“Whadda you care?” he said.
“I’m your son.”
“You been my son for twenty-five years –”
“Thirty-one, Dad.”
“Thirty – ?” and he stopped. I watched his thin mouth twitch and chew a little.
“I’m not here to tick you off,” I said. “I’m well past that. Haven’t you been getting my letters?”
“Got the first few,” he said. He coughed, a wet, old man’s cough, shoulders shaking within the thin polyester. “Your opinion of me seemed pretty plain. Didn’t see much point in puttin’ m’self through that every year.”
“You haven’t – ? You haven’t been reading them?”
My father shrugged a weak shrug, popping the lid from his buckled Golden Virginia tobacco tin with skeletal fingers.
“Missed some big news, ’ave I? That what’s dragged you in ’ere? Get kicked out of University or something, is it? Good thing too. Getcha’self in the real world, boy.”
“I can’t believe you haven’t been reading …” I trailed off, dizzily. “I … I finished University ten years ago, Dad. And the real world and I get along fine. Thank you.”
“I bet,” he said dryly. “You always were a workin’ man. Even as a boy. Runnin’ errands for fifty pee.”
“Not that I ever got the fifty pee.”
“I was teachin’ you a lesson son,” he smiled the neat, ordered smile of cheap dentures.
“I’m married now,” I said.
“Yeah?” Dad said, barely looking up.
“You … you have a grand-daughter.”
Dad stayed watching the table for a moment. The plastic grain, the peeling edges. He took a deep, quiet breath and then met my look.
“Lana,” I said, tugging my unfinished letter from my jacket, opening it up and sliding out a couple of photographs. I slid the lot across the warped formica. “She’s just six weeks.”
Dad sat in silence, peering at the pictures, while he fussed and dribbled over a fresh roll-up.
“That’s Jane there with her. And her father. Edward, the Earl of Somewhere or other Shire.”
“A nob, eh?”
“You’d like him,” I said. “He hasn’t done an honest day’s work in his life either.”
“Married up. Good lad. Bet he’s worth a bob or two, eh?” and he winked, shaky tongue wetting his cigarette paper. “Should’a thought o’that m’self. That would’a suited me. Not that your mum didn’t look after me, o’course. But she never got ‘the life’.”
“No,” I said. I gathered the photographs.
“Old fashioned, she was. Up to the end. Day’s work for a day’s pay, all that. You got that mug’s game streak from her.”
“Us teacups, eh?” I said.
“The lot of you.”
It was extraordinary. Even here. Here, among freezing gantries and heavy guards where you’d think reality would finally sink in, he clung to it. Locked behind steel doors behind high concrete walls, nothing had changed. It was still all us-and-them. Even though his self-proclaimed savvy friends, with their schemes and know-how were sat around him in thin tracksuits, eking out roll-ups and shuffling in concrete shadows for twenty-three hours a day, years reaching ahead of them, they were still all above us ‘mugs’ who could up and leave, walk free, taste the air, feel the grass on our feet and the wind in our faces whenever we wished.
“Well?” Dad said, placing his hair-thin cigarette on the table neatly.
“Well,” I stumbled, looking down, trying to say everything that needed saying through the usual ineffectual manly gruffness. “I thought I’d come and see you. Just to … well. To see you. See how you’re keeping.”
Dad said nothing, just watched me wriggle.
“The thing is though …” I said, lowering my voice a little. “See, the thing is I’m in need of … This is rather embarrassing …”
“It’s a bit late for the birds an’ bees son.”
“I-I suppose you’d say I’m in need of your expertise.”
The table went quiet. Around us, the couples’ chatter continued in a low murmur. Chair scrapes. Muffled tears.
Dad blinked. Then blinked again, before sitting back with a crooked smirk in exactly the way I’d hoped he wouldn’t.
“Well well. My son. Realised the error of your ways ’ave you? Finally cottoned on that the old man isn’t as green as ’e’s cabbage looking, eh?”
“No, I’m not –”
“Got it into your college-boy head that you might ’ave something left to learn at last? Bet you wished you’d paid a bit more attention at home now, don’tcha. Breakfast time? ’Stead of ’avin’ your nose in a comic? Listened to your old dad? Well, well. I never thought I’d see the –”
“Dad!” I hissed, startling him a little. “It’s not like that. I’m not … Look, what I said in those letters. The first letters, I mean. After it happened. That still stands. Your life, your way – it isn’t mine. Our values, our … look, nothing’s changed. That’s not what this is … I didn’t want to follow you as a boy and I don’t want to follow you as a man, you understand me? Sitting around at breakfast, listening to your little lessons? Your tricks? Whatever you called them –”
“I was just teachin’ you to play the system, lad. System’s like a piano. Even in ’ere. Built for –”
“Built for playing, I remember. Well I never understood it and neither did Mum. She would have rather you put her first, instead of your petty victories. Let the system win once or twice and put some food on the –”
“System win?!” Dad coughed. “I’ll let you mugs bend over and grab your ankles for the system son. Your dad’s smarter than that.”
“You think it’s smarter to go without? Sit around –”
“I’m smarter than that!” Dad yelled, slamming a thin fist on the table, tobacco tin jumping. His eyes were wet, flashing like neon in oily puddles. At the far wall, a warder lifted his chin from his starchy collar and peered across at us. We hunkered down a little among the plastic bottles.
“She didn’t care, Dad,” I whispered. “’Cause, y’know, sitting around hungry while you marched about in your vest, talking about how smart you were? Lording it about like you were Ronnie Biggs just because you’d wrung another eight quid out of the Social? It might surprise you Dad, but she didn’t care. I didn’t care. Nobody was impressed.”
“Nobody was – ? Listen to ’im. I could’a walked into any pub in that town, any pub, and had a dozen fellahs –”
“Oh well done you. No stair carpet. No shoes. Same school blazer for five years, but the darts team all thought you were the man. Great.”
“So. This is what this is about?” Dad said. He looked tired, bony shoulders round and heavy. “What happened to needing my expertise? I can get a parenting sermon off Father Pollack at Chapel. I don’t need to waste precious association time hearin’ it from you. I could be a hundred points up at Kaluki b’now, ’stead of getting’ an ear-bashin’ from an ungrateful son.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, breathing deep. My hands were wet and warm. “I just wanted you to know … y’know, what was what. But I do need your help. I’ve got involved …” The words were fat in my throat. “Shit, this isn’t easy to …”
I looked up. Dad had sat back, arms folded, polyester sleeves crackling. The galvanised rubber chair gave a groan. He had his crooked smile wrapped about his roll-up, Bic lighter halfway to his mouth. He chuckled, cigarette bobbing, lit it and let out a stream of smoke from his nostrils.
“What ’ave you done?”
“Done?”
“Sitting there all Mr Straight-and-narrow? Givin’ it all the high-and- mighty? Sounds like what the shrink we got in ’ere calls transference. You ain’t pissed at me. You’re pissed at you. Look at’cha. Wringing your hands, fidgeting, bags under your eyes. What you got yourself into? Drugs?”
“Drugs? No.” I sighed, heart thumping. “Look, Dad, it’s a long shot. You’re the only person I know who might be a
ble to –”
“Cut to the chase, lad, we’re on the clock ’ere,” and he motioned to the wall. Behind a rusty grille, hanging on the polished green brick, a large institutional face counted down the hour. Beneath, a wide warder paced, chin up, rolling his shoulders, moving between the mutters, the hand-holding and pain.
“Okay. Right. Well.” I focused back on my father. “In short, I need … What do you know … what do you know about confidence tricks?”
I took the next ten minutes outlining my situation in a hushed voice, us both leaning in over the table like two grandmasters. The warder who’d directed me in wandered past a couple of times, causing us to break apart rather clumsily and remark about the food in loud theatrical voices but he promptly left with a stern, forceful look on his face, humming what sounded suspiciously like a Shania Twain medley.
Dad I-gotcha-ed with a nod throughout my story, head cocked to one side slightly like a bird, staring at the table top, taking it all in, until finally he looked up at me.
“That it?” he said.
“That’s it,” I sighed, chest light, temporarily relieved of its burden.
“Jesus,” he sighed. “Jesus Christ, boy. I can hardly … This is a son of mine talkin’. At no point did it dawn on you …”
“Dad, we haven’t time for –”
“At no point during this farce, did you think, ’ang on, it’s all a bit convenient. This American just happens to be short –”
“Dad!”
“A son of mine. A son of mine!” and he rolled his rheumy eyes, staring up at the iron lights and the high netting above us. “Did you learn nuffin’ growin’ up? Of course the dame’s in on it. The dame’s always in on it! Dear God …”
“Please Dad. The time? I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry. But this is your grand-daughter’s future in the balance here.”
Dad shook a sad, slow head for a moment and popped his cigarette tin open once again.
“Not so full of yourself now, are we, Mr Straight-and-narrow-workin’-man? Mr System?”
“Dad, look, I’ve come here for help. I don’t know what else to do. If you’re just going to –”
“’Awright ’awright. ’Ow long you got?”
“What? Well that’s the thing,” I whispered. “Jane’s dad is back in three days. I’m meant to be picking him up from outside Victoria Station on Tuesday. He’s going to talk to his accountant and that’ll be that.”
“And the summons? This Maurice bloke?”
“Nine days. And between now and then I’m meant to be running a stall at Earl’s Court, which is a whole other set of problems. I don’t think I can afford not to set up. I’ve paid my deposit and I’ve had a van booked for months. But with only half the stock? I-I …”
“S’all right, calm down,” Dad said. He was thinking. I watched him sit back and go through the production line steps of another thin cigarette. I noticed the pale spots on the backs of his hands as he held the paper to his trembling tongue. Finally, smoothing the edges, he laid down the cigarette neatly on the table as before.
“Dad?” I said, tapping my chunky watch face.
“This Andrew? He that poofy fellah you hung around with at school?”
“It was University. And he’s married with twin daughters.”
“Well spoken?”
“Fairly I s’pose.”
“I remember him. Poofy fellah.”
“Dad –”
“Had my doubts about him. All that hippy stuff, weren’t it? Ban the bomb, save the whale, all that?”
“I shouldn’t have come. Christ, what was I –”
“Shush, let me think, let me think.” He balanced his cigarette on the edge of his lip and dragged a rough thumb over the lighter, sparking hot and blue. Dad took a tiny puff and sat back. “Now if I know felons – an’ there are one or two in ’ere who fit that description – this Christopher fellah will ’ave gone underground.”
“Underground?”
“Off the radar. ’E won’t risk stickin’ his head above the parapet for a long while. Not wiv’ you still smartin’ from the whippin’ ’e gave you. Which I still can’t believe a son of mine … I mean, law, didn’t you think? When this dame –”
“All right Dad,” I squirmed. “Point made. Can we stick to the –”
“A’wright a’wright, I’m just sayin’. If ’e’s as smart as you give ’im credit for, ’e’ll stay out of London and off the grift for six months. My bet is he’ll split your fifty K and live the high life for a while.”
“Great,” I said, a dark shadow rumbling cold over my spirit. “So what do I do? Try and track him down in the home counties next summer? My wife will leave me. She’ll take my daughter, my house, everything I have. Everything I am. I can’t afford to –”
“Wait,” Dad interrupted. He twisted open a bottle of Coke. “Wait,” he said again, brain ticking over. He slid his cigarette out of his mouth and slugged a fizzy glugful then wiped his lips with the back of his thin hand. “There’s a guy we got in ’ere. Fraud. Seacat o’course, so I don’t see ’im much.”
“Seacat?”
“Category C. Non-violent repeat offenders. They keep ’em away from us Bs. They’re in G-Block, over the way. Where I should be by rights. But I see him in Chapel once in a while. Always bangin’ on about next time, ’e is. ’Ow next time’ll be perfect. The big one. Payday. End of the rainbow stuff. Like a broken record, on and on. Not that ’e’s different to most.”
“I don’t follow?”
“The pot of gold. S’what gets everybody collared in the end. That belief that somewhere, somewhere out there, is the perfect job. The one mythical pay-off that’ll set ’em up for life. That’s what everybody’s hopin’ for. S’what brings ’em out of retirement for that one last blag. Everyone. The guys in hidin’? Guys tryin’ to lay-low? Pretty much every lag in stir has jacked it in at some point, gone the high road, until they got a whiff-of-the-myth.”
“The pot of gold.”
“Right. See,” and Dad leant in a little, checking over both shoulders shiftily, which to me seemed like the ideal way to get the warders bouldering over with stirrups and rubber gloves, but I was on his turf and had to presume he knew what he was doing so I hunkered down and let him continue. “Crooks are lazy. S’what gets ’em caught. An’ why the big one-off retirement payout is so irresistible. Oh they’ll make out they put in the hours of prep and rehearsal, but it’s all too much like hard work. They’re a shiftless and bone-idle lot in the most part.”
“Not like you then,” I said.
“Hey. Hey ’old yer ’orses there, Sparky,” Dad said, pointing a bony finger my way. “What I did? How I chose to live? That wasn’t idle. I put in the hours, ask anyone. Day in, day out at that bookies. Followin’ the tips, checkin’ the form. That weren’t grift, that was graft. I worked at it. Got it down to a fine art.”
“Until,” I said.
“That was a last resort, son. I’ve told you that. Tragedy. For everybody. Things just got a little out of hand. Run of bad luck, that’s all. I just needed to get m’self clear. Start again.”
“I’m sure his widow sees it that way too.”
Dad looked at me, lips closed and chewing small angry chews.
“Well that’s up to her,” he said flatly. “She’s out there and she can see it how she wants, lad. That was all a long time ago for us all. Another lifetime.”
“Gosh, well that’s all right then.”
“Time moves on boy. You’ll learn that one day. What’s done is done. Her grief ’ll pass. Memory fades. But I’m still ‘ere.”
I looked at him. This all sounded horribly familiar.
“You’re … Wait, you’re not – ?”
“S’all I’m sayin’,” Dad nodded.
“He’s right. Jesus, Andrew’s … son of a bitch is right.”
“Right?”
“Yesterday. Andrew.”
“The poofy –”
“The poofy fellah Dad, yes. Je
sus. He said …” I could hardly believe it. But there it was, in front of me. Smoking thin cigarettes through cheap false teeth. “You actually think it’s you who we should feel sorry for now. Because you’re in here and she’s out there. You genuinely feel … In your head. In your thinking. The blame. It’s …” and I searched for Andrew’s phrase. “It’s jumped the fence.”
“Fence? What’re you talkin’ about lad? Who’s jumpin’ – ?”
“Andrew. He said you add time to any wrong-doing and the crook is off scott-free. And you agree with him.”
“Scot – ? I look scot free to you, lad?”
“Yes,” I said, almost shouting. “In your head, you clearly are. Free of guilt, free of blame. Just a poor victim of the system.”
“I didn’t have any choice. It was me or ’im. I was in trouble.”
“Yes Dad, but when most men are in trouble, y’know, they put in overtime. Get a second job. Bar-work. Mini-cabbing. They don’t …” I ground my teeth tight. “They don’t get up halfway through a family wedding, bloody Fools and Horses ring-tone going, slink out the back and hold up a damned –”
“Five minutes,” a voice yelled, echoing about the hall. There was a sudden chatter and rattle of carrier bags.
“Mini-cabbing?” Dad spat, wiry eyebrows flustering, not knowing whether to knot in anger or fly upwards to the gantry in surprise. “It would have taken more than a couple of runs to Heathrow and back to raise what I needed, son. No. I’m not proud of what I did, sure. And I’ll admit that how it turned out was a tragedy. A tragedy. But understand, these men weren’t going to wait around for me to scrape the cash together with a bit of evening work. Mini-cabbing? Tch. A mug’s skivvying don’t bring in what men like me need.”
“But it does, Dad,” I pressed. I needed him to understand. He had to understand. “It does. Week by week, putting a bit aside. Over the years. It’s called saving. It’s what fathers are meant to teach their sons.”
“Teacups, son. How many times ’ave I told you? ’Fink about it. If hard work never killed anybody, who’s –”
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