In case you missed part 7, click here to read it first.
Brian left the pub and began walking home. The sky was clouding over and he took some strange comfort from this. The battalions of stratus clouds marching in from the west seemed to neatly sum up his mood. It was Saturday afternoon and beginning to get dark. Time to get home, have some tea and watch the football results coming in. Brian had never quite gotten used to just looking at the scores on his phone. He was a traditionalist and liked things the way they had always been.
He walked on, past the Black Horse. That had been his favourite pub, but it now stood deserted, with wooden curtains. As he walked past the pub, another person came past from the local supermarket, laden down with shopping bags full of beer.
Then he walked past the leisure centre where he had learnt to swim as a boy and where he had recently spent many a happy hour playing 5-a-side football with his mates. Just like the Black Horse, where he and his friends used to go after playing football, it was looking unloved and forlorn, all boarded up, having closed six months earlier due to council cuts.
After the leisure centre, there was a wide road to cross, although there wasn’t much traffic on it that day, or any day for that matter. In the distance Brian could see the silhouetted outline of the Pennines and he thought about the many times he had stood there and admired the sunset over the hills to the west, as the sky gradually turned red, as the sun sank behind the hills. But not today. Instead, more and more low, grey stratus clouds poured over the Pennines from the west. Brian crossed the road and trudged towards home.
Meeting an old friend
It was then that Brian met someone he knew. In fact, he had known Will Smith all his life, since he was a nipper. Will was an old man now, but he was always interesting to talk to.
“Hi Brian, y’alreet?”
“Ayes, suppose so…”
“You don’t sound so happy…”
“Oh, well … I just had a disagreement with some mates, like…”
“Everyone seems to be arguing these days.”
Brian looked around him. “Aye, well it’s grim isn’t it? Look around you…”
“Aye, like I say, Nobody’s very happy these days. There’s not the sense of community there used to be, I remember gannin te work and popping in te Clough’s for a copy of the Mirror and 10 John Player’s. I cannot even understand the writing on the shop windae noo. Polish or something, I think.”
Brian thought of Kateryna and winced slightly.
“Aye, I remember Cloughie. Good lad wasn’t he?”
“He was…it’s all changed now. Not the same is it?”
“No… well things do change I guess. I, er better get away, Will.”
“You take care, Brian…”
“I will try… You too.”
Brian walked on, as the first drops of rain began to spit in anger from the brooding black clouds. Thankfully, he could soon see his street and his house.
Slipping away
It was then that Brian suddenly and unaccountably felt that the pavement was coming up towards him. Before he could properly tell what had happened, he was sitting on the damp pavement, as the rain began to fall more heavily, with blood seeping out like a red stream from a gash on his right hand, which he had instinctively put out to protect himself from the fall.
Quickly, Brian pulled a handkerchief out of his left trouser pocket and bound it as tightly as he could around his right hand to stem the flow of blood. As he did so he turned round and saw a paving stone sticking up above the rest of the pavement, as if it was desperate to be seen in a communal photograph.
Brian then looked for his mobile phone. Gingerly, he brought it out of his pocket and gazed at the screen. It was shattered in a number of places and Brian’s heart sank. He knew of a place where he could get it repaired, but that would cost money and perhaps even more serious, time. Things weren’t going that well with his timber business and a broken mobile phone was all that he needed at that moment.
It was with great relief then that as he sat on the pavement, he saw the phone light up with the message that he had an incoming call. Instinctively, Brian dragged himself up to his feet; he knew it was silly, but he didn’t want whoever was phoning him to know that he was sitting on a damp pavement in the rain, even though the caller couldn’t possibly see him. After some effort with his bleeding right hand, Brian was able to swipe the shattered phone screen and answer the call.
“Hello”, he said, curious to know who it was as he hadn’t recognised the number. Perhaps it was a potential new customer.
“Hi. Is that Brian”, came the voice at the other end. Brian thought that the voice seemed familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it.
“Yes, yes, it’s Brian. Who is this?”
“It’s Michael…”
“Michael?”
“Yeah, you know, Michael from school. We played on the same football team together and….”
“Oh, Michael…yes…how you’re deeing? I heard that you went doon to London, like…
“Aye, I did. But anyway, I’ve come back. Listen, do you still have that timber business?”
“I do.”
“Well, I was just wondering …”
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