Rubbish

It had been his granddad's wallet, the one I found in my son's bin.
I took it out and dusted the pencil sharpenings from it. I sat down on
the chair by his desk, rubbing my finger across the immaculately
stitched seams. The smell of the brown leather was so intimate to me. I
didn't feel upset. Just tired.

He'd come back last week, telling me he would stay a while. Said he had
lost his job, I bought the local newspaper and we went through the
employment section together on the dining table, like when I used to
help him with his homework. I always kept his room tidy, ready for him
to come back. It was where I liked to read, a sanctuary from the pots
and pans, somewhere I could kick my shoes off. His carpet was new, I
liked the softness of it against my bare feet. Once he didn't visit for
two years. He'd occasionally write to tell me he was in Prague or
D?sseldorf. I still cleaned the room though, every week I would go
around the skirting board with a damp cloth and wipe dust from his
shelves. It is a strange feeling, cleaning for nobody, like taking
flowers to a grave. It would fill the afternoons up though, since he
had moved out there was no-one to cook or iron for. I even missed the
things I hated the most - how repulsed I had felt every time I had to
empty his ashtray. He always smoked, used to lean out of the window and
flick stubs over next door's hedge. They'd tell me they watched him do
it.

I put his granddad's wallet on the desk. The golden signature of the
maker had not faded with age. The buckle still fastened firmly, I
looked at it and felt it could last forever. Next to it a black wallet
lay open, bulging with twenty pound notes, credit cards, a photograph
of a girl with bleached blonde hair and a tattoo across her arm, a
torn, crumpled piece of paper with hurriedly written phone numbers. His
sister's was on there, the 7 and the 3 were the wrong way round. I
found a biro in his drawer and corrected it. Hers was low on the list,
ranked inferior to a series of girls details and phone numbers of
restaurants. I folded the piece of paper, but instead of replacing it
in the black wallet, I slipped it inside his granddad's. I did the same
with the credit cards, the photographs and the money.

We were all in the front room of the house I grew up in. I sat with him
on the settee while others drew up dining room chairs into an arc
around pristine boxes of jewellery, piled up bronze coins, brittle old
letters and records in flimsy dog eared sleeves - Peter and the Wolf,
Max Miller and the original recordings from Carousel. I had never heard
him play them. The process of redistributing a lifetime of possessions
was a painful one neither of us enjoyed. There was a lack of reverence
in the peripheral members of the family's willingness to pocket old
broaches and coo over black and white photographs. Plastic bags
cluttered every room, black bin liners to go to the skip, white for
being taken to charity shops. When the wallet was found in an otherwise
empty drawer of the old burro, I insisted it came back with us, getting
rid of it felt wrong. On seeing it again after all this time I recalled
my dad with a vividness that had previously escaped me. The way he'd
take the wallet out of his pocket in the kitchen on Saturday mornings
to give us our pocket money. He'd always smile as he did it. I used to
stand their al morning, waiting. The linoleum felt so cold
underfoot.

I threw the old black wallet into the bin, double tied the bin liner
and replaced it with a fresh one. I took it out to the wheely bin by
our gate. The man next door was doing the same, he flashed me a
pedantry grin before going back inside. It was a Monday, the bin men
came on Mondays. I wheeled my bin out onto the pavement to be collected
and then did the same with his and went inside to watch for the van to
arrive. While I stood waiting I went through a series of conversations
in my head, with my son about the wallet. I pictured myself screaming
at him until he could take it no longer. I knew it wouldn't happen
though. When the van had gone, I went out and wheeled the empty bins
back to their places by our gates and went back to his room to start on
washing his windows. The repetition of cleaning slightly soothed me. It
had hurt so much, seeing the wallet in the rubbish bin amongst rotting
apples and used tissues. When the window was clean, my hands felt too
feeble to squeeze out the cloth into the bucket of lukewarm soapy
water.