Chapter 2
Amy secured three gold helium balloons to Grandpa Lance’s wheelchair: one, zero, two. Outside the sky was pale. The wind whistled, a branch of Mum’s wisteria knocked against the patio doors.
‘It’s a good job we’re not sitting outside, I might take off.’ He chortled. ‘Mind you, that would be some way to go – whee-hee, up, up in the air!’
Dad laughed. Mum frowned. ‘You’re not going anywhere, Dad, not for a long time.’
‘Doctors only gave me six months, didn’t they? Thought I’d never reach a hundred never mind a hundred and two.’
‘You’ve only reached this age ’cos you’re a stubborn old so-and-so,’ Mum said.
‘That’s true enough.’ Grandpa chuckled. He twisted his neck towards the mantelpiece. ‘Such a lot of cards – marvellous! And that cake, what a treat! I’m looking forward to having a slice, if I may.’
‘And some tea?’ Amy asked. She made to get up but Mum was already halfway to the kitchen.
‘Stay here with me.’ Grandpa patted the arm of the sofa. He glanced towards Mum’s retreating backside and lowered his voice. ‘Shall we watch that video clip again before your mum comes back?’
‘I thought you’d say that.’ Amy picked up the phone Lance had treated himself to on his ninety-ninth birthday. ‘Come and have a look, Dad.’
‘Will you press the buttons for me, love? It’s a bit fiddly with the old arthritis.’
Amy quickly found the footage. A close-up of her younger brother’s face, flushed and happy, flashed briefly across the camera before it cut away to show an expanse of ocean.
The picture went fuzzy for a moment then back into focus.
Jack was strapped into some sort of seat high up in the air, suspended beneath a red and yellow parachute.
He stretched out his arm. The streamer he was unfurling flapped and twisted but there was no mistaking the message printed on it.
Happy 102nd Grandpa Lance!
Grandpa whistled. ‘Parasailing, isn’t that great! His best post yet. I don’t know why your mother wouldn’t take a look.’
‘She can’t stand watching Jack doing anything dangerous,’ Dad said. ‘And she’s still a bit cross with him for not being here. She doesn’t think it’s right he should miss your birthday, gallivanting off round the world.’
‘Nonsense! I told Jack I’d be furious if he arranged his gap-year trip around me.
What my daughter doesn’t understand is that our Jack is giving me one last great adventure.
I’d never make it back to Vietnam or India now.
It’s a struggle to get down the road to the Raj Tandoori.
But with Jack’s videos, I almost feel like I’m there myself.
’ He tapped his phone screen. ‘Now, let’s put a pin in my map. ’
Amy walked over to the bureau. She fished a red drawing pin out from the little box next to the letter rack. Grandpa gestured at the cork noticeboard on the wall behind it with a shaky hand.
‘About here?’ She hovered the pin just above the board.
‘Hmm… Up a bit… right on the coast… perfect,’ Dad said.
‘We’ve got a lot of pins in that wallchart now, makes this lounge look like Churchill’s operations room.’ Grandpa chuckled.
‘Churchill indeed!’ Mum tutted, closing the door behind her with a push of her elbow and putting down the tea tray. ‘Who’s for some cake?’
‘You sit down, Mum.’ Amy busied herself with the china cups and saucers and proper napkins Grandpa insisted upon. Her mother picked up an envelope.
‘You’ve still got another birthday card here, Dad.’
‘Pass it over then, love, I’ll take a look whilst this tea cools down a tad.’
He studied the creamy white envelope. ‘This is a right old scrawl, must be from an oldie like me. Postmark looks like Fife. I only ever knew one fella from there…’ Struggling to open it with his pale fingers, he reached for the cake knife and slid it under the flap. Amy smiled as her mum suppressed a tut.
‘Well, I never… Marty McGlenn, how on earth did he get hold of my address?’
‘You’ve never mentioned a Marty,’ Dad said.
‘He was in my regiment, a bumptious little pipsqueak. We weren’t friends, but when you’ve been through something like that together…’ Grandpa quickly turned his head towards the garden.
‘He fought in the war with you?’ Amy trod carefully.
Other people’s elderly relatives seemed to thrive on trotting out their old wartime stories.
But not Grandpa. He’d been captured in Libya and somehow made it back to England.
Mum was sure he’d once muttered something about escaping from a prisoner-of-war camp but Lance never spoke about it.
Grandpa nodded. ‘Marty was there in the desert. Saw him on TV at the Cenotaph this year, he didn’t look so good, surprised he’s still with us. There’re fewer and fewer of us every year. Soon no one will remember… Hard to understand for today’s young people, isn’t it?’ He patted Amy’s hand.
‘I can’t imagine it.’
‘That’s for the best, love. I was your brother’s age when I joined up; I’m glad he’s having a better time of it but he’ll be working hard once he starts that engineering degree.’
‘He knows what he wants, our Jack,’ Mum said. Amy winced.
‘And what about you, Amy?’
Amy stared into her tea. Surely Grandpa wasn’t going to join the chorus of people nagging at her, expecting her to know what she wanted to do with the rest of her life?
All her friends seemed so sure of themselves but after three years of university, Amy was none the wiser.
And she suspected a degree in History of Art wasn’t going to help widen her options.
‘With your grades you could apply for an MA,’ Mum said, as if she hadn’t raised the subject many times before.
‘I wasn’t thinking about Amy’s career, I was thinking about this summer,’ Grandpa said. ‘No plans to go gadding off abroad, love?’
‘I thought we could throw some pots, like we did before.’
‘I’m getting a bit old for that. My hands shake when I’m trying to shape the clay,’ Lance said. ‘But if you want to work in my old shed, I’d like to come and help.’
‘Sit and chat, you mean.’ Mum grinned.
‘Amy won’t have too much time to play about with pottery, she needs to start looking for a proper job,’ Dad said, cutting himself a second slice of cake.
‘I’ll have to sign up at the temp agency, I suppose.’
‘Not for the summer you won’t,’ Lance said. ‘I’d like to employ you myself.’
Amy spluttered on a mouthful of tea. ‘Doing what?’
‘Typing – you can do that, can’t you? You’re tapping on that phone of yours often enough.’
‘Touché, Grandpa. What do you want me to type up?’
‘My memoirs. I’ve made up a couple of small memory boxes.
One for you, Amy, and one for Jack, mementoes to leave you when I’m gone.
But recently I got to thinking, I’d rather like you to have them whilst I’m still alive.
And I need you to understand the stories behind them.
Otherwise, well, they’re just clutter, and we’ve all got enough of that. ’
‘You can put secretarial work on your CV, no need to tell anyone you worked for your grandpa.’ Mum winked.
‘When can we start?’
‘Tomorrow afternoon any good? When a man gets to my age he can’t afford to waste time.’
Making pots in Grandpa’s shed and typing up his memoirs. It was going to be a good summer. Jack could travel the world. Amy wasn’t going anywhere.