Free Afterwards by Rachel Seiffert

double-glazing, but her grandfather had stubbornly resisted, preferring to maintain his woodwork and keep the stained-glass inserts at the top of the front door and bay windows. They were unique, Alice knew, because he’d often told her: no two the same on the street when the houses were built. He was still looking at the papers laid out before them, fingertips resting on the tabletop, blinking. Alice asked:
    – Have you got any quotations yet?
    – Only old ones, from last year. I’ll have to call them again.
    – Maybe I could show them to Joseph anyway? He might know the companies, or at least he can tell you if their prices are reasonable.
    Her grandfather pulled the relevant pieces of paper together for her, and started to clear the table again, but then stopped.
    – I went to the DIY place last week but they don’t stock this wallpaper any more.
    He pointed to the hallway pattern. Pale blue stripes on a cream background, and yellow in the border. Alice picked it up.
    – We’ll be able to get something similar, I’m sure. I’ll ask Joseph for you. He’ll probably know of other places we can look.
    She made her way home once the rain eased off, walked to the station under one of her gran’s umbrellas, though the weather wasn’t really bad enough to warrant it any more. Her grandad had opened it ready for her in the porch, and then she hadn’t liked to refuse. It had been an awkward goodbye altogether, prolonged by bag and brolly and jacket, her grandfather standing, silent, waiting to wave to her at the gate and then close the door.
    They’d never spent time on their own together as adults: not used to it, and they were not much good at it. He’d had the table set and the kettle filled when she arrived, as he often did on Sundays now. Her mum said he was just looking forward to her visits, but Alice suspected he was impatient to get them over with. She’d been relieved to have something to talk about this time. When her grandad first mentioned the redecorating, she’d wondered if he was just making conversation, but he’d obviously been looking for wallpaper this week, so that was probably unfair.
    She walked the rainy pavement and platform, tried to remember a time when it was better, a clue to how to change it, but all she could recall were Saturday morning trips to the library while her mum and gran wentshopping together. She was still in primary school then and her grandad would take her hand while they crossed the main road. He kept her library tickets in his wallet and gave them to her at the desk after she’d made her selections. He never chose books for her or with her, would walk the shelves with his hands folded at the small of his back while she went to Junior Fiction.
    They didn’t talk to each other then either, but what should they have talked about, an eight-year-old girl, and a man already past his middle age? It wasn’t as though there was no love between them. He was never like the fathers she knew, the various dads of her friends at school. Older for one thing, more reserved, more formal, always wore suit trousers, leather shoes, never carried her on his shoulders or called her pet names, but then he wasn’t her father, so none of that mattered. Part of her always enjoyed it too: that he was unusual. Embarrassed and proud of him at the same time. She liked his arm swinging as he walked, the clipped, white hair at his neck, his smooth-soft ties hung on small wooden pegs in the wardrobe: so many patterns and they smelled of him too, the soap he used for shaving. On their library trips, he always dropped her hand again as soon as they got to the far kerb, it was true, but she liked the quick squeeze he gave her fingers before he let go. Blink and you’ll miss them : that’s what her mum said about Grandad’s fleeting displays of affection.
    Her grandfather worked until she was in her teens: her last years at school, his last years tying his tie in the hallway mirror weekday