My Father unintentionally visits the birthplace of the Beatles

My Father is lost in Liverpool. He has spent the night near-sleeplessly, sweating and thrashing in his steamy hotel room, with the bedclothes thrown off, beset by nightmarish waking visions of triumphant Tories celebrating their unexpected victory. (In one short interval of fevered semi-sleep, the Leader of the Opposition has actually been present in the room, wearing a yachting cap, and dancing a hornpipe at the foot of My Father’s bed.) Not long after 5am, he has given up on sleep, pulled on yesterday’s discarded clothes, and gone down to the Adelphi’s Brobdingnagian marble lobby, in search of newspapers. Finding none available yet, he has ventured out onto the streets – and, within minutes, lost his bearings. Now, looking for an open newsagent on Church Street, he has no idea where he is in relation to the hotel. My Father possesses not even the most rudimentary sense of direction.

Something else he lacks is physical coordination. Bearing right into North John Street, he cuts a shambling disoriented figure, his veering locomotive style not greatly different from that of the occasional drunks he passes, making their way home after extended Wednesday night celebrations. (Unlike most people, My Father does not skirt round these potentially problematic fellow-pedestrians, being barely aware of their presence.)

But what is My Father thinking and feeling as this day of all days begins, the 16,111th of his life, and by far the most significant to date? It’s the day that will determine whether, ultimately, he will know himself to have been a Success or a Failure. (In theory, he understands that there can be degrees of success; that one man’s success may be another’s failure; that a failure may sometimes turn out, years later, to have been a kind of success. But, in practice, for him it is binary.)

If the entirety of My Father’s mental activity at this moment may be considered as a sandwich, the upper slice of bread is a conscious strand of thought relating to political history. Has there ever, My Father is asking himself, been a general election day hotter than this one promises to be? (He has just walked past a temperature display outside a jeweller’s that reads 67ºF, and there is still well over an hour until the polling stations open.) And if the answer is no, is there, above a certain temperature, a reversal of the law stating that good weather means high turnout, which is to the advantage of incumbents?

Anchoring the sandwich, the lower slice of bread is, oddly perhaps, composed of sad and remorseful feelings about the Other Woman. If any logic applied, My Father should be pre-occupied by the state of his relationship with My Mother; his failure to speak to her since the weekend; the urgent necessity of finding a way to manoeuvre her into The Conversation, the one that ends with him closing the door of the family home behind him, never to return. Or he might equally well be enjoying a reverie about the Woman He Loves, and the new life – luminous, love-drenched, real – they will soon be living together. But no, it is the Other Woman – a bit-part player in the drama of My Father’s life – whose face he sees.

To be more accurate, it’s the face she possessed when he first met her – what, nine years ago now; never beautiful, but fresh, notably soft-skinned, wide-eyed, pleasing. And now he sees, super-imposed on that image, an updated version; features essentially unchanged, but blurred by the passage of time, and softened by disappointment. All those endless days waiting for her married lover to call, and nights aching for him to be beside her in bed, have left their mark. My Father can’t help being aware that, now in her early 30s, the Other Woman does not retain much of what originally drew him to her. There is something – he hates himself for even thinking it – faintly frumpy about her these days.

He pictures her waking, soon now, on the second morning of her life without him. He sees her puffy-eyed, weeping the day’s first tears, re-reading his letter for the umpteenth time, unconsoled by the giant poster of that ghastly Welsh singer on the wall behind her bed. And he wonders if, having given the best of herself to someone who barely wanted anything from her, she will ever find a decent unencumbered man to love her. And he knows she won’t, because in My Father’s philosophy a decent man is only one who hasn’t been found out yet. My Father thinks, Poor Other Woman! And then he thinks, Poor me! Being driven to cause her such pain – and quite possibly wreck the rest of her life – by the irresistible urges and desires that a truly exceptional man has no choice but to live with!

And inside the sandwich? The filling is a vast inchoate meaty sludge, mainly composed of longing and fear. Longing for the prizes that will shower down upon him – the plaudits (the man who really won the election!), the advancement (SURPRISE CABINET APPOINTMENT), the recognition (“good to see you again, m’lord”) – provided things don’t go disastrously wrong today.

And fear – gnawing, gut-clenching, bowel-loosening fear – that, despite what even the most pessimistic polls say, things will go disastrously wrong today.

Still no sign of a newsagent. My Father peers down a dingy alley. As far as he is aware of his surroundings, Liverpool – proud Socialist city though it is – seems to him like a depressing shithole. An illuminated sign momentarily catches his eye, vertically stacked letters reading CAVERN. Some kind of night-club, My Father supposes, or possibly a subterranean wine-merchant. In any case, not a source of newspapers.

*

My Father’s luck changes. Entirely at random, his feet propel him rightward again, into Victoria Street – and back towards his hotel, via a newsagent, which seems to be open, despite the early hour.

Inside, a heavily built woman with implausible platinum blonde hair is unbundling and stacking newspapers.

“You’re too late, chuck,” she says, barely glancing up from her task, almost as if she was expecting My Father to enter at that moment.

“Sorry?” says My Father.

“You missed it. It was yesterday!”

“Yesterday?” My Father repeats, bewildered.

For a moment, he assumes she must be talking about the election, and perhaps trying to make some political point. But what could it possibly be? Maybe something about the result being so boringly predictable that it might as well have taken place already?

“The wedding!” she says, smiling patiently, as if explaining something obvious to an idiot child.

What wedding? What in Christ’s name is the wretched woman talking about. She’s obviously making some kind of joke, but what the fuck is it?

“I’m sorry,” says My Father again, shaking his head, defeatedly.

“Well, you’re not telling me you put on that clobber to slip out for ciggies?”

My Father looks down at himself. He is wearing what he wore for yesterday’s campaigning – a dark suit, white shirt with discreet grey stripe, blue tie, black lace-ups – though, to be fair, the tie is only loosed knotted, and he isn’t actually wearing socks. At last My Father, that exceptionally able man, gets the joke: for this part of Liverpool, at this time of day, he is overdressed – comically so!

My Father laughs (in situations like this, he is a good sport), and says, “Actually, I slipped out for newspapers.”

And, keen to avoid further potentially unintelligible banter, he quickly and efficiently starts to assemble his daily pile of national titles.

“No FT?” he asks.

Now it’s the newsagent’s turn to be mystified.

“Efty?”

“Financial Times?”

“Norralot of call for that round here, chuck!”

“Never mind,” says My Father, already delving in his trouser pocket for change, and scanning the front page headlines, one of which – in The Guardian – jumps out at him: Powell “wins over” Labour voters

Before he has even left the shop, he has the gist of the story. The quotes are there because it’s Enoch himself, claiming that large numbers of staunch Labour loyalists will vote Tory today, in support of his boldly principled stand on immigration.

Bastards! thinks My Father. Don’t they realise what this means to me?

***

06:30

My Father’s Daughter is also an early bird

The school in the village that My Father’s Daughter attends is doing service as a polling station today, so she has a day off – which is good, because she doesn’t like going to school. She used to like it, when she was younger, but now she always feels sad when she’s at school, and a bit sort of scared, although there’s nothing to be scared of. And sometimes she cries, and has to go and sit in the school office, with Mrs Birchall the secretary, who smells funny and gives her fruit-gums, which she doesn’t like. And a few times her Mum has had to come in the car to get her and take her home.

So My Father’s Daughter should be happy today, with no school. But she isn’t. She still feels sad and a bit scared – well, actually, more than a bit scared – which is why she has woken up so early. And now she is lying on her back with the quilt pulled right up to her nose, hoping that Sasha and Paul won’t realise she’s awake.

She knows she is being silly about Sasha and Paul. Because she loves them: they are her favourite dolls. In fact, they are the only dolls she still plays with, because they are more grown-up than the kind of babyish dolls she used to like, when she was little.

But what if she isn’t being silly? What if they really are Autons? They do look very similar, with their perfectly smooth faces and blank expressions and lovely thick hair. And if they are Autons, when are they going to come to life, and slide back their fingers, and turn their hands into death lasers, like the other ones did?

Of course, the other ones – the ones she saw on television – were disguised as shop window dummies, so they were a lot bigger than Sasha and Paul. But Sasha and Paul could still have very small death lasers hidden inside their smooth plastic hands. And maybe right now they are standing at the foot of her bed, gazing blankly ahead, waiting for her to get up, with their death lasers at the ready?

My Father’s Daughter screws up her eyes tightly, hoping she may be able to go back to sleep, and postpone this possibly fatal encounter. She wishes, wishes, wishes she had never watched Doctor Who.

*

My Father’s Daughter misses My Father. Pulling her quilt up even further so that it covers her completely, she wonders when she will see him again. For a moment, her fear of the Autons is displaced by another less fully formed anxiety that has been troubling her, vaguely and intermittently, for a long time now. Who is it Daddy talks to on the phone, in that funny soft voice, when Mummy is out shopping, or in the garden?

***

09:55

My Father accompanies the PM to the polling station, although there is no good reason for him to do so

Electoral silence has fallen. From 7am, when the polls opened, the campaign has been officially over. Everything My Father can do to influence roughly 40 million of his fellow citizens eligible to vote today, has been done. All that remains for him now is to wait, in agony, for the verdict of this unimaginably vast horde of – almost to a man and woman – political ignorami. (My Father, when he thinks about it, is appalled by the caveman’s club of a blunt instrument that is parliamentary democracy.) And yet here he is crammed into the back of a Triumph Herald with Marcia, being driven by a ginger-haired youth from the local Party to the PM’s constituency, in order to watch the PM and his wife enter, and shortly afterwards exit, the polling station.

There is really no good reason for My Father to do this. Or almost no good reason. Although active campaigning is forbidden at this stage in proceedings, there are potentially still one or two final opportunities to get Labour voters off their arses, and into the polling booths. In particular, My Father is keenly aware, the footage of the PM and Mary arriving to vote will be seen by millions on news bulletins throughout the day. The PM can say nothing “political” to the media today. But every word he utters on camera could, potentially, make a difference – if it nudges just one voter, in one hyper-marginal constituency, into scrawling an X next to their Labour candidate’s name. Which is why My Father has briefed the PM on what to say (“Lovely weather for voting!”), and also, since words are only one form of communication, on his appearance (jacket on!). In both cases, the intention is to underscore the message that a little drop of entirely benign British sunshine is no reason whatever to stay at home.

Alongside My Father, Marcia is uninhibitedly enacting last minute adjustments to her make-up, as if he weren’t there. She clicks her tongue behind her teeth repeatedly. She seems pre-occupied.

My Father wonders whether he dares raise his worst fear with her. (That’s to say, his worst fear as far as the next half hour or so is concerned.) It’s that the PM, on leaving the polling station, will light the Fucking Pipe. He might. It’s very much the kind of moment – surrounded by a friendly crowd, but with nothing to say – when he would be likely to deploy his most successful and comforting political prop. But please, not today! My Father feels a marrow-deep certainty that the very worst way the campaign could end is with a final image of the PM sucking and puffing away like a provincial bank manager.

“The pipe,” murmurs My Father.

Although this is uninflected, Marcia recognises it as a question. By this stage in the campaign, communication between them is almost telepathic.

“I did mention it,” she says, glancing up from her mirror.

“And?”

“I think he took my point.”

“You think he did?”

“Well, he didn’t make a firm commitment to leave it in his pocket.”

“But he understood that it wouldn’t work?”

“I think so. We’ll see.”

The car, driven with verve and enterprise until now, slows as they come into Huyton. Drably suburban and respectable, in comparison to the louring city centre, this eastern fringe of Liverpool has been the PM’s constituency for ever. Literally. in 1950, when the seat was first contested, he won it by a few hundred votes. And since then, he has increased his majority at every election, to over 20,000. Today, he could perfectly well have chosen to send his supporters a postcard from a Caribbean beach, urging them to vote for his Communist opponent, and still been certain of gaining a comfortable victory.

Instead, he and his wife will very soon be arriving to cast their two votes – which, like many millions of others around the country, will make not the slightest difference to the result. And, as the car pulls up outside the Parish Church Hall polling station, My Father knows he is about to witness this entirely pointless act, entirely powerlessly.

***

10:45

My Father is unable to vote in person

My Mother is also on her way to vote. Earlier, she almost decided not to bother, because she doesn’t feel at all well this morning, which may have something to do with the three large gins-and-Dubonnet that she swallowed in quick succession before going to bed last night. But here she is, hauling on the steering wheel of the family’s vast boat-like Rover, to coax it into the small car-park on the village green, opposite the school attended by My Father’s Daughter. She feels very sick, and very, very disappointed, but she will not be accused by anyone of neglecting her duty. Already this morning, she has cooked breakfast for her two teenage sons this morning (despite retching at the smell of black pudding), and completed her regular Thursday shop at Sainsbury’s in town. Now she will fulfil her obligations to democracy.

As she pulls on the handbrake, she allows her head to slump forward, and rest on the cool steering wheel. But only for a moment. She is here to vote. And although it will make not the slightest difference to the result (voting Labour in Guildford is as futile as voting Conservative in Huyton), that is what she is going to do.

Inside the assembly hall, My Mother is surprised to find that traffic is very light. Just one of the row of six polling booths is occupied, and there is only a single voter (a woman she vaguely recognises from the village) ahead of her in the queue for ballot papers. If she felt well enough to think about it, she might conclude that turnout looks like being low; or that in a commuter village like Worplesdon, most residents are likely to vote either early or late.

Stepping forward when her turn comes, My Mother presents two polling cards to the poll clerk, a military-looking type with leather patches on the elbows of his tweed jacket. He briefly studies them, and scans the electoral register, then glances up at her.

“You’re voting on behalf of your husband today?”

“That’s right. He’s away, for work,” she explains, unnecessarily.

“So…. this is yours,” says the man, handing over the first of two ballot papers. “And here is his.”

My Mother retreats to the sacred privacy of the polling booth, instinctively choosing the furthest from the only other one that’s occupied.

As she lays the ballot papers on the counter, hers on top of his, a thought comes into her head. Or is it there already? Is it, in fact, the reason why, some weeks earlier, she has taken it upon herself to arrange My Father’s proxy vote, after reminding him of his failure to support the Party in the last election? Could she, even then, have been contemplating the possibility that now shimmers and gyrates before her so alluringly that she suddenly feels a little woozy? No. Certainly not. Because what reason would My Mother have had, back then, to consider such a categorical act of war? After all, at that time, when she applied for My Father’s proxy vote, she was still a happily married woman. True, there were…. frictions between her and My Father; fairly minor differences about how they should order their lives together. And a certain amount of entirely justifiable disappointment on her part about his decision to put his own selfish political ambitions before the best interests of his family. But these, surely, were little bumps in the road, easily smoothed out by marital partners committed to shared goals and life-long fidelity. So no, it’s quite impossible that she planned in advance what, suddenly, she knows she is about to do. It simply wouldn’t have made sense. Not until yesterday, and the cake disaster. And the unexpected visitor who caused it.

Perhaps because of tiredness (like My Father, she hardly slept last night), but more likely because she is breaking in new contact lenses, her vision is a little fuzzy round the edges – and the names on the ballot paper swim in and out of focus:

HOWELL, David – Conservative

SMITH, Patton – Labour

WALTON, Michael – Liberal

She picks up the stubby black pencil, and prepares to make her mark. But can she go through with it? My Mother is Labour to the soles of her feet, in a way that perhaps seems surprising, in view of who and what she is at this point in her life.

At 41, she is a Home Counties Housewife. She has not pursued a career, choosing to dedicate her life to home and family. She lives in spacious and well appointed house in Worplesdon. She drives an enormous boat-like Rover. Her high-ceilinged kitchen is equipped with a state-of-the-art German waste disposal unit. And she sees herself, above all, as someone who has, almost miraculously, risen clear of her humble beginnings; one of the élite few tough and talented enough to have successfully tunnelled their way out of the bleak Northern badlands where she grew up, to emerge, blinking, in a sunlit Southern middle class utopia. Which, you would be prepared to bet good money, should make her a Tory? But no, by a historical quirk, she is and always will be on the other side. In her impressionable teens at the time of Labour’s 1945 landslide, before winning her way to Oxford the year the NHS was born, she belongs to a generation for whom the smartly aspirational posture is to lean, heavily, to the left; a time when the most exceptionally able young men dedicate their careers to building a Socialist future for Britain, just as ardently as their 1980s counterparts will pursue ingenious new ways of making money make money.

So now, here in Worplesdon, where she has constructed for herself exactly the kind of life she envisaged during the long painful early years of her metamorphosis, it feels profoundly wrong that she is about to vote Conservative. As the pencil hovers over the paper, she imagines that some kind of benign Socialist force-field is repelling it, rearranging the oxygen molecules in the air to divert her hand towards the safe haven of the Labour candidate’s tick-box. But why shouldn’t she vote Tory? It will make no difference to the result, either here in this constituency, or nationally. And, of course, he will never know what she has done. Unless she tells him. Which, at this moment, she thinks she just might. In fact, she bloody well will. Because she is bloody…. angry. There, she’s said it. She is not disappointed – she is bloody, bloody angry that he has betrayed her. And with that woman! So ordinary-looking! And that makes it even worse somehow. My Father hasn’t betrayed My Mother, and their family, and everything that matters in their lives, for some Jayne Mansfield-like sex siren. The stupid stupid bloody man has allowed himself to be seduced by some ordinary-looking woman in a cardigan, who wouldn’t get a second glance from anyone if she turned up looking like that to collect a child from school. No, My Mother is not going to stand for that. His betrayal, she tells herself, is a thousand times worse than this one. And she bloody well will tell him about it next time she sees him, which presumably will be tomorrow.

One of the officials – the same one who gave her the ballot papers – has approached, to a respectfully non-intrusive distance.

He coughs politely, and says, “Is everything all right, madam?”

What does he mean? She supposes she must have occupied the polling booth for longer than regulations allow. She inhales deeply, and focuses on the task in hand.

“Perfectly,” she says.

The force-field seems to have dissipated. Quickly and decisively, she marks her X next to HOWELL, David – Conservative. And then she does the same on behalf of My Father.

***

11.30

My Father could perfectly well go home, but chooses not to

Needless to say, within seconds of emerging from the polling station, the PM is patting himself down, in search of lighter, tobacco pouch and Pipe. As My Father feared, the conditions are overwhelmingly conducive. The sun, scampering up the cloudless sky towards its midsummer zenith, is already warm enough to discourage exertion, if not yet actively soporific. And the mood in the crowd outside the church is unmistakeably end-of-term-ish. The decent-sized contingent of press and TV people, just as much as the PM and his party, know that their job is done. They have followed this sweltering, but otherwise unmemorable campaign, from boring beginning to foregone conclusion. Now the ante-post favourite is coasting home, and for them, it is strictly a dog-bites-man story. Similarly, for the civilian members of the throng, the heat (apart from the literal kind) has gone out of the situation. They love the PM here, and they are happy to catch a close-up glimpse of him and his wife, who are, sadly, very rarely able to get away from Downing Street these days. But, aside from a few desultory shouts of “Five more years!” and “Give us a poem, Mary”, they feel no urgent need to engage in political discourse.

So the PM, unable to do much more than wave and allow himself to be photographed, puffs contentedly on the Fucking Pipe, as he slowly makes his way – shepherded by Bill – back to his car. (Though My Father notices there is not actually any smoke, which means that at this moment, the nation is led by an oversized toddler sucking on a dummy.)

And now My Father becomes entirely surplus to requirements. Because the PM and Mary – with a good 12 hours on their hands, before the results start coming in – are setting off on a tour of the constituency, with the aim of shaking as many hands as possible. This may add a few more entirely unnecessary votes to the PM’s majority, but is of no interest at all to the media, who have downed tools for the day, and fled back to Liverpool and its plethora of welcomingly shuttered and coolly sepulchral drinking establishments. So there is, officially, no further possibility of publicity, and therefore nothing for My Father to advise on. Nevertheless, he tags along.

Why? Most obviously, because he has nothing else to do. He could, theoretically, go home to his wife and children – or, much more tempting, to the Woman He Loves, and her children. But of course, he isn’t going to. The PM may have no further need of his advice; but My Father’s desire to be by the PM’s side, at the hour of his predicted triumph, is as absolute and irresistible as the primal drive that tugs the Atlantic salmon back to its spawning ground, or draws a newborn baby to the breast. My Father needs to be there in the room this evening when people are saying “Congratulations, PM”, because otherwise how can the PM turn to him and say, “I owe it all to you, Oriel”, or “Thank you very much, but this is the man you really should be congratulating”, or “I may have won this election, but the man standing alongside me is the true architect of Labour’s great victory, and I intend to name him my new Chancellor, and designated successor, first thing tomorrow morning!”

The PM and Mary have decided to abandon the car, and start their tour of Huyton on foot. At the wheel of their huge black Humber, Bill will tail the couple in slow motion, ready to scoop them up at the first sign of fatigue or violent insurrection. Accompanied by a skeleton entourage, they make their way through the dingy but far from desolate main shopping parade, which seems to be populated exclusively by loyal Labour voters who couldn’t be happier to bump into their local MP and his lady wife. A startling proportion of these the PM greets warmly by name. True, he has represented this constituency for 20 years, My Father reflects, as he trails purposelessly in the PM’s wake, but if this does not actually involve occult powers, it remains a truly astounding feat of memory.

Finding his way unerringly, his grasp of local geography equally impressive, the PM calls by at two more polling stations – a Methodist meeting room and a WEA college – to shake the hands of voters going in, and to pose for photographs with Party workers. His smile and easy warmth never falter. Mary seems relaxed, too, bathed in the waves of unforced affection that wash over her and her husband as they continue their pre-triumphal passage through his domain. A single fresh-faced young police constable stays close to them, alertly scanning the suburban streets for any threat to their security. But none exists. Even the vertiginous mid-day sun seems suddenly to have mellowed, casting a pale golden glow over the scene. As the PM pauses to ruffle the hair of a little boy holding the hand of his rather pretty smiling mother, a hush falls, and it seems to My Father as if the blaring voices of the campaign, the sniping and petty point-scoring, the gut-churning tension, the sour-tasting early mornings and acrid smoke-filled late nights, the barging and jostling, the contorted faces, and the pervasive sense of English violence barely suppressed, have all melted away.

He wouldn’t be able to explain why, but, for a moment, My Father wants to weep.

*

A little later, as the constituency tour continues, My Father finds a role, though not one to which he is well suited. The PM and his small entourage have been set down on one of the bleakly windswept though fairly kempt council estates that fringe the more aspirational parts of Huyton. Here, as the PM’s progress continues, young lads on Chopper-style bikes – bunking off school, or liberated for the day by the election – are making a nuisance of themselves. They are not malevolent, or politically motivated; and they are probably no more than 10 or 11 years old. But they are bored, and once the boldest of them has ridden past, as close as possible to the PM and Mary, hands free, gesturing obscenely, and shouting what sounds like, “Fuck your big fucking arse!”, there is no possibility that the other members of the group won’t join in the fun.

The young copper, who is now the only police presence, chooses to ignore these fundamentally harmless annoyances. Bill, who would frighten the boys so badly they wouldn’t leave home for a week, is waiting in the car, a little distance off. So it falls to My Father to wave his arms in a shooing motion, and say as firmly as he is able, “Come on, lads, you’ve had your fun, that’s enough now” – which makes the boys cackle and renew their verbal assault, with increased enthusiasm.

“Shove it up your bum, PM!” yells one.

“Shove it up the Missus’ bum!” howls another.

Thank god there are no cameras, thinks My Father.

***

13.30

My Father is not invited to join the PM for steak and chips

At lunchtime, as tradition dictates, the PM and Mary take a break at the Wheatsheaf Inn on Station Drive, where they will eat rump steak (medium well) and chips, and drink half-pints of shandy, in the company of the PM’s constituency agent and his wife, and no one else. For a man of such exceptional intellect, adherence to this custom seems surprisingly superstitious. But the PM has eaten this meal, at this pub, in this company, every election day since 1955, and he has increased his majority on each occasion. Which may or may not be coincidental, he would twinkle, if challenged.

So now My Father’s usefulness to the PM really is at an end, though luckily, in terms of staying busy, Marcia has one last task for him. Driven by the ginger youth, they are on their way back to the hotel, where My Father will help her prepare for the end-of-campaign press party.

*

Arriving at the Adelphi, where the massive vaulted lobby somehow manages to exude a damply depressing chill despite the outdoor temperature and an absence of air conditioning, Marcia disappears to make phone calls, having first commanded My Father to meet her at Reception in an hour. My Father wonders briefly whom she is planning to threaten, and with what. (Marcia hardly ever makes a phone call that does not involve a degree of menace.)

He thinks about lunch. It is, after all, lunchtime – and he knows he should eat, because he has a long evening, and night, ahead of him, with little prospect of refreshment, aside from victory champagne, and perhaps the odd bowl of cheese and onion crisps (the PM’s favourite). But, very unusually for My Father, he feels no hunger. Quite the reverse, in fact. His mouth and throat are dry and tight, and his stomach – usually rock-solid under a sustained daily assault, from two-if-not-three-bottle lunch through to stiffish pre-bed nightcap – has a bubbly unstable air, punctuated by occasional jabbing cramps.

Open to the counter-intuitive possibility that the best cure for these unfamiliar symptoms might be a light lunch, with perhaps a single glass of rosé (which, of course, does not count as alcohol), My Father traverses the lobby to the restaurant. Peering in, from the colonnaded vestibule, he sees it is deserted – or very nearly so. A single table, around the half-way line in the football-pitch-sized room, is occupied by a lone female luncher. A depressed-looking waiter in a stained jacket materialises at My Father’s side.

“Sorry, sir,” he says, without a hint of apology, “the kitchen has just closed.”

Normally, My Father would take issue with this. It is only a few minutes after 2pm, and as one who spends his employer’s money in restaurants almost daily, he is never slow to express dissatisfaction when they under-perform. But on this occasion, weary and digestively challenged, he lets it pass. In any case, the waiter has already scuttled off, leaving no one for My Father to complain to.

He is about to turn away, when he becomes aware that the restaurant’s sole customer is waving to him. At 44, My Father is obliged to hold menus at extended arms’ length, but his long distance vision is still excellent. It’s Beloff, he realises, and hurries over to speak to her, smiling warmly. My Father is charming with journalists, particularly female ones.

“I’d ask you to join me, but I’m almost done,” she says, gesturing at the table, on which a bowl of profiteroles, virtually untouched, is waiting to be cleared, alongside an empty half bottle of red wine, and an overflowing ash-tray.

“In any case,” My Father smiles, “the kitchen is closed. Lunch is eaten early this far north!” Beloff is only a few years older than My Father, but she cuts a formidable figure in her profession, and is also homely, so he stops short of flirting with her.

“So, what do you think?” she says.

Damn! This is, of course, the question My Father is dying to ask her, but she has beaten him to it. He will have to give some kind of answer before he can find out what she thinks; whether the leading political journalist of her generation takes the view that all My Father’s ambitions and aspirations for the rest of his life will be accelerated, or annihilated, by tonight’s result.

“Well, we’re pretty happy with the way it’s gone,” he says, as nonchalantly as he is able. “And the polls are still looking good, so…. “

She looks at him appraisingly as he tails off, as if she is expecting more. But he says nothing, so she has to prompt him.

“You were happy with the way you dealt with their devaluation thrust?”

“Happyish. We took on water, but it didn’t sink us. We’re fairly confident we’re still on course for a decent majority – say 55 or 60.”

“I certainly hope we are,” says Beloff, arching one of her rather heavy eyebrows.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I’ve just written my piece for Sunday, explaining the reasons for almost exactly that result, and I would be seriously inconvenienced by having to rewrite it!”

*

Meanwhile, in the well manicured saloon bar of a country pub a couple of hundred miles away, Aitken is just finishing the second of the two pints of bitter that constitute his normal working lunch. He has not, after all, travelled north to report on the end of the campaign from the PM’s home turf. He possesses nothing like Beloff’s weight of experience, but some finely tuned professional instinct, some pricking of his journalistic thumbs, has been telling him for the last day or two that it is here in the Leader of the Opposition’s Bexley constituency that the biggest story of this election is waiting to be written.

***

14:57

My Father is, thankfully, unaware of voting behaviour in key marginals, at this precise moment, around the country

The country lies stunned under the unrelenting heat of a perfect June afternoon. In grimy industrial cities and picturesque fishing villages, in busy market towns and somnolent suburbs, on grouse moors and council estates, at bus-stops and on beaches, at Trent Bridge where Notts are batting against Surrey and on the grass courts at Roehampton where the Wimbledon qualifiers are in progress, in school playgrounds and national parks, in cars on roads made tacky by melting tarmac and on trains delayed by super-heated points, on petrol station forecourts and in prison yards, in restaurant kitchens, hospital wards, supermarkets, architects’ studios and sheet metal fabricating workshops, people are mopping their brows, removing unnecessary layers of clothing, attempting to cool themselves with impromptu fans, holding cold drinks soothingly to their foreheads, and complaining, in different registers, about the weather (“Warm enough for you, vicar?”/”Fuck me, it’s too fucking hot, if you know what I mean?”)

Some, at this very moment, are also voting – though, as My Father has feared, fewer than at any previous election this century. And of that depleted active electorate, fewer still are voting in seats that have even the remotest chance of changing hands.

Let’s do a very rough sum. Around 29 million votes will be cast today. The polling stations will be open for 15 hours, or 900 minutes. So if we take the current minute – from 2.57pm to 2.58pm – as typical of the entire day, we can say that around 32,000 voters will be making their mark over the next 60 seconds. And if we take into account that only around 80 of the 630 constituencies being contested today could conceivably be won and lost, that means there are just over 4000 citizens voting now with any possibility of affecting the nation’s future. For the other 28,000, popping their folded ballot paper in the box has no more purpose than flushing it down the loo.

And what of the 4000? How many, in the polling booth, at this precise moment, are saying to themselves: “I’ve voted Labour man and boy, but sometimes I look around, and I don’t recognise this country any more.”?

How many are remembering devaluation, and determined not to allow such a national disgrace to be repeated, which it very well may be if this shower are re-elected?

How many are grudgingly giving credit where it seems to be due: “That boat race the Tory boy won? Hats off to him, I say!”?

How many are under the mistaken impression that correct voting procedure involves putting an X next to the name of the candidate you most dislike?

How many are ruefully reflecting, “They’re all the same, all in it for themselves, so what difference does it make?”?

How many are thinking, with real regret, “I’m sorry, but someone’s got to say it. And Enoch is the only one who’s got the guts!”?

How many have, in fact, just voted Labour, only for their baby to vomit on the ballot paper, and then felt too embarrassed to ask for a replacement?

How many just hate that Fucking Pipe?

Too many, My Father’s roiling guts and bowels are telling him, at this precise moment. Far, far too many.

***

16:15

My Father helps Marcia prepare for a possibly premature party

“You don’t think this will look like counting our chickens?” says Marcia, anxiously.

“No,” lies My Father, who definitely does think that holding a party before the success that it is intended to celebrate may look just a shade complacent. “Definitely not. I’m sure people will understand that we are just thanking the press for their hard work following our campaign, not claiming victory.”

“So no champagne?”

“God no,” says My Father, who – playing to his strengths – has taken charge of ordering the drinks. “That really would look like chicken-counting. But we do have some very nice wine.” He is emptying giant packets of cheese and onion crisps into bowls, so he nods with his head in the direction of a couple of cases waiting to be unpacked. Dubious about the quality of wines likely to be available in Liverpool, he has done a deal with the hotel allowing him to ship in his own, from his regular London supplier.

“Two cases?” says Marcia, sceptically. “For journalists?”

“There are four more outside,” says My Father. “And they really are good – particularly the Pinot Grigio.”

“Pearls before swine!” says Marcia, in a rare attempt at humour.

“Well, for the real swine, we’ve also got beer.”

The beer and crisps are paid for by the Party of the working man. The wine is a donation from the PM’s unpaid press adviser. Throughout his life, My Father will enjoy sharing his usually expensive pleasures with others. He is a generous and hospitable man.

***

19:20

My Father’s children watch Top of the Pops

Unsurprisingly, given their ages (16, 13 and 7), My Father’s children rarely spend time together. In fact, they hardly ever find themselves in the same room. One exception occurs regularly on Thursday evenings, when they congregate to watch Top of the Pops, as they are doing now. Even in this moment of communion, though, they inhabit worlds that barely brush against each other.

As the gurning bespangled figure of Jimmy Savile introduces this week’s show, with mirthless gurgles of laughter and nothing but contempt and calculation in his eyes, My Father’s Elder Son does not look up from today’s new Melody Maker, which is open on his lap. Each week, he reads it in minute detail, but today a full page ad listing the line-up for the Isle of Wight Festival ensures his more than usually rapt attention. Jimi Hendrix! The Who! Free! Emerson Lake and Palmer! Ralph McTell! It sounds completely unmissable; but his brow furrows as, alongside the musical cornucopia on offer, he contemplates the logistical challenges he will need to overcome if he is to be present at this epoch-making event. Like, how will he get his parents’ permission to hitch 100 miles, in order to spend an entire weekend in a lawless drug-crazed hippy paradise? (Answer: he won’t; he will have to lie.) And even trickier, in view of the fact that he owes every penny of his allowance for the next two years to various friends who contributed to the cost of his new bass guitar amp, how will he raise the £3 he needs for a ticket?

Over the next 40 minutes, only once does My Father’s Elder Son glance up at the screen for more than a few moments, when Fleetwood Mac tear into the opening chords of The Green Manalishi. They are a band that inspire mixed feelings in him. Having seen them at the Gin Mill club in Godalming a while ago, when he thought they were pretty heavy (though nowhere near as good as Chicken Shack), he now suspects them of having sold out and gone commercial, a compromise that he feels can only end in failure and well deserved obscurity for the band.

My Father’s Younger Son struggles, as ever during this period of his life, to reconcile what he likes with what he feels he should like. In this case, the latter category is represented by Fleetwood Mac, who possess flowing locks and pull agonised faces, as they coax howling feedback and crashing distorted chords from Gibson Les Pauls. Much more to his taste, though he would die rather than admit it, is a cheerily chirruping number by Herman’s Hermits, which comes with the very significant added advantage of a dance routine by Pan’s People, who this week are dressed, for no apparent reason, as sexy schoolteachers. (My Father’s Younger Son is, of course, in love with Dee Dee, only dolts and morons preferring the more obvious charms of Babs.)

My Father’s Daughter is not really paying any attention to the TV. She is still thinking mostly about Sasha and Paul. And now, sitting on the sofa between her brothers, she is almost sure she was being silly about them earlier. In any case, she has been rather brave and shut them up in her old toy box, which has a real lock, with a real key. She has pushed the toy box into the corner of her bedroom, as far as possible from her bed. And so far, there has been no sign of Sasha and Paul trying to shoot their way out with their death lasers. So all the indications are that they are not, and never actually were, Autons. But there is something about the man who is now singing that she finds faintly troubling. It’s not the song, which she rather likes (something about saying goodbye to Sam and hello to Samantha). It’s his perfectly smooth face and blank expression and lovely thick hair. Could he be sending some kind of coded message to Sasha and Paul?

“Jesus Christ,” murmurs My Father’s Older Son, “I didn’t realise Cliff was still alive.”

Soon enough, the programme draws to a close, with the traditional chart countdown. (The new number one is In the Summer Time, which will retain the top spot for the next six weeks.) Before the continuity announcer can remind viewers that coverage of today’s election results will begin at 10.25 here on BBC 1, My Father’s Older Son has picked up the new TV remote, which is attached to the set by a bulky cable, and snapped down the big blue Off button. He has friends to meet soon, and a rendezvous with a well supplied guy called Bilbo later, and will not be following the Nation’s Big Decision tonight. Neither will My Father’s Younger Son, who has a history test tomorrow, and is planning to put in another solid hour on the Corn Laws, before getting an early night. Neither, of course, will My Father’s Daughter, who is already up well past her bedtime for a school night.

Perhaps if My Father were here to witness this scene, he would feel a surge of relief at seeing how successful he has already been in extricating himself from his children’s emotional lives; how little his most urgent and thrilling concerns matter to any of them; and how easy it should therefore be for them, very soon now, to accept him in a new role, still committed to their upkeep and wellbeing, but no longer claustrophobically resident under the same roof as them. Or then again, perhaps he wouldn’t.

***

21:25

My Father is partly responsible for damaging the PM’s toe, luckily not seriously

Oh god, My Father groans inwardly, glancing at his watch, can it really still be more than half an hour until the polls close? On this hottest day in human history, time has passed – for him, at least – glacially. In particular, these last few hours seem to have been impossibly protracted, to the extent that his recollections of what occurred at, say, 5pm have the hazy vagueness of memories from early childhood.

The party, as far as My Father can remember, went well. The gentlemen and lady (Beloff gave a good account of herself) of the press glugged down My Father’s unnecessarily good wine, along with every other drop of alcohol on offer. The PM, buoyed by the love of his constituents, circulated masterfully – squeezing an elbow here, remembering the football team supported by a journalist there. And even Marcia made a visible, if not entirely convincing, effort to charm. The mood was quietly, cautiously positive; a tone captured to perfection by the PM in a few extemporised words of thanks to the assembled company. Despite his self-deprecation, no one hearing him can have doubted they were in the presence of the country’s next Prime Minister.

Except My Father. His head, by this point, is aswirl with hopes and fears, fantasies and forebodings. And though the party was unquestionably a success, one absentee strikes him as by far its most prophetic feature. Aitken. My Father hasn’t run into him over the last couple of days, but now it’s certain. Aitken never misses out on free alcohol: the fucking bastard didn’t follow the campaign north.

Now, party over – and press departed in search of further refreshment – preparations are being made for a much smaller and more select gathering. Here in the PM’s suite, his inner circle, supplemented by a few highly favoured journalists, will watch the early results come in, before he and Mary head off to the count in Huyton.

Still buzzing around hyperactively, though grey with fatigue, the PM himself is directing operations.

“Here, Oriel, we need to shift this sofa. Give Bill a hand.”

The sofa in question is a substantial piece of furniture, possibly Victorian in design, though contemporarily garish in upholstery. It needs to be moved through 90 degrees, to facilitate TV viewing, and despite its bulk, My Father feels persuaded that Bill could flip it round with one hand, unassisted. But the PM wants his best team on the job, so My Father squares up to one end of the sofa and prepares to shove.

“No, no!” admonishes the PM. “That will ruck up the carpet. We need to lift it.” And, matching the action to the word, he bundles Bill aside and squats to get a hold on the underside of the sofa’s frame.

“PM, I’m not sure that’s….” rumbles Bill, who has shifted many heavy objects in his time, and feels quite strongly that the PM’s method is ill advised.

But the PM is already straining to get the sofa off the ground, and disregards Bill’s misgivings. “Lift, Oriel, put your back into it, man!”

My Father, whose physical gifts are in inverse proportion to his mental powers, bends and attempts to mimic the PM’s stance. But somehow, he stumbles forward, shoving the sofa – which has surprisingly fluid casters – towards the PM, who loses his grip and is powerless to prevent his foot being run over.

He lets out a yelp of pain, and starts to hop around the room, apparently in agony. There is a moment of appalled silence, and then, “God, I’m so, so sorry, PM!” gasps My Father, mortified.

The PM has returned his wounded foot to the floor now, and is experimentally putting weight on it. With his usual kindness, he is quick to reassure My Father.

“Don’t perturb yourself, Oriel, I was entirely to blame. Though there are countries where you might disappear and never be seen again for that!”

Everyone laughs, mostly with relief that the PM is not seriously injured, and will not be spending election night in A&E. My Father is not a superstitious man – not in the least – so he sees absolutely no significance in this unfortunate incident. And by the time the commotion has subsided, Bill has flipped the sofa round one-handed, unassisted.

***

22.05

My Father’s worst suspicions are confirmed by the early results

If we could ask My Father now to look back and name the single worst hour of his life, this one – starting just after 10pm on Thursday 18 June 1970 – would surely be his choice. Of course, there would be other contenders. Waking up in his prep school dormitory on his first Christmas Day far from home, at the age of nine, perhaps. Or reading the note from his tutor informing him that, contrary to all expectations, he has been awarded only an upper second. Or, much later, receiving the diagnosis of the cancer that will slowly and painfully kill him. But none of these, for the man My Father is, would compare with the long drawn out agony of the next 60 minutes or so, which, even as he is living them, have the fevered runaway-train quality of the most disturbingly lucid nightmares.

The PM and his favoured companions – around a dozen people in total – are, of course, watching the BBC’s election night coverage. (They could, in theory, have chosen ITV, where David Frost is in charge of proceedings, but this is an occasion of national importance.) The PM and Mary are seated on the repositioned sofa, with Marcia, rather awkwardly, alongside Mary. My Father has managed to secure one of several further chairs, arranged around the TV, leaving three or four members of the party to mill around restlessly, briefly perching on other furniture, or shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot, in the background. Bill stands by the door, at ease, but alert, as if expecting gate-crashers. Everyone has a drink, and most – it seems from the dense blue-grey fug – are smoking.

The mood in the room, as Cliff Michelmore sets the scene in the BBC studio, is subdued but broadly positive. And why shouldn’t it be? The campaign, despite a few inevitable hiccups, has gone well. The PM’s performance, across all arenas, has utterly demolished that of the Leader of the Opposition. And the polls have consistently shown Labour on course for a comfortable victory.

But from the very start of the programme, it seems to My Father that every on-screen indication is designed to cast doubt on the accuracy of the polls, and eat away at his remaining confidence that everything he longs for in life will be delivered to him by tonight’s result.

The BBC election night studio is a huge futuristic barn, bathed in a glow of pastel shades, and populated by (exclusively male) experts seated at separate consoles on multiple levels, coolly consulting vast computerised displays, like the crew of an intergalactic space cruiser. In contrast, the outside broadcast material from around the country is largely black and white, and both looks and sounds like a despatch from an earlier far more primitive period of our national history.

Live from Trafalgar Square, where crowds are gathering, cub reporter Desmond Wilcox is conducting stilted vox pops with deferential members of the lower orders, the first three of whom declare themselves Labour supporters – before revealing, one after another, that they have not actually voted today. My Father’s bowels quake within him. This is exactly what he has feared: the fucking proles haven’t bothered to fucking well turn out and vote.

Back in the studio, psephologist Robert McKenzie is providing some degree of reassurance, with calculations showing that, averaged out, the latest (wildly varying) polls still give Labour a 4.3% lead, for a majority of around 70 seats. But this is immediately followed by a report, from out there in the real world, on a BBC innovation; something called an “exit poll”. Conducted in Gravesend – described as the country’s most ordinary constituency – this gives the Tories a narrow victory, with a swing of 4.4%.

“Rubbish,” mutters the PM, beginning to pat his pockets, “you’re never going to get honest working people in this country to tell you how they have actually voted. ‘Exit poll’, my foot!”

To this, there are murmured affirmatory responses from around the room (Quite so, PM! – Couldn’t agree more! – Complete nonsense!), but none from My Father, who feels a horrible confidence in the supernatural accuracy of this new method of predicting election results.

And now the first firm news on turn-out comes in. It’s right down, compared to the last election, by as much as 6%; unquestionably bad news for Labour, the studio experts unanimously agree.

“But how many constituencies is that based upon?” enquires Marcia, loyally.

The PM grunts in agreement, but he is sucking on his unlit pipe now.

And the worst hour of My Father’s life is about to get much worse. As 11pm approaches, the BBC pundits are gripped by the excitement of the race to declare the first result. It is, they tell each other, between Salford West and Cheltenham, two compact constituencies with crack counting teams.

Who will win? For a few minutes, this entirely meaningless contest somehow seems to eclipse the election itself. Will it be Salford West? Or will it be…. hang on, something’s happening in Cheltenham…. we can go over, live now, to…. no, sorry, false alarm, I’m hearing they are still three minutes away in Cheltenham…. so, back to Salford West, where, as you can see, there is frenetic activity….

In the end, as the two favourites battle each other down the home straight, an unfancied outsider comes up on the rails, and nicks it, by the shortest of heads.

Guildford.

Incredibly, it is My Father’s own home-constituency that wins the race to declare the first result of the 1970 general election. Of course, as he watches the returning officer sprint to the microphone, still in his shirt sleeves to save the two seconds it would have taken to slip on his jacket, My Father is unaware that he himself has voted Tory today. But he knows, on the level of deepest instinct, that what is now unfolding is all wrong; that for Guildford – the town whose orbit he must very soon escape – to achieve this distinction is, somehow, a portent of the darkest, most ominous kind.

“…. so Mr Howell has been elected,” the returning officer is concluding, clearly delighted with his own personal victory.

The figures for the candidates’ votes have passed My Father by in a blur, but from the studio, one of the electoral pundits provides a chilling voice-over to the scenes of Conservative celebration in Guildford Civic Hall: “If the whole country behaves like Guildford, that would be a 4% swing to the Conservatives, and that would mean, more or less, a dead heat between the parties….“

To say My Father’s heart sinks as he hears this would be an understatement; every organ within his body turns to lead and plummets downward like a sack of bricks tossed down a liftshaft. The “exit poll” was, as he foreknew, bang on!

Everyone turns to the PM, to see how he will react. He is in mid-tamp, supremely unconcerned.

“One swallow….” he says, pausing to do a bit of experimental sucking, “does not, I believe it is widely acknowledged, make a summer.”

Everyone, including My Father, is desperate to be reassured by this (Of course not, PM! – Let’s wait and see! – Much too soon to draw conclusions!). And of course, what the PM says is true: as, back in the studio, one of the experts is saying, a single result proves nothing; there is still a long way to go before anyone will know, with any certainty, how this election will play out. And even if the nation has voted like Guildford, My Father tries to tell himself, a dead heat is not a defeat.

But now, within a minute or two of the Guildford result, it’s over to Cheltenham, where the Tories have won with a 6% swing. And now, it’s over to Salford West, where Labour have just hung onto a supposedly safe seat, despite a 5% swing to the Conservatives. And now, it’s over to the BBC’s new computer, which calculates, on the basis of the three results so far, that the Tories are on course to win the election with a majority of around 50 seats.

And now the air goes out of the room. No one breathes or moves – except Mary, who puts an unmistakeably consoling hand on her husband’s forearm.

“There’s still a very long way to go,” says the PM, but there is no conviction or comfort in his words.

And now a computerised caption appears on screen:

LADBROKES OFFERING 2-1 AGAINST LABOUR

And now My Father knows all hope is lost. The bookies are never wrong.

***

01:15

My Father’s world collapses around his head

My Father is back in his own room. The PM has departed for Huyton, where his result is expected imminently. Only Mary, Marcia and Bill have accompanied him. There is no conceivable reason for My Father to have gone with them. All is lost. Nothing can be done. My Father is drunk, and getting drunker.

The hour following the worst hour of My Father’s life has turned out to be the second worst. What has made it just a little less bad than its predecessor is that, by the time it starts, all hope has been extinguished. The Tories are going to win, comfortably. But there has still been horror upon horror for the PM and his elite team to absorb and withstand. At around 11.45, Enoch Powell’s victory in Wolverhampton South West, with a 9% swing, goes off the top of the BBC’s swingometer, which only allows for a maximum of 6%. A little later, a distinguished commentator, referring to the early results, describes this as the most startling electoral upset since the War. And intermittently, throughout, senior Labour figures have appeared on screen, white-faced and dead-eyed with shock, confidently asserting that these highly unrepresentative results will be swept away by a mighty torrent of victories for Socialism, as the night progresses.

My Father, lying on his bed, swallows more whisky, and tries to think of the Woman He Loves. But her face won’t come into focus. And his imagination is even less capable of conjuring up the feeling he has when he is with her; the sense of having arrived in a place of safety, after so many years roaming, alone, through a dark and dangerous world. Why can’t he find his way to that place now, when he is in such urgent need of shelter? Because in My Father’s mind it is impossible to disentangle being successful from being worthy of love. Tonight, he has failed in the most public and painful way possible. How could anyone love him? How could anyone feel anything but contempt for him?

My Father drinks more whisky. And now he drinks some more. And now he drinks some more.

***

04:05

My Father takes a wrong turn on his way to the bathroom

My Father is not, in any meaningful sense, awake. But he is aware, at reptilian brain level, that he urgently needs to piss. And somehow he has succeeded in levering himself out of bed, and into an upright position, where he is now swaying gently, as the room buckets and whirls around his head. He is wearing only his vest, which proved too clingily complicated to remove when he finally undressed about an hour ago.

If he were capable of rational thought, My Father might well be wondering whether he will piss himself or vomit first. But, not being so, he allows blind instinct to propel his lurching body in the direction of the bathroom, where the outcome of this contest will all too quickly be decided.

But the bathroom isn’t there. Groping his way, arms outstretched, across the darkened room, his hands meet only smooth uninterrupted wall where the door should be. And now, shards of consciousness returning in response to this setback, My Father shuffles crab-wise to his right, keeping his hands to the wall, certain that by this means he must eventually locate the errant bathroom.

A door! And just in time, because My Father is within seconds of releasing a mighty tide of piss and/or vomit. He wrestles briefly with the handle, surprised to find it so resistant. He shoulders his way through…. and is immediately assaulted by a cacophony of light. The heavy door slams shut behind him, with a decisive click. He is in the brightly lit fourth floor corridor of the Adelphi Hotel. He slumps to the floor, clamping his hands over his eyes to protect them. The vast reservoir of urine seeps, and then floods, forth, quickly forming a fragrant Teachers-scented puddle around his semi-recumbent form.

But this isn’t the worst hour of My Father’s life, or even the second worst. In fact, if we could ask him now to look back over his life and give a ranking to every hour he lived, this one might score surprisingly highly. Because now, on this catastrophically bad day for My Father, something good happens. Out of the shattering light, a human figure materialises, and someone stoops, and puts surprisingly strong arms around him, and cradles his head, and strokes his remaining hair, and says, “My god, what a fucking awful state you’re in! Let’s get you cleaned up, and into bed, shall we?”

*****

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