“Just get on with it”

The sun dipped behind the moor land, settling a dusky blanket over the hedges, dry-stone walls, ruffled heather and fanning ferns. My dad rode out from Cadover Bridge, where he and a friend had been swimming, with the darkness chasing him, getting caught up in the spokes of his back wheel. Stephen Stone was far behind. At this rate my dad would be waiting for him at Moor Gate for over an hour, but just as that thought crossed his mind, he heard a pop and pulled up sharply on his bicycle.
The front tyre was flat. He hauled his bike up and out of the road as Stephen’s silhouette grew ominously larger by the second. My dad leaned against a tree trunk and waited, biting his nails and staring at a cattle grid. Behind him he heard huffing and puffing; Stephen had finally caught up.
“What’s the matter Dave?”
“Got a puncture.”
“Well, get the kit out then and repair it. I don’t mind waiting.”
My dad chewed his thumb nail and sighed.
“I for…,” he mumbled.
“You what?”
“I forgot it.”
Stephen burst out laughing.
“Your dad’s going to kill you.”
My dad stared at him and Stephen looked away.
“I’ll tell you what. I’ll go on ahead and tell him and he’ll come and pick you up.”
“Na he won’t. I might as well put it over my shoulder and carry it home.”
“Don’t be so stupid Dave, it will take you hours. We’re only at Moor Gate it's another hour’s cycle from here. That’s at least two walking.”
“Thanks for reminding me.”
The two 13-year-olds stared at one another until my dad finally gave in.
“Alright go ahead and tell him, but he wont be happy.”
“Alright. I’ll see you tomorrow,” Stephen said as he rattled over the cattle grid and disappeared beyond the brow of the hill, pedalling slower than he had done all day. My dad stood there, alone but for a few cows chewing cud and a wild pony swishing its tail in the evening air, spurning flies from its back.
He looked up the road to Shaugh Prior and worried about what his dad might say. “You blasted idiot” might be the tamest, “You bastard idiot” the toughest. It didn’t bear thinking about. A silver line appeared on the horizon, the tell-tell sign of the beginning of night. My dad must have sat there for at least two hours, the darkness rallying around him, possibly one maybe two cars at most passing him by, neither asking him if he needed a lift.
When my grandfather finally did arrive, my dad broadly smiled, lifted his bike off the bank and prepared to put it in the boot of the car. My granddad pulled up alongside his son, wound down the window, so that only a one-inch gap appeared, and pushed out a small package. My dad took it and looked at it. It was the puncture repair kit. My dad frowned, but before he could say a word my granddad slipped the gear stick into first and drove off.
Perplexed, but not surprised, my dad put his logical mind, that would set him in good stead for the rest of his life, to work and had the bicycle raring to go within ten minutes. He got on the saddle, pushed off the bank and rode home through the darkness and disappointment. Every time he heard a car he jumped off the bike, pulled it into the hedge and prayed he wouldn’t get hit. He got home just before midnight and went straight to bed.

When my dad tells me this story I ask him if he was scared. He says ‘Yes.’ I ask him why granddad drove off and left him there. He replies that nothing would stop his dad from getting to his game of darts, not even his own son. But when I ask my dad what he feels about that night his reply is not what I expect. He just says that that’s the way it was back then. His dad was from a different time, a time where you just got on with things. When I ask my dad what happened if you didn’t ‘get on with it,’ he shrugs and says he doesn’t know. Not long after that day my granddad got ill. My dad left school at 15 and went to work for a bloke called Terry and so began his life in the world of car crashes, panel beating and snack room shenanigans. I often think though what would have happened if my dad hadn’t learnt to ‘just get on with it.’ As for me, at the age of 15, I was still trying to work out what ‘it’ was.