because beneath the joke there is something I do not quite know what to do with.
Graham wanted to be a firefighter.
My brother. Graham. The man who owns more suits than I own plates. The man who once referred to a badly chaired meeting as “a preventable failure of structure”. The man who has spent his adult life in rooms where people say things like “bilateral engagement” with a straight face.
“You really wanted it?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He is quiet for a second. Outside, the rain throws itself at the window with renewed commitment.
“I think I liked the directness of it,” he says eventually. “Someone needs help, you go. You train for it, you prepare for it, you know your role. No ambiguity.”
“That is the most Graham explanation of wanting to be a firefighter I can imagine.”
On screen, someone is pretending not to regret a purchase.
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because I was not remotely built for it.”
