by Peter Hey
Joe offered the neatly folded handkerchief from his breast pocket. ‘So, tell him to get lost.’
‘And how exactly do I get back to England?’
‘Stay in Havana. Join the party.’
Pat dabbed her eyes and then stared at him accusingly. ‘Just like that.’
‘No, seriously, sugar. I didn’t catch most of your conversation in the doorway back there, but I did hear you speaking Spanish. Sounded good to me. And you’ve got class. Americans love an English accent. You can type, for chrissakes! I can get you a job in the hotel tomorrow. Like tomorrow.’ He snapped his fingers. ’Just think of it, year-round sunshine, daiquiris by the ocean every evening. On your days off you could drive to Varadero. Now that is a beach. You’ve never seen a sea so blue. What do you say?’
Pat hesitated as she weighed up whether she was being sold a silly fantasy by a man she had just met and who was simply trying to get her into bed.
‘Surely I’d need paperwork, a work visa or something?’ she countered, wanting to sound rational.
Joe laughed. ‘Dollface! I told you, this is Cuba. You just have to know who needs to be slipped a few dollars. And trust me, he and I are old amigos. Look, I know you’re worried I might be fooling around with you, but on my mother’s life, I’m giving it to you straight.’
Pat studied the tall, attractive American with the slicked-back hair receding at the temples and wondered what she might be getting herself into. It could be the next chapter in a great adventure or another step on the descent into shameful ruin. But the rum was making her feel brave, and she found herself visualising the scene where she told that grey-haired old pig, John Carter, to take a long, running jump back to boring suburbia and offices and filing cabinets and the clouds and the cold and the rain of England.
She smiled at Joe. ‘Get me another drink and I might think about it,’ she said.
The icon
As usual, Jane tried to commit the route to memory before setting off. The online map made it look easy: a short hop on the M1 then off at the junction with the A42. The A42 became the M42 and cut a diagonal path across central England, taking her virtually all the way. She would only need her phone’s satnav for the last fiddly bit around the back roads of Solihull. And these definitely looked liked roads rather than streets, with a few avenues, crescents and drives thrown in. Jane only knew the area by its reputation as the most affluent suburb of Britain’s second city. The satellite picture offered confirmation of large detached properties set in expansive gardens. She tried to get a street-side view of the house itself, but there was a gap in the coverage for that section of Willowbrook Lane. It suggested one or more of the well-healed residents objected to the precise details of their success being exposed to the prying eyes of the Internet.
Jane knew the M42 was apt to clog around Birmingham, but she timed her journey to avoid the peaks and managed to maintain motorway speeds nearly all the way. Just over an hour after leaving Nottingham, she pulled up in a quiet, curving thoroughfare lined with mature trees and leafy, manicured gardens. From what she could see, there seemed little, if any, repetition in the design of the houses, each presumably being the commission of a different architect. Most had a degree of weather-softened maturity, though one or two had clearly been erected in the last few years. These tended to be closer together, as if single plots had been bulldozed and split to allow developers to maximise on their investments.
Number 98 had a steeply pitched roof, asymmetric high gables and a pair of precariously tall brick chimneys. The front door was recessed into a wide, arched porch, and the walls were mostly rendered and painted in a yellowy off-white, slightly discoloured in places. The same patina spread to a single-storey double garage that had been built on the side at some later stage. Its roofline ended in an upward curve that tried to flow into the rest of the building, but it still looked blocky and incongruous, the design of someone whose talents were centred on laying concrete and bricks rather than aesthetics.
Jane guessed the garage dated from the 1960s whilst the house could be anywhere from the 1920s through to the 1950s. It was certainly substantial and imposing, but compared to its pristine neighbours, it was looking somewhat faded. Perhaps it had been occupied a long time, and its owners’ enthusiasm for maintenance had waned such that they were happy for it to age in sympathy with themselves. The garden, too, was just a simple square of lawn. Jane imagined it being quickly mown by a professional gardener in a spare ten minutes between more creative assignments in the elaborate landscapes to either side.
Jane climbed up and out of the Mazda and made her way into the porch. She pressed the bell but didn’t hear it ring. Nonetheless, a blurred figure immediately appeared through the frosted glass panes set alongside the heavy oak door. It swung open to reveal a tall, well-built man.
‘You must be Jane,’ he said in a mellow voice accompanied by a broad, welcoming smile.
Her initial impression was of the benevolent authority of a bishop or a headmaster. His features were agreeably handsome and suited the high bald dome that sat on top of a semicircle of closely cropped grey hair. He still retained a healthy summer tan, and she found herself attracted to him despite an appreciable, though uncertain, age difference. The face and stance said early fifties; the hairline argued for sixty.
Jane returned the smile. ‘Mr Shaw? It’s a pleasure to meet you.’
They exchanged a firm handshake and Jane was led into a large front room. The furnishings matched the house: expensive, comfortable, but tired. Everything was, however, immaculately clean and tidy. Jane decided Mrs Shaw, assuming there was a Mrs Shaw, was kept busy, and then chided herself for being sexist. And on second glance, there was an emptiness to the order that Jane recognised. Here was someone who might well live alone.
‘Please call me Alan,’ he said, flashing his teeth again. ‘And thank you for driving over. Were the roads behaving themselves?’
‘Absolutely. I made good time. Almost dead on an hour.’
He glanced out of the window. ‘You did well. I must say, I like your car. The MX-5 is supposed to be great fun to drive. And what a colour!’
‘Green isn’t to everyone’s taste,’ said Jane, noting the noncommittal nature of the comment, ‘but I love it. I’m a bit of a sucker for bright colours, I’m afraid.’
‘So I see.’ His eyes were back in the room and focused on her orange jacket and teal trousers.
Jane suspected she was being gently ribbed, but took no offence and was happy to continue the small talk. ‘You live in a lovely area. The houses are wonderful. Millionaires’ Row by the look of it.’
’My grandfather bought this place way, way back. He bought well, but that’s the family business – estate agencies. As everyone knows, location, location, location is the maxim and it’s seldom wrong.’ He pointed a finger at Jane as a tangential thought occurred to him. ‘I liked your windows, by the way.’
Jane replied with a puzzled stare.
‘On your website,’ he explained. ‘The picture of you in front of your house – I’m assuming it’s your house – the canopy over the bay is very unusual. It sort of floats separately.’
Jane’s mind quickly backtracked to the new image she had asked Tommy to upload. Whilst less flattering, it had seemed more businesslike than the previous holiday snap. For natural light, it had been taken outside her front door.
‘They’re not a very practical design,’ she said. ‘My grandfather – funnily enough, I live in my grandparents’ old house too – he had quite a few problems with leaks over the years. I’ve never seen similar windows elsewhere.’
‘That’s what I thought.’ Alan was now beaming with enthusiasm. ‘Being in the trade, domestic architecture is a bit of an obsession of mine. I wondered if they were a traditional local feature. I even went as far as contacting an old Nottingham colleague. He said they were pretty much a one-off. He even knew the street, would you believe? He sold a house along from yours a few months back. “Uniq
ue, character bays” was what he put in the blurb, though he’d heard they suffered from damp. You know what we estate agents—' Alan halted himself abruptly. ‘Oops! I’m getting over-excited,’ he said. ‘I told you I was obsessed. You didn’t drive all this way to talk about windows. And I haven’t even offered you a drink...’
Alan retreated to the kitchen, and Jane had begun scanning the room when she was distracted by the sound of voices outside. A procession of nursery-aged children, holding hands and wearing hi-vis smocks, was making its way along the road. At the head was a young woman with a prodigious chest pushing a trolley contraption in which six toddlers were seated in three rows of two. It looked heavy and Jane could only presume the lady propelling it had muscles as well developed as her more obvious assets. At the rear were two other adult assistants. One, unexpectedly a man, was carrying a little girl in his arms. For some reason, her sad, rather plain face made Jane feel broody. It was not an emotion she wanted to entertain but it took hold. She and Dave had talked of having kids, but her growing instability had seemed to make it impossible. But what of the future? Was it fair to even contemplate? The mad bitch was only in remission. What damage might she transfer to an infant mind?
The group disappeared out of sight but Jane continued staring out of the window. Fortunately, her melancholy was interrupted when Alan walked back in. He was carrying a tray with two coffees and a plate of dark-chocolate biscuits. Jane accepted her mug and decided she needed to get down to business.
‘Thank you for your email, Alan. You said you wanted help tracing your mother’s family tree?’
‘That’s right,’ he replied, sitting back down in his chair. ‘My mother and I were very close. She passed away just last year, and I was watching that family history programme on TV recently. I realised I was completely in the dark about my own background. My mother was away a lot when I was young, so I lived here with my grandparents...’ He didn’t notice Jane’s eyes narrow and carried on talking. ‘...but I don’t even know where they were from originally. Well, I seem to remember it was somewhere on the south coast. Southend? No, that’s up in Essex, isn’t it?’ He shook his head. ‘You see what I mean? I don’t know their parents’ names or anything about them. And now I’ve sold the business and taken early retirement, I’ve got the time and money to look into it.’ He stroked the side of his mug but didn’t pick it up. ‘I don’t need to go back that far, but I’d just like to find out what made us Shaws who we are. Or were.’
‘It’s always of interest for future generations as well,’ said Jane as she reached down into her bag for a pad and pen. ‘The sooner you start the research, the better.’
‘I’ve no children, I’m afraid. I was married for a while, but she left me for someone else,’ volunteered Alan with no apparent bitterness. ‘She was a little younger than me, and I think that was probably a mistake. You live and learn.’
Jane hadn’t been consciously fishing, but her intuitions seemed confirmed. Pen in hand, she began questioning in earnest.
‘So, what were your mother’s full name and date of birth?’
‘Patricia Elizabeth Shaw. Second of December, 1935. Born here in Solihull.’
‘What were your grandparents – I assume you’ve been talking about your mother’s parents – what were they called?’
‘John and Birdie Shaw. He always called her Birdie – she was actually christened Elizabeth, though I don’t know what her maiden name was.’
‘Middle names?’
‘Not that I’m aware of, but then again…’
Jane gently tapped her pen against the paper. ‘Do you have any certificates? Birth, marriage, death? Any old files of documents or letters?’
Alan frowned apologetically. ‘I looked but... I had a big clear out after my mother passed. Everything seemed so painful.’
‘How about other relatives we could talk to?’
‘We were always such a tiny family. My grandmother couldn’t have more kids, just my mother. And, in turn, she just had me. No siblings, no cousins when I was growing up. My grandparents did occasionally talk about their own brothers and sisters, but it was such a long time ago. I’m not sure if I ever met any of them. There might have been a Bill and a Mary, but who knows?’
Jane jotted down what she was being told and pondered the feasibility of working from such a limited base.
Alan read the concern on her face. ‘Sorry, I’m not being very helpful, am I? Nothing like a challenge, eh?’
‘What about your father’s side?’ said Jane, groping for something more concrete.
‘Ah, now that’s something else.’ Alan’s expression lit up again. ‘If you could get to the bottom of that, I’d be a very happy man. But we really do have nothing to go on there.’
‘In what way?’ said Jane, as diplomatically as she could.
‘It’s a long story. I’ll try to give you the abridged version.’ Alan leant back in his chair and twisted his head towards a bookcase built into an alcove at the side of the room. ‘My mother was rather headstrong, particularly when she was young. In her early twenties, she ran off to see the world and landed up in Havana. That’s Cuba, obviously.’ He looked back at Jane. ‘Never been there myself, how about you?’
‘I had a holiday there with my husband a few years ago. Ex-husband. Pretty exciting place.’
‘Well, it was even more exciting when my mother was there. Late 1950s, the time of the Castro revolution.’
‘Was she caught up in it?’
There were two photograph frames on the bookcase, one obscuring the other, certainly from where Jane sat. Alan stood, reached for the one at the back and passed it over.
‘Wow!’ said Jane. ‘Is that who I think it is?’
‘That’s the one and only Che Guevara,’ confirmed Alan with obvious pride. ‘My understanding is that it was taken on the 2nd or 3rd of January, 1959. President Batista had fled the country on New Year’s Eve, and Che led the rebel troops into Havana a couple of days later. Castro was still at the other end of Cuba.’
Jane studied the image, which was in the crisp black and white of a professional news photographer. There was the unmistakable face that had adorned countless posters and T-shirts, and was still to be seen all over Cuba: the revolutionary comandante, complete with iconic black beret, long hair and patchy beard. Jane had seen other pictures of him where he appeared somewhat burly, but here he was decidedly gaunt and it suited him. He was in a large room full of people, many of whom were soldiers in military fatigues. His left arm was cradled in a sling, but with his right he appeared to be handing something over to a young woman, whose eyes suggested she too was swept away by his charisma and good looks.
‘That’s not your mother, is it?’ said Jane.
‘That’s my mum alright.’
Alan handed over the second photo frame. It held another, more amateurish, monochrome image, this time depicting two women standing outside a building. Their heavy coats said they were not in the year-round heat of the Caribbean. One of the women looked older than the other and was instantly recognisable as the girl with Che, albeit aged by several years.
‘That’s my favourite picture of her,’ added Alan as he sat back down. ‘You know, it’s how I remember her growing up. As I said, she only came home at weekends and, well, I really looked forward to seeing her face, that face, walking up the garden path.’
‘She was very attractive,’ said Jane distantly. She was feeling a growing bond with the only child who had been raised by grandparents while his single mother was ‘away’, seemingly putting her own life first. That was Jane’s story, though her emotions towards her own mother were rather more difficult. She envied Alan the warmth that was apparent in his voice and decided not to share their connection.
‘She was pretty, wasn’t she?’ Alan had picked up a biscuit and used it to point at the earlier photograph taken in Havana. ‘So the question is, who was my father? And, as you’ve guessed already, the embarrassing truth is that I don’
t know. Well, I’m not embarrassed. Too old and too ugly to fret about that kind of thing. I know I’m half Cuban. Or maybe not...’ He tapped the biscuit in the air. ‘My mother came home pregnant in 1961, refusing to say who the father was. My grandparents were always angry about it and told people he’d died in the revolution. But towards the end of my mother’s life – she developed Alzheimer’s; it was very sad – I asked her again who he was. Maybe I thought it was my last chance of getting an answer. And she pointed at that picture and she said, “He’s there. You’ve been looking at him all your life.” Or something like that. And then she clammed up again.’
‘Che Guevara was your father?’ The incredulity was undisguised in Jane’s voice.
Alan finally took a small bite from the biscuit and swallowed before answering. ‘Who knows? He had a reputation as a ladies’ man, I think, and there’s just one other piece of evidence…’
He gestured towards a glass display cabinet that sat on the far end on the bookcase.
Jane leant forward. ‘That caught my eye when I came in. It’s a small-calibre Beretta, if I’m not mistaken.’
Alan nodded. ‘I’m impressed.’
Jane grimaced. ‘I used to be a policewoman. Not wild about guns. Sorry to sound boring, but it has been deactivated, I hope?’
Alan nodded again, this time more vigorously. ‘Don’t worry. My mother was a pillar of the local community. She was on the council, did police liaison, neighbourhood watch, all sorts of things. She wouldn’t want to be found with an illegal firearm in the house.’
Jane settled back in her chair. ‘So the story of the gun is?’
‘Look again at the picture of Che,’ said Alan. ‘He’s giving something to my mother. If you put a magnifying glass on it, you can just about see it’s a pistol. And, according to my mother, it’s this one.’ He let the information sink in before continuing. ‘Now, just because he gave her a gun, that doesn’t mean she and he… Well, it’s circumstantial evidence at the very best. And that, I’m afraid, is what it will have to remain. The identity of my father was lost forever when my mother died.’