“Hard to believe he’ll be seventeen in March,” Tricia said.
He had a girlfriend, Sue, who back-combed her hair. They were starting a band with another friend, Joe Pole, always known as Poley. They practiced in one of the unfinished rooms on the garden floor at times when Mark was on campus. One day Mark came home earlier than expected and heard them.
“What is that row?” he asked, bursting into the kitchen where Tricia and her mother were polishing the cutlery. Tricia had discovered that if she got her mother started on some domestic task she would remember how to do it and get on with it happily, often while talking about the old days. Tricia had heard a lot of the stories of the old days, but she didn’t mind hearing them again if it kept her mother happy.
“It’s just Doug and his friends practicing some folk music,” Tricia said. “You won’t hear them if you’re in your study.”
Mark’s study, also his bedroom, was at the very top of the house. “I could hear it half way down the road,” Mark protested. “I’m going to tell them to stop.”
Mark stormed off down the stairs, and the sound of music stopped shortly afterwards.
Tricia saw Doug before dinner. “Was everything all right?” she asked.
Doug grinned and pushed a lock of hair back off his forehead. “Yes—we have a new band name.”
“I meant with your father?”
“I know, so did I. He called us Philistines. So we were thinking that might make a good name, but it was too soft for what we’re doing. So we’re going for the biggest Philistine of them all and calling the band Goliath.”
“Lovely,” Tricia said. “Try not to fight with your father over Christmas?”
“I won’t fight with him if he doesn’t pick fights with me.”
Tricia sighed. “I suppose that’ll have to be good enough.”
Christmas went well—the turkey was neither raw nor burned. Her mother had been a real help in the kitchen and taught Cathy how to make gingerbread. Mark gave Tricia a scarf, as he usually did. There were a few little squabbles but no big fights.
On Boxing Day, Mark asked when Tricia’s mother was going home. “She can’t manage at home,” Tricia said. “She’ll be all right here. I think she should sell her house in Twickenham and stay with us. You’ve hardly noticed her being here, really. She won’t be in the way. It’s our Christian duty to take her in. And you’ve seen what she’s like.”
Mark drew breath to protest, and let it go again. “Maybe she should be in an old folks’ home,” he said, reasonably gently.
“Maybe she’ll get that bad later, but she’s not that bad now. I can look after her here. And she had too much money for a NHS home, and when you have to pay for them those homes are very expensive. Better for her to be here.”
“What about when you’re teaching and the kids are in school?” Mark asked.
“She’s not so bad that she can’t be on her own for a few hours like that. She just can’t really look after herself properly. She won’t remember to buy food or eat it or do the cleaning. But she’ll be all right with us.”
“If you think so,” Mark said, and shrugged. “I’m working on a new book on Wittgenstein. When will you have time to type the first chapter?”
“I’ll do it tonight,” Tricia said, delighted that he had agreed so easily.
Tricia had difficulty making her mother understand about selling her house. She drove down alone one weekend in February and cleared it out, bringing back with her what she thought her mother would want. It was the first long drive Tricia had ever made, and she had been apprehensive beforehand. In the event she thoroughly enjoyed it, going south into the spring, able to stop whenever she wanted. Her mother was pleased to see her things, and enjoyed arranging her china on Tricia’s kitchen shelves. She signed papers for the sale, and her house went on the market.
That spring, 1967, Doug’s band Goliath started to play in local venues—upstairs at the Yorkshire House, in the King’s Arms, and once on campus. Tricia bought Doug a new guitar for his birthday, one he had chosen from a music shop on King Street.
“Waste of money,” Mark growled.
“I like to see him really caring about something,” Tricia said.
“Be better if he cared about his school work,” Mark said. “By the way, I’ll be late tonight. I’ll eat on campus, don’t save dinner for me.”