I flung myself up the red-carpeted marble steps and through the gilded glass double doors. I was in an atrium. To my right, reception desks, staff in maroon, acting occupied; ahead, further glass double-doors with restaurant tables behind; to my left, a corridor leading towards a heavy dark-wood door; beside that, red-carpeted stairs curving upwards.
My mind was spinning. The foolish thing had begun entertaining the idea that Mrs Dextrose might actually be found. That she had resided here ever since the abandonment by her husband. Live in the lap of luxury, bill him afterwards? Perfectly feasible.
What on earth was I going to say to her?
The back of my head tingled.
Calm down. Think. How to find her? No sense careering headlessly around the hotel, banging on doors, shouting her name.
The receptionists.
I ran across to the nearest uniformed young chap at the desk, who was tapping at a computer.
“Excuse me!”
He did not look up. His uniform was gold-braided though his tender age made such trimmings feel rather pantomime.
“Excuse me!”
“Yes?” Professional smile, acne.
“I’m looking for Mrs Dextrose,” I blurted out. Even as I was voicing it, the futility flooded back. What had I been thinking? Idiot. Stupid, delusional idiot.
“First Floor, Helena Suite.”
I started. “What?”
“First floor. Helena Suite.”
“Mrs Dextrose?”
“Yes.” Unprofessional raised eyebrow.
Fuck.
Incredible.
I’d only bloody found her.
The staircase wound upwards in a spiral. I took its steps three at a time, prancing like a sprite, temples pounding, and found the first-floor landing. Left or right? I’d been too hasty to ask.
Intuition? Left.
I was in a wide corridor, doors on either side, some distance apart. I ran. On each door was a nameplate.
‘Edward Suite’…
‘Alice Suite’…
‘Alfred Suite’…
‘Helena Suite’.
‘Helena Suite’.
My mother… behind that door? Could it really be possible?
What should I do?
Suddenly I was stumped. A little boy confronted by a situation beyond his experience. Eight years old again. The door in front of me grew to the size of a giant’s, like something from Alice’s Wonderland. I stood there, dazed, until I heard a knocking.
When I followed the sound I saw my own knuckles rapping on the varnished wood.
“Yes, come in!” A man’s voice, from behind the door.
A man’s voice?
It had never entered my head that I might not like what I found.
I pushed down the door-handle and felt as if I were floating; everything seeming unreal.
Inside was not as I might have anticipated.
The Helena Suite was no boudoir. There wasn’t even a bed. Inside, at the far end of an airy, expansive room was a stage, on which were standing, in one long line, a number of ladies of middle-age and above, wearing swimsuits. Before them were arranged more rows of chairs, though these were only sporadically occupied by small groups of generally younger individuals.
Sunlight flooded in though four vast picture windows bearing creamy linen drapes.
Silence fell and everyone stared. At me.
Was one of these ladies my mother?
A young woman near the door, blonde-haired, in a light grey business suit and clutching a folder, addressed me. “Can I help you?” she asked.
“I… I’m looking for Mrs Dextrose,” I said. Although I spoke the words timidly, they echoed around the room, gathering gravitas.
Silence.
Then a silver-haired old lady on the stage, wearing a polka dot swimming costume and turquoise swimming cap, clutching a handbag as if her life depended upon it, stepped forward.
“I’m Mrs Dextrose,” she said.
My mouth fell open. I couldn’t stop it. My heart was beating like a jack-hammer.
Then another of the women on the stage stepped forward, then another, and another.
“I’m Mrs Dextrose!”
“I’m Mrs Dextrose!”
“I’m Mrs Dextrose!”
“I’m Mrs Dextrose!”
“I’m Mrs Dextrose!”
“I’m Mrs Dextrose!”
“I’m Mrs Dextrose!”
“I’m Mrs Dextrose!”
“I’m Mrs Dextrose!”
“I’m Mrs Dextrose!”
“I’m Mrs Dextrose!”
“I’m Mrs Dextrose!”
The blonde-haired young woman with the folder was now in front of me. “Can I help you?” she repeated.
My eyes were unfocused. “What is this place?”
“This is the Dextrose Marketing Board ‘Ladies of a Certain Age’ beauty pageant,” she said, bubbly-voiced for no good reason.
I shook my head. Nothing would compute.
She went on: “We promote dextrose in Pretanike and decided this year that our promotional figurehead should be an old lady. You know, likes baking and sweet tea. So we’re choosing our ‘Mrs Dextrose’! It’ll be great! She’ll appear in the press and will be a fun new character for our TV advertisements. Would you like a leaflet? Did you know that dextrose, also known as glucose, provides a valuable source of energy in…”
I closed the door behind me.
There was a bicycle leaning against the railings outside the Victoria Hotel, no lock on it. I picked it up and pedalled away. If idiotism were a crime in Pretanike, heaven knows what they’d have made of bicycle theft. I didn’t care. I was in a hurry. I had a flight to catch and a father to be with. If I couldn’t have both parents, I was damned sure I was going to hold on to the one.
What was I thinking as I cycled back down Beegster Street?
That it was funny feeling so disappointed when I had never really expected to succeed.
Officer Halo had been true to her word. When I presented myself at the Pretanike cop-shop, a note from her informed me that a ticket had been reserved in my name at the Pay-Loo Airline desk. No mention of my mother.
Officer Halo apologised, but she hadn’t managed to find me a seat next to my father. Had she been there in person, I would have hugged her.
Airports are vacuum-packs for the soulless. Sterile nodes on a route-map of adventure. Terrible places filled with trolleys, toddlers and unsmiling officials who feel up your inside leg. I couldn’t wait to get out, to move on.
Killing time before boarding, and following the deprivations of the previous days, I stuffed my face with all manner of foods and downed soft drinks, then treated myself to a new outfit. Nothing snazzy, just a T-shirt and jeans, denim jacket, new underwear (bliss), some cushioned trainers. I allowed no quarter to fashion. Believe me, when you’ve squatted beside the Nameless Highway having narrowly avoided being shot up, some branding oik ticking your shoe is your final concern.
The change of clothes was about more than comfort and hygiene. It was symbolic. I was going home, back to my old life – though not to my old ways; no way – and I was done with exploring for a while. I just needed time for it all to settle in.
I left my smouldering safari suit in the changing room. Let it terrorise the next poor bugger in there.
I did spot Dextrose from a distance at one point, being escorted through customs by a pair of police types. He’d been eased into what looked like blue-and-white-striped cotton pyjamas, with that overcoat slung over his shoulders. They must have given him a shower, because his hair and beard had dried comically fluffy. He looked as though he had his head in a raincloud.
That he was audibly lambasting his captors gave me heart. He’d be fine.
The remaining time before my flight dragged like a corpse across tar. I took a seat at a plastic café table, in limbo, my head a whirl of contradicting emotions. Loss and gain. Adventure and misadventure. Life and death. I struggled to
find a balance.
It was all over. Everything I had been through. Livingstone Quench, the Shaman, his son, Gdgi, Hilda and Eustace, Kai, Si, Bri and Duane, Charlie, Clemmie… Importos, RIP. All of them now memories: chemical reactions among the faintest of electrical currents.
My mind could hold on to them, or it could discard them. And though I would happily have banished a few by choice, they had all shaped the person I had become. The man I had become.
I had changed and there could be no going back. No longer would I be prepared to fritter away the days on my back, growing bacteria in crevices. No longer would I be pushed around. No longer would I consider the term ‘local’ a badge of honour.
How my father would fit in at home, I did not know. That would reveal itself in time. I only hoped that it would work out between us.
I waited for Dad before the red and green channels at Customs, aware that if he wandered through the former without thinking, his entire body might become impounded, or secreted away by government scientists for vivisection.
When I caught sight of him, being pointedly avoided by the family to his right, he looked more bewildered than even I was feeling. The nine-hour flight, added to his time in the cells, had no doubt sobered him up properly, and the sensation was not suiting him. One of those flimsy airline blankets was hanging by its corner from the neckline of his prison shirt, like the posh wear their napkins. He was taking short, shuffling steps and he kept glancing around with paranoia in his eyes. He must have fallen asleep with the back of his head against his seat, because his hair had become squashed and splayed out, resembling a ludicrous head-dress.
I was in charge of him now. It should have been the other way around, but it wasn’t. And I knew, as might the errant child, that he could easily scuttle away. These first moments on home soil could prove key.
I waved as he neared me. He stopped and stared, wide-eyed and sockless.
I smiled, nervously. “So. Dad. What’s your plan?”
“Where is I?” he replied.
I was going to have to start with the basics.
“We’re back in England,” I said. “Do you know who I am?”
“Course I minking know who yer is! Yer me boy, Pilsbury. Minking cheek!”
I could barely conceal my delight.
“Alright, don’t get ideas above yer station,” he grumbled. “Just cos I know who yer is.”
“So what’s your plan?”
“Plan?” He screwed up his nose, which was finally looking less red.
“Fancy coming with me?” I spotted suspicion flit between his eyes, so hastily softened the threat. “…for a bit?”
“Mm,” he went, more yes than no.
I pulled the blanket out of his shirt. His startled look suggested he hadn’t been aware of it.
“You won’t be needing that,” I laughed.
“Oh won’t I?” he replied.
The idea that I was back in my own country was disorientating, though I had only been away for a few weeks. It wasn’t as if I would have to learn the customs, speak a different language, or be made to wear a certain sort of national costume with bells on its socks; it was just that I had been away.
Once I opened the airport door to the outside world, reality hit. Whoomph. Cars, noise, fumes. England.
I had tried to hatch a few plans during the flight, however uncertainty and a desperate desire for sleep had not proved conducive. Indeed, the list I had made ran like this:
1. Hire car at airport
It didn’t help that I had no clue where Dad lived these days, or if he even had somewhere to call home. Would he want to come and live with me? Should I go and live with him? (That option felt a touch too much like home-help/carer, and conjured up images of me wrestling with his bottom in a toilet.)
There would be easily enough room for us both in my mock-Tudor house in Glibley (inherited following Father and Mother’s passing). Four bedrooms, two reception rooms, two bathrooms, one… anyway, I’m not an estate agent. And I hoped I wouldn’t have to sell the idea to him.
I wondered what Suzy and Benjamin would make of him. Just as importantly, I wondered what they would make of me. I had changed inside; would my outward appearance have altered also? I hoped that all the exercise and the starvation diet might have knocked off some of the post-puppy fat, made me hunkier.
I couldn’t wait to see them, to catch up. How envious they’d be of my experiences, those two who had remained glued to Glibley, where nothing happened and no one noticed. Perhaps I’d consummate my relationship with Suzy at last? Maybe I’d aim higher? Boy, would it be delicious to turn her down.
But I was letting my imagination run away with itself. This was the time for practicalities.
“Dad, where do you want to live?”
“In a house,” he said.
Not that picky. My place, then…
It began slowly to dawn on Dad during the drive along the motorway what “We’re back in England” meant – and its consequences. His reactions veered from denial and anger to depression and acceptance, with bargaining – “Take us back to the airport and I swear yer’ll never see us again” – in between. It only dawned on me later that they were the five stages of grief.
If I felt like a fish out of water, he was Thomas Jerome Newton.
At least he was free from toxins, which would help him to cope. And though this return home had been thrust upon us, I was beginning to consider it fortuitous.
My original plan had been to complete Dextrose’s Quest, take the call from Suzy Goodenough and fly home to her forthwith, to claim my libidinous prize. I had only extended my adventure to try to find Mrs Dextrose, though my efforts had ended in failure… I realised I really ought to tell him about that.
“Dad, you remember we were looking for Mum?”
He snuffled in the passenger seat. “Take it yer didn’t find her?”
That would have explained her absence, yes. “At least I tried.”
“Could have told yer yer wouldn’t.”
“Really?”
“That minking never-ending road we was on…”
“The Nameless Highway?”
“If yer say so.”
“And?”
“Well, I ain’t never seen it before in me life – so she can’t have been at the end of it. Can she?”
“Are you sure?”
He scratched an earlobe. “Course.”
I wasn’t convinced. “Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“Never gave us the chance, did yer?”
Cantankerous old sod.
He fixed me with a brooding stare. Most of his scabs had fallen off, I noticed, leaving shiny pink wheals. “Where yer taking us?” he asked.
The sky was overcast, clouds the colour of battleships hovering overhead in fleets. As we passed the ‘SURREY’ sign just after two in the afternoon, it began to drizzle. Dad had fallen silent.
I turned on the radio to alleviate the gloom and, though any music should have been a welcome respite from my stretch of life without soundtrack – the Walkman I had taken travelling with me having been lost, stolen or destroyed, I forgot which – the stations I tuned through churned out such frivolous, gutless pap that they only weighed down my mood.
Having become increasingly grateful that I was back home, I had begun to wonder: what if nothing changed?
As I reached familiar sights and landmarks, however, nostalgia kicked in and I could not help but cheer up.
Turning off the motorway we passed first through Little Upshott, where I used to throw bread for the birds on the duck pond and bought my first gobstopper from Christie’s the Newsagent (now an estate agent, I noticed). “That used to be a newsagent. I bought my first gobstopper there,” I told Dad, pointing.
He looked but said nothing.
Under the old railway bridge, part of the Buttercup Line – now disused – on which they once ran steam trains, we drove downhill into Framingham, best known as the home of the late local au
thor, Greta Hildred. Mother had read all of her books, their covers invariably featuring swooning maidens in bonnets melting into the arms of frilly-white-shirted gentlemen named Red with dark hair and cheekbones.
“Greta Hildred’s house,” I duly noted. “She was a local author. Mother… I mean, my other mother, she read all her books.”
“Mmph,” went Dad.
Past the triangular Miller’s Green, where I occasionally kicked around a football if I could find a spontaneous playmate, and down through the leafy boughs on the approach road to Glibley. To our left was the path into the woods, where I had spent much of my childhood, when allowed out to play.
I had made camps in there, formed from dumped carpet and dead branches, and there was an abandoned old house, broken and foreboding, if you dared walk far enough into the wilderness.
I tried again. “I used to love that wood.”
“U-huh?”
“Yeah, I was always in there. Every summer.”
“On yer own?”
That caught me unawares. I laughed uneasily. “Not always!”
“Well,” he said. “I’m sorry about that.”
“I did have friends!”
“I know,” he said.
I ceased the commentary after that, since we were nearing my house. There I would be obliged to form a bond with this man, whose moods were so unstable, and his demons.
By the time we reached the end of my road – there was the sign, where I had left it: ‘Cherry Tree Drive’ – I was having second thoughts. Wouldn’t it be easier to turn around and fly away abroad again, escape all the responsibilities? Dad would have been happier, that was almost certain. Perhaps I would too? What if I weren’t cut out for the family-life lark? My foot faltered on the accelerator.
“This is my road,” I announced. “We’re up the end, number 72, on the corner of Laburnum Close. You’ll have to excuse the tweeness. It’s all rather floral.”
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