Free Tomorrow by Graham Swift

once told you, years ago, that it was “Edwardian,” and you told me, Nick, not so long ago, that your sister used to think of it as “Edward,” as if it was a person, a secret friend, a being. Though I’m not so sure you weren’t really in on it too, the Edward thing.
    “Kate can be a real dope, can’t she, Mum?”
    Well, if it was a person, if Edward had kept his eyes and ears open, he might have whispered to both of you a secret or two.
    And what doubly struck me about this little fancy was that Edward was the name of your great-uncle, Edward Hook, usually known, in fact, as Eddie, your Grandpa Pete’s older brother, who can’t have meant much more to you than a gravestone in Birle churchyard you’d been shown once when you were small. But perhaps it made an impression, a connection. And Eddie had once owned Coombe Cottage, outside Birle, which despite its name was actually more like some (mid-Victorian) rectory.
    But come back—all these houses!—to Napier Street, Kensington. Come back to when my father was a mere sixty-six and your dad, who was twenty-one, was quaking on that white-pillared porch. Poor man, he’s been there quite a while.
    And now my father is opening that black door…
    They got on like a house on fire. I knew, I’d promised, I would have bet your father that they would. Mike may have thought that when he stood there, face to face with Justice Campbell, he was being rigorously sized up. And so he was. But I was being sized up too. I saw the little glances that bounced off your dad onto me. My father was sizing us up as a pair.
    Your dad at this time was just my boyfriend of two months. What a word:
boyfriend.
But I think my father knew—a true judge, in some things—even before he ushered us into his house, that your dad would be a permanent fixture in my life. There was even a little dart of a look in his eye just for me, that made me think, for the first time: perhaps I should try and get to like this Margaret.
    Your dad was wearing, apart from the Chelsea boots, his best black flares and his best cream round-collared shirt. And my dad was wearing—what else?—a cardigan. A rather chunky cardigan, in fact, for a warmish day in May, with those buttons like little footballs: navy blue, over a pale-pink shirt. Blue cord trousers, suede loafers. Mr. Justice Campbell in Saturday clothes.
    Though I had every faith your father would pass with flying colours, I knew there would be two principal tests. One was that first clapping of eyes on the front porch—already sailed through. The other was the wine cellar. I’d already told your dad that it was the hub, the nerve centre, and that if he was asked down there, as he almost certainly would be, then it was best not to venture any opinions, but simply to be guided, boggle and agree. Not a difficult thing to do. I couldn’t believe Mike
wouldn’t
be invited—the only question was how long the invitation would take.
    It seemed to me it took rather less than a minute. I didn’t mind at all that I was summarily deserted, and I absolutely knew I shouldn’t tag along. This was a critical moment. Never mind the opening chit-chat, never mind the rest of the house. Your Grandpa Dougie felt we needed something decent to drink.
    “Er, Michael—come with me, would you?”
    I waited upstairs while subterranean bonding occurred. A judge of men, a judge of wine. It was perhaps five minutes. I looked round the room: the padded-leather fireguard, the tall gilt mirror over the fireplace, the Staffordshire dogs on the mantelpiece, the De Brant still-life in the alcove (we have it now). I thought: this is my
former
home.
    Your father told me later that after a memorable guided tour my father had picked out a bottle and said (though it was three in the afternoon and more like tea-time) that we should drink it now, right away—by way of welcome. Your father had concurred. My father had patted the bottle. Then, with his non-dusty hand, he’d patted Mike