My father spent years moving us everywhere but back to where he came from, avoiding the north of England as though it might snatch him back if he got too close. But the north of England came everywhere with us. His Now Then instead of Hello, his cheddar cheese on fruitcake, his quiet queerness, the belly, the jokes.
This week he gets lost in the car park at his favourite restaurant. The waiters come out to help their big spender—into the chair, into the tasting menu. The owner brings a brandy and says, my friend, we told you to get well before driving again. You can tell a Yorkshireman, my father says, but you can’t tell him much.
At the hospital they treat the head wound. His brothers descend from the north to his bedside. The morphine works (What’s the difference between a buffalo and a bison? You can’t wash your hands in a—); the nurse tweezes glass into a dish, my father asks her to the youth dance at the social club. The brothers are thin and grey. They can’t find the punchlines.