‘That’s true.’ Nick sighed again. ‘I suppose the answer is when things like that floor you, try not to get in a flap about it. Go for a walk, do something different and get your head straight. Your friends are right: put it into perspective and take it one day at a time.’
Oliver nodded and Nick felt relieved that his son’s degree course was still on track. It made him realise just how much it meant to him for Oliver to have a ticket out of Burston, if that was what he chose. Higher education would give him options he and Kerry had never had.
‘Do you want a cup of tea, Dad?’
‘I’d love one.’ He smiled at the novelty of his son offering him refreshment and, as was the norm, felt the familiar flicker of regret that Kerry was neither here to experience it nor waiting at home for him to share the moment with upon his return. He knew it would have made her chuckle.
‘Be right back!’ Oliver jumped up from the bed and disappeared from the room.
‘Honestly, Kerry, he offered me tea. Like a proper grown-up! He was so excited to have his own mugs and access to a little kitchen.’
‘Ah, bless him! And to think he can’t even bring his dirty cups down from his bedroom or put his pants in the dirty laundry when he’s home!’
‘I know it, and I just sat there like a plum while he disappeared . . .’
‘Love him, Nick, he’s growing up.’
‘He is, love, he’s growing up fast . . .’
Nick looked around and took in the detail that meant his son had settled physically, at least. The pinboard with his York City FC poster on it, a half-filled water glass on the desk by his bedside, his colour-coded files neatly stacked on the deep windowsill and his single duvet nestling inside the voluminous cover with a quilted throw folded over the end of the bed.
Oliver returned with two mugs, which contained a passable, dark enough tea, and a packet of gingersnap biscuits, from which Nick took three. The diet would have to start tomorrow.
‘Yorkshire teabags,’ Oliver informed him with pride as he handed Nick the mug.
‘Of course.’ He chuckled. Nick took a sip and was glad of the restorative brew. ‘Now my heart rate has settled and I can see it’s not a matter of life and death . . .’ He winced a little at the phrase, which leapt from his mouth with ease, as if he had forgotten that life and death had been their preoccupation and sadness for so long now. Oliver didn’t flinch and Nick continued. ‘I have to say I’m a bit relieved that you’re not giving up on your degree.’
Oliver’s leg jumped, his heel tapping out a nervous rhythm on the Indian rag rug beneath his foot.
‘Not that I’m saying you have to finish; there is no pressure on you either way’ – he tried to grease the path for whatever Oliver might decide – ‘but I think you have this amazing opportunity that a lot of people would give their left nut for.’
‘Would you?’
‘Would I what, son?’
‘Would you have liked to have gone to university?’
‘Erm.’ The question took him by surprise. He took his time framing his answer, taking a sip of his tea.
I thought I could have it all. I thought I could do the right thing by Kerry, be a good father to you, set the best example, please my own dad and make a good life. But it turns out I was wrong; you can’t have it all. University was going to be my ticket; I wanted the car, the house, a big desk and someone on call to bring me orange Fanta . . . I gave up the dream to work at Siddley’s. It was all about getting through the week, earning enough to keep food on the table and you in nappies. I thought it would be temporary, thought I’d figure something out and find a way, but here I am. Stuck. And as for your mum and me? We were kids, playing at being grown-ups, and by the time I realised we were playing at it I was a grown-up, a grown-up with responsibilities, and that was that. Would I go back and trade it all for a place at a university like this? Would I let Kerry listen to her sister? No. No, a thousand times no, because the truth is I did love her . . . even though we had our issues – who doesn’t? And you, Oliver, you’re the greatest thing I have ever done. I pass the mantle to you and you will live the life I could only have dreamed of, my boy . . .
‘I guess I would have liked to have been smart enough to get a place at university.’ He hoped they might leave it at that.
‘Come off it, Dad, you’re plenty smart!’
The vote of confidence was a welcome boost to his flagging self-esteem. He recalled being sixteen with the fire of self-assurance in his belly that made him feel invincible. When he was the first to get married he felt like an adventurer, a ground-breaker. This before some of the boys in his year packed up to leave Burston, ready to study at Sheffield, and one even went to London, and Nick was left behind and suddenly he didn’t feel that clever or that confident. Not any more.
‘Oh, I don’t know about that.’
‘Yes, you are! Grandad always said you could have been anything, had you and Mum not had me so young and you having to take the job at Siddley’s.’
Nick remembered the day he walked through the factory gates by his dad’s side. His old man had always been so proud to walk him around the place, introducing him to anyone and everyone with his hands gripping his shoulders.
This is my boy, Nicholas . . .
Have you met my lad?
This is Nicky, top of his class at Burstonbridge Comp, aren’t you, son?
And Nick had always felt ten feet tall walking in by his side, and yet on that day, with Kerry nearly five months pregnant and the rent on the one-bedroomed flat above the off licence due, things felt very different. Nick was happy, yes, but aware that his choices were limited. On his dad’s recommendation, Mr Siddley senior had agreed to give him a go. Yes, on that day there was no sense of pride, quite the opposite. His dad walked with a slow reluctance to his gait and a downward cast to his eyes, as if Nick had in some way let him down. Nick never really shook off that feeling and when his dad passed away seven years ago he had stood by his grave with the roof of Siddley’s visible in the distance and offered up a silent apology for the fact that he had not quite lived up to his dad’s expectations. He knew he had never reached his full potential, a frustration that spilled over into his marriage, and years later when it looked like Kerry might have let him down . . . all he could think about was how much he had given up. It was a burden that he never wanted to put on Oliver’s shoulders, even though he understood it more than most. He was proud of his boy for who he was, for what he had gone through and for the future that beckoned, so proud. But he would keep these thoughts to himself.
‘It’s all well and good looking at what might have been,’ Nick responded to Oliver’s statement, ‘but you can only really deal with what actually is, and I wouldn’t have changed a thing about my life up to now, not a thing. And you know, I was thinking about this the other day: we did have you young – some said too young; in fact, most said too young.’ He smiled. ‘But we never thought so. It always felt right; scary, but right. And knowing what we know now, it meant your mum got to be with you until you were grown up – well, technically grown up – and that’s a wonderful thing. She got eighteen years of you and you of her.’
‘I miss her.’ Oliver sniffed and his lips, pressed tightly together, quivered in the pre-crying pose that his dad recognised as the one his boy had struck since he was a child, when what ailed him was usually a scraped knee or a misplaced toy.