Coolest Person in the Room
Meeting someone effortlessly cool is disarming. They draw people towards them, make you feel at ease, and they're unapologetically themselves. You want to be around them, maybe even copy them, but mostly you just want them to like you.
My Grandad was one of those people. He never pretended to be anything other than himself. When he first moved to the UK from Jamaica, he experienced disgusting racism and bigotry. He was refused jobs due to the colour of his skin, openly mocked in the streets of his hometown, and ostracised. Yet he found love, made friends, and adored the country he adopted as his home.
A lot of that cool came from the way he carried humour. There was a playfulness and mischief in his eyes that always posed a question. 'Are you thinking what I'm thinking?' he'd seem to say as he glanced at the Scrabble board in the corner, my Nan giving him daggers as we wolfed down our dinner.
When a joke landed, it took his whole body with it. His laugh was ridiculously infectious, shoulders shaking as he tried to keep it under control. The only times I ever saw tears in his eyes were from laughing too hard. Removing his dentures without warning was his favourite prank: at the right moment he'd shriek and, Dracula-like, reveal his vampiric incisors, setting the whole room off in hysterics. It sometimes felt like he'd been penned by Roald Dahl.
Cricket was his only religious experience. Separating him from the television when England or the West Indies were playing would get you nothing more than an audible grunt. When forced out of his favourite armchair, he would relentlessly ask anyone in the vicinity for the latest scorelines. Long discussions weren't his forte, but if you knew cricket, you could engage him for hours.
He looked the part as well. Old-school cool ran through everything he wore. Corduroy, sunhat and polo shirts were the default; anywhere formal and it was a dinner jacket and suit trousers. He could have been an extra in a Coppola film.
That style matched the way he moved through the world. Years in the Royal Air Force left him standing incredibly straight, and he'd walk into a restaurant with that same posture, flirting effortlessly with the first waitress he came across. My Nan would stare venomously at him until she eventually sighed and rolled her eyes, used to a lifetime of following around a wannabe-Lothario. People respected him, but not because he was loud or desperate to be the centre of attention. There was just something that made you not want to disappoint him.
That is not to say he was a permanent ray of sunshine. He was incredibly direct, with both his praise and criticism, yet polite to a tee. If children were shouting in his general vicinity, he would glare menacingly at the parents until they took the initiative to silence their brat. He would collect any litter that crossed his path, and be willing to excoriate those members of the public who took the risk of creating it in his presence. And he had a personal vendetta against any feline that dared walk near his home. I would hear him rush from his chair if even the slightest flicker of a tail crossed the window, running to the garage to fetch his slingshot. Unsurprisingly, most cats didn't make return visits.
The same intensity showed up in how he worked. Without cricket he couldn't sit still for long. If there was a sliver of sunlight remaining in the day you would find him rummaging in his garden. If his first love was my Nan, his second was almost certainly his greenhouse and orchard. Every visit I would gorge myself on the latest harvest, usually demolishing a whole cucumber and then lying in agony on the settee for ten minutes, not understanding my sensitivity to cucurbits. They were just too damn good. Thanks to my Nan's cooking, I have an appetite that still astounds people to this day, and it mostly developed from the incredible quantity of desserts I was presented with upon each visit, courtesy of the bounty grown behind the house. There was not a single person on the road who didn't receive a hamper of vegetables or fruit during the year, and his door was always open to those who wanted to stop by for a cup of tea. I still drink an absurd amount, and that's entirely their fault.
Even his name would have made him cool in my eyes: Gladstone Vixen, named after William Ewart Gladstone (the only prime minister to serve four terms in office). Vic for short. One day I'd like to have the nerve to pull off his style and laid-back gait. His standards were simple and unforgiving: be fair, work hard, be polite, be kind.
Alzheimer's is the cruellest disease I've seen first-hand. It stripped him of the things that made him unique. The one mercy of the COVID pandemic is that it ended his suffering. In the end, that barely matters, because in my head he's frozen long before the illness took hold: knee-deep in the garden, mischief in his eyes, and a grin on his face.
When I imagine the coolest person in the room, he's always there. I miss him every day.
