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The house has stayed unchanged since Pat went. Natalie arranges the gardener, the pool boy in the summer so the grandkids can swim. It all still looks as it did back then. It’s 2025 and the only thing different is the St George’s Cross he’s hung in the window. Just where it should be.
He’s no hater. Harry gave him the right words to say, as Harry always has. You’re a lover ain’t you Frank? Yes, yes he is. He loves his country. The country where he could go from the arse-end of London to this beautiful house. The East End boy who had to become a man at five—this great nation led him all the way to holidays on a Russian billionaire’s yacht. He loves it all. No hate in him.
There is one person he hates and he won’t give it much thought. It’s the kind of thing you’d tell your shrink—your therapist—and he’ll never stoop that low, talking to one. Neither would his Frankie and that’s one thing he did right as a dad in the end.
There’s one person he hates and that miserable cunt won’t leave him alone. Never has. He’s just there in the mirror. Day in day out.
He’s there in Frank’s hands as they shake opening the bottle of blue pills he takes so he can have a wank to the old photos.
Not the ones of Pat.