The Fathers, the Sons and the Anxious Ghost

by Jamie Adams

  Not sure that I had covered my tracks, he smiled again.

  “We do have something, and I want to explore that with you,” he winked, cheekily.

  This was the most peculiar thing. Here we were, dealing with a friend’s wife being buried, and he was undeniably flirting with me. My heart did not know how to respond. I felt it stop for a moment, but then it swiftly raced and fluttered again.

  “That would be definitely worthwhile.”

  My reply was confident and unexpected. What had come over me?

  Sam shouted for us to go back in as he gathered Max up and drew him over to the church door. Now was not the time to be considering having an affair with my son’s friend’s dad.

  Time passed, and the coffin was brought outside where a few closing speeches included one from Alex, who stood over the grave, shivering and intense.

  “I remember when we met…” he began, sweetly. I thought that, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Hannah make a strange gesture, as if to mimic a small vomiting movement like when you pretend to ‘reach’ after somebody tells you something cheesy. It couldn’t have been the case as when I looked again she was stood motionless and without expression, standing erect, next to a much taller Matt. I knew how much he had grown to resent her, and this made me feel less guilty about considering the idea of having an affair.

  The speech was very moving, and again we were all in tears. We collected our things from the church, and most people went on to the scout hall for the wake. Sam had said that he didn’t feel comfortable going to that, as he thought it would mainly be for family, and I could see that the whole thing had exhausted him. My boss also did not want to stay for this part and so was happy for me to give her a lift and use that as an excuse for going home instead of facing the possibility of parents coming up to us and asking unrelated questions about school. Wherever we went, they would find ways to turn conversations towards how they could improve their child’s progress, or what we could do to promote their child, perhaps handing out responsibilities or moving their lockers so that they weren’t next to ‘such and such’.

  I dropped off Mrs Bellamy and while Sam sat drooped, half-asleep on the back seat, I contemplated the future. How would Alex now cope as a single parent? Did it mean that Alfie would go off the rails? Was Matt really going to ‘explore’ our relationship? One thing was for sure, the next few months and years were going to be very interesting indeed. Little did I know how much impact the last couple of weeks’ events were going to have on our futures.

  Part Two – The Sons

  Ten Years Later

  Chapter 15 (Sam)

  It was always interesting having your dad as a teacher, but having your dad as a gay teacher could end up with you getting teased a bit about the whole thing. I didn’t mind though. I could handle it because I liked the fact that my dad had been brave enough to come out and show his true self. The only problem was, him seeing one of my friend’s parents. This is one thing that I just could not get my head around, and it all happened so fast.

  Even though that was a week ago and so much had happened since, I still found myself reliving the moment when I discovered them together. If my guitar lesson hadn’t been cancelled, then I would have still been none the wiser; and Dad could have carried on with his sordid little affair without all of this backlash.

  “Hey queer’s boy!” came a predictable shout from John across the football pitch. “Pass the ball, faggot.”

  I turned around and looked for a better way forward. Noticing Alfie running alongside me, I tossed the ball to him, and the pressure was then off. Alfie surged forward; and as he passed John, he elbowed him in the face. John jolted and then clutched his chin whilst looking at me with disapproval. I shrugged my shoulders as if to say, ‘It wasn’t anything to do with me’.

  Later on in the changing rooms, Alfie made a snide comment.

  “You think it’s alright to be homophobic on the pitch, do you? Professionals get kicked out for doing anything like that, you know,” he said to John, pointedly.

  John was afraid of Alfie and just looked the other way, packing his bag as quickly as he could so that he could escape sheepishly.

  “Don’t waste your breath,” I said to Alfie. “It’s no skin off my nose.”

  He tutted and then said he would buy me a coke if I wanted. He wasn’t that keen to go home just yet.

  In the coffee shop, we sat down in silence, and it was obvious that his mind was elsewhere. It would have been ten years next week since his mother died. All of my problems seemed miniature in comparison. I thought about what I could say to cheer him up, but sadly, nothing appropriate crossed my uncomplicated mind.

  We sipped our drinks and stared out of the window for a while. After a few minutes, I asked him how he was coping.

  “I’m alright, mate,” he replied, faking a smile.

  “You don’t have to hide your feelings from me. We have been through a lot over the last ten years.”

  “I know. It’s just this time it is different. I mean it’s not so much about my mum anymore.”

  “How do you mean?” I asked as I finished off the coke.

  “It’s just I can’t really put my finger on it, but it’s kind of about Tess,” he carried on, getting into his stride.

  “Go on…what about your little sis?” I asked, getting more and more worried. “Is it that guy she is seeing? I thought he was a bit of a creep. If he has done anything to her, I will smash his face in for you,” I said, tensing a fist and raising it in the air.

  He knew I always had a protective streak when it came to Tess.

  “If only it were that simple. I’d have knocked his block off ages ago if that were all it was,” he retorted, almost laughing.

  “Well if there is anything I can do to help then just say, mate,” I went on.

  “I will let you know.”

  He looked at me with eyes that told me to leave it alone for a bit, and we both grabbed our stuff. Just as I was about to sit on my saddle, he stopped me with his hand.

  “What do you know about depression?” he said in a matter-of-fact kind of way.

  I was honest and shook my head in order to show him that I knew very little on this matter.

  “Never mind then,” he carried on, waving me off.

  “But I can find out about it,” I shouted as I cycled off into the distance.

  He yelled back at me. “Talk to Tess. See whether you think she is depressed. She will open up to you.”

  When I got home, the first thing I decided to do was to text Tess. I wasn’t quite sure what to put as I hadn’t seen her for a while. I kept it simple with a “Hi Tess, how have you been lately? Did you hear the new Shawn Mendes song?” I knew that she loved him; and lately, I had been getting his new track stuck in my head, especially as my dad always played it in the car.

  Grabbing a shower and flicking through YouTube for a bit, it took me a while to realise that she had texted me back. Her reply was short and to the point. “Hi. Fine. No.”

  It wasn’t the type of text you came to expect from Tess, as she usually liked to fill your screen with long, rambling sentences and smiley emoticons. I replied to ask if she wanted to talk about it? She simply sent me an ellipsis (…).

  I was suddenly really worried now. Something was definitely not right.

  Chapter 16 (Max)

  My stutter was becoming less of a burden these days. I decided that I should face my fears and join a drama group. After everything blowing up with my dad, I needed somewhere to outlet my feelings. Disguising myself as someone else, cloaked in their character and mindset, might just do the trick. The sixth form play was coming up, and I was not prepared for it to go as badly as that dreaded one ten years before. The day when I ended up hurt, and Alfie’s mum killed herself.

  I wanted to find a way to overcome my nerves. Maybe this was going to do the trick. Alfie lit the roll up and took a few deep sucks to get it started. The spliff was fairly smoky to begin with but s
oon settled down, and he passed it to me. After a bit of getting used to it and coughing a few times, I handed it back again.

  “That should get you ready for your audition,” he said as he took another puff; his eyes flickering, and his face looking flushed. We sat there for a while, throwing stones into the river and chilling out in the afternoon sun.

  “I’d better go, or I will be late. Wish me luck.”

  “You can do it, dimwit,” he said, affectionately.

  Being the only one to drive, I hopped into my mini and made my way to the drama theatre at school. It was a six o’clock audition, so the car park was empty. School had long since closed, and the place looked like a ghost town. Running towards the theatre door, my friend Lisa joined me, and we signed our names on a sheet before entering the main room. Mr Simmons looked at us both and smiled. He was always good at putting anyone at ease, but the spliff was even better. It had definitely made me feel as though I were floating. Lisa could tell I had been up to something.

  “You stink!” She had moaned when we first met up.

  While we waited for our turns, I borrowed some of her perfume to douse the smell of the weed. She told me that it did the trick but laughed because I now smelt like a teenage girl. That was the least of my worries. The teacher called my name, and I made my way slowly and nervously to the centre of that darkened stage.

  Lisa gave me the thumbs up, and I went through those lines that I had been rehearsing for the past week. My character was meant to be angry; and, right now, I felt like I could portray angry quite well. I tensed my fist and shrugged a lot as I bellowed my 12 lines towards the director. The few people who were watching nearby gave me a small applause, and I sat back down next to Lisa before watching her stand and walk over to the same spot to try out her segment. She laughed as she got muddled over one of the lines. Despite this, she still seemed to pull it off well. It would have been great if we both got a role and could go through the script together. She was so much fun to be around after all. A chance to spend more time with her alone would be well received as far as I was concerned.

  I went home to find Mum going through some of Dad’s things. She looked fed up, and I asked her if she wanted a cup of tea or something, but she just shook her head and carried on sorting stuff into piles. When I came back from making myself a drink, she was outside starting a fire. I could see a pile of clothes slowly starting to burn. Running out to stop her, she pushed me away and began to cry. She hurried indoors, and I used the hose pipe to put out the fire, but the clothes were already ruined. When I returned inside, Mum was sitting on the kitchen floor, sobbing and rocking slowly. I tried to give her a hug; and this time, for once, she allowed me to. We sat there for about half an hour before I was able to convince her to go to bed and rest. She never said a word but forced a smile as I guided her towards the staircase. I was straight on the phone to Sam, wondering if he had seen my elusive father.

  Sam picked up and I had it out with him. People used to think that I was weedy and shy, but when I got riled up about something, I just let rip! Sam’s ears were probably bleeding as he quietly listened, saying ‘mhmm’ once in a while to suggest that he was still with me. After I had gone on about how his dad had destroyed my mum’s marriage, I calmed down a bit, and we had a more ordinary conversation. To be honest, it was hard to stay mad at Sam, as he was a genuinely nice guy. It wasn’t his fault at all. Calming me down further, Sam offered to meet up and talk more, but he also told me that Alfie was beginning to worry about Tess. I wondered why he never mentioned it earlier on when we were smoking by the park. Sam just sort of dropped it into the conversation, perhaps to distract me further. Both Sam and I had always looked out for Tess. We worried that one day her mum’s death might get to her. Maybe that time had finally come. It was bound to at some point, and we didn’t think Alfie would be much use in those circumstances. I grabbed my coat and popped to see Sam and find out what he had managed to discover so far.

  Chapter 17 (Alfie)

  Dad was struggling more than ever. He needed me to pull my weight around the house. We needed to help each other out. When I got home, he was scratching his head and looking through a pile of what looked like paper bills. Dad being Dad, he was never that good at talking about his problems. He would always just plod along and try and cover everything up, pretending that there was no issue to worry about. He had been like this his whole life, but especially since Mum passed away.

  “Do you want me to get a part-time job? Probably about time I did something,” I said as I entered the living room.

  “No. I promised you that I would support you through your A-Levels, and I will. You will have enough on your plate when you get to university,” he replied, sweetly.

  I looked at him with serious eyes.

  “I can see that you are struggling, Dad. Most boys my age have jobs of some kind. I am on top of my school work. I could do every Sunday at Waitrose and earn double time.”

  He came over to me and gave me a fatherly hug.

  “We do have a few more bills than usual at the moment. The washing machine breaking down didn’t help things, but now we have that trouble with the boiler. I shall have to ask your nan for help. But that’s my problem. Not yours.”

  I heard what he was saying, but a few minutes later, I headed to my room with my iPad in hope of finding an application form, so that I could get a Sunday job as soon as possible.

  My sister’s door was closed, with a sign hanging from it saying, in bold letters, ‘Chill Time’; and a picture of a rabbit sitting, eating a carrot while basking in the sun. Loud rock music was almost rattling the door off, and so I found myself banging on it to get her to turn it down a bit.

  “Go away!” she yelled with a tone that told me she was in no mood to negotiate.

  I stormed in anyway, finding her laying on her bed, browsing through some unknown items. To me it looked like a pirate had just been discovered counting their treasures. She gathered them away and then stuck two fingers up at me. Younger sisters were meant to be difficult, but lately, she seemed to have more angst than I had ever seen.

  “What is your problem?” I announced.

  “Screw you!” came her curt reply.

  “What is that you are keeping in that bloody box?” I went on.

  “None of your bloody business, knob head,” she continued with an expression that implied she was hiding something.

  “I dunno why you are so cross with me. I ain’t done anything,” I moaned.

  “I just have a lot on my mind.”

  “But don’t take it out on us. Dad is really struggling at the moment.”

  “Dad just gets on with it. Sometimes he needs to get a grip of things. Maybe if he did, Mum would still be around.”

  I had never heard her talk like that before. Especially about Dad. Alarmingly, she even dared to mention Mum. She hadn’t uttered her name for as long as I could remember. She usually did everything in her power to avoid conversations linked to our mum.

  I was speechless, so I decided to leave her to it. Wondering what she was going on about, I sat with my headphones on and quickly started searching for job application forms. It didn’t sit easily with me that she had slagged Dad off, but I was not prepared to argue with her. Maybe she was just lashing out because she was on her period. Typical girl.

  As I sat browsing through websites, a message flashed up from her on my messenger. It simply said, “Sorry, bro.”

  A tear formed in my eye when I read it. I just wished I could help her. I typed back, “I forgive you, midget,” using her nickname; one that Mum used to use because she was very small as a toddler. Nowadays though, she was as tall as me, so the nickname was ironic.

  Finding a job that I liked, I carried on form filling. She turned down her music; and Dad could be heard on the phone, talking to his mother, probably asking her for a loan. Sam texted me to say he was meeting up with Max, but I felt too tired to go out again. I switched on the computer and loaded up my favouri
te shoot-em-up. I was going to use some of that gathered up energy to blast some invading droids.

  Chapter 18 (Sam)

  After convincing Tess to meet me in the milkshake hut, a few days later, I was glad to see her arrive, dressed with an edge, reflecting her feisty character. Maybe Tess was back to her old self. I was getting her one of her favourites, a mix of strawberries and banana, topped with marshmallow bits, when she rolled in and sat on the table where I had left my bag. Nodding at me in order to show that she knew I was here, she then proceeded to get her iPad out and start tapping away. Her fingers typed quickly as she sat in the plastic seat, with her eyes focussed on the screen intently. This was not so much the girl that I used to know. She seemed to be on a mission.

  “I’m writing a book,” she snapped before I had chance to even greet her with a ‘hi’.

  I was a bit taken aback, but, placing her drink next to her and putting my own milkshake down, I wanted to probe her a bit about this so-called book.

  “Cool. I had no idea you wanted to be a writer,” I said, celebrating the choice.

  “I am no author, but I do have a story to tell,” she barked, not in a nasty way but in a sort of ‘screw you world!’ way. She forced a smile for a moment and said some more.

  “I have always liked you. That is why I don’t mind telling you a bit about my book. It is based on real life, so that makes it kind of sensitive.”

  Wondering whether I was going to feature in this book, I asked her for more detail.

  “I can’t tell you everything as I am still researching. However, I can say it is all about putting one massive wrong right,” she replied, now more quietly, checking over her shoulder for anyone who might be listening.

  I found myself also looking over my shoulder each time that I said something. Expecting her to find the whole thing amusing, I waited to see what came next.