Home for Truths: The stand-out domestic suspense thriller for 2020

by Alan Agnew

  My head tries to make sense of everything I am hearing. Part of me wants to run out of the room, and part of me wants to stand up and fight him. How dare he accuse my dad fathering another child and Jimmy of giving up, neither are here to defend themselves. I stare again at the clock, expecting no answers.

  The sobering silence sits uncomfortably between us. I search internally again. I want him to be right. I recognise my dad in everything he has said so far about seeking revenge, he would have felt threatened and would have chosen to fight back every time, especially if he also thought he had been wronged in some way. My dad’s world was black or white, full of extremes, the spaghetti was the best he had ever tasted, and the man in the shop was the rudest in the world. He would have taken Donald’s quiet word as an attack on him and our family, my dad’s role as protector compromised.

  With Jimmy too. My memories of holidays and playing football in the garden are mostly derived from photographs or stories my mum told me. My memories being her memories. Truth is I remember very little of us playing together apart from a couple of times in the garden and running the gauntlet of Donald’s accusing stare to get our ball back. What I do remember is him locked in his room, the tantrums, being dragged to the table for dinner, and always being the primary concern to mum and dad. I recall again his argument with dad at the dinner table the time he wanted to give up football. It was not the first time, but they have morphed to one in my memory.

  It is time for me to leave. I notice Donald is beginning to tire, his speech slurring, and the frequency of the medication being brought in by nurses is increasing. ‘Thank you Donald, for sharing with me the past, and thank you for not pressing charges.’

  I shake his hand, his surprisingly weak.

  ‘See you back at Hatch End,’ he replies. I notice for the first time his hollow eyes, displaying every one of his 75 years.

  I sit in my car, hit by a wave of melancholy, and wanting to talk this through with someone who knows my history, that can me make sense of it all. My address book delivers a shortlist of one which I dismiss instantly. I drive home with the light fading, thinking what lengths my dad would have gone to protect his family. I know Donald did not tell me everything, he thought too carefully before he spoke, but I know it was severe enough to prompt a police caution for my dad’s reaction. I stop at a red light on the edge of Baysworth and hear the rhythmic thunder sound of the church bells ringing, triggering me like an alarm clock the image of Vicky. I take a sharp left to drive up to the church.

  The church looks different at night, less inviting with the darkness only sporadically interrupted by candles illuminating small patches of the stained glass. People are talking in their private huddles. I shy away from their glances and sit on a pew, tuning back into the chimes of the bells ringing. My trance is broken by footsteps echoing off the stone floor, and I open my eyes to see a dark shadow approaching me, blocking out the faint candlelight.

  Only when he lowers himself to my eye level that his face lights up. ‘Good evening Phil, lovely to see you, what brings you here?’

  ‘Good evening Vicar, I was honestly just passing.’

  The vicar sits next to me, his eyes matching his black cloak shining in the dim light. ‘Have you been able to paint a picture of your father and find the clarity you were looking for?’ He speaks so softly, so pronounced.

  I smile, but only internally. ‘I have been unearthing more information and insights, although to be honest, the more I know, the less I know, I am not sure I will ever understand him.’

  The vicar casts a rue smile. ‘I know what you mean. Couples can be married and live together for fifty years and say the same thing about each other. Just be careful Phil, the character you will learn about is only through the eyes of others, and a good deed to one man can be an insult to another. I understand you did not have a chance to speak with Reg yet?’

  Reg. ‘Unfortunately not. I missed him at the Children’s home, but I did speak with the coordinator there who I am certain only told me what I wanted to hear.’

  The vicar clasps his hands together. ‘I am not naïve Phil, I know when people talk to me about their problems, or when they have concerns for others, they often sugar-coat or exaggerate the facts to channel a response. But, following our chat after the funeral I have been asking after your father, he was respected. Determined to put right some of his previous wrongs maybe? Do not give up on him.’

  We are suddenly ambushed by a gaggle of ladies wanting the vicar’s attention, so I stand and head towards the door. The bells have silenced, and suddenly there is a hive of activity in the church with people buzzing about. From across the hall, my attention is drawn to a big wave towards me, half in greeting and half trying to get my attention.

  Vicky walks over with her exaggerated smile. ‘You came, oh how embarrassing, but what did you think?’

  ‘Well I thought you were great, but a couple of the old boys over there were a little off-key at times.’

  She giggles and playfully slaps my arm. ‘So you are a bell ringing expert now. Listen, we usually all sit and have a cup of tea and a natter now, but do you fancy going to the pub for something a little stronger?’

  We sit down in the old-fashioned country pub, no television, no music, no fruit machines. Upon her request, I tell Vicky everything that Donald has said to me from his hospital bed, grateful she did not ask why he was in hospital in the first place.

  ‘So how do you feel about it?’ She asks.

  I think back over the day and the upheaval of emotions that it has brought. I don’t know if I can put into words everything that I’ve felt today, but as Vicky continues to watch me in her encouraging way, I open my mouth and feel the words begin to tumble out. ‘Exhausted. Guilty about digging up the past. But a sense of relief because as a family, we never talked.’

  Vicky lays her hand on mine, the slightest touch to show her encouragement. ‘When I was older and living with my mum, we never talked. And it has only been the last few weeks when I have been drip-fed these insights about Jimmy and my dad that I have realised how important it has always been to me. Until now, I always accepted my past for what it was, out of bounds, a closed book.’

  ‘So digging up your past has been helpful, some clarity.’

  ‘Now I know there was no blame for what Jimmy did and my dad passed away with dignity. Without facing up to this, I have longed for this reassurance, to rid my guilt. I have never been alone but have always been lonely. I have felt lonely with supposedly the people whom I should have loved more than anything else, my mum when growing up, my best mates and then latterly my wife. Caroline was an open book, her past, her memories, her feelings. I just could never relate to this. I always shied away from the past and avoided talking about my family or my childhood or my feelings.’

  Vicky takes my hands in hers and tilts her head gently to one side. ‘What you went through as a child was traumatic, something no child should ever have to experience, and on top of that your parents’ divorce and moving to a new town, it shows real tenacity and resolve that you are not a total basket case Phil Jenkins.’

  Like setting fire to my neighbours shed? I shake my head, willing the guilt to fall out.

  ‘It is right to chase the past for answers. Unless you can connect to your true self, you cannot connect to anyone else.’

  It was true that loneliness afforded me the time to grow, to build resilience, to create my own identity and strengthen my inner self. It served me well when we moved to Chichester when I dropped out of school and the move to Glasgow for a new job. I just had never considered its impact on those around me before. I internalise everything, my frustrations, my self-righteousness, my anger, until every so often it would explode, hurting those close to me the most.

  ‘You’re right Vicky. All through my life, I haven’t wanted to talk about my past. I sometimes denied having a brother at all, it was just easier that way. And when I did, I painted him with one single brush—the boy who committe
d suicide. I was often asked why he did what he did. But I never knew, I thought no one knew. I always had my guard up, not wanting to discuss my feelings because I struggled to articulate them myself, I was hollow inside, my emptiness so consuming at times, and nobody knew how I felt. It is like I erased the whole episode, the lost years as Caroline once referred to them, but they extended way beyond my childhood. As Orwell said, I wore a mask, and my face began to fit it.’

  ‘Hey, I love George Orwell. So you feel better?

  ‘I feel different now, on the right path, a little more at ease. I have some answers now, I know Jimmy died without blame, but at the mercy of the most brutal silent killer there is, depression.’

  Vicky smiles encouragingly to me, a flutter of her eyelashes, was that intentional?

  ‘I know this may still be raw Phil, but how do you feel knowing you have a sibling, a family you have never met?’ Vicky asks.

  A sibling? For a split second, I had to join the dots to know what she was talking about. The mist had just begun to clear with Jimmy, and then this new grenade is launched towards me. I was so focused on Jimmy and my dad I had not considered the real tangible of the revelations from Donald.

  ‘It feels so strange, like something you only see on television, the ultimate mystery to think there are people out there that are my family, I could be sitting next to them now and not know.’

  We both turn to our left to see a bearded man, a little worse for wear, picking his nose and staring down at its contents on his finger. Vicky laughs, ‘Let’s hope not. It’s probably a lot more common than you think, infidelity, DNA testing and Jeremy Kyle made it mainstream with trashy TV fame. So, what now Phil?’

  I shake my head. ‘I don’t know. There is no instruction manual for this, I know nothing about them. First thing I guess is to find out who they are.’

  We stand in the car park and confirm our plans to meet on Thursday for dinner, and I raise my hand to give a small wave goodbye just as she leans in to hug me. My hand sits stationary, cramped between us, hand resting on her shoulder and my elbow against her chest as she hugs me. As she pulls away, my hand remains frozen, making her smile at my awkwardness, my cheeks burning red.

  Chapter Twenty-Six – 15 days after

  Vicky and I are holding hands, walking through a dense forest, the twigs and leaves crunching under our feet, the branches of the tallest trees rhythmically swaying in the wind. Someone is hammering some wood, bang bang, louder the second time, bang bang. I sit up startled, transported from my dream to reality, and someone knocking at the front door.

  I run down the stairs two at a time and reach for the door, only to be pushed back by the brightness filling the room. Roger stands in front of me with a concerned frown across his face.

  ‘You said it was urgent.’

  ‘Come in Roger, come in, when did you get back?’

  ‘Just back now lad, drove through the night, it’s the only way, takes half the time, and Mary sleeps so I can put on my Radio 5, now what is so urgent?’

  I feel silly now I have some clarity, but I put the kettle on and sit down with Roger giving him some carefully edited highlights of the past two weeks.

  Roger sips his steaming hot tea shaking his head. ‘Poor Donald, he is a decent man is Donald. I tell you what Phil, you are a lot more like your father than you credit for, like father like son, flying off the handle as you did with him.’

  Each time I tell the story, it sounds more and more ridiculous, yet at the time, with my tunnel vision, it made perfect sense. Vicky warned me last night that if you look hard enough for something that is what you will find. She was right.

  ‘Roger, I spoke to Donald yesterday, and he told me everything he knew, but there are plenty of gaps. What can you tell me about this other family from Bournemouth?’

  ‘Bloody hell Phil.’ Roger rises to his feet, his eyes popping out of his head. ‘You only learnt about them yesterday?’ His wiry eyebrows standing to attention, his forehead folding in genuine shock.

  ‘I thought you knew. I don’t know why your dad continued to keep it such a secret over all that time. Cruel on you. I thought it would be disingenuous to talk about it at the funeral.’ Roger looks up to the ceiling as if pulling the files from his memory bank, I long to fill the pause but bite my tongue.

  ‘We only found out after you and your mum had left. I was sat here in this kitchen having a beer with him when he just broke down, told me everything. Plenty of tears shed I can tell you, and we hugged it out at the end. He was working in Bournemouth on a big contract, staying over during the week and in that time met some lass. She got pregnant. The silly old fool tried to balance both lives at first, having his cake and eating it, until things went downhill for Jimmy. That changed everything for him, all of his attention, all his energy went into trying to make him better.’

  I stare at my dad’s picture, Rogers’s description of a silly old fool ringing true in my head.

  ‘He gave up his job and gave up this other family at the same time. This other woman went crazy and used to bombard him with threatening calls, and all this time she had no idea he was already married with you two boys.’ I shake my head, part disbelief, part shame all over again. How could he live such a lie, a lie to all of us? Were we not good enough for him?

  ‘He had given her some story about him being a travelling salesman or something like that. Around the same time, Donald had a word with him, warning him for his own good that the net was closing in and that this other woman was associated with some unsavoury characters. And that’s what happened. A couple of her family caught up with him, and he confessed everything, your dad receiving a couple of black eyes in the process and warned to stay away and to stay away for good. A legal battle ensued which he lost resulting in a formal stay away notice.’

  Roger stares downwards, swirling the remains of his cup, looking reluctant to continue. I sit tight hungry for more, pointing my head towards him, encouraging him to continue.

  ‘The guilt was too much for him and a year or so later he confessed everything to your mum.’ Mum. Poor mum and her brave face, never letting anybody in, nobody allowed to notice.

  ‘She waited until the end of the school term and then whisked you off to Chichester, and that’s last time Mary or I saw her. We heard plenty about her though, from your old man. She gave your dad a tough time, not saying he didn’t deserve it, but she banned him from contacting you while you were living with her, always threatening to tell you about his infidelity.’

  I sit back and picture my mum. To the outside world, she was a sweet, quiet and unassuming lady, but I know if she ever felt wronged, she could turn in an instant, hell hath have no fury like a woman scorned and all that. She had this hold over my dad like no other, and I imagine him shrinking away rather than fighting her. I don’t doubt her intentions were sound, but what about me? It was me that felt the pain of abandonment from my dad’s silence. It was me that felt the self-pity and still do.

  ‘Why didn’t he fight her Roger, why didn’t he fight my mum? Why didn’t he fight for me?’

  ‘It may be hard to understand son, but he loved you, and if you love someone, you love what is best for them and not what is best for you. Love sometimes means knowing when to let go.’

  Roger slumps back into his chair, and a heavy weight lifted from his shoulders.

  ‘So he let go, then what?’

  ‘Your dad was a mess for years afterwards, and he knew you had been through so much, so chose to protect you by reluctantly respecting her wishes. He went downhill fast, never leaving the house, drinking too much, and became a real old grouch. If it hadn’t been for what he’d gone through with Jimmy that could have been it for your dad. But he had seen the pain, knew the signs of what he was suffering from so the most important step he took was identifying that he had a problem.’

  ‘How bad did it get?’

  ‘I will spare you the details but it was tough. He only got back on his feet when he started opening
up a bit and actively sought some help. He went to AA meetings and started going to church and doing some counselling, using his own life experience. He was starting to get back to his old self again when he tried to get to back in touch with his other kids, but their mother was still bitter and took out a subsequent restraining order against him. It broke him, Phil. He had lost Jimmy, he had lost you, and then he lost the twins, it was like life was holding him hostage.’

  ‘Twins!’ I leap to my feet. ‘How old are they? Boys or Girls? Where do they live?’

  I could have asked a hundred more questions, but Roger pre-empted with an aggressive shake of his head.

  ‘I don’t know too much about them apart from they are a few years younger than you, and their names are Robert and Rachel. I am sorry Phil, I do not know any more than that. As far as I know, he never attempted contact again after the restraining order, and he had lost again what spirit he found after Jimmy. He just plodded on with the church and with the counselling, but he was never the same. As I said to you at the funeral, it was the injustice that killed him. His intentions were always honourable, and of course he meant no harm to the kids, but their mum was punishing him for wronging her in the first place.’

  I think of the restraining order, its formalness and coldness granted through legal courts. ‘Roger, I have seen some paperwork relating to a legal case, and a big invoice that I think financially drowned him, but at least it proved he fought hard. I need to speak to the twins, and I need them to know that my dad tried, and how hard he tried to be a part of their life.’ I need to tell them about me.

  I open the door for Roger and give a firm handshake. ‘Thanks for coming straight round Roger, I appreciate it. Although I am not sure your neighbour appreciated meeting me as I was putting the note through your door, gave me the fifth degree.’