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player Lyall had got his dad three years previously, now
connected to some old speakers from his recently upgraded computer.
Lyall was privately pleased to see no evidence of the laptop for
which his father seemed to have abandoned the real world over the
past four years.
    They smeared hummus
into the pittas, and, in a moment of total peace, Lyall asked if
his dad had a beer, because the orange juice wouldn’t quite hit the
spot at that moment.
    “You’re sure?”
Alasdair asked, squinting one eye gently, to show his son that this
was not necessary, although the fact that he trusted him enough to
ask was appreciated.
    “Sure,” he replied,
and the two cracked open a bottle of lager apiece, Lyall swigging
from the neck, while his father poured his into a pint glass,
adding some token lemonade, and sipping.
    Lyall had talked a lot
that evening, and Alasdair bathed in his son’s confidence in him
and wished, as he had so often, that he had a panacea to hand. He
spoke of his girls, followed by a little of his own life, and the
running training he had taken up after it had been recommended to
him by a friend who had apparently actually strengthened his knees
through regular jogs, as well as curing, to a degree, his
depression. Lorna’s name came up a lot, always with a strong
undertow of defensiveness, which made Alasdair wonder what he had
said in the past to make his son so protective. But perhaps this
wasn’t one of his many faults, he thought, but that of his ex’s,
and this led him to ask after her.
    “Lexi’s fine,” Lyall
said, calling his mother by her first name, as he always did when
speaking to his father since their divorce. Alasdair wondered if
that was the end of the discussion, but his son went on.
    “They think Charles
might have Alzheimer’s. Very early to tell, but he’s had some mood
issues – Mum says she didn’t notice these at first, after years of
marriage to you…” They laughed… “But he gets disorientated and a
few other things Ma says just aren’t right.”
    Somehow, the fact that
Lyall had slipped out of using her name made her seem immediately
like Alasdair’s family again, and he made a note to call her in the
next few days. Again, priorities, he thought, the beginnings of an
alcoholic self-loathing starting to permeate and, sensing this, he
added more lemonade to his cup. And then more beer.
    “He’s got a bunch of
tests to get through, but as it’s California and he’s dripping in
hard cash as well as medical health care, that should all go
smoothly. Ma’s offered for us five to go over later this year,
maybe August, and, though we hate to take cash, she has plenty and
I’m thinking it’s the thing to do, right? I mean, I guess it’s one
of those family-counts moments, when you swallow your pride.”
    They agreed that it
was, and Lyall stayed till gone 11, much later than usual. Lorna
must have perceived his need for connection with his father, and,
unusually, the 9.30pm, where-are-you text never arrived. After they
had finished Alasdair’s supply of six bottles of beer, he had been
tempted to offer up the whisky, but wasn’t yet drunk enough to
ignore his instinctive appreciation of the fact that it would a bad
move. He hugged his son goodbye and watched through his kitchen
window as Lyall got into the front seat of a taxi in the car
park.
    Alasdair stacked the
plates neatly in the sink – tomorrow, he thought – and put the
bottles into a bag ready to go out for recycling in the morning.
Then he poured two fingers of whisky into a glass, which he downed
in one, before topping it up to a centimetre below the brim, and
walking through to the bedroom. Putting the glass on to the small
wooden table on the left side of his bed, Alasdair undressed his
long frame, crawled naked under the purple duvet, and slid the
laptop on to his bony knees.
    Wow. Just wow,
Kindly_Meister. I can’t tell you how excited that makes me. I mean,
the thought of losing myself to that kind