A Nice Sunday Roast
‘I just walked through a brick wall ten inches thick and I didn’t feel a thing.’
The Ghost nodded. He and his younger apprentice were standing in the living room as Wilbur and Maggie and Edith were eating a Sunday roast, complete with Yorkshire pudding and all the trimmings.
‘That’s because we aren’t physically here and this is the physical world,’ explained the Ghost. ‘We are – for want of a better word – spiritually here. You via your dreaming self and me via my – how to put it – dead self.’
‘Bloody hell.’
‘An understandable thought.’
‘This is weird,’ muttered the Dreamer, so wide-eyed it was hard for him to remember that back in the past he was asleep. ‘Can they see us?’
‘Unlikely. Possible, but unlikely. So long as we don’t want to be noticed, we tend not to be. You didn’t see me that often. Even when I was trying to get your attention.’
The Dreamer threw the Ghost a hopeful glance. ‘Mam looks happy.’
‘Aye, she was. She was much better mentally. Well, for a few minutes she is, but you’ll see.’
‘Oh no. Jesus. Do I have to see it?’
‘Yes. Yes, you do. There is nowhere else to go. Not until the train comes.’
‘But I don’t think I—’
‘Shush now and let’s listen.’
‘All right …’
And so he listened. And gazed at Maggie’s face, tentatively.
Edith chewed her food with some consideration. ‘These carrots are good, Maggie. Lovely flavour. What’s your secret?’
Maggie smiled, politely but warmly. So beautiful, both the unseen Wilburs thought. ‘Actually, Edith, Wilbur did the carrots.’
Edith seemed a little disappointed with this development in her enquiry.
‘A bit of nutmeg before we roast them,’ the actual Wilbur in the room said.
The Ghost watched with interest. ‘I forgot there was a time I helped with the cooking.’
‘Really? But you – we – like cooking. It’s relaxing.’
The Ghost gave a wry smile. ‘The problem was that I gave up relaxing as well …’
Wilbur stared at his mother for a little while, waiting for his moment. ‘Mam, we brought you round to tell you something.’
Her eyes lit with interest. ‘Is there a little one on the way?’
Wilbur smiled. ‘No, no … we’re not in any big rush in that department.’
Maggie raised her eyebrows. ‘Oh, that’s good to know.’
Wilbur flashed her a not now glance. ‘We’re moving to London.’
There was a pause so strong his mother stopped chewing. ‘London?’ It might as well have been Neptune.
The Dreamer looked at the Ghost, as worried as a lost child. ‘London? Really? Was Maggie okay with that?’
‘She tried to be. But no. Not really. Or she might have been if we’d truly acknowledged the sacrifice she was making …’
Edith wasn’t taking this well. ‘But you’re based in Sheffield … The shop’s in Sheffield.’
‘We have others though now. Manchester. Edinburgh. And we’re opening one in Leeds and two in London.
And many more to come. The bank is on our side.
I take a loan and pay it back with interest within twelve months so they give me another.
I’ve employed the very best team of people and I am working every hour God sends. ’
Maggie’s nod was accompanied by a silent sigh.
‘We’re going from strength to strength,’ Wilbur went on, ‘but we need to be based most of the time in London. That’s where the action is. We have a disadvantage being stuck up here.’
Maggie raised her eyebrows a little but the only Wilbur that noticed was the dead one.
His mother looked desperate. ‘What about Maggie? What about her job at the Crucible? She loves her job at the Crucible …’
‘There’ll be opportunities in London,’ Maggie said, sounding a little flat. ‘I’ve worked there before. There are always exciting things happening there. They were sad about it, but they understand.’
Their mother looked lost. ‘Well, if it makes you happy.’
‘It’s not about that, Mam.’
This was the moment Maggie felt obliged to express a little of her inner commentary. ‘Well, what is it about, Wilbur? Why can’t it be about happiness?’
‘Maggie—’
‘Aye,’ added Edith, ‘the lass has a point.’
‘It’s business. I have a real shot here of creating something truly special. Of changing the British high street for ever.’
His mother tutted. That was the trigger for Wilbur. ‘Mam, just come out with it.’
‘There are things more important than business, that’s all.’
The Dreamer was only looking at himself a little over two years in the future but he was noticing a change. ‘Why do I look so angry?’
‘Yes, Mam, and there are things more important than going to Oxford and everything else I have ever wanted to do too …’
Maggie reached across the table and placed her hand on his forearm. ‘Wilbur,’ she said sternly, ‘please …’ Then she turned to his mother. ‘I’m sorry, Edith.’
‘Ah, no. Don’t be, pet. I know when I’m a burden.’
Wilbur was now trembling with a barely restrained fury.
‘Mam. Just for once in my life, can I do what is right for me? Jesus, Mam, I’m thirty-one years old. I’m not a child any more. I can make my own decisions.’
His mother sat there, her face as tough as it could be, holding back an ocean. ‘Aye. Aye. You can make your own decisions. Aye. And Dougie was right. He said you’d always run away from us.’
‘Why do you have to bring Dougie into it? Bloody hell, Mam.’
Maggie, caught in the middle, just stared at the salt and pepper pots and pleaded: ‘Wilbur, please, go easy. Your mam’s upset.’
‘Oh,’ said Edith, ‘I know how it is. I know he wants to be on every high street in England rather than the Ecclesall Road.’
‘Edith, I think that’s a bit far—’
‘A bit far? Yes, it is. Two miles away and he still can’t drive down it or see it or anything else. But it’s still there, just as it was in sixty-four.’
Wilbur stared at the clock on the wall. The one with pointed rays sticking out from the circumference, designed to make it look like an exploding star, surrounded by the yellow, orange and brown striped wallpaper. His mother had only been there for fifty minutes and it already felt like a lifetime.
‘Do we have to talk about Dougie right now?’
Edith sighed. ‘No, no. No. We don’t ever have to talk about him. What about that?’
‘Mam,’ Wilbur said through a clenched jaw, ‘you have to move on.’
‘Ah yes, move on. Move on. That’s what the world is about nowadays.
Moving on. It’s like the council. Oh, they could have rebuilt the city after Hitler’s destruction, but, no, no, they just fill it with concrete nonsense and those ugly underpasses.
But it’s no better in London, lad. That’s the home of it. All those ugly tower blocks.’
‘Mam, I’m not moving for the architecture.’
‘No, I know. Well, it’s funny.’
Maggie tried to be a neutral voice amid the tension. ‘What’s funny?’
‘Oh, well, love, I actually came round feeling a little bit awkward about my news.’
Wilbur raised his eyebrows. ‘News?’
His dreaming, honeymoon self was also curious. ‘News?’
The Ghost nodded. ‘Oh yes. Just wait till you hear this …’