Like Pride

The kid unfurls the flag and wears it, cape-like. He jumps and spins, looking over his shoulder at the tail of the flourish.

“Get it off. This is serious.”

His Dad, Stu, is leaning on a wall topped with concrete in see-through crosses, scanning the backs of other houses. These were all council-owned not long ago, a tight row of terraces pushing determinedly up the hill. Edge of town, views of the woods. Not a bad neighbourhood.

He’s looking up to see where Viv is, but his phone still cycles videos: ten-second bursts of voices rising in inflection, agreement, incredulity, and sudden peals of shouting. His vape pops a couple of times, and he exhales it between the grass and the cold wall. The kid says mmm, Refreshers, much quieter than the videos, and without looking up.

As Viv reaches the wall, the kid holds his cape outstretched in one hand. She offers him raised eyebrows and lips gathered in a small round shape. Stu’s already started talking though, and the kid knows he’s lost his audience. He turns away and resumes individual pageantry.

“It’s not aggressive, Viv, it’s community pride.”

Viv’s had it from him before, but you don’t get to seventy-one without learning a bit of patience. She’s rubbing her knee from the steps. Would’ve been easier if he’d rung, he’ll only tie it up there anyway. She’s seen him along the other gardens, the same line to the other neighbours.

“They’re in hotels Viv. Their costs are covered. We can’t afford our weekly shop.”

“Well yes, things are pricey just now.” Good to see him out and about, mind. She’s not seen much of him for the last year or so. When she does he’s alone.

“You’d be contributing,” Stu isn’t smiling, “to our show of…force.” He gestures suddenly, like the movement surprises him, to a scattering of other flags down the hill, wrapped like wet scrolls around masts of sixties timber and newer LED streetlights.

“We need hearts and minds Viv. And then we take the fight to the streets.” There is a pause. He is starting again when Viv, chuckling, interjects.

“Well if you think I’m going marching my boy.” She smiles at him. Stu misses it, he’s still talking, his videos are still cycling.

When he starts up again Viv’s thinking of her daughter, hosting that young family; how they share the cooking, help each other out. She’s playing netball again, first time since the kids were born. Viv had the whole lot of them video call her the other night. That lady was so polite, calling her Viv-yan, and saying she wanted Viv to meet her mother. She seemed so young.

These feelings seem of a different order to Stu’s fraught snippets — on doorsteps and at the bottom of gardens, on poles in the street. For a second though, as he shifts his weight and goes on until he gasps for air, Viv traces something in his expression: tiredness; maybe fear; being pushed around by things too big to see. She’d seen something like it on their faces — the Ukrainian family — when they stepped off the coach.

His voice is up again, “...four doors down. She’s only lived here — what Viv, less than a year?” The similarity Viv briefly felt becomes vague as she is called to attend to his new frustration, and things are jagged and clashing again.

“...telling me it was against the law. My country’s flag! I told her to sue me then.”

“How’re you doing in yourself Stu?”

“We— Yeah, yeah. Good. Mainly this sort of thing. I want to do my b—”

“And your boy here? How’s school then my love, you doing alright? You must be somethin’ dizzy there.”

Kiddo pauses to affect a toothy grin with his eyes closed, emoji-like, then resumes spinning. Viv watches and smiles.

“You happy for us to…?” Stu lifts his chin to the streetlight adjacent to her garden wall.

“Well I suppose so, Stu, if everyone’s happy with it. Like that summer. For the football, was it?”

“You’re a darling Viv.” Then lower, under his breath, “on you go then.” He’s got a length of blue nylon rope tied into a handcuffs shape.

Kiddo stops smartly, his eyes shining, aims a final breathy laugh at the ground between the two adults and wraps the flag round one hand. He’s back clinging onto the pole and Stu slips the loops of rope over his toes. Bracing his feet, the kid starts on up the pole like he was born to do it.

“Hell Stu. Will he be alright up there?”

“He loves it Viv. Only started a few weeks ago but he picked it up alright. I let him do it a bit on school days even. He gets the purpose of it.”

“Well I was thinking, yes, it must be eleven...” Viv squints at the numerals on her small square-faced watch. 10:25.

Stu presses his toes into the ground, lifting and lowering himself. Viv holds the top of the wall and looks at the kid, her mouth falling gently open. He’s already half-way up.

“It’s like he’s goin’ for a coconut! Can you believe it?”

Lately, there haven’t been many times like this for Viv. Things you’d recount as a story; simple things happening on the street, to people you know.

Stu offers a flat syllable of laughter. He doesn’t look up.

“And work my love?”

He blows out of his cheeks, scrolls a few seconds more. “Same old Viv, yeah. They fu— they stitched us up with contracts again, you know? Got rid of some of the older boys.” He rises and falls on his toes, and Viv follows his face up and down, still holding the edges of a smile.

“...things have got to change, Viv, they—”

“Getting on okay otherwise though? Food and that? Bills?”

“I don’t cook much Viv, but I’ve got quick stuff, you know. He does alright on that with some peas…” He uses her name a lot, she notices.

They hear soft chimes down the pole, and the kids’ soft grunts as he pulls his feet tight. Almost at the top now, he’s slowing down.

“And his mother?”

“...Ahh. Well yeah, I have him a couple days a month Viv, you know. How it ended and that.” His voice is briefly louder. “Gonna fight to get more though…got to keep fighting…”

“Yes love.”

They watch the kid for a minute or two in silence. A horn sounds from down the hill where three A-roads meet. A din of revving rises over the houses' far side; that old boy living opposite is forever in his garage persuading some banger to keep going. The crescendo holds for a few seconds more than anyone expects and stops making sense. Viv frowns slightly and looks upwards as if at a plane. When she lowers her gaze it falls beyond the road, along the valley where the city's edge tumbles towards the coast. It comes to rest over a shallow wedge of the channel — gleaming and perfectly still with the distance.

Stu starts filming the kid. talking about how it’s another one going up, the street’s in solidarity. Viv’s expression doesn’t change as he casts his phone over her. She’s watching him tilt the phone up and make vague mythological statements about national pride and belonging.

“…Geddon. Think he’s got it.” Louder now to the phone: “there we go, third of the week. Youngest member of the army.” He’s smiling, and he’s stopped rocking up and down. His boy looks down, silhouetted next to a St George’s cross hanging crumpled but brilliant white in the morning sun.

“Good boy. Good man. Start on down.”

The kid doesn’t. He’s adjusting something whilst Stu pinches and fusses with his filming, turning to take in the rest of the street. By the time he’s brought the phone back there’s a second slip of material hanging up there. He lowers the phone, sharply, squints up.

“What’ve you done?!” Shielding his eyes, he sees a flash of yellow, of green, of red on the new fabric. His brow and mouth turn down into familiar furrows.

“What’s that with it?! That better not be…”

Suddenly he’s thrown his phone down, and stoops to approach the lamp post, planting his foot like he's jump-starting a car. He starts shaking the pole as hard as he can, making a kind of roar through gritted teeth. Poor kid is hanging on like an animal, making short shrieking noises when he has his breath. Viv reaches gingerly over the wall, her cardigan sleeve rising to show a bracelet dimpling her soft forearm.

Stu pauses and looks up, breathing like he’s crying. “What’s wrong with you?! You know I’m filming…” He shakes the pole with everything he’s got, like he’s trying to unearth it, like it’s an emergency. The top sways like a sapling, and the material starts to finally catch the breeze.

By now Viv’s come round and put her arms around Stu like he’s in a fight. He starts to shove her away, until he meets her eye and sees an expression he’s never seen before. He drops his arms to his knees and breathes out saliva. Muscles squirm tightly under his cheekbones where a sweat or a tear hangs.

“Come down now love.” Viv’s voice cracks as she tries to get loud enough. “It’s alright, Dad’s alright now.”

“Fucking filming…”

Viv puts herself between them, and it’s silent for a minute as the kid starts down. A strand of blue-white hair lifts above her ear as she looks between them.

Stu doesn’t move towards his boy when he gets down. He’s looking at his smashed-up phone. Not shouting, but still going on:

“That had better not be f— That’s gone out live…” He strains upwards again, towards the colourful new slip reaching limply out.

A ping. Another. Eyes down to the car-crash screen, over and over, corner to corner — the familiar movement. He jabs one corner, smacking it with his finger like he’s accusing it of something. All the while it’s pinging like it’s trying to wind him up.

The kid makes a couple of small noises, before saying, “it’s just one of mine Dad. It’s Pokémon. I just wanted to do one of mine.”

Stu looks up again, looks properly, at the grinning yellow and green faces, leaping bodies, incredulous eyes and open mouths swaying in the breeze below old St George. He says something under his breath and returns to the phone. He's still trying to use it when they start walking.

Halfway up her steps, Viv presses a palm into her hip and turns around. The light catches words on her bracelet: …forever, G.D, ’76. The pair move under the wobbly row of flags down the hill; Stu hunched tightly, elbows pulled in, the kid with his head down trailing behind. She watches a minute more, before learning heavily on the rail and turning back to the long steps.

Ten minutes later, beneath the final shudders of a boiling kettle, a message tone sounds. A video thumbnail lights up the phone’s screen, blurred grey, green, a smudge of white and yellow. Underneath, the large font reads: Mam, we've just seen you online! Who…

Viv hears the chime but doesn’t go to her phone — she’s looking for the glasses which she keeps in the kitchen, talking to herself in quiet half-sentences about how they're right under her nose. As the kettle settles and clicks, her attention drifts back to the cup of tea. She makes it, sits down at her kitchen table after a scalding sip, and sighs. Thirty seconds later she’s nodding off.

She finds herself in something like a video call. Her daughter’s legs and waist pass behind a sofa holding the Kovalchuks, who sit upright and compact, glancing down when their children fidget or throw out limbs. Viv’s granddaughter briefly poses in the middle of the scene, arms aloft in a Y shape, before throwing herself out of view in a lopsided cartwheel which wobbles everything. Stu is on the call tool. He’s frowning, adjusting something or squinting through glare. His screen moves with his step, and glimpses of his son’s fine hair and pale forehead bob into view. Complete but somehow divided, Viv spends a while with each of them. And nobody is saying anything. Nobody is saying anything.