Under the old arrangement, which ran from before I was born,

Patrick lived alone in what there was of the basement.

Concerning the question of rent, the sum, I know, was zero

As best befitted a hero from my ancient Dad’s sad regiment.

There never was such a friend, said my birth-widowed father,

And there’s nobody I’d rather have there at the end.

The tank was fixed in the attic, and the spot of damp in the hall,

But the basement lodging was all left to itself and Patrick.

So this was the downstairs neighbour in my father’s protection

From roughly the Army Election and the new dawn of Labour.

Looking at it lately, it’s strange they were still alive,

For the year was Sixty-Five and they were pushing eighty.

My father’s sudden death, the black coats in the snow,

Patrick soldiering solo in the offensive for breath,

With his cold diet of rage and his hearing all bombed,

And the defiance that comes on with the mere habit of age.

The air-thirsty tongue, the pursed eyes wrinkling,

The deepened crinkling of his gas-wrecked lung.

Us moving in among the heavy furniture,

The disapproving curtains, the well-husbanded gin.

Us planning the wedding, giving notice to the daily,

Patrick nodding plainly beside his simple bedding.

The street going to the gentry, the world painted new,

Patrick scowling through from the basement entry.

Us in the night in my father’s bed,

The dark ray shed by the low moonlight.

The old pipes rattling, the stopcock past repair,

The moaning of the airlocks, the whole house battling.

The dangerous heater, the never-come plumbers,

Patrick feeding crumbs to the ungrateful meter.

The gutter gurgling, the rain on the grass,

The rising gas, my ghost-father gargling.

The pale reflection of me in the glass,

Drawn from the past and not worth a fraction.

Soon I’ll be gone, says Patrick to the air,

Sent upstairs, always going on.