We haven’t seen Oliver for a few months, not since he started his new job. Thinking about it, it’s been almost six months. Oliver studied engineering, he got a job in our town but didn’t want to move back home. He commuted everyday from the town where he graduated, 30 miles away. We would pass each other, me on my way to work at the vegetable plant and Oliver on his way to see his mum in the evenings, he use to call everyday at first, then three times a week, then once a week, then once a month. Now he has his new job in the other direction and we haven’t seen our son for six months. It makes me sad to think about it but I have to defend him, stay the cheery one, always smiling and reassuring to his ill mother.

‘He is out having fun.’

‘He will call us if he needs anything.’

I have to lie and say I have heard from him, I didn’t want to wake you, fast asleep in your bed. Then there was an actual call. I had the news he wanted to bring a girl home. I ran into the room to tell Sarah but she was asleep. I sat on the bed but couldn’t stay still, excitement going through me, so proud of my little boy. I went to the kitchen and paced about, before deciding to clean. I cleaned the worktops then I emptied the cupboards and cleaned them. I put the radio on quietly and scrubbed the dirt rings from the open shelves. I emptied the cupboard under the sink and cleaned the waste pipe. It smelt of rotten vegetables under the sink and I was almost sick. I mopped the floor and arranged the table that was stuck against the wall where our bed once was. I had to get some paint and paint that wall behind the table. The wall that we had slept our heads against all the while Oliver slept in the only room of the house. I laid the table, although it was a whole week before Oliver would be here.

I spent three days cleaning the house from top to bottom.  The one bedroom house, I didn’t sleep, I hadn’t noticed how dirty it was. After cleaning the kitchen the night nurse called in and asked what had happened. I was still on my knees scrubbing the floor, I had the radio on and hadn’t thought to go and check on Sarah. I explained my excitement to the nurse and we walked together along the corridor to the back room. Sarah hadn’t woken the whole time, still in the comfortable position I had left her in four hours before.

The next few days I cleaned the bathroom, emptying it of disused shampoo bottles and empty toilet paper tubes. I managed to buy some paint and painted the wall behind the table, a light blue, I did the bathroom too, now clean and smelling of spring flowers. The taps gleam at you when you enter. I had a huge feeling of debt that for all the years Oliver, our son was growing up I had left everything to Sarah. Now for two years they had been left neglected. True I wiped the kitchen sides down every evening. I poured bleach down the loo every weekend. I vacuumed once a month. But I had never cleaned. I had never mopped the floor, kitchen or bathroom. I had never scrubbed the lime scale from the bath. I had not even painted the bathroom in the 28 years we had been living in our small house, now the smell of new paint is the dominating smell, over bleach, disinfectant spray and glass cleaner.

I walk into the room where Sarah is in bed, she is sat up against the cushions reading the magazines that her night nurse brings in. She smiles over at me, the smile I fell in love with many moons ago. We are both counting the hours till Oliver brings home his girlfriend. The house is clean, and I had been out to buy flowers for the kitchen table, some fresh bread and cake. It is only an hour and he will be here. We don’t know the name of the girl, only that she lives in the town where Oliver’s new job is taking him every morning, a little further from his family. The hour passes slowly, with no sign of our only son.

The door to the room is leaning against the wall, where once housed a chart marking the height of Oliver. I had removed the hinges and bent screws with borrowed tools from our elderly neighbour. In return I will cut the hedges that run the length of both our properties. He is too old to do anything himself now and receives constant help from the local hospice. We joke that I am nearing that fate myself and perhaps we will share a room at the retirement village that is being built just out of town. His wife had died four years ago, a heart attack as she slept. A few weeks later our neighbour started getting help from the hospice. I hadn’t known he was so dependent on her. I guess I had my own concerns at home, but cleaning the house I realised I too, before Sarah got ill, had been completely dependent on her.

Oliver should be here by now. We are starting to worry, Sarah is sat in bed in her best clothes, her hair washed and brushed. The whole room is comfortable, welcoming the girl who our son has fallen for. I start to get annoyed and turn all my focus on the door.

While Sarah falls in and out of sleep I remove the last screw and fill the holes with broken match sticks I had found in the kitchen drawer, giving the frame new substance to hold the new screws I had bought along with the new hinges. Using books under the door I manage to get it in place and hold it long enough to get the first screw in the leaf of the top hinge, then the bottom hinge and then all the screws. I could sense Sarah watching me as I worked and I enjoyed the labour, forgetting that our son let us down yet again. I turn around to see Sarah slowly bending her head towards her lap, asleep at last. I remove the books wedging the door in place and put them back on the shelf.

The door closes quietly behind me.

Our elderly neighbour shouts from the front porch “Let me know when you guys are ready for the next trip.”

“Will do,” I shout in return, adding a hasty “thanks” as an afterthought.

We have help from our neighbour to move our son Oliver away from his family home to the town 30 miles away so he can continue his studies. We have known this day was coming for some time. Oliver was always expected to move out. That’s what children of a certain age do and last week, Oliver turned 18. My own son a young man, taller than me by a good few inches I feel odd having to look up to see my only son. I have felt this way since Oliver was able to look me in the eye at the age of 14, on the same level.

Where do the years go? It feels that only last week I was dressing our son in his one piece and wrapping him warmly in his second hand cot, Sarah singing to him and rocking him gently to sleep.

Now I pack his clothes, Oliver’s clothes, clothes that would be too big for me, in cardboard boxes that I have been collecting for the past three months from my place of work. Three years ago Sarah became ill. It wasn’t easy for her to carry on working; it wasn’t easy on me watching her get worse and worse. It wasn’t easy on Oliver, at that age, wanting to bring friends back, wanting to bring girls home.

Sarah would sit up all night coughing and moaning, aching from pains in her chest and back. Keeping the whole house awake, me and Oliver coming to blows on our short temper, on our lack of sleep, on our mutual love and worry for my wife, for Oliver’s mother.

I found a job at the local fruit and vegetable packaging plant. The shifts were long and hard, it meant I couldn’t be there for my poorly wife when I was needed the most, Oliver rubbing his mothers back in the middle of the night, the pain at times, too much for her.

Sarah sleeps now in the big double bed that takes up the floor space in the space we have called our bedroom for eighteen years, separated only by a curtain from the kitchen. Oliver’s room being the only place to hide from the moans and groans of agony that convulse through Sarah’s body.

Today I am stood in Oliver’s room, Oliver’s almost empty room. His new home is already furnished with a bed; desk and wardrobe, an armchair and chest of drawers finish the room. Oliver has never had a chest of drawers, only boxes for clothes. We laughed at this with a sad smile on our first trip and quietly unloaded the boxes. I had hoped to get some beer on the way to celebrate the move but our elderly neighbour had found it so difficult to navigate the unknown town of 30 miles away I thought it best not to ask for a detour.

Oliver has already loaded his collection of books in to a dozen boxes. Books from second hand shops, birthday presents. He loves to read.  The top book on his pile is Hemingway’s ‘for whom the bell tolls’ my favourite book. I had bought it new for Oliver last week, for his 18^th birthday. It only took me a week to read my copy from the local library. I couldn’t put it down. I notice Oliver hasn’t even thumbed the pages of his brand new copy. He covers the box and stands back to look around the room.

There is a pile of clothes on the bed; a new tee shirt from his mother is on top of the pile. Light blue in colour with a picture of a camper van on it. ‘Very in,’ she had informed me through coughs and aches. She had told me which one to get on my way home from work two weeks ago. Sarah had seen the tee shirt in a shop window, on her weekly walk around the town centre with her friendly helper. The walk is only an hour but it gets Sarah up and out of her bed. If the weather is bad then she won’t go, instead, her help will sit and they chat about their lives in happy spirits. Sarah’s helper is two years older than Sarah. Her children have already had children. Our child is only 18. We were late in having our only child. Oliver is too young to be having children. I am now stood with an empty box in the middle of our 18 year olds room.

The box I am holing is dirty with vegetable stains so I place it on the floor and pick up a cleaner one. The last pile of clothes is on Oliver’s bed and I approach to load them into the cleaner box. Oliver stops me and takes the box from me, placing it on top of the dirty box I had put down earlier. He turns to me, “I’m leaving that pile of clothes here Dad.” Our eyes avoid each, his at the floor as he picks up his loaded box, and mine at the tee shirt that won’t be worn. I don’t say anything but watch Oliver walk out of the room carrying his box of books.

The door is permanently open now, it’s top hinge completely busted. It rests on the carpet, ill fitted and leaning back into the door frame with the help of a wedge so that it won’t over balance and crash down on someone. The weight of the old solid door too much for me to pick up and repair, the paint now peeling and graffiti on the back of the door is unreadable as half the words and images have flaked off. I stare at the yellow stains on the door, how long ago had I painted it to please my heavily pregnant wife? Eighteen years ago Sarah gave birth to our son. Eighteen years ago last week Oliver joined us in this world. Eighteen years and two weeks ago I painted the bedroom door to our little boy’s room. Not so little now, Oliver turns the corner at the end of the corridor to the kitchen. The room seems empty. Not of belongings but of a soul, empty and lost.

Three years ago I was made redundant and after three months of not finding any work, Sarah went out to look for work. Cleaning work or kitchen work in cafe’s, schools, even the local hospital turned her down at first. That’s when an opening came up for the early morning shift at the hospital. We couldn’t say no to the opportunity. I felt ashamed at first: my wife going to work at 4am six days a week whilst I stay at home and try to bring up our child. I applied for everything I could find, friends passed my name around like a hot potato: nothing came of it. Three years now, it was the week before Oliver’s 10^th birthday. Next week he will be thirteen. Time flies.

We have bypassed these arguments before by celebrating on the Sunday when Sarah isn’t working but this week, this year, Sarah has been asked to cover for a college who is going to a Christening. How can you say no to something as noble as that? The money will be a big help, Sunday shifts are double pay and Oliver, if he knew better, would understand this is the only way he will be getting a birthday present this year.

But he is at that age where he is selfish, unco-operative and angry. He is angry at his mother who provides for our family. For my family. His mother who sews his torn school shirts, who irons his uniforms before going to work at four in the morning.

I am sat on the edge of Oliver’s bed trying to plead with him, telling him that we will be able to spend the day together, just the two of us, go on an adventure somewhere. Somewhere we can ride our bikes to, somewhere we can have a pique nique, just the two of us. This doesn’t work on an almost thirteen year old who has already verbally given out invites to his ‘teen baptism’ as he is calling it. Through tears and a lowered head, his arms crossed resting upon his knees, Oliver sobs about how he is going to have to tell his friends they can’t come to his party. How they can’t come to his famous birthday breakfast party.

“We will think of an appropriate reason.” I say, trying to sound calm when I should be angry with him for playing up. “We’ll say mother is ill.” I know this won’t work, as one of Oliver’s friends father is a doctor at the hospital. They often meet at breakfast time when Sarah is working the morning shift behind the canteen. “Tell them I have an interview and can’t look after them,” this was met with scorn, “I’ll be thirteen dad, we won’t need a babysitter.” I know this is true but it hurts. What hurts more is the laugh that Oliver gave after I had suggested the ‘interview.’ No-one wants to employ an almost fifty year old.

I don’t continue on this route. I stare at the walls of the room. Painted red with paint so thin they look pink in the reflection of the sun coming in through the window. The dirty white curtains show their stains in this light. At night, when they are drawn, in the dark of the room, they look new, but under the light of the dying sun they show for what they really are. Dirty, stained second-hand curtains.

The paint below the window is peeling, in the autumn the water leeks through the windows and drips down the wall. The boxes that act as Oliver’s chest of drawers are moved in the winter as not to get wet from this drip, drip, drip.

I let my eyes take in the room that I have spent less and less time in as my son has grown up, slowly at first and then, almost embarrassed at having older parents, and then emotionally quiet. Oliver finding himself, a young man in the age of puberty, girls and spots, a challenge we all face and come to terms with, later, much later. At the time one feels like no one understands, no one has been through this before. That one is alone.

My eyes take me back to my now quiet son. His arms are still folded and resting on his knees. His sobs have turned to sniffles. My eyes allow me to take in the boy I named Oliver. My son. Sat down he is still a tall boy. At almost thirteen, for next week is his birthday, he is already the height of his mother and rests his hairy head underneath my chin when he is stood tall, not slouching. Almost the tallest in his class. Definitely the most handsome. That has come from his mother’s side. My robust features would win no prizes, but Oliver is a good-looking twelve, almost thirteen year old.

Now Oliver stands up, he doesn’t look at me but opens the door to this left, to his room, opens the door to the long corridor that connects his room with the rest of the house. The door rubs on the carpet from where the hinge screws have been pulled from their sockets. The door being slammed once too often in Oliver’s emotional wake.

I sit and listen to his footsteps along the corridor, adorned with his paintings and stories from school. I listen to him enter the kitchen as he walks on the tiles, still in his school shoes, the sound click, clicks, back to my waiting ears.

Sarah was at the sink when I followed our almost teenager back into his messy room. His room with the pink colour on the walls, the dirty curtains and the peeling paint. I am sat in the room when I hear Oliver’s voice. I make out every word, every letter that no parent ever wants to hear. Ever. I get up and follow our almost teenager son, through his bedroom door. The words are still in my head as Oliver races back past me and with all his might forces his bedroom door closed behind him. Our eyes briefly meet, tiredness in mine, anger in Oliver’s. The door rubs on the carpet and closes softly. The words have brought tears to my wife’s eyes and I hear her sobbing as I stand there in the corridor from kitchen to the room of our son.

The words were: “I hate you.”

Coming from a large family and living in a small town can be advantageous but can also be repetitive. I am the third of four boys raised by their father in a town with a population of 10,000.

Often being seen in the eyes of my fellow townies as the brother of…I was always answering questions about my brothers. I was of average popularity, I had my own friends but when I was meeting new people I was always a third person.

On one occasion I was shouted at across a busy petrol station and handed four party tickets to a family who also had four children. The one who gave me the tickets when I answered his call of ‘Oi Barrington,’ was the friend and age of my oldest brother. Like I mentioned, it can have its advantages.

To the friends of my father I was always introduced as his third son. Looking back I see this was done in a very proud way, not a selfish accomplishment that he had raised four boys, but in honest self reflect of how I had grown. He was proud to introduce me as number three of his polite, hard working and decent four children.

This was something I had trouble with when I was 20. I wanted my own identity, my own voice and be recognised for that.

I have no idea where the name Bazwarey came from but it was a name that I would become known by for good and humorous reasons. It is the name I use for Facebook and primary email account, and I have lots of fond memories of using ‘Bazwarey’

As I have matured I don’t see any error in my pseudonym, I’m sure it has helped me grow and become who I am today. Nowadays I take a different look on life, I want to be my brother’s brother, I am ready to be shouted at. You will notice my WordPress name: 3arrington, proudly announcing the love I feel for my family.
And so Bazwarey Travels……..