When I first got the call, I thought he'd died. Two reasons. One: I've been to a worrying number of funerals over the past while—friends of my parents and, worse again, parents of my friends. Two: Mam had called me on my mobile, the first time she'd ever done that because she'd always persisted in the belief that you can only call a mobile from a mobile, like they're CB radios or something. So when I put my phone to my ear and heard her choke out “He's gone,” who could blame me for thinking that Dad had kicked the bucket and that now it was only her and me.
“He just packed a bag and left.”
“He packed a …?” It was then that I realized that Dad mightn't actually be dead.
“Come home,” she said.
“Right …” But I was at work. And not just in the office, but in a hotel ballroom overseeing the finishing touches to a medical conference. (Seeing the Back of Backache.) It was an enormous deal that had taken weeks to pull together; I’d been there until twelve-thirty the previous night tending to the arrival of hundreds of delegates and sorting out their problems. (Relocating those in nonsmoking rooms who had slipped and gone back on the fags in between booking their room and showing up for the conference, that sort of thing.) Today was finally Day Zero and in less than an hour’s time two hundred chiropractors would be flooding in, each expecting a. a name badge and chair b. coffee and two biscuits (one plain, one fancy) at 11 A.M. c. lunch, three courses (including vegetarian option) at 12:45 P.M. d. coffee and two biscuits (both plain) at 3:30 P.M. e. evening cocktails followed by a gala dinner, with party favors, dancing, and snogging (optional)
In fact when I’d answered the mobile I’d thought it was the screen hire guy, reassuring me he was on his way. With—this is the important bit—the screens.
“Tell me what happened,” I asked Mam, torn as I was between conflicting duties. I can’t leave here …
“I’ll tell you when you get home. Hurry. I’m in an awful state, God only knows what I’ll do.”
That did it. I snapped my phone closed and looked at Andrea, who’d obviously figured out something was up.
“Everything okay?” she murmured.
“It’s my dad.”
I could see on her face that she too thought that my father had bucked the kickit (as he himself used to say). (There I am talking as if he actually is dead.)
“Oh, my God … is it … is he …?”
“Oh no,” I corrected, “he’s still alive.”
“Go, go, get going!” She pushed me toward the exit, clearly visualizing a deathbed farewell.
“I can’t. What about all of this?” I indicated the ballroom.
“Me and Moses’ll do it and I’ll call the office and get Ruth over to help. Look, you’ve done so much work on this, what can go wrong?”