Mellow Aitken

Photo by Sandie Clarke on Unsplash

Mellow Aitken was so named because a furrow had never been known to cross his brow. That was one theory. Another was that his forename was an approximation of the one his parents had given him, but which Mellow had been unable to pronounce as a child. There were other hypotheses, as you would expect in a village the size of the one in which I grew up. You’ll recognise the kind of place I am talking about; and it could be an estate or a street or a block of flats. Everyone has their version of events which for them is the one true way or how they would prefer a particular episode or story to be remembered. I’m neither criticising nor judging – how could I? – because this story is my attempt to shine a light on a period in Mellow’s life in which I played a part. It’s not even Mellow’s version, although hand on heart any time I report what he said about one thing or another is, to the best of my memory, consistent with what came out of his mouth; and I believe that Mellow, whom I am honoured to have called my friend, would trust me to be honest.

Because words did come out of his mouth. He was nowhere near as quiet and reserved as people assumed, or as Miss Monica Divine, who patrolled the village with a Chihuahua called Vita, liked to say: ‘Such a quiet and gentle man...doesn’t always say hello, but he will always bow his head and smile.’ I am sure Mellow wouldn’t mind me relaying how he felt uncomfortable in her presence and how his silence was the most polite way he knew of minimising his encounters with the village’s do-gooder. As I say, he liked to talk when given the opportunity. He was a thinker too, which meant that you might have to wait for an answer to your query, but what’s wrong with that? Mellow was not the type to seize upon the first thing that came into his head. ‘Things are rarely clear cut,’ he once said to me. Perhaps cogitation was in his nature and that’s what made Mellow mellow. Another thing he said was ‘If an answer’s worth waiting for, it’s worth waiting for.’ How does one argue with such logic?

The first time we spoke I was hobbling along Back Lane, minding my own business, when I spotted the Marston twins running towards me. As a rule, this situation would not end well, but on this day they did not stop and only one of them – Jackie, the one with the birthmark under his ear that you’d be wise not to mention – spat in my direction. His aim was poor, or I was quick, but it didn’t reach me. I didn’t hang about, even though they were out of sight in a flash, because you could never trust the twins not to change their mind and turn around. Anyway, I had my head down and for the millionth time was petitioning the gods for a new pair of trainers when Mellow stopped me.

‘You boy. Have you seen the two that did this?’ He leaned over his wall and looked both ways before settling his gaze on me.

‘It wasn’t me.’ I winced as I put too much weight on my knee.

‘Is there something wrong with your ears? I said two boys.’

‘Did what?’

‘My garden.’

I peered over the wall. At the end of the kind of lawn golfers use for putting practice, a small vegetable patch had fallen victim to vandals or a hurricane. Plants had been uprooted, soils rows had been flattened and a compost bin was lying on its side.

‘It’s not what you think.’

‘What?’

He looked skywards and blew into his cheeks, letting the air escape as it would a punctured football. His foot traced a circle around a stricken tomato vine and I wondered if he was going to speak again.

‘What is it, then?’

‘They did the same to Mum’s and...’

He raised a hand, which I would learn was an invitation to stop talking.

‘What did your father say about that?’

‘It’s just me and Mum and Rosie.’ I looked at my feet as was my habit in the days when I didn’t like to look adults in the eye.

‘So they torment you too? You, your mother and your sister.’

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘Rosie’s our dog. She’s getting old.’

I don’t know how it happened, except that I had a thing about digging and Mum always told me to help other people. That’s probably why I clambered over his wall. After half an hour we had cleared the patch and had it ready for replanting. We stood in front of the bare soil and Mellow remarked that it was never too late to plant a seed.

‘They’ll come back.’

‘I will speak to their father. Do they have a father?’

‘If you think they’re bad...’

Michael Marston is a whole other story, but let’s just say that I didn’t fancy Mellow’s chances against the man who begat the twins. He helped me over the wall and walked me to the end of the lane. He didn’t say much, and best of all he didn’t mention my limp.

I didn’t catch up with him until three weeks later. Village life has its rhythms and, dull and repetitive as they are, routine is a safety blanket of sorts. I kept myself to myself and I guess Mellow did the same. I stopped at his wall whenever passed and checked on the new shoots finding their way out of the soil we had rescued from the vandals. It felt good to think of the little plants searching for sunlight and not giving in to the dark, cold earth. It was a Friday night, I think, when I looked over the wall to see Mellow crouching amongst what was going to be a row of beans.

‘Looks like they need some water.’

‘Be my guest.’ He beckoned me over the wall and pointed to the watering can next to the garden tap. ‘A trickle is enough.’

I liked that word. It reminded me of tickle, one of my favourite things to do with Rosie when she wasn’t hot and bothered and was in the mood to play. But also it felt sort of miraculous that all the plants needed was a few drops of water and it made me think of something Mum said about how we don’t need half of the things we want. I hungered for those trainers, though, whatever she said and never mind that my running days were behind me. I took care not to drown the shoots, and the sound of the water trickling onto the soil made me grin. The way it bubbled and sank into the ground was like the little beans were taking sips just below the surface.

‘We don’t have all night.’ He reached for the watering can.

‘Have you noticed how the water sinks slowly...?’

‘They need support. Everyone needs support.’

‘That’s what Mum says. There’s nothing wrong with asking for help.’

‘Your mother is correct. If they could speak, these beans would ask for a brace.’

‘I had a brace.’

‘For your knee.’

‘How did you know?’

He tapped his nose with his index finger, the way people do when they can’t be bothered to explain. Pulling a small knife from his pocket, he cut the string tied around a bundle of green sticks at the end of the row. He showed me how to push a stick into the ground behind each shoot. We attached the shoots to the sticks with little twists of wire. In a few weeks, he promised, we’d change the sticks for bamboo canes if the Marston twins could be persuaded to direct their energies elsewhere. I rated the beans’ chances as good for now, since they were small and hard to spot unless you climbed onto the wall. Besides, Mellow had a plan.

‘How would you like to earn some money?’

‘Me?’

‘Who else is here?’

Mum shook her head when I told her about my job, but her eyes told a different story and that one was about a boy in a village being trusted with the responsibility of looking after someone’s pride and joy. I had laid it on a bit thick about the garden being Mellow’s pride and joy, but despite Mum’s misgivings about me being paid for something that could be done as a neighbourly favour, I promised to stop going on about the trainers and not to waste the money. ‘Okay then, just this once, but don’t make a habit of charging people for something that could be done as a kindness.’ The things that Mums say, and anyway, I hadn’t asked for money: Mellow had offered.

That was how I found out that Mellow was a doctor and more than that he was a consultant orthopaedic surgeon, a job with which I was to become more familiar than a boy of my age should. But we can talk about that later. What you need to know at this stage of the story is that he was going on a conference – he had to explain what one of them was – and extending his break into a second week for ‘a personal matter’. Therefore it was of vital importance that someone of unquestionable probity – again, I required a definition for such an unusual word – should be on hand to watch the house and tend to the garden. He gave me a key for the side gate so that I did not have to struggle over the wall, not that I minded, as what boy doesn’t like to climb? Using the gate, he told me, meant that I did not have to skulk about and also that his neighbours and Miss Divine, should she be passing with that yappy dog of hers, would not have cause to be alarmed about a boy lurking in the garden when Mr. Aitken was away. When I inquired why he hadn’t asked his neighbours to water the plants and keep an eye on things, he tapped his nose.

‘And now that we are in a business relationship, perhaps it is time that we addressed each other by our Christian names.’

‘Are you a Christian?’

‘I find it hard in my line of work.’

‘Me too.’

‘Your line of work?’

‘No. I find it hard.’

‘That is a shame for one so young.’

Mum insisted I should call him Mr. Aitken, so that’s what I did at home. When it was just me and Rosie or me and Mellow or (later on) me and Mellow and Rosie, it was first names all of the time.

I don’t know that anyone had persuaded them, but the Marston twins did not trouble me during my fortnight as Mellow’s guard and gardener. I made sure to wave to the neighbours whenever they were at the windows. Mrs. Bell (right hand side as you stand at the front gate) gave me a drink of lemonade one night; and another evening, when I took Rosie along, Mr. Bell told me to let her play in his garden while I attended to the plants. ‘She won’t let me have one in the house,’ he whispered. ‘Always had dogs when we were nippers.’ One of the beans shrivelled and died, but there was no way it was down to neglect, since I had carried out my responsibilities as instructed by Mellow. Mr. Bell said not to worry as that’s why you plant extra. ‘Got to allow for natural wastage. The ones that want to live the most are the ones you want.’ Even so, I couldn’t help wondering if there was something else I could have done for that plant. I still think about it from time to time.

*

‘Thank you for a job well done.’ Mellow handed me a brown envelope which I could tell contained two pound coins. It’s a skill I had developed with birthday cards. He hadn’t sealed the envelope; the coins shared the space with five ten pound notes.

‘But we said three pounds a visit. You’ve given me too much.’

‘Did I not just say ‘a job well done’? Are you unfamiliar with the concept of a bonus?’

We had inspected the garden plant for plant and he had praised me for my initiative in watering the lawn – I didn’t tell him Mr. Bell had suggested it – but from the tone of his voice I sensed that he wasn’t in his usual sunny mood. I wasn’t in the habit of holding serious conversations with adults, but after the bonus I figured I owed him something.

‘How was the conference? Your personal matter?’

‘Disappointing.’ He squatted on his haunches and held a flat palm to the grass.

‘What are you doing, Mellow?’

‘Grounding myself.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Getting back down to earth.’

‘Why? Where have you been?’

I followed him to the bench against the fence on the Bell’s side. We took a seat at either end. He was in one of his thoughtful moods and all I could do was wait it out. I wished I’d taken Rosie, but Mum said I had to ask permission before foisting a dog on Mr. Aitken. His eyes were closed and I wondered if he had fallen asleep; I tried closing mine, but I couldn’t manage more than a few seconds. I heard Mr. Bell moving about next door, probably off to the shed with his pipe and the newspaper. He’d be filling his kettle from the garden tap and there’d be a whistling soon enough. A cup of tea would have been nice. A Jammy Dodger or a Custard Cream.

‘Keep the key. Keep it somewhere safe.’

‘Mellow?’

‘Yes?’

‘Is that what you’ve been thinking about? Only, we’ve...’

‘Adult things, which also happen to be very childish. Matters of the heart. My career.’

‘Oh.’ I felt the coins through the envelope and imagined how the notes would feel between my forefinger and thumb.

‘One can make the mistake of assuming progress has been made.’ His had opened his eyes and something in the trees on the far side of Back Lane was receiving his full attention.

‘The doctor said I was making progress.’

‘Doctor?’

‘My knee. Slow progress, but progress.’

‘What treatment has been prescribed?’

‘Nothing. Once the brace came off I was to keep exercising. That’s the reason I walk everywhere.’

‘I’ve been thinking about your knee.’ He shook his shoulders and turned to me.

‘What about it? It’s okay, I manage. You don’t need...’

Mellow held up a hand and with the other he took a pen and notepad from his trouser pocket. He told me to write down my full name, address and date of birth and my mother’s initial. I told him to come to the house if he wanted to meet Mum. That would have been a good way to introduce him to Rosie, but he waved me off and said it was time I was going home. ‘You will be hearing from me,’ he said, which was a bit official-sounding, even for him. We took one last look at the beans and I climbed over the wall to take the shortcut home.

My knee was on my mind more than usual because Mellow had asked me about it, even though it was me who had brought it up. Even today I think of it as a separate entity, and while I don’t talk to it anymore, I feel its presence and I don’t need to open the curtains to check the weather during the winter. And since we’re on the subject and also because it relates to what occurs later on in this story, now is a good time to tell you what happened.

For the first ten years of our life together, my knee was a fully paid-up member of me and I didn’t give it much thought. It had a twin, after all, so it didn’t need me to help it get along. The twins were reliable, trustworthy and, to borrow two words that are very much de nos jours, robust and resilient. They withstood the rough and tumble of childhood; we climbed trees; we played football in the winter; and in the summer, more football at home, and tennis and cricket at school. We loved to run and running was our best sport. We might have been good enough to represent the school, but I know we were good enough to do well on sports day and that is where the trouble originated. The other twins in my life also liked to run, and as for the rough and tumble of childhood, well, they owned that phrase. Everyone at school knew to give a wide berth to Jackie and Thomas Marston, and letting them win any playground games they gatecrashed was the wise play. On this sport’s day, however, a dilemma presented itself: Mum had negotiated time off work and therefore maximum effort was called for. I had a feeling I could outsprint the twins over the track that had been marked out on the grass, but I should have looked back. Instead, I triumphed by a distance, leading to wild cheering from Mum and something less pleasant from Michael Marston for the silver and bronze medallists.

Mum cooked my favourite meal to celebrate, elevating it to Dinner for a Champion with the addition of an extra sausage. She let Rosie linger under the table and the extra banger went the way of much of my food whenever the dog was allowed in the kitchen. Mum was singing and giggling and what made me happiest was seeing her happy. She kept asking me to take the medal from around my neck so that she could look at it.

‘First place, fifty metre dash. My boy.’

‘Mum, it’s only a race. It’s not maths or writing.’

‘But first place against those horrible...’

I understood where she was coming from. Everything we had was hard won. She was as happy as the day she swapped her bike for a little runaround.

‘Did you see his face?’

‘Whose face?’

‘Michael bloody Marston is who.’

‘You swore!’

I slept with the medal around my neck. After breakfast I took Rosie out for a walk and pretended I had forgotten I was wearing it when Miss Divine stopped me so that she could take a look. The Marston twins rolled past on their bikes as she was giving me the lecture about what you can achieve when you try hard. I had to choose between walking away with Miss Divine and trying to keep Rosie and Vita apart or running the gauntlet past the twins. With Rosie by my side what were they going to do?

‘Still wearing your medal.’ Jackie blocked the path with his front wheel.

‘Who wears a medal the next day?’ Thomas aimed a kick at Rosie.

‘Leave her alone.’

‘We’re only messing.’

‘She’s only a dog.’

‘Look. We’re messing.’ Jackie took his hands from the handlebars and opened his palms.

‘You won fair and square,’ said Thomas.

‘I did.’

‘Been looking for you, as it goes,’ said Jackie.

‘Me?’ I tugged Rosie’s lead to bring her closer.

‘Yeah, we’re going to the tyre swing. Want to come?’

Here’s the thing that Mum and, much later, Mellow, could not understand. Both of them asked what had possessed me to accept the twins’ invitation. They had forgotten what it was like to be a kid drowning in desperation to be accepted. I don’t know why it was so surprising to them, because as far as I can work out, those feelings don’t disappear on your eighteenth birthday. The tyre swing over the brook was legendary amongst the children in the village. It was so high and wide that you needed two of you at least: one to hold on the tree on the bank and another to grasp the hand of the tree holder while stretching for the rope. It wasn’t so difficult in the summer when the brook was dry, but you had to be tall enough, which I wasn’t. With the medal around my neck and the glow that comes with victory, I guess I was high on emotion and feeling brave.

My knee doesn’t give me much trouble nowadays. The fifty metre dash champion became a distance runner years ago and I suffer the injuries you would expect at my age. Both knees are holding up well. You get plenty of time to think when you’re pounding the tarmac or running over hills and those Marston twins come to mind almost as often as Mellow. I imagine things were unpleasant for them after that race, for the thirty minutes or however long it took for their father’s rage to subside; but surely, by the next day, life had returned to normal. That life might not have been much fun at home, but I find it difficult to inhabit the head – I never found out which one it was – that came up with the idea of taking a knife to the rope so that the next person to use it would come a cropper. I’m willing to allow that neither Jackie nor Thomas intended to cause real harm and they probably believed, as I did, that on another day they might have beaten me in that race. It was not necessary to knobble me, just as there was no need to run off and leave me crying for help while Rosie ran around in circles. She must have thought it was a game, which is what the twins called it when Mum went round to their house a day later to ask what part they had played in the dislocation of my knee. I’ve never told anyone, until now, about Jackie stamping on my leg as I shrieked at the pain, one cheek pressed into the soil as Thomas sat on my head.

*

The day that Mellow knocked on our door, Mum was furious because there was no time to throw the duster about or run around with the Hoover. If she had asked me I would have said that our house was ready for visitors at any time of day, or night. She took Mellow through to the front room and hissed at me to switch the kettle on and put the biscuits on a plate. She was perched on the sofa when I brought the tray in and had the same face as when she came to school for Parents Evening. Mellow was scratching Rosie behind her ears – how did he know that was her favourite thing? – and despite wondering why he had called, I was happy that now I could take her over without having to check if his dislike of Vita extended to other dogs. Rosie laid her snout across his feet, closed her eyes and began to snore. Mellow laughed, but by the colour of her cheeks I could tell that Mum was not impressed. When Mellow congratulated her for bringing up such a polite and well rounded young man, she straightened her back and insisted he took the last biscuit. I still had no idea why he had come and when Mum told me to clear everything away, she gave me a look that said ‘stay in the kitchen while Mr. Aitken and I have a grown-up chat.’

I had never seen Mum so excited. She walked Mellow to the gate and they carried on talking for so long that I forgot about waiting to find out what was so important. I was more put out by Rosie fussing around Mellow’s feet, but it was hard to stay angry with her and with Mellow for that matter. I knew the conversation was over before Mum or Mellow because I spotted Miss Divine turning the corner into our street. I tried clearing my throat, but Mum and Mellow were too busy talking and it was Rosie who let them know by barking at Vita. Mellow bowed and backed away while Mum smiled with her teeth if not her eyes. A ten minute audience with Miss Divine didn’t seem to upset her too much and when she came back into the house she was singing to herself and she gave me the longest hug I could remember; longer than when I had won the race that started all the trouble.

Everyone called him Mr. Aitken at St. Matthew’s, although the nurses and younger doctors said Mellow when he was not around. The letter that arrived the week after his visit invited me for an X-ray and a follow up appointment at Mr. Aitken’s clinic at the hospital. I’d never been there before, except when I was born, but Mum said it was so much better than it used to be. I had the whole afternoon off school even though the X-ray was done in minutes and Mum decided we could have tea at Martello’s Café, the place she reserved for special occasions.

‘Mr. Aitken’s going to fix your knee.’ She poured tea into my cup; a drop splashed onto the saucer, but she said that meant good luck.

‘Don’t forget you said he said if he can, Mum.’

‘We’re going to look on the bright side. Enjoy your sandwich.’

‘But Doctor Green said I’d just have to live with it.’ I bit into my egg mayonnaise. It was as good as Mum had promised.

‘Doctor Green should have sent us to St. Matthew’s. He’s not a specialist and he should have known better.’

‘Do you think he’ll be angry we’ve gone behind his back?’

‘I don’t think he will notice and anyway, he’s not going to argue with Mr. Aitken.’

It was Mr. Aitken-this and Mr. Aitken-that from Mum for the next few days and she was so happy that I did look on the bright side. I put more trust in my knee when I was running around the playground and trying to dodge you know which twins. In a way it was getting better just by me knowing that it might get better, if that makes sense. I wasn’t even limping, not much, when we were shown into Mellow’s office the week after the X-ray.

‘Can you fix it Mellow?’ I shook his hand as though we were meeting for the first time.

‘Mr. Aitken! So sorry Mr. Aitken,’ Mum said.

‘Come now, it’s Mellow between friends.’ He tapped his nose.

‘Can you fix it?’

‘I’m going to try my very best.’ He took an X-Ray from an envelope and held it against a box on the wall that had a light behind it. He showed us a bit of bone that was sticking out where it shouldn’t and some debris – another new word that I liked the sound of and which he had to explain – that he thought he should remove ‘while I’m shaving the bone.’

‘Kill two birds with one stone?’ Mum asked.

‘To let one little bird fly.’ He returned to his seat and opened his diary. ‘Let us see how soon I can fit you in.’

Mum packed a bag with two pairs of pyjamas, but I only stayed one night in St. Matthew’s after the operation. Mellow’s was the second face I remember seeing when I came to. The nurses made such a fuss of me, checking whether I wanted a drink or something to eat every five minutes. They must have been told that I was Mellow’s friend. ‘You’re a special case,’ Mum said, but she often said stuff like that. I would have stayed an extra day or two if allowed, but Mellow said I was better off at home and he could check in on me whenever he wasn’t on shift or on call. I would have preferred special treatment in the hospital, but you have to count your blessings and the best part of those blessings was the two weeks I had off school and the fact that I could stay in bed all day and Mum had moved the television into my bedroom. The reception wasn’t brilliant with the portable aerial, but there was no way I was going to complain and risk Mum taking it back downstairs. A physiotherapist who owed Mellow a favour called in every morning to go through my exercise and rehabilitation – so many new words – and three weeks after the operation I walked Rosie along Back Lane as far as Mellow’s garden. I wasn’t ready to jump or climb over the wall so I called out for Mellow. But it was Jackie Marston’s face that appeared, followed by Thomas and that’s when all hell broke loose. They clambered over the wall and pushed me aside, leaving Rosie to decide whether to chase after them or stay with me. The next person I saw was Miss Divine and Vita. I swear she had trained that dog to sniff out trouble. Truth be told, I was glad to see her and not Mellow, because I didn’t want him fighting with the twins and risking the wrath of Marston Senior.

Mellow must have been surprised to arrive home to find me and Mum working in his garden. We hadn’t been going long before he turned up and we didn’t need to explain what had happened. He carried the water butt from where it had been dumped in the middle of the lawn and set it back in place, ready to capture the next deluge; but instead of helping, he sat beside Rosie on the bench. ‘He likes to think,’ I whispered to Mum, afraid that she might shatter his silence with a kind word. ‘I’m not stupid,’ she mouthed, shaking her head, but I knew she was about to say something. She was good at saying the right thing on most occasions, but sometimes no words are the only ones that can help. We saved some of the beans, but the tomatoes, which had been touch and go so late in the season, were done for. It was the same with the salad leaves, which had been trampled to death. I put clumps of wild flowers back in the bigger pots and crossed my fingers. There wasn’t much to admire and even less to smile about by the time we were finished.

‘You mustn’t take it personally.’ Mum shooed Rosie from the bench and sat next to Mellow.

‘Not a good day.’ He was staring at those trees again, but I couldn’t see anything worth his attention.

‘They’re a bad lot. Like father, like sons.’

‘They’re only children. They have time to change.’

‘Kind of you to say so, but I’m not so sure. Look at what they did to his knee.’ Mum pointed at me.

‘I thought he had fallen from a swing; an accident?’

‘Nothing any Marston is ever involved in is an accident.’

‘What is wrong with people?’ Mellow’s hands gripped the bench and the sun found the cracks in his knuckles. Mum placed a hand over one of his, but pulled it away when Miss Divine popped her head over the wall and shouted something about her evening patrol.

Mum invited Mellow for tea the next day. He brought a dahlia in a pot, with instructions for how and where to plant it. I don’t know how many people saw him heading up our path, but two days later when I was walking Rosie, Miss Divine made a remark about Mum’s ‘new friend’ and Jackie Marston shouted something from his usual spot on top of the climbing frame in the playground. I decided not to report back to Mum about the things that were said in school, but a few nights later she told me after tea to pay no heed to village gossip. Mellow agreed, when I next saw him, and added that news spreads like wildfire, especially when it’s untrue. He changed his mind when the graffiti appeared.

We might never have found out who had written the nasty things about Mum and Mellow and how she was a something lover and somethings should stay away from our women; but Jackie Marston couldn’t resist asking me if I liked our new paint job and if Mum’s something boyfriend had got the message. ‘Dad says it isn’t right and he won’t have it and he’s proud of what he’s done.’ I had plenty of time to reflect on how I didn’t like our new paint job as I scrubbed the front door with Mum. I didn’t see what had been written on Mellow’s, as he had cleaned it off by the time I arrived with a bucket of soapy water. He told me that he’d had plenty of practice getting paint off walls and doors. ‘Words don’t hurt,’ he said, but I was in no mood to agree and said as much. I should not have told him what Jackie had said, but those words had hurt Mum and me and Christ, I was just a kid.

Things got a lot worse after Mellow tackled Michael Marston in The Crown. More graffiti appeared on the wall outside the shop and in the bus shelter. Mellow’s side gate was kicked off its hinges and the bench was set on fire. If it hadn’t been for Miss Divine and her Chihuahua, it might have spread to the house and next door. The firefighters found a petrol can that had been thrown over the wall onto Back Lane, but there was nothing to prove who had started the fire. One morning Mellow discovered that two of his tyres had been slashed and he missed an operation because the bus had already left and the taxi was on an airport run. I’d stopped calling at his garden by then, since I couldn’t escape the feeling that everything had been my fault. If I hadn’t climbed over his wall to help with the garden that first time, the only problems would have been the usual problems which boiled down to me doing my best to avoid the twins and not doing anything to upset Mum. The next and last time I saw Mellow, as a child that is, was when he came to the house to tell us he was leaving. If he couldn’t enjoy the garden, he told us, he might as well live in one of the flats at the hospital. Some of them had balconies and he was optimistic that a south-facing one would become available. Mum didn’t try to persuade him to stay, which upset me for a while, but we soon fell into our dull and repetitive routines and there was some comfort in once again being the village’s single mother and bastard son. A few years ago, after Mum had finally relented and revealed my father’s identity, I searched online for Mellow in the hope of better news. I discovered his real name – Michael Akinjide – and that he had retired to Somerset, where he lived with his husband. I hope they were able to enjoy their garden and that Michael had occasion to tell his partner about the boy whose knee he fixed and who had such a thirst for new words.