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Copyrights reserved by the author. If you are in doubt, please click on 'Copyrights' and read the details. SPIKE continued "What do you say, Katie?" He said. "Shall we give it a go?" "I don't know what to say, Uncle." "Then say 'Yes'. You've never been one to shrink from a challenge. Say 'Yes' and make an old man very happy." "But all your savings --- " "I'll still have a roof over my head." "I don't know," but I was weakening. "Yes you do. You always know. Just say, 'Yes'. We can do it. I know we can!" "Okay, then." It was a hard struggle, but I never regretted it. It was two years before we slipped into the black and by that time both Spike's and my own house were in hock to the bank but our perseverance paid off. Last year we got a contract with Marks and Spencer and turned over a quarter of a million. I wanted Spike to move into a bungalow but he wouldn't hear of it. I wish he had.
This morning I got a phone call from the police; there had been an accident of some sort. I raced from my office at the factory to Uncle's, disregarding all speed limits. As soon as I turned into Jubilee Street, I could see that Uncle Spike's house looked all wrong. There was a fire engine outside the house and a ghoulish crowd were craning their necks to see over one another. I pushed through the crowd to the front. A fireman, clad in black and yellow, tried to stop me but I reached the sagging front door before he could stop me. At first I couldn't quite make out was wrong with the front room of Uncle's house. It all seemed to be in order except that there was a pianola in the middle of the sitting room floor; poking out from under the treadle boards was a lumpy knuckled hand. Overhead the splintered timbers and tattered plaster work told the rest of the story. Spike's old house had finally had enough of being a repository for 'Stuff'. I refused to be moved from the room, and the rescue services were forced to work around me. When the pianola was finally lifted off him and his face was exposed, I leant over and planted a tender kiss of farewell on his cheek. The crushing blow had distorted his face giving him a look of almost comic surprise. However, apart from the distortion and the imprint of the details of the pianola's underside, his familiar old face was otherwise unmarked. An ambulance man asked me if I was ready to let them move his body. I asked for a few moments to be alone with him. I sat silently for a while, staring at the lipstick print I'd made on his cheek. Then on a sudden whim of inspiration I drew out a pad of Post It notes from my handbag, wrote:
and attached the note to his forehead before pulling the sheet over his face. Tonight I poured myself a glass of sherry. I bought it on my way home from the hospital. It was the brand Maureen and I used to drink together. When Jason and Ryan came home from school, I broke the news to them. Silently Jason poured two more schooners of sherry for himself and his brother. I didn't try to stop them. We drank a toast to the old man together. They didn't grimace as they had done at Maureen's funeral. Later the evening paper arrived. On page three was a photo of Spike's house and a headline which read: TYCOON PENSIONER DIES IN BIZARRE TRAGEDY. I read the copy, feeling numb. When I got to the bit about the pianola something snapped inside me. Suddenly I burst out laughing. "What is it, Mum?" Jason asked, looking perturbed. "Oh, Jason," I was laughing tears. "Just think of it. Uncle Spike always said he wasn't going to just die. He always promised me that he was going to go out in style." The boys looked at each other, and then they looked at me with solemn faces. Then suddenly we began to laugh as though we were never going to be able to stop. Eventually we stopped for long enough to raise our glasses and say with quaky voices: "God bless you Spike! Rest in Peace with Maureen." As I let the thick, sickly, sweet, liquid trickle down my throat I decided that I would insist on seeing that my lipstick kiss was still in place on Uncle Spike's cheek. If there is a Heaven I might as well send him up there with something to give Maureen a giggle. That woman just loved a good giggle. I can still remember the ache I used to get in my sides when she really got going. Tonight after I switched out my bedside lamp I turned to thinking about Ryan. His bedroom is already seriously cluttered with 'Stuff', so much so that my cleaning lady refuses to enter the room any more. Perhaps something of Uncle Spike is in his blood. If so, I hope that he finds his Maureen!
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