one more frame

On settling a score, almost thirty years later.

This is a story about snooker, except it’s not really about snooker, it’s about the passage of time.

The last time my father and I walked into this snooker hall it was 1999. As we cross the threshold today it is clear that hardly anything has changed in this building: the same wide staircase, carpet worn threadbare through decades of footfall; the same glazed tiles, half-height around the wall; the same smell.

The only difference is, the thick pall of cigarette smoke which once clung to the ceiling is no longer there.

Back then the snooker table seemed huge, the game impossible. I would sit on a stool, racking up your points on an archaic metal scoreboard and sulk as I watched you pot ball after ball. (Those scoreboards are still there now, of course.)

Occasionally you would miss and I would get a chance, but inevitably fluff my shot and slope dejectedly back to the stool to resume my scoring duties.

Now I stand and chalk my cue and if I look closely I can see the ghosts of us on the next table all those years ago. Whilst the building has remained the same, we are both changed. Twenty-seven years ago I was fifteen years old, you had brown hair instead of grey, and neither of us were divorced. In between leaving this room decades ago and stepping into it today a whole load of life has happened to us both: school, work, relationships ending, relationships beginning, children growing.

Back then, I spoke to you as your son; now, I speak to you as your friend. We chat about our lives, about work. It’s easy, as it always has been. For the first time ever I win the first frame, then the second, then the third. We call it a night and promise to make this a regular occurrence, beginning with a pledge to meet every month before rowing back to every couple of months, life’s commitments getting in the way of such close regularity.

And then we leave the room once again, almost three decades after the last time, and behind us the light above the snooker table goes out.