by Alan Agnew
Like a naughty schoolboy, I don’t take my eyes off the carpet, so I don’t see his fist swinging at me, striking my temple, the shock knocking me over rather than the ferocity. ‘You burned down my shed,’ he snorts standing over me.
Red mist explodes within me, I jump up and charge him backwards with my shoulder in his gut and my arms wrapped around him, gathering pace as he stumbles back onto the bookshelf not letting go of me. I wriggle an arm free and put in a couple of digs to his stomach. Still, he holds onto me, allowing no room for a proper swing.
‘You killed my brother,’ I shout to fuel my flurry of punches into his ribs. I wrestle free and stand up, taking a step back ready to launch at him properly this time. He lies at the foot of his bookcase, his face pure white, looking suddenly old and vulnerable. I tighten my fists, I grit my teeth, but he just lies there staring at me like a frightened animal trying to make sense of it all, his eyes lost.
‘What do you mean, Philip? I did not kill your brother. He committed suicide.’
I crouch down, my face in his. ‘And why was that Donald? You were abusing him,’ showing him my clenched fist. ‘You killed him, I read the papers about the police investigation, you killed him, I know about you.’ I don’t recognise my voice, a shrill fuelled by emotion, an outpouring of relief rather than aggression.
I slump down to the carpet, my knees giving way, the enormous weight I have been carrying lifted, all my moves played, blood draining from my body.
I hear the sirens. I imagine the neighbours gathering outside or at their windows, a scene building. The sirens are getting louder, fight or flight. I do not want any more regrets, I need to buy myself some time, and I stand to leave.
‘Philip wait. I would never do anything like that. I was fond of Jimmy. I would never have done that or anything to hurt him. You need to look closer to home. You were too young to understand Jimmy, and too young to know who your dad really was? Do you even know why your mum just upped and left like that?’ Donald spoke through gritted teeth, hiding behind his outstretched arm, surrendering, his eyes masked by fear.
My eyes are diverted, red and blue lights dancing all over the walls. Fight or Flight. I run out the patio door to the back garden and over the fence, not stopping, not looking back.
Chapter Twenty-One – 13 days after
I lie awake, much like the other nights. My conscience fights for attention against my memory. There’s a pungent smell of smoke on my hands, on my clothes, and now on the bedsheets. My eyes so dry. The guilt is suffocating. The image of the shed burned to the ground already haunting me. The flames, only the width of the scaffolding away from the house, and Donald lying on the floor. He must have thought I had gone mad.
I shut these images down, only for Donald’s parting shots to echo in my head. The ‘need to look closer to home’ and how I was ‘too young to understand Jimmy’ and ‘never knew who my dad was.’ The last statement is the hardest. I don’t know if he meant figuratively or literally. Was he not my dad at all? It would explain the distance he put between us after mum and I left, I was the child in the relationship, yet I could count on one hand how many times he came to visit, and I repaid this apathetic attitude in my later life. If he was not my dad, then what about Jimmy? I always thought we were similar, same interests and all, but maybe I was intentionally following in his footsteps by way of a tribute. I wander around the house, lost in my own life, drowning in doubt.
I was 11 years old when he died. Of course I did not understand him, but then neither did my parents, and if they did, they gave nothing away. Regardless, Donald knew my dad was hiding something, something so great it had something to do with Jimmy’s suicide and maybe mum leaving him. I believed him when he said he would never hurt Jimmy, I saw it in the whites of his eyes.
What if Jimmy wasn’t escaping Donald’s hold on him? What if he was escaping the holiday with us, the holiday with dad? In my mind, I keep going back to my childhood, wanting to dismiss this. Examining scene by scene, remembering it, turning it over, and looking for clues. My memory is blurred, photographs and stories I heard is all I have.
I stare at the window although I do not have to open the curtain to see the charcoaled remains of the shed and burnt sheet scrawled across the lawn. The mud covering the bottom of my jeans prompts the memory of me hiding in the woods last night after running from the scene. I crouched behind a tree, like an animal for hours, expecting to see a line of torches and sniffer dogs hunting down me down. I sheepishly snuck back to the house in the early hours, only when I was sure it was completely void of life.
I can hear voices outside, a car door closing igniting my speeding heartbeat. I prepare myself for the sight of a police car and officers walking to my door. I have no answers. I pull the curtain and breathe a sigh of relief as I watch the builders next door. They are knocking on Donald’s door; I tense, waiting to catch sight of him again. They bang again but no answer, they look under the plant pot, but I know there is nothing waiting for them. The older guy holds his phone against his ear and starts to throw his arms up in the air. If Donald is not in the house, where is he? And why did he not leave the key?
I go downstairs and put the kettle on. As I pass the front window, one of the builder’s talks on the phone, nodding only to himself. I open the window to try and listen, his usual boisterous tone frustratingly is turned right down. I need to know if it is Donald on the other end of the phone. I open the door and sheepishly wander over.
‘Hi there,’ I say unconvincingly. ‘I live just next door here, is there no sign of Donald today?’
The same older man turns around, his face badly pock marked and boasting a scar on his chin, he looks me up and down. ‘No mate, no sign, and we have to get the rendering done today before the new windows arrive, he was the one pushing for us to be finished by Wednesday.’
‘Finished by Wednesday?’ I repeat.
‘Yea mate, rendering today, new double-glazed windows in tomorrow and Wednesday we give a coat of paint, and we move onto the next job. Problem being, with him not around and that, we will have to push everything back.’ He checks his watch as people do when talking about any timeline, minute, hour or day.
Donald was telling the truth about it being only a small job, all this scaffolding for some new windows and painting. I tune back into our conversation and interrupt. ‘There was an incident last night, a fire in his back garden, he probably left in a hurry and forgot about you guys, what do you need access to the house for?’
He points his eyes to the sky holding his hand to his chin and glances to his colleagues. ‘What every man needs, tea, biscuits and a piss now and then, oh and in our case hot water to mix the plaster.’
‘I can do that.’
Suddenly, I am back in my kitchen making four cups of steaming hot tea but know it will take a great deal more than this to make it up to Donald, assuming I ever get the chance.
I sit down with my tea and stare at the one photograph of my dad in the house on a walking trip with the two teenage boys. I stare hard at my dad. Why not pictures of us? Could he really have driven Jimmy to such despair?
I keep receiving fleeting glimpses of a very different upbringing for us. I think hard about my childhood here, in this house. Vicky talked about the change in Jimmy, but there was also a change in my dad that summer before his death. We used to spend our weekends together as a family. When Jimmy got home from his paper round, we would sit down for breakfast together and plan our day. Jimmy always wanted to go to the zoo or the lido, I was happiest at the beach, and if mum or dad got a vote, it would be for visiting a town somewhere. Saturday night Jimmy and I could choose our dinner, usually chicken nuggets and microchips in front of the television. We had our routines on a Sunday too, but that meant mum and I shopping or doing some crafts together. Dad and Jimmy would be out the door straight after his paper round for his football match. Playing for the County meant some long drives to Hampshire or Sussex, and we wouldn’t see them until the evening
. If there was no game, they would drive over to Bournemouth for training.
Things changed gradually rather than a big bang. Jimmy started staying home alone on Saturdays, and I assumed because he was old enough to do so. He also handed down his paper round to me that summer, a combination of him being too tired for early mornings and my coming of age to start earning my own money. When Jimmy gave up football both at school and for his club, it meant Sundays had no routine or purpose. Mum and I continued our thing, but dad went stir-crazy, not knowing what to do with himself and even occasionally went to support the team even though Jimmy was not playing. Eventually, they asked him to stop.
I feel myself getting more agitated, too many questions and not enough answers. I send another request for subject access to ACRO to identify any information held on the Police National Computer (PNC) for my dad. I want to do the same for Jimmy but cannot find any identification for him, anywhere. There is no paperwork, no birth certificate, no old passport, no library card, not even a cycling proficiency certificate.
When I cleared out my mum’s possessions, I found only paperwork relating to me and had assumed Jimmy’s was kept in this house, after all, why would you need a birth certificate or papers for the deceased?
I search in my dad’s bedroom, looking in places where he would not want things found. At the back of his cupboard, the bottom of his sock drawer, behind his desk and under his bed. All I see is dust and old coins. I sit down on his bed, refusing to believe he only has one photograph in the whole house, of two random faces and none of Jimmy or me. I can think of no rational reason why.
Phoning Donald is a risk on so many different levels. He will be furious with me, and no doubt will be seeking justice for what I have done, maybe even question how I have his mobile number, but it is a risk I need to take. I find his old phone bill in my room and dial the number. It goes to straight to voicemail, and I decide not to leave a message. The builder from next door yells a greeting as he walks in the house holding three empty cups, ‘Hello neighbour, any chance of a refill?’ I put the kettle on, glad for the distraction.
He wanders nosily around my downstairs and stands in front of the broken internal door leading to the garage that I kicked down only last night. ‘Eh up,’ he says, ‘someone has a temper on him I see.’ I shuffle uncomfortably, not quite ready to tell some builder my life story and how it arrived at me having to kick down a door in my deceased dad’s house.
‘The lock was broken.’ I offer, protesting my innocence against his grinning smile.
‘Bet it gives a terrible draft, I can put a temporary solution up if you like, take some of that plywood you have stacked on the beams up there,’ pointing to the garage ceiling. ‘I could just cut it and block the frame for you, no charge apart from a cup of tea or four.’
‘Ok thanks that would be good.’ Good to block out the images I see every time I pass.
He disappears to his van and returns a few moments later with a saw and ladder, positioning it under the garage beams. A couple of laboured steps up and he is wrestling with a big piece of plywood.
‘Hey mate, come and grab the other end will you.’ He pushes it out from the grasp of the beams and tilts it downward, sliding it slowly towards my outstretched arms. As it drops towards me, I notice a dark shape sliding along the top of it heading straight for me, with my arms holding the wood all I can do is turn my head as it hits me on the side of my face.
‘Shit, sorry I didn’t realise something was stored on top.’ He gabs the wood from my arms as I hold the offending item. A cardboard box, big enough for a toaster, too small for a microwave, taped up but with scars to show it has been opened and secured many times before. Well and truly hidden out of sight in the beams of a locked garage.
Chapter Twenty-Two – 13 days after
I take the box upstairs away from the prying eyes and the running commentary of the builder. In contrast to the top of the beams and plywood which hid it, there is little dust on it. I slice open the brown masking tape and gingerly open the cardboard flaps. I need both hands to lift out the stack of photographs, some secured in frames, most loosely thrown together which escape my grasp with ease and spill onto the bed.
The photographs are of all shapes and sizes, some boasting a reddish-brown sepia tone, but mostly in black and white. All presented within a delicate white border, damaged by creases and stains, frayed and curled at the edges. Staring up at me are different faces, each expressionless, and carrying the same worn look. They are from a different era. Nobody is posing or wanting admiration. They are there to be read, each carrying a story. I look hard, wanting to recognise some of the subjects. I pull one close, a well-dressed lady, smiling at the camera in front of a line-up of other women, each sporting the same exaggerated hairstyle. It could be my dad’s mother, much taller and younger than my only reference which was a picture in her later years that sat by the telephone, draped in pearls with a feather boa holding a lit Sobranie.
Eccentric till the day she died, he used to say.
Another picture shows a group of men outside a factory, sporting the same crew cut hairstyle and lined up like a team photo. I hold closer to me a different picture, grainy in quality and fainter in brightness. A row of houses, grass verges and a street empty of cars. Standing in the centre is a boy holding up a bike too big for him with two girls looking on. This could be my dad.
Nestling on top of a glass frame is a thin and tattered envelope, the weight transferring to the bottom corner as I pick it up. I pull out a polished bronze medal. It has a four-pointed star nestled underneath a crown, about 50mmm in height. It sits comfortably in the palm of my hand, but its weight is noticeable. The obverse has two crossing swords with blades pointing upwards set within a wreath of oak leaves. Inscribed on a banner across the blades is ‘1914-1915.’ Above the crown is a half-inch diameter ring that would have held a ribbon. I keep my palm flat and still, staring down at history, willing for its story to be told. I flick through the old photographs once again, finding no reference to an army uniform.
I heard only about my grandad’s job in the factory, his gambling and his womanising. It does not add up. Where did this come from? And then the image hits me. Of Donald’s study, and the frames on the wall, the collection of medals and badges. His endless stories of the war come flooding back. He spoke with pride and passion that any son would have, had it been their father. I remember the empty display case. Something was once there, taking pride of place, but now had been discarded into a desk draw, through guilt and regret from losing it. Or having it stolen. My cheeks flame red.
Whatever happened between my dad and Donald in the past, culminated in him making a calculated decision to take from him, and not for monetary gain, but to cause the maximum amount of distress. How could he have been so callous? But then Donald called it; I didn’t know who my dad really was.
I pick up the box of remaining photographs, and poise to throw it hard against the wall out of anger and fear for what I may find next. I hold it above my head and take some deep breaths and think about Jimmy. It is Jimmy that I want answers for, my worry is that I will have to reveal who my dad was to find them. I push the old black and white photographs to one side and begin to sort through more recent pictures, many faded in colour and presented in cheap frames.
The first picture is of my mum and dad, myself and Jimmy. We are sitting at a table in a restaurant, my dad with a brown shirt, mum in a flowery dress, Jimmy with an Arsenal football shirt. I am sporting a Karate kid t-shirt, we all had napkins on our heads and beaming smiles. We look like a family.
There are a couple of others of dad and friends, work colleagues, and teammates from cricket. In amongst the pictures, almost hidden, is an invoice looking entirely out of place amongst the photographs. The headed paper reads ‘Master & Taylor Solicitors’. My eyes scan to the bottom, to the total fee of £17,211, for services simply labelled ‘legal representation’. It is dated September 1985. That is a lot of money in those days
, and as with all events around this time, I work out how far away from Jimmy’s death, just seven months. I Google the solicitor’s name but find no reference.
I leave the invoice to one side promising to return to it and continue with the pile of photographs, becoming brighter in colour but no more familiar. My dad holding a young child, with hair much blonder than either Jimmy or I ever had. The hair flops into his eyes, his skin pale, and he is wearing only a pair of blue shorts. Another one with the same child, though in his arms this time, and another with him on his knee, all taken on different days but across a similar timeframe. The child looks about four or five years old. My dad is maybe around forty.
There are lots of pictures of the same boy standing alone looking straight at the camera, in parks, on the beach, in gardens, in a restaurant, on a sofa, on a bed. One of the pictures is of the boy naked, holding a towel above his head in a room I do not recognise. Other photographs show a different child with longer blonde hair, similar age, similar pictures, and the same locations. A final couple of pictures are mixed in perspective. The children are together this time and further from the camera, more natural-looking like they did not know the picture was being taken. My clammy hands set the photos down. The saliva has gone from my mouth and my mind racing with possible explanations: none realistic, and all demanding further explanation.
I remember the police visiting the house daily in the days and weeks after Jimmy’s death, hushed voices and closed doors again. It is alien to see pictures of my dad with other children, young children. And the invoice from solicitors, legal representation for or from what? I sit at the window; the time has escaped me and sky darkening outside. Again I think back to my fourteen years we lived here together, my mind searching for clues. Maybe Jimmy knew something, and maybe my mum knew something. Neither are here to ask. But Donald knows something, and even Marie from the children’s home knows something.