Nelson Vs Napoleon

“Just so you know where we are, I’m pretty sure your mother is seeing someone else.”
I took a puff on my ciggie, looked at him and then looked back at the fish in the pond fighting over their dinner. “ Don’t be silly Dad, She’s not that stupid.”
My father was sitting across from me on the home-made garden furniture, Nelson’s dust falling gently from his hair. He looked longingly at the cigarette but didn’t ask, instead telling me;
“She’s been going to the gym”
“She’s always gone to the gym”
“Never this much. And she’s enjoying her job!”
“Isn’t that what we wanted Dad? It means she might not re-arrange herself out of this one.”
“I suppose”
We sat in silence for a while; I kept studying the fish and finished my ciggie while my father glowered at my mother’s back through the kitchen window.
“How’s Nelson?”
His face brightened a little. “Going well for once, just finished sanding him down and I’ll be hopefully getting around to painting him this afternoon. Those two…” he said, nodding to where my brother had now joined my mother in the kitchen, “insist on calling him Napoleon and its really starting to piss me off.”
My father was actually restoring a bust of Napoleon but as he had bought it as Nelson, who was I to argue?
“You know what those two are like…”
“Yeah always making sure I’m bloody wrong all the time! Even when I’m right. Just be glad you don’t have to live with them. I’m sure she planned it though…”
“What? Nelson and Napoleon?”
“Don’t be stupid, the divorce.”
“I don’t think so Dad”
My father had been talking about “the divorce” to me for about ten years so even if Mum had planned it, which was unlikely, he’d certainly had plenty of warning.
“And you and that bloody dog started it off”
That’s right; I was to blame for my parent’s failing marriage, me and a dog. A dead dog at that. He continued his little rant; “If you had just kept your bloody mouth shut, we wouldn’t be in this position”
“Likewise if you had at least been open to the idea of getting a dog…”
“I hate the bloody creatures! They shit everywhere”
“Mum’s always loved them”
“I don’t care, I’m not having one. Ever.”
“OK Dad”
No use arguing so I lit another cigarette instead.
“I looked up divorce lawyers the other day”
“I know Dad”
“Just keeping you in the loop”
“I know”
“If she moves into the spare room that’s it.”
“So you’ve told me”
We sat silently, me smoking and him staring at the ciggie again. Finally he cracked:
“Gis a drag?” He asked, slipping back into his Hemel Hempstead speak for a moment.
“No Dad”
He pinched it out of my hands anyway and grinning he took a huge pull in victory. I left him with his prize, the white dust still hanging in the air around him, and went back inside.
“Your father is the most stubborn, pig-headed, uncompromising man I’ve ever met!”
I sighed; “Yes mum…”