“There you go,” I tell the LTLP.
We have spent all morning tidying our bedroom. It has been a good joint effort, with me sorting things out that should be moved, whilst she lifts them up and carries them down the stairs.
“One room,” she insists. “One room. That’s all I want. One room in this house that isn’t some form of clutter dumping ground Pig Sty.” She surveys the newly pristine boudoir with satisfaction. There is a scrunch of gravel outside.
My parents have arrived!!! I greet them with enthusiasm.
“I have brought the stuff you asked for,” says my father. “It took me ages to get it out of the loft.”
He presses a button on his key and the car boot bursts open. Crates of computer hardware! Bulging chests of software cassettes! Binders upon binders of Sinclair User magazines, and Crash!, and Micro Adventurer, and Your Spectrum!!! I gaze, agog.
“There is rather a lot of it,” he says.
“Don’t worry,” I reply. “We have cleared some space.”
I haul the first box past the LTLP. She is bearing the expression that went down so well during her keynote address to the Institute of the Thunderstruck. Luckily there is some space upstairs in our bedroom, so I lug it up here and return to the car for some more.
Her features are alternating between cyan and magenta as I walk through with the next batch. “There isn’t as much as there looks,” I reassure her, waving a Currah Microspeech in her face. Meanwhile, my father backs up the forklift truck to start on the magazines.
“All done!” I say when we have finally emptied the car and the man has finished reinforcing the floor joists. “It must be good to get that lot out of your attic.”
“Yes,” says my father, looking warily between us.
