Chapter 4
‘Here you go, mate.’ Taz handed over the pint of beer and sat down opposite Ben.
Ben took a long gulp. ‘I needed that!’
‘Oi, where are my crisps?’ Dale asked, taking his pint from the tray Taz had put down in the centre of the table.
‘They only had chilli flavoured and I know you can’t handle anything spicy,’ Taz said.
‘Good point. Okay, I’ll let you off.’
‘I don’t know why you’ve booked Tandoori Nights when you can’t even manage a korma,’ said Brian, elbowing Dale in the side.
‘I can manage chips and curry sauce, I’ll be fine. You worry about managing your beer. I don’t want you puking your guts up again before we’ve even left the pub.’
‘It was a stomach upset, I’ve told you.’ Brian took a defiant gulp of his pint as if to prove his point. ‘Either that or it was a bad pint.’
‘Yeah, yeah, course it was. Shame Vick couldn’t make it tonight – she can hold her drink,’ Taz teased.
Dale, a tall and skinny south Londoner with a shaved head and a good heart, was married to Vick. Normally, they worked opposite shifts to take care of the kids, but Vick’s mum was staying at the moment, which meant Dale could join ‘the boys’ for a rare night out.
Ben sat back, enjoying the chat. His watch were on day two of their four days off and had decided they were well overdue a pint and a curry.
The problem with shift work was that Ben, like many others he worked with, often couldn’t find convenient times to meet up with friends who worked more regular hours, and so it was often easier to plan a night out with those you knew would be off at the same time.
He’d spent the day in his flat, having been woken by his phone buzzing.
Thinking it might be work, he’d jolted from sleep, but then he’d seen that it was a WhatsApp message asking if anyone had lost an Elsa figurine – their cat had returned home with it the previous evening.
It had been forwarded to his street’s message group from a neighbouring street.
Blessed with a niece who was a keen Frozen fan, and now with ‘Let it Go’ an earworm he couldn’t shake, Ben had given up trying to sleep and, throwing back the covers, he’d sat up and swung himself off the bed.
Flipping the switch on the kettle, he’d made a cup of tea and opened the practically bare kitchen cupboard, searching for breakfast. He’d quickly realised he was out of bread, but he did have a box of cereal, which saved him a trip to the corner shop.
Shaking the suspiciously light carton of cornflakes, he’d poured the remaining cereal into a bowl – it was more dust than flakes – before sitting at the counter to eat while scrolling through his phone, liking some friends’ posts on social media and reading the news headlines.
Suddenly, his phone had started ringing, causing him to jump and almost drop it into the milk left in the bowl.
Seeing his sister’s number on the screen, he’d swiped to answer it, putting the phone on speaker so he could tidy up while he spoke to her.
‘Hi, Pens.’
‘Hey Benny Boo, how are you?’
Ben had winced at the use of his childhood nickname. ‘I was fine. And if you don’t want to be called Penny Poo, I’d drop the Benny Boo right now,’ he’d said, squirting the pile of unwashed plates and cutlery in the sink with washing up liquid before running the hot water.
‘Oh, no need to be like that. I’m just calling to see how you are.’
Ben had heard the concern in his sister’s initial question, although she’d tried to keep it hidden beneath a deliberately breezy tone.
‘I’m fine, Pen, honestly. You don’t need to keep checking on me.’
‘I do and I will,’ she’d replied, and Ben had smiled at the fierceness in her voice.
His sister was two years younger than him, but since his breakdown – as the doctors had referred to it – their roles had reversed.
She had been the one to find him in the flat that terrible night, had refused to let him stay there alone, and had instead taken him home with her, where she had looked after him and given him the time he needed to get back to himself; time spent sitting on the sofa, unable to do more than watch telly with his niece, Evie, hence his familiarity with Disney princesses and their signature theme tunes.
Ben was pretty sure that, should he ever be on Mastermind, Disney’s female leads would be his specialist subject.
Pen’s voice had drawn him back to the conversation and he’d listened as she’d filled him in on what Evie was up to, and how they were planning a party for her seventh birthday next month. As she’d talked, he’d worked his way through the washing up.
‘So put the date in the diary as Evie will be gutted if you can’t come.’
No guilt, thought Ben.
‘Mum and Dad will be down, so you can see them too. And stop pulling that face, I know you are.’
Ben had hastily rearranged his features. ‘I wasn’t, well, not much. But—’
‘And don’t use work as an excuse.’
Ben had sighed, reflecting, not for the first time, on how annoying it was to have a sister who knew what you were thinking.
‘Okay, I’ll see what I can do. But I think it’s pretty low that you’re using Evie’s party as a way to make me spend time with Dad.’
‘I’m—’
Ha. Penny wasn’t the only one with superpowers. ‘Yes, you are, Penelope James. But I do want to be there for Evie’s birthday, so I’ll see what I can do. Happy now?’
‘Yes, I am,’ said Penny, and Ben had heard the smile in her voice. ‘Thank you, I know it’s not easy with Dad, so I appreciate it.’
‘I just hate the way he avoids talking to me now, like I let him down by being ill.’
Ben had felt the shame and anger wash over him as he’d remembered his dad’s refusal to discuss why he hadn’t been able to work.
‘I know,’ Pen said gently. ‘He’s just part of that generation where these things weren’t discussed.
He doesn’t understand. I had to tell him off the other day for going on about people being sent to the funny farm.
Thank God he’s not on social media or we’d all be cancelled by association. So don’t let it get to you.’
Ben had grimaced. It was more than not talking about.
They both knew their dad had his own issues, which the family barely even acknowledged let alone talked about.
But he hadn’t wanted to get into a fight with Penny, so he’d let his sister chat away about a problem with a client who kept emailing her at all hours, demanding answers on the case she was working on.
Flinging the clean knives and forks back in the drawer, he’d noticed a movement in the garden outside. Thinking he’d imagined it, he’d turned back to the sink, until a small, black and grey striped object had hurtled out from under the bush and raced across the grass towards a squirrel.
Ben had watched as what he realised was a tabby cat had raced across the lawn before coming to an abrupt halt as the squirrel scuttled to safety up a nearby tree.
Realising the chase was lost, the cat had nonchalantly sat back and, licking his paw, begun to clean his ears as if this had been the plan all along, and that he hadn’t failed in any way to capture his prey.
The cat suddenly twisted into a low crouch, eyes narrowed. Wiggling its bum, it had hunkered down, ready to pounce.
And now the predator, focused on its next victim, prepares to attack, Ben imagined David Attenborough narrate in his head.
‘Ben, are you even listening to me?’ Penny demanded.
‘Sorry, I was distracted by a cat in the garden,’ Ben said, turning away from the scene. He’d glanced back out of the window, but the cat had gone, although the squirrel, sensing victory, was now scurrying along the fence.
‘Well, fine, I’ll go if looking out the window is more interesting than speaking to me,’ said Penny with mock offence. ‘Put Evie’s birthday in the diary and let me know if you can make it,’ she said.
‘Okay, speak soon. Give Evie a hug from me.’
‘Will do. Bye, Benny Boo!’
Before Ben could answer back, his sister had hung up.
The rest of the day passed as usual: shopping, a quick tour of duty on the Xbox and some telly before heading out to the pub. Now, surrounded by his workmates and feeling nicely blurred on his third pint, Ben felt himself relaxing.
‘So did you hear what happened to Lewisdown crew?’ Brian asked. The rest of the table shook their heads, so Brian proceeded to tell them how the crew had got a bollocking from the borough commander because they’d managed to get one of the engines wedged under a low railway bridge.
‘The main road was blocked, so they had to go a different route. Fortunately, it wasn’t an emergency call or they’d have really been in the shit.
As it was, they were stuck for two hours.
They had to halt the trains into London Bridge to give them time to sort it out. The local coppers had a field day.’
Publicly, they were all one big team, working together, but there was plenty of rivalry between the emergency services – particularly the police and the fire service, with the former thinking that all fire crews did was rescue cats stuck up trees and polish their big, red, shiny engines.
To be fair, there was an element of truth in the cat rescuing, on a quiet day, but just like their colleagues on the thin blue line, firefighters also saw their share of trauma and darkness. For Ben, his first road traffic accident was something he’d never forget.
‘I can imagine they loved that!’ Dale said, rolling his eyes.
Laughing, Ben downed the last of his pint.
‘Right, drink up, lads. Time for one more and then let’s order.’