Too old to rock and roll

TO OLD TO ROCK AND ROLL

'Why don't you both stop it?' Valerie's voice said on the phone.

'Well, Dad began it,' Greg answered. 'He called me a baby.'

'And you called him an old man. That wasn't nice.'

'I didn't really mean it. He isn't very old, is he?' Greg said.

He remembered that Valerie was about forty herself.

'No. And what about that piece from the newspaper about older men losing their hair? You put thay up on the kitchen wall! You've got to stop it,' Valerie said.

'We need someone here to stop us', Greg said quietly.

'I know,' Valerie spoke softly now. 'Well, I'll be there at eight o' clock tonight. I'll see you then, all right?'

Greg put the phone down and went into the kitchen. He looked at the piece from the newspaper about men losing their hair. Near it on the wall there was a piece of paper with Mum's writing on it. Dad took away all her things when she died.

Dad still had a lot of hair. It was only bit thin on the top of his head. And he did it differently now. It showed that he was getting better after Mum's death. At first he didn't want to do anything. Greg watched him in those first weeks. Dad got up, read the newspaper, cooked meals, went to work -but he was dead inside. When he was at work, Dad was Stephen Barber the optician. Perhaps there he smiled and talked and was more like a living person. But he wasn't like that at home.

Things were getting better now because of Valerie. She was a friend of Mum's really, and was waiting to see Mum when the unhappy policeman came to the house to tell them about the accident. She lived about fifty kilometres away and had a home to go back to. But the policeman wanted to take Dad and Greg to the hospital and Dad turned to this stranger and said, 'Please stay.' So when they came back, she was there.

And Christmas happened because of Valerie, too. Greg said nothing about Christmas, but one day Valerie said angrily to Dad, 'And what about Greg, Steve?'

'He isn't interested in Christmas,' Dad answered tiredly.' Christmas was wonderful with Frances. Without her, it's nothind.'

'Well, Frances is dead, but you and Greg are alive. If Christmas with Frances was wonderful, it was because she loved it. Can't you keep alive something she loved? Can't you do it for her?'

Later Greg said to Valerie, ' Are you coming here fot Christmas?'

'I usually visit my mother and father,' she replied.

But Greg knew that Valerie must come,' If Christmas doesn't happen this year,' he thought, 'perhaps it will never happen again.'

'Tell me about Christmas with yout Mum, Greg,' Valerie said.

And Greg told her how he and his mother always put the decortations on the Christmas tree together.

'I've fot all the things for the tree in my room,' he said. 'I hid them there when Dad took everything of Mum's away.'

'Well, we've got to be hard with him,' Valerie said. 'If we want to bring him back to life, we'll have to be a bit unkind to him. Wake him up a little.'

And so, on Christmas Eve, just before Valerie arrived, Greg came downstairs with the box of decorations for the tree.

His father looked old and tired. ' What have you got there?' he said.

'The decorations for the tree,' Greg answered.

'What tree? We aren't having a tree. How could you --'

'I want a tree,' Greg said.'I'm sure that Mum wants Christmas to be happy for me.'

His father looked round slowly.'It's  too late to get a tree now," he said.

"Valerie's bringing it with her," Greg replied. "Shall I light the fire?"

After Christmas life was easier. Valerie came more often and she stayed for the weekend. They began to call the third bedroom "Valerie's room".

Slowly, Dad was beginning to come back to life. He bought some new clothes too, and Greg was pleased about that. But perhaps the piece about older men losing their hair was unkind, Greg thought. He took the piece of newspaper off the kitchen wall, and wrote a note in its place.

I'VE GONE TO BAND PRACTICE. VAL PHONED. SHE'LL BE HERE AT EIGHT.

Then he put the dinner to cook slowly while he was out. The table was ready, with flowers on it, and everything to be nice for his Dad and Val.

The band practice was at friend's house, and Greg began to go there five months after Mum's death. He just wanted to get out of the house sometimes, but he told Dad he was interested in music.

"Music?" Dad said, "or Rock and Roll?"

"Rock and Roll was in the 1950s," Greg told him. "It's rock music these days."

 After the practice that evening, Greg wanted to get home quickly. He wanted to hear happy voices and listen to the nice things that Valerie said about his cooking. So he said goodbye to his friends and hurried home.

The light was on in the living room when he arrived, and for a minute he watched from outside. Dad was stading alone in the room, with his back to the window, but Valerie's car was outside the house. Then Valerie came into the living room, and his father walked over to her with his arms open.

Greg want round to the back door very slowly. He wanted to give them more tome together. He felt very pleased that his plan was going well. He liked Valerie a lot, and often told Dad that he liked her.There was no hurry, but if one day Dad and Valerie... He would never forget Mum, of course. Sometimes he thought that he could see her in the house or the garden. But he knew that Valerie understood this.

When Greg went in, they were sitting down again. There were a lot of flowers in the room - red, pink, orange and yellow.

"Valerie brought them," Dad sad, smiling.

Greg remembered Valerie's beautiful walled garden with its bright flowers. It was warm there even in Match. Did Valerie want to leave all that? He looked at Dad. Something was different. Dad's clothes were new and he was wearing jeans. His father was wearing jeans! And he was smiling.

His father was Stephen Barber again. He was the bright and happy wan who married Mum.

At dinner Dad tried hard to please Valerie. In the old days Dad didn't have to try to please women. They all loved him. The two girls who worked with him at the optician's loved him too.

Greg asked his mother about this once,but she wasn't unhappy about it. She just laughed. "Oh, yes, they both love him," she said.

"What about you?" Greg asked angrily.

"Oh, they think I don't understand him.I'm sure they'll be happy if I fall under a bus."

But it wasn't a bus. She was driving her car when the accident happened. How did the two women in the optician's fell now? They were both young and beatiful. Valerie wasn't young or beautiful, but she was right, just right.

When he went up to bed that night, Greg left his door open and he could hear Dad and Valerie downstaris. They were talking and laughing together for hours.

It was very late when they came to bed.

So Dad was alive again. The next week he bought more clothes for himself and for Greg. His new clothes were much more fashionable than his old ones. And at the weekend he and Valerie went out on Saturday and Sunday. Greg watched from his bedroom window. When they were getting into the car, Dad ran to open the door for Valerie. He no longer looked like a tired old man, Greg thought. In his new clothes, he looked slim and young.

On Wednesday Dad came home early and said he was going to a party. "It's Yvonne at he stop," he said. " She's going to get married."

"A party?" Greg said. "You won't like the music, or the dancing. Yvonne's much younger than you, and you don't like my music. Is Valerie going?"

"Valerie? Of course not. I'm sure she's got better things to do."

Greg thought back to the old days. Dad and Mum often went to quiet dinner parties with friends, but never to a party with dancing, with people who were twenty years younger. Greg didn't like it.

It was after midnight when Dad came home.

Valerie came as usual on Friday. Greg cooked the dinner and then he went into the kitchen to get some drinks ready for them. But when Valerie arrived, Dad didn't hurry down to open the door as usual and Greg had to go himself. He took Valerie's bags from her and they went into the front room. Just then Greg heard Dad put the phone down in the bedroom upstairs.

After a while Dad came downstaris and went into the front room. Greg gave him some time alone with Valerie before he took the drinks in. But when he went in, they were just sitting and talking.

"I was just saying that I won't be here tomorrow," Dad said. " Well, not until the evening. I have to go to the shop. Sue phoned to say she can't come in to work."

But later Greg remembered the sound of the phone upstairs. "Nobody rang earlier," he thought. " Dad was making a call, not answering one."

On Saturday morning Valerie said, "You're cooking us a nice dinner tonight, Greg, so I'll make lunch today."

Greg watched her for a minute while she sat at the kitchen table, cutting up apples. It was a comfortable, friendly picture, he thought. Then he ran upstairs to his father's bedroom , closed the door and phoned the optician's.

"Can I speak to Mr Barber, please?" he asked.

"I'm afraid he's not in today," the girl answered. " Can I help you?"

"No, it's nothing important, thank you," Greg said.

But it was important. It was.

On Sunday evening Valerie said, " See you next week." She was talking to Greg, but it was Dad who answered.

"I'm not sure. Can I phone you?"

"Yes, of course." Valerie was a little surprised. Greg was very surprised - and at the same time, not surprised at all.

"What's happening next week, then?" he said after Valerie left. "Where will we be?"

"Here... I don't know." Dad wasn't looking at him. " Well, perhaps I won't be here next weekend."

"But I want to see Valerie next weekend."

"Why don't you go there, then? I'll ask her, if you like. Perhaps she's bored with coming here every week."

"No, she isn't."

"Look," Dad said, " Valerie's done a lot for us, she's a good friend, but, well, she's only a friend."

"Only a friend? But I thought you- and her..."

"No."

Later Greg told his friend, Toby, about it.

"Well, your Dad's free now", Toby said. "He's come alive again after your Mum's death, and he wants to start again.

And Valerie's too old for him."

"Yes, but she looks older than him. I've seen her. He doesn't want people to see him with someone like that. He can get someone better."

The someone that Dad got was twenty-four and she looked eighteen.

"Oh, you are clever," she said to Greg when he cooked the dinner that Friday evening. "I can't cook anything."

"Why don't you learn?" Greg said coldly. "I won't always be here." And neither will you, he said silently to himself.

INVITATION TO TEA

Rockingham Crescent was a street of tall houses on the top of our hill. We lived down the hill and couldn't see the Crescent fron our street. It was a place which people talked about but which we never visited. But when my parents gave me my first bicycle and I rode to the top of the hill, I saw that the Crescent was really there. The old houses stood high on the hill and there were plants and flowers everywhere, round every door and window, on every wall from the tops of the houses to the ground. It was like a river of different greens, with here and there bright reds and pinks and yellows. I thought that it was one of the most wonderful places in the world. For a long time I just stood there and looked at it in the warm afternoon sunshine. There was nobody around and the only sounds were birds singing.. "It's like the Gardens of Babylon," I thought. "I must come up here again." It was only five minutes up the hill, but I didn't go back again for three years.

Patricia Coleman and I began our senior school at the same time, but we were in different classes, so I didn't really get to know her. But in our third year we were in the same French class. We began to talk sometimes and then to walk home together. Pat always turned into another street, but one evening, when we got to the corner, Pat said, "Have you got to be home early or would you like to come home with me?"

"Well, I've got to be early tonight," I replied. I looked at the street which she usually turned into. The houses were the same as the houses in my street. My mother always wanted to know things like that.

"Well, come tomorrow, then, for tea, " she said. In those days, when a schoolfriend invited you home to tea, it was a meal at a table, with bread and buter.

When I told my mother, she wanted to know Pat's address and what her father's job was. Pat never talked about her father, so I didn't know what he did. I knew he wasn't dead, so I thought, "Perhaps he's in prision!"

Mu mother took some time to decide, but, in the end, she said that I could go to Pat's. I had to be home by half-past six. So, on Friday night I went home with Pat. While we walked throught the streets, we were busy doing our French homework together. But, suddenly, I looked up from my book and for the first time, I saw that we were at the top of the hill. Just then Pat said, " We live round the corner, in Rockingham Crescent."

I was afraid to look at the Crescent again after all this time, but everything was the same. Perhaps the houses were a little smaller than I remembered them, but I was older and bigger now. The green and red leaves of the plants were everywhere, hiding the windows, but everything looked beautiful in the soft autunumn sun.

Pat's house was the second one along the Crescent. But when we got to the front door, I saw that the front garden was full of old bicycle wheels and bottles and old boxes. And there was a broken window, grey with dirt. In the front garden next door I could see an old bed. I was very surprised. What would the inside of the house be like? I asked myself.

The hall was dark and narrow. There was no carpet and there  were old bicycles everywhere, some without wheels. Through an open door I could see a room, but it was empty and it had no floor. We went upstairs and I followed Pat into another room. It had a floor and a window and walls, and it was crowded with chairs, a table, a big bed, cupboards, clothes- everything you could think of. It was October and it was warm, but Pat began to light the fire. The wood looked pieces from the floor of the room downstairs.

"Would you like some tea?" she asked. I thanked her and she went to get some water. While she was out of the room,I looked quickly round. There was a cupboard with some cups and plates in it, and a little food. There was another, bigger cupboard with a small bed in it, and through the window I could see down into the wild back garden. There was a little wooden house there - the toilet.

I began to understand. This one room was Pat's home!

Pat came back and put the saucepan on the little fire. It took a long time for the water to get hot. When the tea was ready, Pat brought out a plate with four biscuits in it. We ate one each very carefully.

Conversation was difficult.