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The set-up: Mick Strong, patriarch and he knows it, has bought himself a LifeTime projection for his 75th birthday. This tells him when he's going to die. He's also bought them for his daughter, Michaela, his grandchildren, Steve and Paula, and his 11-year-old great-grandson, Will. He's banned them from opening their projections before their next birthday. Not all the family are as thrilled by the gift as Will. The extended Strong family are about to have their relationships tested to the limit, because the clock is already ticking for them all...
The Setting: North Norfolk, UK, and Utah, USA.
Meet Mick: 75-years-old and grumpy as hell. GP, family patriarch, font of all knowledge, has an opinion on everything, never afraid to voice it. A bit of a 'traditionalist' - but can surprise you.
Mick puffs on his cigar and basks in the limelight: an attention-seeking child with a captive audience, a badly tuned violin, and a dozen numbers in his repertoire.
Before even removing his coat, Mick picks up the telephone and puts in a request for a part-time locum to start ASAFP.
Mick Strong was born in the last century and never agreed to there ever being another one. He thinks Facebook is a photograph album, TikTok is what his grandfather clock does, and Twitter is the sound a certain type of bird makes. He probably knows which one; no doubt he can do a perfect imitation using nothing more than a blade of grass and a deep breath.
Mick is as au fait with TikTok as he is with the surface of Saturn. Wouldn't know Twitter if it shat on his head.
He hates being ordered to 'enjoy' by waiters, and the hideous modern tic of writing thanx and gr8. What does she have on her silly head? It's his birthday, not a bloody wedding.
'It's what I want,' he asserts. He doesn't need to say, and what I want, I usually get, but the thought goes through Michaela's mind with the inevitability of the last car on a speeding rollercoaster.
His family stare at their packages like they've ordered Fifty Shades on Amazon - but received 101 Dalmations by mistake.
Would Mick listen? You'd have had as muck luck expecting him to buy a ticket for Glastonbury.
Mick was anti political correctness before it went mad. Come to think of it, he was anti political correctness before anyone had ever heard of it.
"We'll cover the cost of that, of course," Adam adds, as if Mick's joined some gilded elite whose appearance at prestigious international conferences is essential: Greta Thunberg, Mark Zuckerberg, Mick Strongberg.
Meet Michaela: Local schoolteacher, elective single mum twice over, 'women's libber', vegetarian eco-warrior - always up for a spot of verbal jousting with Mick.
'Has he gone mad?' Michaela snaps, ripping off her fascinator and crushing it like it's at least partly to blame. Had it been a bird, even a medium-sized one, like a duck or a goose, death would have been instant.
Michaela has enough experience to know how to nudge even the most contrary child onto her wavelength by Christmas. After that, her philosophy is simple: Treat them like kids, behave like a teacher, laugh like a drain when anything goes wrong.
The... look, no doctors are involved in this. It's a stir-crazy American website taking Mick's money and telling a seventy-five-year-old man that he's probably going to die in less than a year. Nostradamus would've been cheaper and probably as accurate. I could've done it myself for a fiver with a deck of cards and the dregs of a cup of Earl Grey.
Michaela calls Mick's house a 'mistake' behind his back, and has been describing it as 'lovely when you've finished it' to his face for the past thirty years. She only discovered that double glazing, central heating and fitted carpets had been invented when she moved out to go to university in the early 1990s.
Meet Paula: Michaela's daughter. Local Norfolk girl, part-time pharmacist, married to Adam, desperate to get pregnant. The apple - well, let's be honest, the whole fruit bowl of Mick's eye.
She's not really a high heeler. She can do them for an event like today, likes the feel of them with a pretty dress. But, having to walk! Gravel car park? Jesus!
Paula's blue eyes widen, Disney-cartoon-like - the look of shock, fear even, is what he's dreaded more than anything. He knows she won't get angry, knows she'll understand, but for all that, he feels it's his fault, his side of the bargain falling apart.
"I'm lounging by the pool with a Tom Collins in one hand and a Jackie in the other."
A hundred and sixty-five thousand? Paula has no clue how much money that really is. She knows nobody who earns that much. Are they now rich? Rich like a bank manager? Or a footballer? Is she now a sort of non-footballing WAG?
"I'll get it," Mick snaps, grabbing the bannister. "Whereabouts?"
"It's either in my sexy knickers drawer, or it's in my sexy bras drawer. Can't remember which, you might have to have a rummage around in both."
Mick stops on the third step...
Meet Adam: Alaskan, statistician at the LifeTime Corporation, keen for a quiet life - about to get a bit of a shock on that front...
Adam glances behind Paula into the lounge where his Springsteen collection includes his favourite, 'The Promised Land', and their wedding photos threaten him with promises about to be broken.
Adam knows Paula's rarely able to feel anger towards him. No matter what he does, and it's never much, his sad brown eyes and floppy mane of uncontrollable hair give him a boyish appearance that softens her anger every time.
He doesn't deal well with her crying. It doesn't happen often, which, like death, only makes it worse when it does.
Adam's insides are all in the down elevator, sinking fast, producing that queasy feeling you get when you mix grape and grain, a lot of both, bolt a quick kebab, and then pile onto the dodgems.
Meet Steve: Michaela's son. Local Norfolk boy, married to Cathy, extremely busy odd-job man, keen gardener, sceptical about all things on the internet, especially the LifeTime Corporation.
Steve is particularly religious about his cycling and squash; he does twenty K at least once a week with his running club; and is mid-table in the squash league.
Meet Cathy: In charge of their rambling, ramshackle 'homestead' and surrounding allotments. When she has a moment she'll start her novel.
Cathy laughs lightly, steers the conversation carefully, an MI5 spook working over an unsuspecting Joe.
Steve and Cathy might think they are living The Good Life; Paula and Adam see it as more akin to a rerun of Steptoe and Son.
All the parenting handbooks she used to devour were useless on this point. It was all feeding and teething and potty training. They all stopped before they got to the How do you bury a great-grandparent bit.
Meet Will: Son of Steve and Cathy. Mick's number one fan.
His concentration rarely lasts longer than a party popper.
Meet Jaz: Adam's boss at the LifeTime Corp.
Jaz seems to have hit the fashion tone perfectly without seeming to try: his jacket says Clooney in a coffee ad, the open-necked shirt is all Gosling gone La La, while the delivery is Obama in playful mood - when you think he might be about to sing.
Jaz puts his baseball mitt of a hand on the back of Adam's neck and gives it a firm squeeze - the way you might maul the Christmas turkey, as you wait for the oven to warm up.
Click on the cover to buy the book - before it's too late...
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