Ackroyd's Dad

You’d hear him coughing
in the early hours.
It almost put me off staying

but Ackroyd, Antony
(head of the alphabet
in the grammar school roll call –

Ackroyd? – Here, sir
Arnold? – Here, sir…

and so on
until…

Wilson? – Here, sir
Young? – Here, sir)

was always such a laugh
that to stay over
(they weren’t called sleepovers then)

and have to listen
to his dad’s hacking cough
in a room close by

was a price worth paying.
Yet that friendship
was short-lived.

By the second year
we were in different forms
and had formed different friendships.

I’ve no idea what happened
to Ackroyd or his dad.
I expect he’s dead (the dad).

And thinking, now, about that cough,
(I was about eleven when I stayed
and gave no thought to his dad being ill)

it was probably an early death.