Little Big Man

by Katy Regan

  Since the letter, Mum’s been looking up healthy recipes on the iPad and doing some cooking herself. ‘Oh, nice.’

  ‘Ten minutes, OK?’

  ‘Yeah, we’ll be down.’

  I crept into the front room, took the iPad from the arm of the settee where Mum had been looking up recipes and stuffed it up my jumper. I didn’t feel guilty. Nan and Grandad got us the iPad for a joint Christmas present, and, anyway, all this was for a good cause. When I found my dad and Mum had the love of her life back and we even had more money, they’d thank me. I put the code in (my birthday) then I went back upstairs and sat down next to Teagan.

  ‘Watch this,’ I said, then I typed how to find your dad into Google.

  Loads of stuff came up straight away! The Internet is epic, after all; it can tell you facts about anything you want to know – you just have to ask it a question. You can even put 10 facts about bananas and it will tell you fifteen. Did you know, for example, that bananas are radioactive?

  The website that appeared at the top was called www.findergenie.com. We liked the name, so we clicked on it. Need to find your dad? It said. We can help you find your dad. There was a picture of a lady with her dad, looking happy, to show you what would happen, and there was also a video. ‘Click on it!’ said Teagan, clapping her hands. It was a lady with blonde hair talking to you: ‘They found full contact details and an address in twenty-four hours.’ Teagan was squealing like a baby pig. But the woman didn’t even look that happy. She was talking like they’d found a shoe she’d lost. If I find my dad, I’ll be much more excited, then they can have me on their video.

  We looked at the Finder Genie website. All you had to do to start looking for your dad was to fill in a form, but the form asked for an email address and we didn’t have one.

  ‘But there’s a phone number,’ said Teagan. ‘Call them up!’

  ‘I daren’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I just daren’t.’

  It was probably Jesus answering my prayer, but it felt too soon; I wasn’t prepared. What if they found my dad in twenty-four hours? That would be tomorrow and I didn’t want our investigation to be over that soon. Also, I was suddenly a bit scared of meeting my dad, but I didn’t want to tell Teagan that.

  So, I went into Mum’s bedroom – she has a phone next to her bed – and I picked up the phone. But then, I just stood with it in my hand.

  What if he didn’t like me? What if he didn’t support Man U or do cooking anymore? What if he already had a son he could play football with? Proper good football, where the son doesn’t always have to be the goalie?

  I could hear Teagan calling me, but I didn’t want to go back in there yet. From my mum’s room you can see across to where we used to live in Garibaldi House, where I had to share a bedroom with Mum, and a bed that sank in the middle. The lights were all on in the flat windows, so they were shining orange. They reminded me of the lozenges Mum gives me if I have a cough or sore throat.

  If we found my dad in twenty-four hours, then my life could change before the end of the week. I’d have a dad and Mum would have a boyfriend and it wouldn’t be just me and her anymore.

  Just then, Teagan came running in, her big red flower wobbling. ‘What are you doing?’

  I held the phone out to her. ‘Please can you do it? I don’t want to.’

  Teagan sat down next to me and pushed my hand away, but only gently. ‘No, you have to do it, Zac,’ she said. Her eyelashes are so long, they nearly reach right up to her eyebrows. ‘It’s your dad you want to find.’

  My heart was banging. There was the sick-but-starving feeling again. I punched in the number. Someone answered!

  ‘Hello and welcome to Finder Genie!’

  She was American and sounded really friendly.

  ‘Hello,’ I said. ‘My name’s Zac Hutchinson and I go to Thornby Academy in Grimsby and I need to find my dad, please …’ But she just kept on talking.

  ‘We are so pleased you have chosen us to find the people who matter to you and we are very proud to tell you that your search ends here, because results are guaranteed. As one of the most successful finder companies in the world, however …’

  ‘Hello?’ I said again. ‘Can you hear me?’

  ‘What’s up?’ whispered Teagan.

  ‘She’s just talking over me. She says we’re in a queue.’

  ‘Tell her we need to do it fast. Because if your mum finds out, she’s gonna go mental.’

  ‘Er, excuse me, do you think we might be able to go to the beginning of the queue?’

  But then there was music playing. It was Ellie Goulding, ‘Anything Could Happen’. Me and Teagan were laughing; it was really funny. She’d just put music on and ignored us!

  ‘Zac? What are you doing in my bedroom?’

  Then all of a sudden, Mum was at the door, looking cross.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Who are you on the phone to?’

  ‘Nobody.’

  ‘Well, I hope you’ve got the money to pay for talking to that nobody because I certainly haven’t.’

  Then Teagan saved the day. ‘I just needed to call my mum, actually, Juliet, to check she’s all right because my sister’s not in till later and she’s on her own.’ Her eyes slid across to me. I had to suck my cheeks in so I didn’t smile.

  Mum looked at me, then Teagan. You could tell she didn’t believe it, but she was choosing her battles. ‘Right, well, can you come downstairs now, please? Your tea’s ready.’

  After tea, me and Teagan called up Finder Genie again, and this time, we got through. But that was when we found out it was a paid-for service. At first I thought she meant they pay me, but no, worst luck, she meant we had to pay them! It was £400 to start off with and we only had £146 in both our bank accounts and that’s even putting them together. Also, you had to be sixteen to use Finder Genie – or have a parent come and help you.

  So that was that. We didn’t have £400, we didn’t have an email address, and we couldn’t get my mum to come on the phone and help us. We decided that Finder Genie was not the way to do it.

  I walked Teagan home. It was still raining really hard and we put our tongues out to drink it straight from the sky. It’s totally safe to drink rain as long as you don’t live near radioactive places like Chernobyl and it tastes really nice. Like, if you were to make a drink called ‘The World’, that’s what it would taste like: rivers and sky and forests and mountains.

  ‘I think we should just go back to our original plan of asking local people for information,’ Teagan said, when we got to her block. ‘We can’t just rely on your mum or nan, because in proper investigations they ask around.’

  ‘I don’t know who I’d dare ask, though.’

  ‘Just anyone who has any information.’

  ‘What if they get mad with us?’

  ‘They’re not going to get mad. Also, Zac?’ She looked away, like she was nervous of saying the next bit. ‘I just want to say, it might not be enough just to want to meet your dad.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ The light outside her block made her eyes shine, like a tiger’s.

  ‘I just mean, I want to see my dad but he doesn’t want to see me and he even lived with me until a year ago.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, looking at the floor. I didn’t know what else to say.

  ‘I’m not saying the same thing will happen to you, and I really hope it doesn’t. But it might, so I want you to be prepared.’

  ‘All right,’ I said, even though I didn’t know what the point of all this was if we weren’t even going to find him.

  ‘Anyway, let’s just make the most of the mission,’ she said, smiling then. ‘Let’s make from now till your birthday the best days of our lives. I think you should try and have the best time and be the best you can be, whether or not we find your dad.’

  ‘All right,’ I repeated. Again, I didn’t know what else to say. ‘See you tomorrow.’

  As I walked home, I had a secr
et rain drink all on my own. I wondered where my dad was. Was he even in the same country? Was he under the same rain as me? Did he ever think about me? There was so much I wanted to know.

  ‘Zac, come here, I want to talk to you,’ Mum called when I got back, and I thought I might be in trouble after the phone call in her room. ‘So, you’re going to be pleased about this,’ she said, when we were both sitting down on the settee. ‘On Mondays now, instead of coming home and having to wait for me to get back from work, I’ve arranged for you to go and meet Jason instead.’

  My heart dropped like it does in the lift when it goes down too fast.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘To do fun stuff,’ said Mum. ‘At the fitness centre. He might take you to play football, or swimming. You could even have a go in his gym, Zac. He can use any of the facilities for free. It’s such a good opportunity.’

  ‘I can’t do Mondays,’ I said, thinking about the Find Dad mission club – how was I going to explain that? But Mum laughed. ‘Zac, you’re ten, what do you mean you can’t do Mondays? What have you got on? Darts? Night out with the lads?’

  ‘I just can’t, I don’t want to,’ I said. Then Mum looked upset, and I felt bad.

  ‘Zac,’ said Mum, shifting back on the settee and looking at me as if she didn’t really know me. ‘This isn’t like you. I thought you’d be really pleased. I thought you missed Jason – you’re always asking when we’re going to see him. Just because we didn’t work out, I don’t see why you should have to never see him again.’

  I felt stressed and just wanted to go. ‘I do like Jason. I do miss him. But he’ll probably just run off anyway, won’t he? Like my real dad did. Like all men do, except my grandad. He’s the only one I trust.’

  I stood up to go then. I did think all the things I said, but not as bad as they came out. I said them so I could have an excuse to stand up and walk away. But Mum got hold of my hand and pulled me back on the settee.

  ‘Zac, sit down. Now you have to tell me what’s going on. Why all this talk about your dad all of a sudden? Why all the questions? I’m sorry he never got in touch, darling, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ve told you, he doesn’t deserve you and you’re better off without him – why can’t you just accept that?’ Her eyes had gone all teary and her hands were shaking. It was sort of annoying. Why was she lying, saying I was better off without him, when I knew how she really felt about him? ‘And we’re OK, aren’t we, Zac?’ she said, stroking my back – but that was because she was upset, not me. ‘Aren’t we? Just you and me?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, but I didn’t know, not really. I didn’t know what to think or believe anymore.

  ‘So can I tell Jason you said yes then?’ I didn’t want Mum to start crying, so I nodded and she smiled and went to leave the room, but I had a lot of questions still.

  ‘I’ll go, but why don’t you just tell me the truth?’ I called after her, and Mum stopped, just before the door.

  ‘About what?’ she asked, turning around.

  ‘About my dad. Why do you keep saying he was a horrid person and a waste of space, when you loved him? I don’t get it.’

  Mum put both her hands over her mouth and took a deep breath like Brenda tells me to do when I’m stressed or upset. ‘What do you mean, I loved him, Zac?’

  ‘You said it,’ I said. I couldn’t hold it in anymore, I was sick of holding it in. ‘That night when you were drunk, you said you loved him and he loved you, and you only wanted a boyfriend if it could be him. If you loved him that much then he must be a nice person and I want to know the truth about him, Mum. I want you to tell me about him.’

  Mum wasn’t saying anything, she was just staring at me, like she couldn’t believe I was saying all this.

  ‘Zac, sweetheart,’ she said quietly, and when my heart started pounding, I realized how long it had been since it had, as hard as this anyway, because I’d been holding my breath. ‘I don’t love your dad.’ And I could feel the sick-and-starving feeling creeping into my belly, taking over the happy one, like waking up from a nice dream. ‘I did love him once, a long time ago, but not anymore. How could I after he left us – left you, the most important thing in my life? Zac, sometimes you think you know someone but you don’t. I thought he was a good person that I could trust, but it turned out not to be the case.’

  And then I burst into tears. I tried to hold it in, but I couldn’t help it.

  Chapter Ten

  Juliet

  After Zac goes up to bed, it starts with the toast. Filling that anxious space in my stomach always starts with the toast. Especially at nine o’clock at night. Toast seems benign somehow, more benign than chocolate truffles or Viennetta, or sausage sarnies … until the entire loaf is gone. Thing is, I know as soon as I put a single slice in the toaster, when I’m in this state, that the only thing that will ease it will be a shitload more toast.

  How long did I think I’d have? Until he was thirteen? Sixteen? Did I think I’d somehow be able to get to the end of my life without ever having to tell him the truth about his dad? I put two more slices of bread into the toaster, wondering when my denial got this bad. And I said I loved him! Apparently, although the jury is out as to whether Zac misheard that one. Why did I say that? How could I love him after everything?

  As far as Zac is concerned, however, I’ve always told him the same thing, and he’s always bought it – at least I’ve been consistent in that. Your dad never wanted to know, he left before you were even born. He never met you. He’s a waste of space. It was only to protect him, and it was all fine until recently when the questions started trickling through. But I thought it was just a bit of healthy curiosity, and I could handle that. I guess he wouldn’t be normal, I thought, if he didn’t ask the odd question. But tonight, it went up a whole new level for me. Those were big questions, big claims – and what was I meant to say? The truth would devastate him.

  The first ever time he asked me about the whereabouts of his father, he was three. It was August and we were on the little train that goes around Cleethorpes Prom. There was a little girl about the same age as Zac in the carriage in front of us with her dad, and every time we went past something of interest – the boating lake, or a donkey on the beach – she shouted at the top of her voice, ‘Daddy! Daddy! Look!’

  Zac was transfixed. He sat there in silence, gawping, absolutely mesmerized by this little girl, out with her daddy, until suddenly he went, ‘Where’s my daddy?’ He said it while looking out at the sea, as if asking the sea the biggest question of his life so far, and when I didn’t answer (because I was too busy panicking) he started to shout instead: ‘Where’s my daddy? Where’s my daddy?’ The little girl thought this was hilarious, and so she joined in and the pair of them then carried on shouting, ‘Where’s my daddy?’ for the whole train journey until the little girl’s dad turned around and said, over their racket, jokingly, ‘Probably doing something more relaxing than this if he’s more sensible than me.’

  I thought I’d got away with it, save for the general humiliation on that little train. But that night when I was putting Zac to bed, he asked me about his dad again, in a way that was much more difficult to brush off.

  ‘Where’s my daddy?’ he said, those big, glacier-blue eyes looking straight at me, so trusting. I got into bed with him, which was my bed at the time anyway and which sank in the middle like a hammock so we rolled together, like two fish in a net, and I said, ‘Darling, everyone’s got a daddy, but not everyone’s daddy lives with them and not everyone’s daddy is a good daddy unfortunately.’

  ‘Is mine a good daddy?’

  ‘No, not really sweetheart.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he didn’t want to even try and be your daddy and that isn’t your fault, it’s because he’s very stupid.’ The language changed as he grew older, so ‘didn’t want to try’ became ‘did a runner’, and ‘he was very stupid’ became ‘he was a waste of space’. But the message was the same: he didn’t
want to know and you’re better off without him.

  The toast pops up, making me jump, and I smear it with so much butter that it gathers in a pool on top like a flooded field. I eat both slices quickly, the butter, deliciously salty, running down my chin; the toast soggy and golden just as I like it. But the anxiety is still there, making it stick in my throat. Zac’s sleeping upstairs; I know that tomorrow I’m probably going to have to answer more questions about his father and I don’t know what I’ll say. Was he a waste of space? I didn’t used to think so, I used to think he was fucking magnificent! I couldn’t believe he was mine. But what am I supposed to think, Liam Jones, when you’re not here to answer for yourself? To answer the millions of questions I have carried around with me for a decade: What really happened that night – why did you start a fight? Were you always like your father and I was just too blind with love to see it? Why did you never contact or fight for us? Did you ever really love me? Most of all, did you not wonder how your son was? You spent two loved-up weeks with him. Has there not been a gaping hole in your life without him – like there has for me, without you?

  It’s nine thirty. I put the telly on to distract me but nothing holds my attention; there’s still this horrible clenched-stomach feeling and I know resistance is futile. This is what worry, heartache, whatever you want to call it, does to me – it tricks me into believing that I’ll die from it, if I don’t extinguish it, like a blanket over a fire; numb it with food. So I go into the kitchen intending to make one more slice of toast, only to emerge, half an hour or so later, having eaten three more, and almost a whole garlic baguette that I cannot, for the life of me, even remember putting in the oven. I’ve really gone and done it now, so I may as well go all the way, is my thinking. So then it’s a massive piece of Viennetta with truffles on top and it’s like I’ve eaten that in a trance too, because by the time I’m licking the bowl clean with my finger, I’m so appalled with myself, I consider making myself sick. The thought passes, however; clearly I’m not quite appalled enough with myself. So I switch the telly back on to try to distract myself again. But there’s nothing on, and there’s at least an hour before I can really call it bedtime, and I feel this chasm of misery and loneliness open up inside of me, like some huge realization has taken place, a devastating one, that I can’t pinpoint and don’t really understand – perhaps like the first few seconds you wake up the morning after someone you love has died: it hasn’t hit you yet, but you know it’s coming.