‘Why didn’t you?’ he asked. Now the wobble was in his voice.
Mum took a deep breath. Keith noticed she was squeezing Dad’s hand very hard.
‘Because we couldn’t afford to, love. The shop wasn’t earning us enough money.’
‘It would have done if Dad had kept on turning out the best fish and chips in South London,’ said Keith, turning to Dad. ‘Wouldn’t it?’
‘When we started the shop,’ said Dad, ‘there was us and one curry place down the street. Now there’s us and three curry places and McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried and Spud-U-Like and the pub bistro and two other fish and chip shops.’
‘The only way we can make a living is to keep our prices down,’ said Mum. ‘And cheap prices means cheap ingredients. And no money left over for houses.’ She bit her lip.
Keith frowned.
‘But we sell loads of fish and chips, mountains of it. There must be enough money to rent a house at least.’
Dad looked at him grimly.
‘Life’s not that simple, son. There’s tax and electricity bills and repairs to the shop and repairs to the fryers and repayments on the new fridge and insurance in case Mrs Wall slips in a puddle of vinegar and council fees and government fees and every time there’s a flood anywhere the price of potatoes goes through the roof.’
Keith looked at Dad. No wonder his mouth was droopy.
He looked at Mum. No wonder her forehead looked like Aunty Joyce’s peasant smock party dress.
Then Dad gripped him by both shoulders.
‘I’m afraid that life,’ said Dad, ‘is not a lot of fun.’
‘So, love,’ said Mum, ‘do you understand now?’
‘Yes,’ said Keith.
3
Keith lay in bed planning his next move.
He thought about digging up the pavement outside the shop and planting daffodils. Everyone liked daffs. Even people who didn’t like Tropical Mango Hi-Gloss. Even Mum and Dad.
The council wouldn’t though.
He had a vision of a council bulldozer arriving and bulldozing all the daffs and him having to jump onto the bulldozer driver from the kitchen window and wrestle him to the ground and . . .
Scrap that idea.
OK, what about a holiday? A camping trip. Borrow Uncle Derek’s tent. Go somewhere exotic. Dennis Baldwin and his parents went to Dorset last year. Dad could visit all the Dorset fish and chip shops and make some pen pals.
Keith started working out how long it would take him to earn enough for a camping holiday in Dorset.
He’d just calculated that the 2p a potato Mum and Dad paid him meant he’d have to peel at least ten thousand potatoes when he remembered that Dennis Baldwin had come home from Dorset six days early last year because his mum had hit his dad over the head with a deck chair.
Scrap that idea.
I know, he thought, I’ll ring up a circus and invite them to tea on Sunday. Not a whole circus, just some jugglers and clowns and a baby elephant . . .
He remembered Mum was allergic to straw.
Then Keith’s bedroom door creaked open and someone came into the room.
It was Dad.
Great, thought Keith, here am I trying to come up with ways to cheer them up, and Dad remembers another thing to be miserable about. What will it be this time? The pipe in the kitchen that bangs when you turn the hot tap off too quickly? Charlton’s run of fourteen games away without a win? The government?
Dad sat down on the edge of the bed. In the darkness Keith could just make out his mouth.
Funny, thought Keith, it’s not drooping.
‘Son,’ said Dad, and cleared his throat. ‘Thanks for the birthday present. I’ve got to be honest and say I’d rather have had a pair of socks, but it’s the thought that counts.’
Keith couldn’t believe it.
Right up to bedtime Dad had been sighing and shaking his head and muttering about how it should be illegal to sell Tropical Mango Hi-Gloss to kids under eighteen.
What had happened?
Keith was still wondering when Dad leant forward and did something even more surprising.
He gave Keith a hug.
Keith hugged him back, heart thumping, trying to remember the last time they’d done this.
What had happened?
Then he remembered.
The cake.
When he’d given Dad his birthday cake earlier, Dad had just stared at it.
At first Keith had thought Dad didn’t want it. Perhaps he didn’t want to be reminded he was thirty-five. Perhaps he knew Keith had forgotten to wash his hands before making it. Perhaps he was allergic to iced chocolate sponge cake in the shape of a haddock.
Then Dad had given Keith a big slap on the back and said all sorts of stuff about what a great cake it was and how clever Keith was.
But he hadn’t actually smiled.
Now Keith looked at Dad through the darkness.
‘Did you really like the cake?’ he asked.
He strained to see Dad’s expression in the gloom.
Dad’s lips moved.
Keith’s heart leapt.
Was that a . . .?
It was.
Dad was smiling.
‘That,’ said Dad, ‘was a great cake.’
The smile slowly faded.
‘Hope you didn’t put too much sugar in. I’ll be up all night burping if you did.’
Before Keith could say he’d only put six cups in, Dad squeezed his arm and was gone.
Keith lay there, heart thumping.
It was a start.
Keith had the idea later that night.
He slipped out of bed, crept into the hall and peeped into Mum and Dad’s room.
All the lights were out.
He crept into the living room, fumbled around in the sideboard drawer till he found the torch, then shone it into the bottom of the cupboard behind the TV.
There it was.
The slide projector.
He dragged it out, blew the dust off it and plugged it in. Then he piled the phone books onto the table, stood the projector on them and fiddled with the focus.
A big square of white light appeared on the wall.
Now, he thought, the slides.
He went back to the cupboard with the torch and rummaged around. An old brown vase toppled and fell. Keith caught it inches from the floor.
That’s all I need, he thought, Dad storming out here with a rolled-up umbrella thinking we’re being burgled.
He found the plastic boxes of slides and hunted through them for a box taken in the days when Mum and Dad still laughed.
An old one.
He found one marked ‘Holidays’.
He knew that must be old, they hadn’t had a holiday since he was about five.
Keith loaded the slides into the projector.
Click.
Him, huge on the wall, about three and a half, falling off a merry-go-round. That blur in the corner must be Dad, thought Keith.
Click.
Him, on a beach with a plastic bucket on his head.
Click.
Him, sitting on a donkey dripping ice cream onto its neck.
Click. Click. Click.
Slides, swings, fairy-floss.
All him.
The only sign of Mum or Dad was an occasional arm or a couple of legs.
Keith switched the torch back on and found an even older-looking slide box. He loaded the slides.
Click.
Mum and Dad, incredibly young, with longer hair and really bright jumpers, posing in front of a castle with serious expressions on their faces.
Serious expressions, Keith noticed, but no frown lines or droop lines.
Click.
Dad, the same age, posing with a platter of fish and chips. A red sash across his chest. Smiling.
Click.
Mum and Dad, sitting at a table in an outdoor restaurant on some sort of seaside pier. Arms round each other. Heads thrown back. Eyes sparkl
ing.
Laughing.
Keith stared.
Then he noticed something else in the slide. The big flat fish on Mum and Dad’s plates. And he remembered seeing the slide before, ages ago, when he was little. He’d asked Dad what the funny fish were called.
Dad had told him.
Dover sole.
‘Dover sole,’ said Keith now, out loud, as he looked at Mum and Dad’s laughing faces.
They must really have liked Dover sole.
He looked at the slide for a few minutes more, then leant over to switch the projector off. He’d seen what he needed to see.
He bumped the slide box and it fell to the floor with a crash.
Keith looked anxiously towards Mum and Dad’s room.
But it wasn’t in Mum and Dad’s room that the eruption of blankets took place.
It was on the settee.
Out of the darkness rose a crumpled figure, eyes screwed up, hair spiky, face twisted into a grimace.
Keith gasped. The blood pounded in his ears.
The figure’s head was in the bright square of light on the wall.
Keith couldn’t see who the head belonged to at first because Dad’s laughing face was projected on top of it.
Then he saw who it was.
Dad.
He wasn’t laughing.
Keith lay in bed and stared into the darkness.
He tried to think of pleasant things like how Dad, when he’d calmed down, had been quite reasonable about Keith looking at slides at one in the morning.
‘Next time you can’t sleep,’ Dad had said, ‘make do with a cup of hot milk, OK?’
Firm but fair, Keith had thought at the time. In between heart palpitations from the shock of Dad’s appearance.
Now Keith’s heart was beating fast for another reason.
Things were worse than he’d thought.
Mum and Dad didn’t want to sleep together any more.
He had to move fast.
4
Keith stood in a puddle of fishy water, waiting.
Come on Mr Gossage, he thought. Shake a leg. Some of us have got to be at school in thirty-eight minutes.
All around him the fish market was a confusion of activity. Lorries and vans and piles of crates and people shouting and blowing their horns. Everyone in a hurry. Except Mr Gossage, who stood behind the rippled glass of his office door like a frozen cod with a phone to its ear.
Keith’s hands were numb with the cold. He blew on them and stuck them into his pockets and jingled his life savings. Four pounds eighty-three. Two hundred and forty-one and a half potatoes.
Wonder why Dover sole are so expensive, he thought. Must be cause they’re so flat. Good for sandwiches.
He hoped two hundred and forty-one and a-half potatoes would be enough.
The office door opened and Mr Gossage came out.
‘OK sunshine,’ he boomed, ‘what can I do for you?’
‘Two Dover sole please,’ said Keith. ‘Freshest you’ve got.’
‘Two boxes of sole coming up,’ said Mr Gossage. ‘Bit posh for your dad, isn’t it?’
‘Not two boxes,’ said Keith, ‘two fish.’
Mr Gossage looked at him.
‘Sorry my old son, I’m a wholesaler. Can’t split a box. Wholesalers don’t split boxes or they wouldn’t be wholesalers, would they? Try a fishmonger.’
He went back into the office.
‘Our fishmonger doesn’t have Dover sole,’ shouted Keith.
‘Try Selfridges,’ shouted Mr Gossage, picking up the phone, ‘or Dover.’
Keith walked gloomily away. Selfridges was halfway across London and mega-posh with it. Two hundred and forty-one and a half potatoes didn’t get you a bag of chips up there. They wore diamond rings on their fish fingers up there.
Oops, he thought, that’s me nearly being a moaner. Think positive.
He thought positive. Perhaps he could get away with flattening a couple of mackerel between bricks.
Then he saw it.
It was propped up on top of a box of whitebait. At first Keith thought it was plastic, but as he got closer he saw it was real.
It was the colour of sunsets and tropical reefs and all of Aunty Joyce’s lipsticks shimmering together. Each scale was a different colour and when Keith moved his head a fraction each scale was a different colour again.
It was the most beautiful fish he’d ever seen.
He imagined Mum and Dad seeing it. Their jaws dropping and their eyes widening as they opened the fridge and found themselves staring at a thousand shimmering pastel colours.
Forget Dover sole.
Forget mackerel with stretch-marks.
If this fish didn’t cheer Mum and Dad up, nothing would.
Gripping his two hundred and forty-one and a half potatoes, Keith pushed through the circle of onlookers to ask how much.
‘Twenty-five quid? For a fish?’
Dennis Baldwin looked at Keith as though he was a lunatic or a West Ham supporter or something. Then he went back to what he was doing.
CRASH.
Keith sighed.
It wasn’t easy, trying to have a sensible conversation with someone who was more interested in smashing a supermarket trolley into a phone box.
‘Five quid each’ said Keith. ‘Take it in turns. You’ll all get your money’s worth.’
‘Waste of time trying to cheer my mum and dad up,’ said Eric Cox, as he started his run-up with the trolley. ‘I’ve tried.’
CRASH.
Sally Prescott gripped the trolley. ‘All mums and dads are depressed,’ she said.
‘No they’re not,’ said Keith.
‘Course they are,’ she said, taking aim. ‘When was the last time you saw a mum or a dad having a really good time? Like they used to when they were kids.’
CRASH.
‘Get your head examined,’ said Rami Smith.
‘Save your money,’ said Mitch Wilson.
‘I’ve got it,’ said Dennis Baldwin. ‘Buy your dad a fish finger and paint it orange.’
CRASH.
Keith sighed.
Uncle Derek sighed.
‘Look at that,’ he said, handing Keith a small brown plastic box. ‘Supposed to be British workmanship.’
Keith looked at the box.
‘Hundreds of quid for a remote control garage door’ said Uncle Derek, ‘and the remote control unit doesn’t work.’
‘I bet if you give it a prod with a screwdriver it’ll work,’ said Aunty Joyce.
‘The screwdriver’s in the garage,’ said Uncle Derek through gritted teeth, ‘and I can’t get the garage door open.’
Keith wondered if Uncle Derek had forgotten what they were meant to be talking about.
‘Bradley. Diana. Get your feet off the furniture,’ snapped Uncle Derek.
Keith watched as his cousins took about half an hour to get their feet off the leather settee. He gave them a sympathetic shrug. They stuck their tongues out at him.
Tragic, thought Keith, only seven and nine, a bedroom each with fitted carpet, and they’re like Uncle Derek already.
‘So,’ said Uncle Derek, ‘what do you want to spend twenty five quid on your dad for?’
‘His birthday,’ said Keith.
Uncle Derek stared at him.
‘His birthday?’
Uncle Derek pulled a small black plastic box from his pocket, punched a few buttons and glared at the screen.
‘Eighty-nine quid for a Computerised Pocket Organiser and it can’t even remember a birthday. This country’s going down the toilet.’
‘It’s Japanese,’ said Aunty Joyce.
‘They’re just as bad,’ said Uncle Derek.
Aunty Joyce picked up Uncle Derek’s wallet.
‘Don’t worry about paying us back,’ she said to Keith, just put our names on the card.’
Keith stood in the deserted market, shivering.
He wasn’t sure if it was the cold or the excitement.
/> He watched the man wrap the fish in newspaper. The man handed him the bundle and he handed the man twenty-five pounds.
‘By the way,’ said the man, ‘don’t eat it, it’s a bit old.’
Eat it, thought Keith as he hurried to the bus stop. Eat a fish that cost one thousand two hundred and fifty potatoes? Fat chance.
It was going in the freezer. Then, in the years to come, whenever Mum and Dad were down in the dumps, he could get it out, give it a wipe, and watch the smiles spread across their faces.
He didn’t put it in the freezer straight away.
He put it in the fridge because he wanted to surprise them. Sometimes they didn’t open the freezer for days, but they opened the shop fridge about once every five minutes.
Five minutes passed.
They didn’t open the fridge.
Keith hovered around the back of the shop watching Dad fillet some plaice and Mum mix up some batter.
He stared at the back of Dad’s head and tried sending him an urgent telepathic message.
Open the fridge.
Dad scratched his bottom.
Keith decided he’d better try something else.
He closed his eyes and made a wish.
I wish, he thought, that someone would walk into the shop now and ask Dad for something in the fridge.
It was worth a try. Even though none of the other forty-six thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine wishes he’d made in his life had come true.
The shop door opened and a man in a suit came in carrying a clipboard.
‘Afternoon sir, afternoon madam,’ said the man. ‘Health inspection. Shall we start with the fridge?’
Keith grinned. Forty-seven thousandth time lucky.
Dad and Mum exchanged weary looks and Dad came over and opened the fridge.
Keith watched as Dad stopped and stared. The fish sat on the middle shelf, shimmering. Mum came over and she and Dad stood side by side, mouths slowly opening.
Keith didn’t say anything. He waited for the amazed delight to creep over their faces.
The Health Inspector joined them. He bent down, head close to the fish.
Keith grinned. What did he think it was, plastic?
‘How old’s this fish?’ asked the Health Inspector.
Keith stopped grinning. Everyone was looking at him. No-one was looking amazed or delighted.
‘Um, four or five days I think,’ he said. ‘It was flown in from abroad for a big hotel and they sent it back to the market cause it was the wrong sort. Perhaps a week.’