computer, a Sun SPARCstation or an IBM or an Acom. He rocks backwards and forwards, arms crossed. He is thin, very pale.
âWhen the car slides like that,â he says, âitâs called a fish-tail.â
Mr Kelly starts to write this down, and then stops.
âThatâs not what I meant.â
âI canât deal with this,â Philip says, and he turns to play a game of chess already set up on the screen behind him. He mutes the sound and chooses black. He defends.
âRachel wanted her ashes scattered at Wembley,â Spencer says.
His father, pencil at the ready, looks hopefully at his second son.
âAfter she lived to be a hundred and one. No flowers.â
The car, the swerve, Spencer remembers, what Philip calls a fish-tail, the crash and the bang. The rest of them came home in a police car. On the inside it was very clean, as if it wasnât used enough.
âPhilip started the argument in the car,â Spencer says, pointing at his brotherâs back. This seems relevant, and important.
âNot now,â Mum says, but it was Philip who complained that three in the back seat was too dangerous, even though there was no other way they could all go swimming and take Philip into town at the same time, was there?
Dad refuses to write this down. He sips and swallows from his mug, looks at what heâs written: UNFAIR.
Spencer wants to retreat: behind the television, upstairs to his room, under his bed with the bats and the balls and the disassembled snooker table. Rachel would have hated him for thinking of giving up like this. He therefore makes a determined effort to concentrate on the stiff white lace of the tablecloth, or Philipâs shimmering computer screen, or the author names on the books next to the special shelf reserved for quality videos. Harold Robbins and John Le Carré and July Cooper and George Orwell. It helps him not to cry.
Stand By Me
and
The Light That Failed
and
Ginger and Fred
and
The Lavender Hill Mob
. He knows it wonât work for ever: there simply arenât enough things to read, nor enough random words to hold back his tears.
Nothing will ever be the same again. Up until now Spencer has always been the same person with the same idea of how life should be, but now he suddenly isnât any more. He doesnât feel old enough for this. He hasnât had enough experience to prepare him for it, and no experience from before now can possibly be strong enough to survive it. He wants it to teach him something, but what? People die and disasters happen bam, suddenly and without warning, just like that. Does it mean, if he knows this, that he is now grown up? Is it an essential grown-up truth that suddenness only works one way, and that anything which happens this suddenly can only be bad? And what if his mother is wrong, and itâs not any memory of Rachel which stays available to him, but only the memory of losing her? In which case heâll always be able to trace the day he grew up to this single moment and its particular books and videos, to the way Philip rocks on his chair, playing black, refusing to move his queen.
Time can stop now, if thatâs alright.
If it moves on from here then that isnât fair to Rachel.
But no matter how hard Spencer tries to freeze the moment (he fixes the names of the writers, the titles of the films, his motherâs scarf, his fatherâs word, Philipâs French defence and his isolated queen), time insists, eventually, on moving.
âTell me how you remember her,â Mr Kelly says.
Rachel pinches him, punches him, and beats him to the bathroom. At breakfast she wins the competition to get the most Bourbon biscuits in her mouth. She is the first into the car, wearing her tracksuit covered in badges meaning one day sheâll be International European Champion of the World, and in the paper every other day. Sheâll be in the paper tomorrow anyway, and Spencer has to work his
âWhen the car slides like that,â he says, âitâs called a fish-tail.â
Mr Kelly starts to write this down, and then stops.
âThatâs not what I meant.â
âI canât deal with this,â Philip says, and he turns to play a game of chess already set up on the screen behind him. He mutes the sound and chooses black. He defends.
âRachel wanted her ashes scattered at Wembley,â Spencer says.
His father, pencil at the ready, looks hopefully at his second son.
âAfter she lived to be a hundred and one. No flowers.â
The car, the swerve, Spencer remembers, what Philip calls a fish-tail, the crash and the bang. The rest of them came home in a police car. On the inside it was very clean, as if it wasnât used enough.
âPhilip started the argument in the car,â Spencer says, pointing at his brotherâs back. This seems relevant, and important.
âNot now,â Mum says, but it was Philip who complained that three in the back seat was too dangerous, even though there was no other way they could all go swimming and take Philip into town at the same time, was there?
Dad refuses to write this down. He sips and swallows from his mug, looks at what heâs written: UNFAIR.
Spencer wants to retreat: behind the television, upstairs to his room, under his bed with the bats and the balls and the disassembled snooker table. Rachel would have hated him for thinking of giving up like this. He therefore makes a determined effort to concentrate on the stiff white lace of the tablecloth, or Philipâs shimmering computer screen, or the author names on the books next to the special shelf reserved for quality videos. Harold Robbins and John Le Carré and July Cooper and George Orwell. It helps him not to cry.
Stand By Me
and
The Light That Failed
and
Ginger and Fred
and
The Lavender Hill Mob
. He knows it wonât work for ever: there simply arenât enough things to read, nor enough random words to hold back his tears.
Nothing will ever be the same again. Up until now Spencer has always been the same person with the same idea of how life should be, but now he suddenly isnât any more. He doesnât feel old enough for this. He hasnât had enough experience to prepare him for it, and no experience from before now can possibly be strong enough to survive it. He wants it to teach him something, but what? People die and disasters happen bam, suddenly and without warning, just like that. Does it mean, if he knows this, that he is now grown up? Is it an essential grown-up truth that suddenness only works one way, and that anything which happens this suddenly can only be bad? And what if his mother is wrong, and itâs not any memory of Rachel which stays available to him, but only the memory of losing her? In which case heâll always be able to trace the day he grew up to this single moment and its particular books and videos, to the way Philip rocks on his chair, playing black, refusing to move his queen.
Time can stop now, if thatâs alright.
If it moves on from here then that isnât fair to Rachel.
But no matter how hard Spencer tries to freeze the moment (he fixes the names of the writers, the titles of the films, his motherâs scarf, his fatherâs word, Philipâs French defence and his isolated queen), time insists, eventually, on moving.
âTell me how you remember her,â Mr Kelly says.
Rachel pinches him, punches him, and beats him to the bathroom. At breakfast she wins the competition to get the most Bourbon biscuits in her mouth. She is the first into the car, wearing her tracksuit covered in badges meaning one day sheâll be International European Champion of the World, and in the paper every other day. Sheâll be in the paper tomorrow anyway, and Spencer has to work his
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