Free Happy Birthday and All That by Rebecca Smith Page B

could only take so much of the happy family stuff. When they’d had a lovely day he seemed to need to do something to neutralise it, obliterate it from his mind. He seemed to have two separate existences. She wondered which was his real life.
    Frank thought that Posy looked a bit miffed but that shewouldn’t really mind. She could probably do with a bit of time to herself; he certainly could. Soon he was sitting in the pub with The Wild Years.
    â€˜Here’s to a kid-free zone!’ he said. Then Melody arrived with one of her friends. She plonked herself down on the bench beside Al, even though Frank had moved up to make room for her.
    â€˜What would you like?’ Frank asked.
    â€˜My round,’ said Al.
    â€˜I can give you a lift home,’ Frank said, as soon as Al disappeared to the bar.
    â€˜No thanks,’ said Melody, and she shook her head.
    Posy was in bed when he got in, but she heard the TV and smelt his kebab. There was bound to be something unmissable on. Frank was more tired than he realised. It had been a very long day. He fell asleep with the kebab half-eaten on his knees. When he woke, just after four, he was freezing. The heating had gone off hours ago. He had a sort of cramp (or could it possibly be gout?) in one of his feet. He tried a few more of the chips, but they had become floppy and sour, the remains of the kebab were stone cold too. He realised with pleasure that he had eaten the two big green chillies. Their hats and stalks were on the side of his plate. He was impressed. He couldn’t have been that drunk if he’d bothered to get a plate. The bin was too full for him to cram it all into, so he left it beside the sink. It could be dealt with in the morning.
    When Posy came down the next day she thought that he had deliberately left it for her to clear up. It looked obscene. The vile, green, bitten-off chilli tops were the final insult. She scraped it all into the overflowing liner, tied up the sack, and hefted it out to the wheelie bin. All this before she’d even had a cup of tea.
    A few hours and many cups of tea later she was outside dealing with the shrivelling balloons. Flora arrived.
    â€˜I’m just on my way to a storage solution. I thought you’d like these. I’ve already picked over them. They aren’t wormy.’
    It was a bag of apples from what Posy and Flora still thought of as Aunt Is’s apple tree. The tree had been Flora’s for years now, but they couldn’t forget how much they had enjoyed picking the apples, and how much they had hated cutting up the windfalls. Their aunt had a very thrifty attitude towards them. (‘There’s plenty of good in that one. Mustn’t let them go to waste,’ she’d say even though there were hundreds of perfect ones still to be gathered in.) The tree had once been espaliered but Aunt Is had eventually let it do what it liked. Flora now kept it well-pruned. Aunt Bea had told her that a pigeon should be able to fly through the branches.
    Posy took the bag of apples and picked up her scissors.
    â€˜Thanks.’ Now she would have to do something with them. Unfortunately they weren’t eaters. ‘I was just deflating these balloons.’
    â€˜Well thank goodness you’re doing that outside!’
    Posy looked blankly back at her.
    â€˜Haven’t you ever thought about the germs inside balloons? That warm exhaled air kept enclosed. Everything allowed to grow, to breed, and then people just blithely pop them or let them down in the house, in enclosed spaces. I suppose after a day it wouldn’t be too bad, but you’ve had balloons lasting in centrally heated conditions for weeks before, haven’t you?’
    â€˜I hadn’t really thought about it. I don’t think many people have ever suffered from balloon-bred diseases.’
    â€˜How can you be sure? There probably just isn’t the research yet. Don’t your children always seem to