Little Big Man

by Katy Regan

  ‘Hi, guys.’ He crossed one foot over the other and leant on the table with his hands – half his thumb was missing! I looked at Teagan. She’d seen it too. ‘I understand you’ve ordered the Singapore crab?’

  We nodded but neither of us could speak, we were too busy looking at his thumb and his eyes and then at each other. ‘Great choice by the way. It’s probably my favourite dish and is absolutely’ – he blew a little kiss with his hand, which made us smile, even if we couldn’t talk – ‘gorgeous, with garlic and chilli; it’s just the right balance of spicy and fragrant …’ He was dead passionate about cooking, just like me. ‘But I just wanted to make sure you were aware it was thirty-six pounds, and it is the whole crab and I see you’ve already ordered a lot of food, some of which you’ve not eaten yet, and I just wanted to make sure’ – he leant in close, so that nobody else could hear, so that he was looking with his light blue eyes with the yellow around the middle into my light blue eyes with the yellow around the middle and my heart was banging so loudly, he must have been able to hear it – ‘you have means to pay for it all and aren’t going to find yourself panicking when the bill comes, as I notice you’re not with your mum or dad.’

  It all felt too big for my head again and my throat closed up, like I was going to cry. Do not cry, I was saying to myself, whatever you do, you can’t cry. And I was looking at my dad – my own dad, with my dad’s arms and hands and face and half a thumb, and blood pumping around his body right now, that was half the same as my blood, my genes – and I said, ‘I can’t pay for it all.’ I made the words push themselves out. ‘I’m really sorry. I’m sorry we ordered all this food, our eyes were too big for our bellies … I just … I wanted to meet you.’

  Liam smiled. ‘Meet me?’ he said. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you’re my dad.’

  He wasn’t talking. I just wanted him to talk. And he wasn’t moving. He just carried on leaning on the table staring at me, but he wasn’t even smiling now, he looked deadly serious. Then he turned around, so he was facing the other direction, and he bent over and put his hands over his face. I looked at Teagan. My throat ached. What was wrong? Why had he turned around? Was he mad with me? Not pleased to see me? Was the Find Dad mission the worst idea we’d ever had? And then I did exactly the thing I was dreading I would do, I started crying, I couldn’t keep it in.

  Teagan leant forward. ‘It’s all right, Zac,’ she said, but she was worried too, you could tell. She looked scared and she never looks scared and my dad still wasn’t turning around. ‘It’s all right, honest, don’t cry.’

  But then my dad did turn around and he was crying too. He sat down next to me. I was scared for what he was going to do, what he was going to say, but then he did the one thing I wasn’t expecting him to do: he put his arms around me and pulled me close, so that my face was right next to his, and he smelt of fish (but really nice, fishy cooking smells) and deodorant, and my dad; because all dads have their own smells like mums, and even nans and grandads.

  ‘Why’re you crying?’ I said, even though it was hard to hear me, ’cause my mouth was buried in his chef whites. ‘Are you upset? Are you disappointed?’

  ‘No, I’m happy,’ he said. ‘Why are you crying? Are you upset?’

  ‘No, I’m happy too,’ I said, and my dad just stayed like that for ages, hugging me, and Teagan reached across and finished off my chips, and mine and my dad’s cheeks were so close, our faces were touching, so that I could feel his prickly stubble, and I accidentally tasted the saltiness of his tears.

  Me and my dad couldn’t stop looking at each other for ages. We just kept looking, then laughing, and my dad told the people on the table next to us that I was his son. And me and Teagan told him how we’d launched the mission to find him, and how we’d never given up. (He had tears running down his cheeks – it turns out my dad isn’t one bit embarrassed by crying.) And my dad said he had so many questions and wanted to ask all about my mum and how she was, but that he was going to sort the Singapore crab for us first and then he was going to see if someone could take over so he could take the afternoon off. And it was the best day, the best moment of my life so far – better than catching a trout, better than touching a stingray and even tickling dolphin bellies – and I thought about my uncle Jamie and the heaven game and how this would definitely, definitely be the first door I’d go to when I died and got to heaven, to knock on it and experience it again.

  Teagan and I went a bit crazy when my dad went into the kitchen. We couldn’t believe we’d found him, we couldn’t believe it was mission accomplished!

  But then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the restaurant door open, and in walked my mum, and then my grandad.

  My whole body went cold.

  ‘Oh my God,’ said Teagan when she saw them coming towards us. ‘Oh shit.’

  And then – because we’d had so much custard, I suppose, finding and meeting my dad – just as my mum and grandad were walking towards our table, the door opened again and I nearly fainted because this time my nan walked in. It was the rhubarb bit happening but in the most extreme way it ever had.

  It was so unfair. We’d got this far. I’d found my dad and he was glad, I knew he was. He was happy I’d looked for him and he was cooking a Singapore crab for me, for his son, right now, and we were going to spend the afternoon together. I was going to tell my mum and get them to meet and they could probably, maybe, fall in love again. But I wasn’t ready to tell her just yet. I wanted to pick the perfect moment – not for her to arrive here, now, when I wasn’t ready – and I just wanted to enjoy meeting my dad for a bit longer. I’d wished for this day all my life, definitely since we’d started the Find Dad mission in February, and now it was going to be ruined before it even got started, because Nan was going to stop us. And I felt bad – I really did – that my Uncle Jamie had died and Nan was so sad, but it wasn’t a good enough, big enough reason for my dad not to be able to be my dad. It wasn’t a big enough reason for us not to be happy anymore.

  But my mum was coming straight for us, followed by Grandad and then Nan, and the whole restaurant seemed to have gone quiet; everyone was looking at us. And just then, in the worst timing in the world, my dad came out of the kitchen with the Singapore crab. He was walking from one direction towards us, while my mum, nan and grandad came from the other direction.

  Mum hugged me really tight. ‘Zac, Christ. Teagan – thank God you’re OK.’

  Then my dad was standing there with the Singapore crab and his eyes locked with Mum’s and then Grandad’s and then Nan’s and my heart broke, because it was all over, I knew it, before it had even started, before I’d had even one day with my dad.

  Grandad was looking at Dad. He was definitely going to kick off, start shouting at him about my uncle Jamie and about how sad my nan was, but then my dad said, ‘Not now, Mick. Shall we not talk about it now while Zac’s here?’

  My grandad looked at me for a long time, there were tears in his eyes, and then he nodded – it was like he was bowing to me – and he walked out. And I said, ‘Please, Nan,’ because she was also looking at my dad, and she looked ready for a fight. ‘Please don’t shout at my dad.’

  Nan said, ‘I’m not going to shout at your dad, darling. If anything, he should be shouting at me, definitely at your grandad,’ which was so confusing and I had loads of questions. But anyway, I was too busy looking at my mum, who was looking at my dad, who was still standing there, holding the Singapore crab. She still loved him, you could tell. You could see it in her eyes.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Mick

  So here I am – at the end. It feels like the end of the earth, too, standing on this jetty in Whitby, nothing but the North Sea between me and Norway. The wind is strong despite the sunshine. I must look a sight, standing here while a gale nearly blows me into the sea, but I don’t care. In fact, I prefer it this way. It seems right and just that I should be exposed to the elements, not warm and comfortable as I finally get
it all straight in my head, admit it all to myself – all of it – while my son lies cold in the ground.

  I need to understand how we got to this point, I remember saying to Carol back when I first started seeing her in January. I need to understand how our son isn’t here anymore and why I couldn’t protect him. And I do understand now: booze; addiction; weakness as a person, as a man. If I’d been stronger, more of a man, then Jamie would still be here; Zac would have his dad; Juliet would have Liam. The drink has been the undoing of me and this family, so perhaps I can comfort myself with the fact that I, at the very least, succeeded in giving it up. The tragedy is that it took what happened to happen before I did.

  I made the fatal error of the recovering alcoholic that night, 11 June 2005. I’ve done so well, five months without a drink. Surely one won’t hurt? But hurt it did – me, and everyone I love.

  I was giddy after becoming a grandad for the first time. But giddiness is a danger zone for the alcoholic – happiness, sadness, any extreme of emotion. ‘Surely a man can toast the arrival of his first grandchild?’ That’s what I said to Jamie as I stood at the bar that night, my pulse quickening at the mere sight of those optics. Surely one won’t hurt? I’d driven both him and Liam there after making them stomach-lining pasta just as I’d promised Lynda. I’d even let them get out of the car and was turning around ready to go home. But then something switched in my head. I’d reached the limit of my self-discipline, or I genuinely felt I was in control, I don’t know which, but Surely one won’t hurt? slid into my head like a vision-altering lens, and before I knew it, I was on two, and three and four … That moment where the boat tips so far you can’t right it anymore had been and gone and it was heaven for a while, oh God, it was bliss. But then, almost as soon as I’d got into the water, I was flailing about, out of my depth. And then it was, Surely a man can have a shot on the birth of his first grandchild? Surely a man can buy his future son-in-law and his son a shot to celebrate something as momentous as this? And another, and another. After all, I felt proud and jubilant (course I did, I was wasted). I loved Jamie, I loved Liam, I loved Zac and everyone in that pub. But then one pint too many, one shot too many, and things turn very quickly from loved-up to stoked-up, to fighting talk.

  I went to the gents’. Chris Hynd was next to me at the urinals. He’s always been a wind-up merchant and he started going on about this and that, something and nothing, but I could feel myself getting riled. As we left the toilets, Liam happened to be coming in. He was already oiled – not as far gone as me, but getting there on the pints of Fosters with tequila chasers I’d basically thrust upon him. And so seeing him drunk and an easy target, Hynd started to wind him up too. He had the two of us tucked into a corner between the gents’ door and the door to the bar, taking the piss – like I say, something and nothing. But then things got serious; he chose to say the wrong thing to the wrong man. ‘Seen your girl around, Mick – she’s a big lass these days, isn’t she? Let herself go a bit?’

  I looked at Liam. He was frowning, trying to compute what he’d just heard, hoping he hadn’t heard right.

  ‘She was fucking pregnant until a fortnight ago, you imbecile,’ I said. I just saw red.

  Hynd laughed then, and it was that, that sly smirk of his … I felt my blood boil. I went for him like an animal. I had him up against the wall opposite the gents’, clutching his hair and holding his head back, spitting into his stupid face, ‘You fucking ever, ever bad-mouth my family again and I’ll fucking kill you.’ That was four pints and God knows what else talking all right because I may have been a drunk but I’ve never been a violent man. But I’d had five months off the booze and it had me now, firmer than ever, in its grip. He said something else and I went for him again and it was then that Liam tried to stop the fight, pulling us apart, and me to the side. ‘Mick, maybe it’s time you went home,’ he said. ‘Don’t waste your energies on this waste of space – think what Lynda would say if she knew you were out. Think of how well you’ve done.’

  But it was Hynd that walked off then, flicking my shoulder as he went. ‘I’ve not fucking finished with you, mate. I’ll see you later.’ And it was like the lights going on at a party in that moment; I came to my senses. It’s either me or the drink, Mick. I could hear Lynda’s words in my head, see her at her wits’ end, delivering her ultimatum. It’s the booze or us. And something obviously clicked because once we were back in the bar, I put one foot in front of the other and, without saying goodbye to either Jamie or Liam, I walked off, leaving them both with Hynd, got in the car and drove, well over the limit, back home.

  It wasn’t even nine then. If I went straight home, I could be sober for when Lynda came in from her night shift at six and she’d be none the wiser – that was my thinking.

  But I’d already started the fight, hadn’t I? I’d already fuelled the boys with alcohol and set up the domino effect that would end with my boy dead and this family in ruins. I wasn’t thinking of that then, though. I was thinking only of myself and of Lynda’s wrath, and what I could lose should she find out I’d fallen spectacularly off the wagon, and not looked after the boys – our boy.

  Then it was two and Jamie was lying in a hospital bed, clinging on to life, and I wasn’t thinking about what I’d done or even what Liam had done. I was thinking only of Jamie and willing him to live. I still had every hope – stupid bastard that I was – that everything would be OK. But then Jamie died. The impossible happened, and I just fell apart.

  That was when I spat those words out: ‘You’re just like your father.’ In the heat of the moment, I believed them too. For a month, maybe two, I told myself it was true, and that this family was better off without him. Zac – and Juliet – had had a lucky escape. I even joined in gladly with Lynda’s blame crusade and her vitriol. But as time marched on, and the letters arrived – as I always knew they would – that conviction became harder and harder to hold on to. But of course, I’d fallen head over heels in love with my grandson by then; I loved him more than I knew it was possible to love another human being – and I couldn’t give him up. Couldn’t tell the truth about that night. Couldn’t – wouldn’t – take my share of the blame.

  Until now.

  I looked up – the sea stretching out in front of me, miles and miles of blue – and I thought of Jamie falling to the ground that night, felled by Hynd, in a fight started by Liam, in a train of events put into motion by me, and of the last moments I saw him alive. And I walked straight back to the restaurant and I walked inside. I saw my daughter, my grandson, my wife – and I knew I was very possibly about to lose them all.

  ‘Juliet,’ I said, and I looked at Liam as I said it. I made myself look him straight in the eye. ‘Can we go somewhere, please? I have to talk to you. I have to tell you the truth.’

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Juliet

  Zac dances like his dad, or Liam dances like his son, I’m not sure which way round it is. I’m watching them both now, dancing to Justin Timberlake (Liam was head of the playlist for the eleventh birthday party) amidst the swirl of disco lights, and they do, they dance the same way: their feet don’t move much, but there’s a lot of ‘upper body’ action; lots of arms and knees and hips – a lot of hips. They yawn the same way too, unnecessarily loudly and always saying ‘sorry’ afterwards. The first time Liam did it, Zac and I looked at one another in disbelief. They’re both scared of wasps, though Zac is allergic to stings – I don’t know what Liam’s excuse is for flapping about like a pantomime dame – and they think Marmite with pasta is an actual bona fide meal, and get in a bad mood if they don’t eat for longer than three hours. Mind you, so do I. That’s not a son and father thing, that’s just a family thing, maybe even a human thing.

  What else have I discovered in the past two and a half weeks since Liam came back into Zac’s life? Into ours? I know that I didn’t know stuff before, I just guessed and presumed. But Zac, he knew; he seemed to know the truth from the outset, or at least that everythin
g would be OK. Or perhaps he just had faith – which is different to knowing, it’s trusting. And even though sometimes in this mission to find his dad, it’s felt like he’s had faith in the Second bloody Coming, he’s still had it in bucket loads and when he’s felt it slipping, he’s hunted it down – like he has his dad – and brought it to me, to this family. I’m so proud of him for that. I am watching him now, dancing at the same time as chatting to Connor and Teagan, like an ordinary eleven-year-old, thinking how he is anything but ordinary to me – my extraordinary son.

  Something catches my eye at the other side of the Casablanca Club – a door opens, there’s a glimpse of pink, evening sky and I realize it’s my dad leaving. He doesn’t say goodbye, he just slips out, an hour before the end of the party. I watch him go, then five minutes later I watch Mum follow, but they won’t be going to the same house tonight, not for a long while, perhaps not ever again. But at least they’re talking, and I’ve got a feeling this is where the real recovery starts for both of them, for our family; after all, how can you begin to heal when you don’t know the truth? When you don’t even know what sort of wounds you’re dealing with?