Now here’s a strange story. A father and son story. This time I’m the son.

I’m reading the Illiad at the moment, also Illium by Dan Simmons. Both are wonderful, by the way. In the Illiad men are always named with their father’s name. Euryalus son of Mesistheus, Iphitis son of Naubolus – well I’m Michael son of Stephen. In the Illiad fathers are always great in some way. I try to think of the adjective for my father and I think the best I can do is troubled. He was kind but also lost. Loving but blind. I don’t know. A weight to carry, though, even twelve years after he died. This story is about his chair.

The chair is the armchair that he sat in all through his life. It came from Ballyfin. Ballyfin was the great ancestral home of the Cootes. It sits over me like a lost world, an unknowable paradise.It is in some way an unwanted past that I cannot escape. When Dad died I wanted the chair even though it was fading away like the past. I would recover it and renew it and it would give me back that great age of my ancestors. Michael son of Stephen son of Arthur…

I’ve sat in that chair for twelve years now. I never did have it recovered but somehow I could not let it go. And then on Friday a neighbour was giving away a beautiful almost new reclining leather armchair. Dad’s chair had to go. I tried to give it to one of my brothers but they declined. Funny that! But I can’t just take it to the tip.

It took me two whole days to dismantle it. I have two huge bin bags full of material and stuffing which I plan to turn into compost. I will hang the springs in the laburnum tree and let them fly like angels. And the frame, that I will allow to fade away in the garden as a plant support. It’s out there now, with the wineberry in the middle. I’ve left some of the stuffing for the birds to use as nesting material.

I want to say more but I’m not sure how. I sat on the sofa last night with Louise – we always sit on the sofa to watch tv. I kept seeing the new chair out of the corner of my eye and liking it. Dad’s chair always looked scruffy. Sort of homely, but scruffy. It was always covered in a red throw because the stuffing was coming out of the arms. The red throw would sometines slip to reveal the decay underneath. The new chair is shiny green leather and clean and well, new. The old chair is in the garden. It will take a while to acclimatise.

I think Stephen, son of Arthur would understand. He too was a lost artist.

This is not the end, it is the beginning. I suddenly thought just now that the soundtrack for this moment is I shall be released by Bob Dylan and I played it, but not all the way through. It was not quite right. This is not about release, it’s about something else. Growing up, maybe.

Now there’s a thought to end with. I’m seventy-two and just beginning to grow up!