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Prologue
May 1976
Simon was six years old when he first tasted beer.
He was bathed and ready for bed wearing soft pyjamas,
even though it was light outside; still early. Other kids were in
the street, playing on their bikes, kicking a football. He could
hear them through the open window, although he couldn’t
see them because the blinds were closed. His daddy didn’t
like the evening light glaring on the TV screen, his mummy
didn’t like the neighbours looking in; keeping the room dark
was something they agreed on.
His mummy didn’t like a lot of things: wasted food, messy
bedrooms, Daddy driving too fast, his sister throwing a tantrum in public. Mummy liked ‘having standards’. He didn’t
know what that meant, exactly. There was a standard-bearer
at Cubs; he was a big boy and got to wave the flag at the front
of the parade, but his mummy didn’t have a flag, so it was
unclear. What was clear was that she didn’t like him to be in
the street after six o’clock. She thought it was common. He
wasn’t sure what common was either, something to do with
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having fun. She bathed him straight after tea and made him
put on pyjamas, so that he couldn’t sneak outside.
He didn’t know what his daddy didn’t like, just what he did
like. His daddy was always thirsty and liked a drink. When he
was thirsty he was grumpy and when he had a drink, he laughed
a lot. His daddy was an accountant and like to count in lots
of different ways: ‘a swift one’, ‘a cold one’, and ‘one more for
the road’.
Sometimes Simon though his daddy was lying when
he said he was an accountant; most likely, he was a pirate or a
wizard. He said to people, ‘Pick your poison’, which sounded like
something pirates might say, and he liked to drink, ‘the hair of a
dog’ in the morning at the weekends, which was definitely a spell.
Simon asked his mummy about it once and she told him to stop
being silly and never to say those silly things outside the house.
He had been playing with his Etch A Sketch, which was
only two months old and was a birthday present. Having
seen it advertised on TV, Simon had begged for it, but it was
disappointing. Just two silly knobs making lines that went up
and down, side to side. Limited. Boring. He was bored. The
furniture in the room was organised so all of it was pointing
at the TV which was blaring but not interesting. The news.
His parents liked watching the news, but he didn’t. His father
was nursing a can of the grown ups’ pop that Simon was
never allowed. The pop that smelt like nothing else, fruity
and dark and tempting.
‘Can I have a sip?’ he asked.
‘Don’t be silly, Simon,’ his mother interjected. ‘You’re far
too young. Beer is for daddies.’ He thought she said ‘daddies’,
but she might have said ‘baddies’.
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His father put the can to his lips, glared at his mother, cold.
A look that said, ‘Shut up woman, this is man’s business.’ His
mother had blushed, looked away as though she couldn’t stand
to watch, but she held her tongue.
Perhaps she thought the
bitterness wouldn’t be to his taste, that one sip would put him
off. He didn’t like the taste. But he enjoyed the collusion. He
didn’t know that word then, but he instinctively understood the
thrill. He and his daddy drinking grown ups’ pop! His father had
looked satisfied when he swallowed back the first mouthful, then
pushed for a second. He looked almost proud. Simon tasted the
aluminium can, the snappy biting bitter bubbles and it lit a fuse.
After that, in the mornings, Simon would sometimes get
up early, before Mummy or Daddy or his little sister, and he’d
dash around the house before school, tidying up. He’d open
the curtains, empty the ashtrays, clear away the discarded
cans. Invariably his mother went to bed before his father.
Perhaps she didn’t want to have to watch him drink himself
into a stupor every night, perhaps she hoped denying him an
audience might take away some of the fun for him, some of
the need. She never saw just how bad the place looked by the
time his father staggered upstairs to bed. Simon knew it was
important that she didn’t see that particular brand of chaos.
Occasionally there would be a small amount of beer left
in one of the cans. Simon would slurp it back. He found he
liked the flat, forbidden, taste just as much as the fizzy hit
of fresh beer. He’d throw open a window, so the cigarette
smoke and the secrets could drift away. When his mother
came downstairs, she would smile at him and thank him for
tidying up.
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‘You’re a good boy, Simon,’ she’d say with some relief.
And no idea.
When there weren’t dregs to be slugged, he sometimes
opened a new can. Threw half of it down his throat before
eating his breakfast. His father never kept count.
Some people say their favourite smell is freshly baked
bread, others say coffee or a campfire. From a very young
age, few scents could pop Simon’s nerve endings like the
scent of beer.
The promise of it.
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