We Own the Sky(21)

It was the only thing my dad could ever make. He did everything around the house but never learned how to cook. When Mom was out cleaning offices downtown that was what he would make for my dinner. He knew how to get it just right. Lightly browned toast, the butter spread as soon as the toaster popped.

A layer of Marmite and then thin slabs of cheese. He always put it in the microwave for thirty seconds but would watch, bent over the kitchen counter, waiting for that perfect cusp just before the cheese started to bubble.

I made him special cheese on toast after Mom died. He would sit silently at the kitchen table, Mom’s place mat, her knife and fork, laid out next to him.

Every night he sat and cried, and all I could do was make him his dinner, as my mom had always done.

“Thanks, beautiful,” he said, when I put down his plate, because that was what he always said. In front of my friends or at West Ham, it was always “handsome” or “son.” But when we were alone, it was always “beautiful.”

So that was what I did, that was all I could do. For a year, I made Dad his favorite frozen pizzas, his Crispy Pancakes, his Fray Bentos pies. When he came home after his afternoon shift on a Friday, I always had it there waiting for him, his treat: two rounds of special cheese on toast with ketchup on the side.

I watched Jack eat, little dabs of tomato sauce around his mouth. He was still watching the football results, mouthing the names of the teams. Sometimes, I could really see Dad in him. The careful, considered manner in which he ate.

The way he would hold his head to the side when he was listening, as if he was hard of hearing.

I daydreamed sometimes, imagining them together. How Dad would let him

sit on his belly, as I had done as a child. How one day, when Jack was old enough, the three of us would all go to West Ham. How he would let him sit in the front of the taxi and speak on the radio to the dispatchers. Dad would have glittered with Jack.

  *

“Seriously, mate, not the drones again. Please, God, not the fucking drones.”

I was sitting with Scott in The Ship, our impromptu office. It was always quiet in the afternoons, the big tables empty enough for us to stretch out with our laptops. The wood paneling made you feel like you were on a ship; the stained glass like you were in church.

“The thing is...” I started.

“No.”

“But I’ve made progress, Scott...”

“Jesus, Rob, please not again...”

“I’ll buy all your drinks if you allow me five minutes to talk about drones.”

Scott laughed and slapped the table with his hand. “There is literally nothing you can buy me that would make you talking about drones worth it.”

“Fuck off.”

Although Scott grew up a few streets away and went to Cambridge, we never met until I walked into Simtech’s meeting room on Old Street. Parallel lives, we always joked. Scott was the only Cambridge graduate I had ever met who bought his underwear at Romford market and had a West Ham birthday cake every year until he was eighteen.

“On another subject, though. I really need that code,” Scott said.

I checked my phone, as if I had just received an important email. I was

supposed to have written some scripts for a Chinese mapping company, but I was stalling and Scott knew it.

“I’m on it, Scott. I’m on it. It’s just more complicated than I thought.”

“So give it to Marc.”

“It will be complicated for him, as well.” Scott had wanted to outsource it to our team of programmers in Belgium, but I insisted on doing it myself.

“Right, but there’s six of them,” Scott said.

“Right, but it doesn’t always work like that in programming.”

My trump card. Blind Scott with science. He was rich, a brilliant businessman, but he couldn’t code. He sighed and swiveled around on his chair.

A few worry lines had appeared on Scott’s face. I knew he was thinking about selling the company. He had taken a hit after the crash and was “moving a few things around.” That was why he wanted me to write the code: to impress a potential Chinese buyer.

“Rob, look, you’re a mate, and we’ve been working together for a long time.

I’ve always tried not to micromanage you, but I’ve gotta draw the line on this one. I need that code by the end of the week, okay?”

He looked out of the window, and I noticed his foot was tapping on the base of the chair. I didn’t want him to sell. I would lose my salary, something that petrified Anna. But more than that, to get my drones idea off the ground, I needed Simtech. I needed their name, their pedigree, Scott’s contacts in the finance world. Without them, I would be right back to where I was, in the suit that Anna paid for, presenting my scribbled-out business plan.

“If I get you the code by Friday, can I talk about drones?”

“For fuck’s sake, Rob,” Scott said, laughing, his accent thick, as if he was selling shoes on Romford market.

“Juan,” he said, looking at the bartender, his Spanish pronunciation flawless,

“can you get us a couple of beers when you have a minute?”

Juan nodded and dutifully pulled a couple of pints and brought them over.

“Go on then. I’m all ears,” Scott said, taking a deep gulp. “But promise me you’ll get me the code by Friday.”