Page 48 of For Real

Also, it’s a generational thing. Like they were raising them racist and sexist and homophobic back in the 1920s or whatever. I mean, they still are, but there’s at least a certain amount of social understanding that it’s supposed to be a bad thing. Like if somebody is randomly homophobic at me, they’ll at least look sheepish and then give me this speech about how they’re not actually a homophobe because Reasons. But my great-grandmother genuinely used to call black people the word you’re never ever supposed to say if you’re white. She didn’t think she was being racist. She just thought that was what black people were called. Yeah. Awkward.

Probably a good thing she’s dead. I’m kidding. Well, she is dead. But I was quite young at the time so it wasn’t a big deal. Like, for me. It probably was for her. And Granddad. But since they didn’t seem to like each other very much, who knows? Grown-up relationships are a complete mystery to me. I don’t know at what point you go from being in love and bonking to not really talking about anything and being mildly annoyed with each other all the time. But at no point remembering that you chose to be with that person in the first place. Although actually I have a pretty small sample size. The Finch family can’t keep men. It’s our curse or something. And I hope to fuck I haven’t got it, or it doesn’t count if you’re gay, because now I’ve got a man of my own, I bloody well want to hang on to him.3

But, anyway, once Great-Grandma snuffed it, Granddad started going dancing again.

That was how you got laid back in the day, and he used to totally rock at it but then the war happened, and then he was married and stuff, so it was like this amazing thing for him to suddenly have dancing again. Like a bit of lostness coming back to him after all these years. And he taught me. Really patiently because I’m a bit of a klutz. He didn’t actually say it was for getting laid (though I’m telling you the implication was there). He said it was how a gentleman wins a lady’s heart. An important life skill.

And so I told him. I said, “Does it still work if a gentleman wants to win a gentleman’s heart?”

He was quiet a moment.

And my own heart was like thudump-thudump-thudump. To the rhythm of ohfuck-ohfuck-ohfuck.

And then Granddad said, “Definitely.”

So I was a regular twinkle toes after that. Commitment. Quickstep is my favourite. It’s so good, so light and elegant, like you’re both flying.4

I’d love to dance with Laurie. Anything. But especially that.

After I clean up and we close up, I stick the cakes in a box and head for Saint Anthony’s. It’s out in North London, so out of my way, but seriously, he’s my granddad, who’s counting? I go to see him pretty much every other day. That’s another great thing about the hospice. It’s not like hospital where they hate you turning up and getting in the way, and only let you in for like two minutes and sixteen seconds when Mercury is in retrograde. You’re always welcome at the hospice. It’s so full of people being together. You can even stay over if you want to, or need to, or if you’re scared.

It’s the closest thing I know to what family means.

As I sit on the emptying, darkening Tube, I suddenly realise that if I hadn’t come unstuck, I probably wouldn’t have been able to do this at all. I’m honestly pretty messed up about university—and this black hole of a future I’ve made—but maybe what I did was to gift myself this: these last few days with Granddad.

It’s dark when I get to the hospice, but that’s okay because it’s light inside. And I can hear music playing, people talking. Everybody knows my name. Not just the staff, but the volunteers and the families. I sort of miss some of the people who used to come here, which is weird, I guess, but you get close quickly. And you don’t tell when you catch each other crying.

Soon I’ve given away nearly all of my cakes, and I take the rest up to Granddad because he’s up in his room.

He’s been in his room a lot lately.

It’s not one of his best days, but that’s okay.

That’s okay.

The nurses helped me make the place really nice. So maybe it wouldn’t look, y’know, temporary. There’s always flowers in the window. And it’s full of photographs and his favourite things, small stuff that’s just always been around him, but I don’t really know much about or why he has it. Like this battered wooden box he’s got that somebody carved for him. And these medals he likes to have near but never looks at. And a lot of crap I made him when I was a kid, like this mug in pottery class and this deformed pom-pom parrot from having to do needlework because I was too sissy for woodworking.

They used to rip the piss out of me at school because when you had to draw your family, it was always me and Granddad. And sometimes Mum. But apparently this was weird and wrong and not the way it’s supposed to be.

Looking back, I just think they can go fuck themselves. I mean, I wouldn’t actually say that to them. They were like six. But if I ever have a kid of my own, and maybe someday I will—I hope so—I’m not going to raise them like that. Believing the shape of their world is the only shape for the world to be. Well, I guess the poor bastard won’t have much choice. They’ll be starting life with two dads after all.

But Granddad’s still got all those pictures. There’s like a whole series of us on Primrose Hill, one for every season, stick figures in scarves and sun hats. And there’s the first poem I ever wrote. It’s lovingly hand illustrated, and cut out with the special scissors that do crinkly edges, and it’s called “Frogs.” It goes like this:

Frogs5

Leaping in and out of the pond.

Hop hop hop hop HOP.

That’s some deep shit right there, man. Everybody acted like I was a total genius when I wrote it. It’s probably the single most successful thing I’ve ever done. I mean, yeah, it’s crap, but I was what? Five? I think I was the only one there who got that a poem was a different sort of way of writing. For ages, I actually thought I was going to be a poet when I grew up. The same way Mum’s an artist.

But then I noticed the fundamental flaw in the plan, which was basically that I sucked.

The weird thing is, I do kind of get poetry. A bit. Maybe in an idiot-savant way, since I probably osmoted it in the womb and early childhood, because the only books Mum owns are art books and poetry books. But that’s how I was able to recognise my own suck before anybody had to sit down and tell me.6

Without Granddad, I wonder what’s going to happen to all this nonsense. All this stuff only he cares about.

God, way to make it all about me. But it doesn’t mean anything to anyone except him. And if it doesn’t mean anything, it’s nothing. Which means…so am I.

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