Battered Sausage, Chips & Peas – Gwil James Thomas

December 21, 2019

7 years old,
I drop off the penultimate 
monkey bar – 
feeling a splintered piece of
rusty metal dig into my hand, 
before I pick myself up
from the floor
of the local pub’s
dilapidated beer garden.  

Back at the table, 
my dad grins and lights a cigarette. 

“Our lunch will be here 
in two minutes,” my old man says. 
“Are you sure?” I ask. 
“Sure as shit,” he replies.

Our food arrives exactly 
two minutes later and my dad 
smugly shows me his watch,
as a spotty teenage waiter 
hands us lunch – 
another pint of lager for my dad 
and battered sausage,
chips & peas for me. 

Back then I’d always thought
that there was something magic
about my father –
even if it was just the way
he’d disappear and reappear
at the strangest of times
and stranger still –
since he died
I’m starting to think
that again too.