Free When Love Comes to Town by Tom Lennon Page B

family classic and the tape had gone patchy from being overplayed. Every aunt and uncle who came into the house had to see it. “Wait’ll your children see it,” his dad would say to Neil, chuckling heartily. And Neil would wave him off with a grin, wondering whether, if he ever had a son, he would know as little about him as his own dad. He pressed the fast-forward button and watched his speeded-up family whizzing around the beach, performing their part for the camera. He pressed the play button on a happier shot of himself, dribbling a football, with his two older brothers making exaggerated dives in the sand, pretending that they couldn’t get the ball off him. His mum was cheering him on. Neiley Nook, the baby of the family, kicked the ball into the goal with mounds of sand as goalposts. Grinning, he raised his two skinny arms in celebration and turned to face the camera. Neil pressed the freeze-frame button. That happy, carefree child was him. What if they could see their little boy now? What if they knew then what that little boy would want to do with that little body when he got bigger? Maybe it would’ve been better if the big wave had drowned him, then his memory would have been crystallized in all those innocent snapshots that adorned the mantelpiece.
    Neil began to feel drowsy. Through the half-sleep, another holiday memory from the same summer forged its way into his thoughts.
    “Daddy! Neil’s fallen into the water!” Kate roared.
    The five-year-old Neil splashed and floundered. He had slipped off the pier in Portsalon. Paul and Joe were fishing at the end of the short pier, Kate and Jackie were listening to a guy playing the guitar, and his mum and dad were sunbathing on the pier wall.
    “Swim, Neil! Swim!” came Kate’s shrill cry.
    His dad plunged into the crystal-clear water and wrapped his arms around the drowning boy. He swam to the pier steps, and Neil thought he was going to suffocate from the hug he gave him. There were tears in his dad’s eyes as he held his bristly jaw against Neil’s face and whispered that he could never do without his Mister Happy. And all the way back to their holiday cottage, Neil was allowed to sit on his lap and hold the steering wheel.
    “Neil.”
    “Hmmm.” His mum shook him again. “Neil, wake up, there’s someone on the phone for you.”
    Neil opened his eyes blearily. “Who?” he muttered sleepily.
    “I don’t know…Some man,” his mum replied, picking his clothes up off the floor. Neil tensed. The events of the previous night came flooding back. Then he relaxed. It was more than likely another rugby club Alicadoo asking him to sign with their club for the forthcoming season.
    “Should I get him to call back?” his mum asked, lingering by the bedroom door.
    “Nah, I’ll get up.”
    Neil jumped out of bed and grimaced when he saw his reflection in the mirror. He looked shattered. Maybe he was still drunk, he thought, as he ran down the stairs in his boxer shorts.
    “Hello?” he answered the phone huskily.
    “Good afternoon,” said a cheerful, businesslike voice.
    “Afternoon,” Neil replied warily.
    “Guess who?”
    “Huh?”
    “You don’t know who this is?”
    “Haven’t a clue.”
    “And, Gary, you told me that you were twenty.”
    Neil froze.
    “Know who it is now?” Sugar said with a little chuckle.
    “Yeah,” Neil said, doing his best to sound unfriendly, wondering how the hell he had got his number.
    “You dropped your ID card in my car.” The older man seemed to have read his thoughts. Neil sighed inwardly, conscious now that the kitchen door was open and his mum could hear every word.
    “Could you mail it out to me, please?”
    “Mail it? But I could drive out that way after work and meet you if you like,” Sugar suggested.
    “What’s the last date for applying?” Neil asked.
    “You can’t talk?” Sugar was obviously familiar with these situations.
    “No, not really.”
    “Okay, listen, you’ve got my number,