Free Father and Son by John Barlow

bustling
Victorian past, and the businesses they house, Punjaab Jewellers, Hasseen
Exclusive Wear, Kaspian Hair and Beauty, are colourful, modern renditions of what
would have been here three, four, five generations ago.
    He exhales, immediately feeling at ease here, where the slow creep
towards dilapidation is masked by vibrant, home-made shop signs. And behind each
one, he knows, will be an immigrant trying to make a living, getting by on whatever
they’ve got, just like his own father had done when he arrived in the city half
a century ago. John’s probably eaten in every restaurant and cafe around here,
from African to Bangladeshi, Kurdish to Caribbean, and every time he does he
thanks God for immigrants. Without them Britain would still be eating boiled
cabbage and gravy.
    He slows down, reads the card from Roberto’s wallet again: The
Ministry of Eternal Hope . But when he double-checks the address, there’s a Halal
butchers. He parks up and gets out, looks around. The street is familiar but
different, as if it’s put on new clothes; there’s a new pawn brokers, a boutique,
a Polish convenience store…
    Then he sees the nameplate on the door. The Ministry is exactly
where it is supposed to be: upstairs, right above the butchers. They must have
fallen on hard times, because this is definitely not a step up in the world for
the eternal hopers.
    He rings the bell. Not the best time to be calling. Worth a try,
though. Andrew Holt’s shift will have finished at the home, and where else is a
prick like him going to spend Friday night?
    A crackly intercom buzzes into life.
    “Yes?”
    It’s him.
    “John Ray here. To see Andrew Holt.”
    A pause. On the street behind him a bus passes, the rumble of its
engine tapering away almost to nothing before Holt answers.
    “Come on up.”
    The hallway is cramped but neat, on the walls several posters for prayer
meetings and support groups; no mugshots of local badboys, though. A sweet
smell hangs in the air, pleasant enough, but not what one might expect in a
place that claims to be a ministry. He takes the stairs two at a time. Who’s to
say a church shouldn’t smell of pot pourri?
    “Not the person I expected to see here,” says Holt, standing in the
doorway that gives directly onto the top of the stairs. “Welcome.”
    He’s as tall as his father was, but not as imposing, the fire of righteousness
replaced by something lukewarm and vaguely unimpressive. He moves aside, allowing
John to enter.
    The room is large, two rooms knocked into one, and there’s an air of
institutional homeliness, right down to the old cooker at the back with a large
metal teapot on it.
    “You know what this reminds me of,” John says, noticing that the
smell of flowers has been replaced by the faint whiff of joss sticks, “the old
common room at school. You remember it?”
    Holt smiles. “That’s what this is, really,” he says, indicating the
scattering of old armchairs and sagging sofas. “A common room. We talk, and
share. More of a meeting place than a church.”
    “Less fire and brimstone than in your dad’s day, then?”
    Immediately he wishes he hadn’t said it. The original Ministry
burned to the ground about ten years ago. Len Holt died of a heart attack a day
after the blaze.
    “Yes, I suppose so. Less brimstone,” he says, still smiling. “The
Church of Less Brimstone. We should use that on our posters. You want to sit?”
    The two of them take a couple of beaten up armchairs in the middle
of the room, the springs so loose that John finds himself staring at his knees
and wondering how he’ll ever get up again.
    “I’m afraid you can’t smoke in here,” says Holt.
    “You caught me this morning! Very occasional smoker, I am,”
John lies. For the past year he’s been getting through a packet a day, and
hawking up a basinful of acrid phlegm every morning for his trouble. If the
phlegm turns from yellow to green, he cuts down to half a pack.
    They sit a while,