Tommy

That's his name, the man looking at his shoe. He said, if I recall, that his sister used to go for walks on this pier. I'd like to have sat and talked with him but I was in a hurry as usual to collect the wean.

Earlier, I read a few pages of grandfather's diary: 1913. Mostly neat, flowing cursive, with a few flourishes. One day stood out though, 23rd November, 1913 (headed 'What a night!') and grandfather had crammed in as many details as possible. You can taste his excitement, and hot-blooded, heart-pounding innocence! Here's the crux of the matter: He calls on his sweetheart, Nell (or Nellie) and is told she is 'uphill', visiting neighbours I imagine. Thenceforth, the stream gathers pace:

'I sat, pretending to read, and Oh! how I missed her, how I missed her. But then she came and I was all gladness again. Yet somehow I thought she looked delicate, but Mon Dieu, how beautiful I thought she was. I played the violin for her, sang for her, danced for her [grandfather won medals for tapdancing]. Just to make her glad too. We had Cocoa together, then I read for her while she sat on the arm of my chair. Twas a piece of poetry titled "[??] I Love You," and when I finished, she bent down and said to me "And Oh! Pat how I love you." We remained in silence for a long time, again we talked and talked, and somewhere around 9.30 I had risen with a purpose, stood and looked at her, then bending down on one knee, I told her how, with all my heart, I loved her, and then stopping and looking far away into those soft hazel eyes, I said simply but with all my heart behind, "Nellie, will you be my wife," She tightened her arm around my neck, kissed me, and said "Pat, yes I will"...

There is more, about heaven and heavenly choirs, etc. But there it is, the making of a human fate, out of which sprang my mother and her six siblings (all dead now but one) and myself, my half-brother Michael and our two sons. Grandfather, as you may gather, was something of a romantic. Not so much when I came into the world, though i think he may have doted on me initially, when he was in his sixties/seventies. He was good enough to take in my mother (unmarried in her 40s) after I was born, but as I grew, under his roof, into a rather lazy and fucked up teenager, we drifted way, way apart. I never once remember seeing grandmother and grandfather demonstrably affectionate with each other, let alone hugging or kissing. Apparently grandfather may have had an affair at some stage. We eventually became somewhat closer when he became very old and frail (and suffered a few strokes) in his late eighties. I used to clip his silver, Brylcreemed wings and bathe him. I never knew grandmother, even though I grew up with her. Her reserve and occasional shy, wistful smiles distanced me. Touching then, to think of them in that moment, hothousing the quick little seeds of their fate while the larger world inhaled hugely, getting ready to blow over another few million or so.