Viva Brighton Issue #68 October 2018

COLUMN
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John Helmer
Nested
Illustration by Chris Riddell
“What’s for supper?” I ask Kate.
“I don’t know: what do you feel like cooking?”
“There’s not much in the fridge.”
“Try the cupboards.”
“I tried them.”
It’s been like this ever since three quarters of our
brood left home – one to be an artist, one to run
a music bar and the other to amass vast quantities
of student debt studying Japanese. Suddenly (as it
seems to me, though in truth the process has been
quite gradual) the larder is bare. It takes three days
to fill the dishwasher now. And to the usual guilts
associated with parenthood is added a fresh one:
room-space guilt. The guilt of having a choice of
rooms in which to sleep, or read a book, or play
the guitar.
In these rooms that wait expectantly, wistfully,
to discover their new purpose – piled high with
the junk of departed offspring – I swing my arms
around luxuriantly (in the process dislodging a
PlayStation controller poised atop a pile of GCSE
revision guides and a humorous hat). I think of
the days when we lived all squished up together;
when the cupboards bulged
with pasta, tuna and baked
beans purchased in military
quantities, as if we were
stockpiling food against
the Zombie Apocalypse
that Harvey kept warning
us was both
inevitable and
imminent. It
never came:
instead he
left us, leaving
me staring at
a shoebox full of
Warhammer figurines, wondering whether I should
sell them, recycle them – or grind them to fine dust
for throwing in the eyes of my enemies.
“What about a takeaway?”
The dogs look up, telepathically attuned to any
possibility of food entering the house, potentially
to be dropped and surreptitiously hoovered up.
(These are dogs we have brought in to repair the
care deficit that decreasing our stock of dependent
children has opened up.)
“Takeaway,” I repeat, thoughtfully.
“No” says Poppy, walking into the kitchen at just
that moment.
“What? Wait. You haven’t even heard the options
yet.”
Poppy is our sole remaining offspring in residence;
throwing herself perhaps too enthusiastically into
the role of capricious, unpleasable only child.
“What are the options?” she says.
“Curry.”
“No.”
“Chinese.”
“No.”
“Kebab.”
“Grr. I’m a vegetarian.”
“Fish and chips?”
“Vegetarian.”
“Pizza?”
She hesitates.
“Pizza it is then.” Already my saliva glands are
working as I envisage a sweating Deliveroo rider at
the door handing over the flat, square boxes.
Suddenly there is a clatter of pans, a rasp of
drawers opening. “Oh, for God’s sake you two stop
bickering. I’ll cook something. John, peel these
potatoes.”
“We have potatoes?”
“We have potatoes.”
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