Free Ctrl-Z by Andrew Norriss

‘Very angry.’
    ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ Mr Howard was beginning to sound quite angry himself. ‘We’ve been working for twelve years so that
     you can do something a bit more useful with your life than be a garage receptionist, and I thought at least you’d like –’
    ‘No, you didn’t!’ said Mrs Howard. ‘You didn’t think what I might like at all. All you did was decide what
you
wanted, and then went ahead and did it!’
    After that things followed a familiar pattern. The arguing got worse, the things that were said got more hurtful and the voices
     got louder and
louder until they were both shouting so much that neither of them noticed Alex as he quietly walked back into the house and
     up to his room.
    ‘There!’ said his father, patting the bonnet of a silver Toyota. ‘What do you think?’
    ‘I think it’s fantastic,’ said Alex, ‘but if you’re getting it for Mum’s birthday, I can tell you she won’t like it.’
    ‘What?’ His father looked rather startled. ‘What do you mean? How can she not like it? It’s brand new. It won’t break down
     on the way to interviews. It’s –’
    ‘She’s already got a car,’ said Alex. ‘The Triumph.’
    ‘Well, she can sell that!’
    ‘She’s been working on it for two years!’ said Alex. ‘Would you want to sell something you’d been working on for two years
     and only just finished?’
    Mr Howard opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again.
    ‘You need to trust me on this one, Dad,’ said Alex firmly. ‘Don’t buy the car. Not till you’ve talked to Mum about it. It’d
     be a mistake. I know it would.’
    There was something in the way his son spoke that made Mr Howard hesitate. Things had not
been working out too well with Lois recently and he had been hoping that the present would improve things. But if Alex was
     right…
    ‘Why don’t you call her?’ said Alex. ‘Just to check it’s what she’d really want.’
    ‘If I call her,’ said his father, ‘it won’t be a surprise.’
    ‘If it
is
a surprise,’ said Alex, ‘it’ll be a disaster. Honestly.’
    Mr Howard said nothing for several seconds, then slowly took out his mobile and dialled his wife’s number. The conversation
     he had was short, but left him in no doubt what he should do.
    ‘Right.’ He turned to Alex. ‘Let’s go and buy that engine hoist.’
    Mrs Howard was delighted with her birthday present. It would mean, she pointed out, that she could get at the driveshaft housing
     without all the trouble of taking her car down to the garage. She gave her husband a huge hug and an embarrass‐ingly soppy
     kiss, then sat down and opened her cards and her other presents. Later, she ate the supper Dad had cooked, and the cake he
     had bought and said at the end that it had been one of the nicest birthdays she could remember.
    Mr Howard was pleased, you could see that, but Alex couldn’t help noticing that his father was
quieter than usual and, occasionally through the evening, he would look at his wife with a puzzled expression, as if there
     was something about her that he simply didn’t understand. He had wanted to buy her a really expensive present, something that
     would be useful as well as smart, something she really needed… and for some reason it was not what she wanted.
    He wondered, sometimes, if he understood her at all.
    Alex was puzzled as well. The two birthdays could not have been more different, he thought. If you’d seen how furious his
     mother was the first time round and how his parents had shouted and yelled, you’d have thought they hated each other and were
     heading for a divorce. And yet, when the same two people came together with a different birthday present, they had both been
     happy and full of smiles and everything had been just like the old days. Why, he wondered, should what you got for your birthday
     make so much difference?
    Not that he was objecting. With Ctrl‐Z, he had managed to make things turn out