Little Big Man

by Katy Regan

  Everyone smiled.

  ‘Yes, he had the most amazing talent,’ said Nan. ‘For just knowing what flavours went together. You’ve got that talent from him, Zac.’

  ‘And also from my dad,’ I said. ‘’Cause he liked cooking too.’ But then Mum kicked me under the table; it proper hurt as well. ‘Ow!’ I rubbed my leg. ‘I’m just saying, because I know Uncle Jamie was a brilliant chef, but I have got half my dad’s genes, whereas from your uncle you probably only get a quarter, so it’s much more likely that I inherited my cooking skills from my dad. It’s like I got his blue eyes too.’

  ‘Zac,’ Mum said. Nobody was talking – the whole room had gone silent. ‘Can you just not—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Please?’ She was eyeballing me.

  There was an even longer silence. I knew it was probably because I was talking about my dad and Nan doesn’t like it but I was getting a bit annoyed by that. I am half my dad, even though he left me, so to keep saying he’s a completely horrible person is offensive. Also, Mum told me stuff about him, stuff that was nice – he couldn’t have been all horrible.

  Still nobody was talking. I didn’t like it. The only sound was of our knives and forks on the plates. If Teagan had been here, she would have said, Awkward.

  Nan was looking at her plate, eating very slowly. It was so quiet you could hear her breathing in and out of her nose. ‘See, I told you this would happen,’ she said then, putting her knife and fork down, and Mum sighed and Grandad said, ‘Oh Lynda, don’t start.’

  ‘You start telling him things and he forms an idea in his head. He starts thinking about him and imagining him … Children are like sponges, that’s just what they do.’ Nan was talking gently, but she was angry, you could tell by the way she was looking really hard at her plate and clasping her fingers together so hard that they had gone white.

  More quiet. I hated this.

  ‘I don’t know what you want me to say, Mum,’ said Mum after a bit.

  I heard Nan swallow. ‘I don’t want you to say anything – about him, to him,’ she said, nodding her head towards me. ‘That’s what. Because he does not need to know anything. It’s not good for him.’

  ‘But I want to know!’ I blurted out. I didn’t want to join in but they were talking like I wasn’t even there. ‘I want to know, because he is my dad whether you like it or not. And I want to know that he wasn’t that bad, because if he was, then some of the badness will have seeped into me. It just will. You don’t just get the good genes, you know, like being good at cooking; you get the bad ones too.’

  Mum gasped. ‘Zac! Please don’t talk like that. You haven’t got a bad bone in your body, darling.’ She turned back to Nan. ‘See what you’ve started?’ she said then. ‘Great, so he now thinks he’s somehow bad inside because you’ve demonized Liam so much. Because that’s also what children do, Mum.’

  ‘Juliet,’ growled Grandad, putting his head in his hands.

  Nan looked like she was definitely going to cry. When she spoke next, her voice was all wobbly. ‘How can you say that? How can you say I demonize him? You know why I think the way I do. You know why I can’t have his name spoken in my house.’ She gives me a look which I know means she doesn’t want to say anything more in front of me.

  ‘Yes, but’ – Mum was holding her hands up, she was so frustrated – ‘that’s not Zac’s fault, is it? Look, I’m cross with Liam too.’

  ‘Cross!’ said Nan. ‘I think that’s the bloody understatement of the century, isn’t it?’

  ‘OK, I’m really, really sad – for Zac too; and so disappointed. But what happened happened and all this bitterness and hatred doesn’t bring my brother back – and I don’t think Jamie would have wanted—’

  ‘Jamie?’ I said. ‘Uncle Jamie? What’s Dad got to do with Uncle Jamie? Did my dad know him?’

  Nan flung her napkin down hard and got up from the table then, so quickly that everything shook like an earthquake was starting. We all sat in silence. Grandad stood up to go after her. ‘It’s not your fault, Zac,’ he said, touching my arm. ‘OK? None of this is your fault.’

  It didn’t feel like that, though.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Juliet

  After Mum storms off into the kitchen, followed by Dad who shuts the door, Zac and I sit opposite one another, listening to them argue.

  MUM: ‘I am sick to death of you sitting on the frigging fence, Michael.’

  ZAC (gasping): ‘Did Nan just say frigging?’

  ME: ‘Yes, but that doesn’t mean you can.’

  DAD: ‘I just think it’s not fair to shut Zac down like that – whatever’s happened. He’s only—’

  MUM: ‘What do you mean, whatever’s happened? You know what happened! I can’t believe you would say that, like it’s nothing, like you think I’ve gone doolally and I’m totally unreasonable.’

  DAD (long silence, then sounding spent, a broken man): ‘I don’t think you’re being unreasonable, it’s just, it’s not his fault, is it?’

  MUM: ‘No, which is why I’m trying to protect him – from him! From knowing anything about him!’ (Mum’s stage whisper went up an octave with every sentence. There wasn’t much further to go.) ‘It’ll only be pain from here, Michael. That is all.’

  Zac looks across the table at me with his big, sad eyes. I reach out and put my hand on his. ‘It is my fault, isn’t it?’ he says.

  ‘What’s your fault, Zac?’

  ‘That everyone’s arguing and the Easter tea’s a dead loss’ – that’s Mum’s phrase, I have to stop myself from smiling. ‘It’s my fault for asking questions about my dad.’

  ‘No, Zac, you didn’t do anything wrong,’ I say, even though, to be honest, he did. Not wrong in the normal outside world, but wrong in this house, this life, this … cult. That’s what it’s felt like all these years, a cult where Liam is the Devil and thou shalt not entertain the Devil under this roof. Why has he suddenly started asking them questions about his father anyway? I’m flabbergasted at that. I could kick myself for not sitting down with him after Mum and Dad gave me the lecture in Bobbins, and telling him never to mention anything about his dad in front of them again. It’s just, after a decade of brainwashing from all of us, I might add (not just Mum, although she’s always been Chief Brainwasher), I didn’t think it would even enter his head, let alone that he’d have the nerve. Part of me was a little bit proud of him.

  There are more hushed whispers from the kitchen. I am just about to suggest we go somewhere else when Zac says, ‘Mum, can I go and call for Teagan?’

  ‘What, now?’ I look at the clock. It’s 3.20 p.m.

  ‘Yeah, I told her I couldn’t meet today for …’ He puts his fingers to his lips as if he was about to say something he wasn’t supposed to, but then carries on. ‘I just want to see her. It’s not a very nice atmosphere here, you know.’

  ‘I know.’ I can’t argue with that. Mum won’t come back from this – not today – and there’s no point the two of us staying here, treading on eggshells. ‘Off you go then. Just pop your head in and say bye, before you go. They won’t mind.’

  Zac leaves and I take the three Easter eggs I have (it isn’t Easter Sunday until tomorrow; Jesus may not have risen but my mother’s hackles have, and it’s ugly, and I need chocolate) and carry them, clutched to my chest, to my bedroom. I lie on my childhood bed and feel a horrible sense of déjà vu wash over me. I’ve been here before, both literally – lying here with my bootleg chocolate – and in the wider sense, in terms of how I feel. This bed is the same bed I used to lie on talking to my brother through the paper-thin walls – often in the early hours of the morning when we were underage drunk and giddy. Then, when Jamie died and Liam left and Zac and I had to move in here, I spent hours in this room. Back then, I’d lie on this bed, listening to my mother’s crying, the sobs that seemed to wrack this whole house, in the middle of the night.

  In the day, she was often silent. It was Dad’s river of tears that
came then. She had a shrine to Jamie set up in his bedroom – the clothes he’d been wearing the night he’d gone out with Liam (unwashed, never to be washed), his framed catering certificates, the revolting bit of old baby blanket he nuzzled and sucked on till he was at least eight – and she often retreated to that room for most of the day to immerse herself in Jamie-ness.

  Jamie was always far more babied than me when we were little and that was fine, because I was naturally more self-sufficient, but then when he died and everything happened, I needed Mum more than ever. But there was to be no mothering in this House of Tears now, and there was to be no sadness except my mother’s, which was bigger than anyone could possibly imagine or understand. Mum had no business with life, and would tick off every day on the calendar as one day closer to being reunited with Jamie at the pearly gates. It was like we’d all died.

  And then there was the vitriol. Because, in her eyes, it turned out she’d been right all along after all: at his core, Liam was Vaughan Jones’s son. I hated him for it too for a while. I even joined in, feeling so betrayed he’d managed to keep that side hidden from me; livid he’d proved my mother right when I’d spent years defending him. But as the years went by, and he never came back for Zac and me, the hatred turned to confusion, because it just didn’t add up. He’d never got into a fight before, least of all instigated one – why then, if this was to be the start of his fighting and prison career, following in the footsteps of his father, had he waited this long? People don’t just flip a switch overnight. I began to see that that fateful punch he threw at Hynd was basically a mistake and everyone can make mistakes, can’t they? And normally they get away with it. If Jamie had lived, then Liam would have got away with his.

  I’ve been lying on this bed for almost an hour, I can’t stay here any longer. I get up, stuff the Easter eggs into my bag to take home and go downstairs. Mum’s sitting on her own at the table, picking at some lamb on her plate with her fingers, when I go back into the dining room. Dad has gone for another smoke.

  ‘I’m going to go, I think,’ I say, putting my bag over my shoulder.

  ‘You as well?’ She doesn’t look up, just pushes a bit of meat around her plate, like nothing’s happened, like it’s everyone else who overreacted. This is always her way after an episode like this.

  ‘Yeah, I’m sure you probably just want a bit of time on your own and I’d best be at home for when Zac gets back.’

  ‘All right, love.’ She sighs, rubbing her face. She is still tearful and I hover, considering giving her a hug and apologizing, promising I’ll talk to Zac and ask him never to bring up Liam again. But I don’t because I am torn, torn between my mother and my son. I hate to see what this has all done to Mum, but I have to think of Zac too – how frustrated he must feel, how confused.

  I always know when it’s going to happen and I know, as I close my parents’ front door behind me, that it’s going to happen now. The air is cool and damp; it’s drizzling, just ever so slightly. It’s a relief after the claustrophobia of my parents’ house and I lift my face to the rain as I walk and feel freer, even though I am being pulled, as if by a magnet, to the shop at the end of the road and in my head I am talking to myself: Just stop it. Just walk past. Just think of your son. Your time is surely up with this, kiddo. But deep inside me there is a hollow pit, and it needs filling, otherwise it aches, it niggles, it nags and mithers. Something other than what is happening inside my head right now needs to happen and so I find myself drifting through the door as if my body has taken leave of my mind. That’s how it feels. Like I’m in a trance. And then there is the dizzying surge of adrenaline coursing through me, a sense of elation reaching fever pitch with a ringing in my ears, and then I am walking down the road again, with a stolen Victoria sandwich, a Toffee Crisp and a magazine in my bag, slightly breathless.

  Then my phone rings. I leap out of my skin.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Juliet?’ The voice is familiar and not, both at the same time; I can’t place it. And it sounds distant, like the person is standing somewhere exposed but noisy – like an airport. ‘It’s Uncle Paul here. I hope you don’t mind me calling you, it’s just, Zac is down the docks with his friend, he’s asking after Liam Jones – I thought you’d want to know.’

  I freeze, feeling the weight of the bag in my hand. Liam. Why the hell has my son gone down there to ask about his dad? It’s completely out of character for Zac to go somewhere as far as the docks without telling me first; he would never want to worry me. Uncle Paul must have got it wrong. Then the panic sets in. He was upset when he left Mum and Dad’s, guilty that he’d somehow ruined things, and Zac’s got such a conscience on him. Mum must have scared him with her reaction – he was probably already speculating, thinking there must be more to it than Liam just leaving. What if he’s decided to run away, to stow away? What if he’s aboard a boat right now, destined for Scotland? Or he’s fallen over the harbour wall; got caught up in some machinery – the dockside is no place for kids.

  ‘I’m coming down,’ I say, already on my way. ‘Tell him to stay there.’ Then I hang up, my hands shaking, and start to walk towards Wellington Street, then, breaking into a run, towards Freeman Street, down towards the steel gates and the concrete, the harbour and the cranes, the boat masts, the edge of Grimsby – and, after that, only the deep, endless sea.

  All I care about is getting to my boy, but I can hear my breath and the soles of my shoes slapping the pavement and I am vaguely aware of the seagulls lacing the sky above me, as if taking me there, guiding me towards him. It’s amazing the reserves of energy you find in a crisis because I am flying, it feels like I’ve never run as fast in my life. My loot jostles in my bag and I feel a terrible guilt twist my insides: there I was just minutes earlier, indulging my shameful habit, my twisted craving – and my son, he needs me. He’s in emotional turmoil.

  Anger has seeped in with the worry by the time I get down the docks, however – anger born of fear, but anger all the same. It’s been years since I’ve been down here and I am hit by a wave of nostalgia as the briny, fishy, industrial smell hits my nostrils; the smell of my dad and of my childhood.

  It doesn’t take me long to spot Zac and Teagan idly wandering along the harbour wall and I scream at their backs: ‘Zac!’ They turn around immediately. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing? I’ve been so worried!’ It’s OK, I tell myself, he’s here, he’s alive. I walk towards him. ‘What are you doing here? Why would you do that?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Zac’s voice is faint, swallowed up by the space, the sea.

  ‘Sorry is not good enough! You never, ever go anywhere like this without telling me first.’

  I am nearly standing in front of him now and he is blinking at me, shocked at quite how angry I am. ‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ he says, ‘I really am. I just wanted …’ He pauses, takes a breath. ‘I just want to find my dad.’

  A strong breeze is coming in from the water, blowing our hair sideways, and the rain, delicate as cobwebs, is settling on our faces.

  ‘Teagan,’ I say then, still breathless from running. She looks a mixture of sheepish and defiant. ‘Can you give us a moment?’

  ‘Yep.’ She nods, but doesn’t move.

  ‘On our own?’

  She still dithers, at which point I realize a ten-year-old doesn’t know what to do with herself left to her own devices somewhere like this, so I open my bag and take out a Cadbury’s Flake Easter egg – one of the two I have left. ‘Here,’ I say. ‘Go and sit over there and have this, we’ll only be five minutes.’

  She holds it, looking at it as if I’ve given her the golden Wonka ticket. ‘What, all of it?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say then. ‘Actually, on second thoughts, maybe save me a tiny bit?’

  She looks at Zac, then grins at me before walking towards the wall I gestured to. ‘OK, if you play your cards right,’ I hear her say. Zac is looking at the floor but I see a smile curl at his lips.

  We stand looking
at one another for a moment, my breathing only just returning to something even approaching normal. ‘Let’s sit down,’ I say, making my way over to the wall of the fish market. ‘Underneath here, come on, out of the rain.’

  I sit down next to my son. He’s hugging his knees, back against the harbour wall, face like a jellyfish in a string bag as my dad would say.

  ‘What’s going on, Zac?’ I say, after a bit. ‘Come on, you can tell me.’

  The drizzle continues – the weather’s equivalent of a constant, white background noise – and the breeze is strong but not cold and when you look out, the boats, the water and everything beyond is one big, amorphous smudge of mist.

  ‘See that trawler over there?’ I say when still Zac doesn’t say anything. ‘That’s what your grandad would call “a big ol’ rust bucket”.’ I think I detect a smile, so I carry on. ‘It’s the sort of trawler he’d have gone to sea on too.’

  ‘It’s a seiner,’ says Zac.

  ‘So it is. Get your facts right, Mum.’ Zac looks at me and smiles. I am definitely making progress. ‘When I was little,’ I carry on, ‘Dad – your grandad – used to occasionally take me on one of his boats and show me around, show me what everything was for and what everything did. Did you know that fish are attracted to a wreckage? If there’s a wreckage, all the lights show on the GPS screen and the fishermen know there’ll be a shoal of fish there, and so they’re able to sail towards it.’

  ‘Seeing pound signs,’ says Zac, and I smile because that’s what Dad always used to say: ‘Whenever we saw fish, we just saw pound signs.’

  ‘That’s right,’ I say, ‘and then they get all excited. They message the other fishermen out on their trawlers and tell them where the fish are too. They help each other out.’

  ‘Why has Grandad never taken me on a boat?’ says Zac suddenly.

  ‘I don’t know, darling. Maybe you should ask him. He’s not a fisherman anymore, though, is he?’

  ‘My dad was, though.’