Free Back to Vanilla by Jennifer Maschek

right,” she
said. “I never miss the place so much as when I’m actually down
there, though. I suspect I’m just that rare breed of person who is
simply at their happiest wherever they are at that precise moment.
Years of hard work and retreats to get to this point, though,” she
continued, winking at him. She took another taste of her drink and
pulled the sunglasses that were resting on her forehead down over
her eyes, before sinking back into the deck chair.
    Lyall continued to
scour the metal, which was starting to shine a little, a fine dust
of particles scattered over the top of his black T-shirt. It was a
Father’s Day gift from two years ago, with the words “You look as
nervous as a very small nun at a penguin shoot” embellished across
the front.
    “So, how is the old
bugger?” Jane asked, her ritzy accent softening the tone of the
query.
    “Big question. Big,
big question… Ach, all right, I think. He seems all right, and I
see him often enough. Honestly, I don’t know.”
    And then a breathing
space. Jane was not a woman for whom surface answers were
sufficient, and a chance to think through and articulate what was
going on made him simultaneously want to change topic and to
confide all; the fact that she knew how to leave a silence without
it becoming inelegant helped.
    As if on cue, Emily
came out, clearly sent, with a bottle of Peroni, his second of the
day and highly welcome, although he was irked by the fact that he
measured of his intake so carefully.
    “How’s the comic?”
Jane asked Emily. “Did I pick the right one? To be honest, sweetie,
I only looked at the free gift and the pink front cover… and who
could resist those kittens?”
    “Thank you, Grandma. I
love its little bag and the tiara,” Emily shouted back, without the
need for the usual prompt to remember her manners, as she headed
back into the house.
    “I think he’s okay,”
Lyall finally continued. “I mean, I know he’s better than he was,
but that flat’s just wrong – what the hell is he still doing there?
And I’m guessing he’s spending more time in it than out of it. I
just don’t know what to do. I try not to preach, but it’s so bloody
hard.”
    “He’s an exasperating
man, Lyall. And you’re right, it’s hard not to nag, and it’s not
something you can help him with unless he needs it… knows he needs
it and asks for it… but it’s difficult for an outsider like me to
witness what he’s doing, so I can only imagine how you feel. Does
he see the girls much?”
    “It’s been a few
months. Four, maybe five. Lorna… long story short – maybe I told
her too much about his drinking, about his weird behaviour, and she
won’t let him near the place at the moment. Perhaps she’s right. I
just don’t know.”
    He knew exactly how
many weeks it had been.
    It was a Sunday
afternoon in early February and Lyall had caught the bus over to
his dad’s. It was a short walk from the stop to the home,
presumably for the convenience of the aged inmates (and while
Alasdair referred to “retirement apartments”, a home is exactly
what it was). However, from Lyall’s observations – and he tried not
to see too much of this vision of a potential future he’d rather
not contemplate – most of them rarely left the building.
    He’d stopped knocking
after Alasdair had sold the old place and moved into Gran’s. Lyall
and his family had scored slightly over £100,000 from the
transaction, his father telling him that he’d rather he see him
spend his inheritance now, while he hung on to the sheltered flat
as a longer-term investment for the time being; with property
prices continuing to rise slowly but steadily, it might well
provide a handy little wedge further down the line. So, having been
hit by the familiar stale but not unpleasant whiff of the elderly
as he walked in through the main door, Lyall turned the key he’d
first got when he began dropping off weekly groceries for his
grandmother, eight years