Young Noridel Jnr. came back from the funeral with a grim expression fixed on his face. Not one person had chosen to return back with him to his father’s shop, but he didn’t mind. Let the fools spend their hard earned wages on beer if they liked. Let them drink a farewell toast to the old devil. He had other things to do.
For appearances sake, he waited until the door jangled closed behind him before letting his face break into a beaming smile. He tore off his black top hat and flung it to the ground, and danced a little jig of happiness for possibly the first time in his sad and miserable little life.
“At last!” he thought, “At last it’s mine!” He dashed over to the old oak counter and swept aside all the accumulated rubbish that his father had considered so vital to sell on to the work-shy masses that used to frequent this little store. It all clattered and scattered onto the battered old floorboards and bounced around in a thousand directions. He didn’t mind. Next week he would be rid of it all, and his new life could begin, free from the awful tyrannical presence of the old curmudgeon.
For a moment he had a strange guilty feeling that the old boy might still be out there in his back room, and just for a split second he wondered if he was going to emerge and admonish him, but all that happened was that a huge cloud of dust almost immediately filled the air and, shortly afterwards, his lungs, and for one last time a familiar coughing was heard in the old emporium.
The way young Noridel saw it, he and his father had never seen eye-to-eye when it came to matters of business. Old Noridel would never look to the future, preferring to restock with all his old tat instead of thinking of him, his only son and heir, and what was best for him. He hadn’t given him an ounce of support when he’d chosen to go off and learn his accountancy skills at the offices of Mister Bartholomew Rapscallion at the other end of the high street. Oh no! He hadn’t even come to the door and wave him goodbye on his very first day, preferring instead to loiter in his little office with his cup of Lapsang Souchong tea and that morning’s Times newspaper.
Well, now the old so-and-so was six feet under and things were going to change around here. All this old rubbish was going to be cleared out come Saturday morning and thrown onto the rubbish heap where it belonged. First thing Monday morning, the joiners and the decorators, Messrs. Killjoy and Bland were coming round and starting work, turning this dark empty rabbit warren into a spick and span, tidy and clutter-free office for his new venture in accountancy.
“Let’s let a little light into the old place!” he thought, and he dashed across towards the door to open the dark, dusty old shutters, unfortunately completely neglecting to remember quite what he’d done with his hat.
His foot crashed straight through the crown and, fatally, his other foot became entangled with the brim, and, with an appalling and almost comic inevitability, he careered forward and crashed headlong into the solid oak doorpost of the shop that his father had run for so many long and happy years.
As his life ebbed away on that cold and lonely floor, young Noridel thought he could hear his father’s rasping laughter filling the whole room, just as it used to do whenever one of his wretched customers came in to share the latest gossip. His father had always tried to involve him with them somehow, in that way which he had hated so very, very much.
“Come and listen to this, Norrie!” he’d say, and, later on, whenever he’d failed to find much to amuse him in their pathetic little tales of their pathetic little lives, his father always used to ask “Would it kill you to show some interest?”
“Hah!” he’d retort, using the best of his accountant’s wit learnt from Mr. Rapscallion in his lighter moments, “I’d rather be earning some interest!” Then he would laugh his mirthless laugh to himself before adding “Show some interest? I’d rather die!”
And with that thought in what remained of his mind, that’s just what he did.
It was Mr. Killjoy who found him the following Monday morning, and he and old Mr. Bland never did quite work out what it was that he was smiling about.
Mr Zeus senior always wished he could some day append the shop name with '& Son' but it was never to be. The final demise of Noridel Zeus & Son made the second page of the local newspaper.
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