It’s one thing being the son of a famous missing person. But to be known as the son of . . . no. Doesn’t even bear thinking about.
She said she was going away. She said I could move in and mind the house while she was on holiday. She thinks she’s being all clever, saying she’s not sure where she’s going, but I know she’s going to see Cally. Judging by the amount of times Cally’s been using the hashtag #lovemymummysomuchnstuff on Twitter, she’s clearly done something bad and Mum needs to go out to Mexico and sort it out. Probably just pissed the whole country off or something. Anything’s a possibility where Cally’s concerned.
Matty is completely furious with me and milking it for all the sympathy he can get. Our friends have had to take sides, and naturally they’ve mostly sided with him. He’s the injured party, I’m the out and out bastard.
He sent me a text saying I miss my dad so much, I have tried to recreate the age gap thing by finding a ‘daddy’ to sleep with. This is preposterous. The thing with Dylan took me completely by surprise. I didn’t go looking for an older man, it just happened.
Didn’t it?
Or does he have a point? Is that what I was seeking with Dylan? A father figure?
I push these thoughts to the back of my mind.
Instinct tells me he will forgive me and make overtures to me in a few weeks’ time. He is angry and hurting now, but that will pass eventually. Something bad will happen. Someone will die, or he’ll lose his job, something awful – and it’ll be me he wants to see. And slowly he’ll remember what he saw in me, and realize the Dylan thing was a moment of madness. And I don’t want that to happen. I have to remind myself why I ended up in bed with someone else. It wasn’t just because I was seeking an older man. It was that I was starting to feel bored and unsatisfied in my relationship. I am not blaming Matty for that, but that was the status quo and that’s why I was so badly behaved. This sorry affair has given me the excuse to break free from a relationship that felt like it was going nowhere.
Maybe I’ll keep up the pretence that I’m devastated, that I feel so awful for trashing Matty’s feelings like that and that I really want him back but it’s just not happening. Might not be too good an idea to say, ‘I wanted out, so I had an affair. Whoops!’
Maybe this is to do with my dad. Maybe I was so upset by his disappearance that I threw myself into this particular relationship to try and make myself feel better – like it was a balm, like I needed the distraction – when really I was too young, and should’ve shopped around a bit longer. I am only twenty-one. There are plenty more fish in the sea. And plenty more seas I’ve not even glimpsed, let alone swum in.
Twenty-one. And yet I feel about ninety. No wonder Matty described me as a young fogey.
Lucy has kicked Dylan out. I know this because Dylan has been hassling me to see him. It’s all quite distasteful because instead of seeming rudderless and ashamed, he seems to be enjoying his taste of freedom. For a while he barraged me day and night with increasingly filthy texts. In the end I just ignored them, and it feels like he’s gone away.
Instinct tells me they will make it up. They will counsel themselves and therapy themselves to within an inch of their lives, and they’ll get back on track. Mum will be the collateral damage. That’s what I feel worst about. None of this is her fault. As if she hasn’t suffered enough already.
Enough already. That’s how I feel about my life right now.
Is that how Dad felt all those years ago? Enough already? I want out?
Every time I look out of the window, I see that skinny girl opposite looking out of her bedroom window. Rear Window in reverse. Tonight an ambulance was outside. She’s not looking out of the window any more. Maybe she’s been taken in to hospital so they can get some food in her; it’s so sad. I’ve never understood eating disorders before, but maybe she felt her life was falling out of control and the one thing she could control was what went in her mouth. I can see the sense in that. Poor girl.
I go and lie in the hall. It feels as good a place as any. I’m not staying here for days on end to surprise Mum when she gets back, but I enjoy seeing the stars through the glass above the front door. I feel peaceful. The house is new enough to not make any strange creaking noises that will unnerve me. All quiet on the Oaktree Estate.
I was lying down that day. I’d gone for a lie down in the loft. I thought it’d be a great way of surprising Dad. The trap door was open to the loft, and I climbed up and nestled myself away amongst the boxes of Christmas decorations and old books. He’d obviously been planning on coming up, or else the ladder wouldn’t have been down. It’s not long before I hear the ladder creak and I see Dad coming up. But he stops and waits before lifting himself up at the top of the ladder. He waits and listens. And instantly I know I shouldn’t be here. He is checking no-one has heard him coming up. I try to breathe quietly. This was a stupid idea. But if I just lie still. If I just lie still he won’t hear me.
He comes into the loft and fortunately doesn’t come near me. He has a battered brown leather bag. He squeezes it down the back of some shelving which is housing some old books. Then he deftly returns to the hatch and disappears from view. The ladder is then slid back into the loft, and I hear the door being shut from the outside.
What could be in the bag?
I give it five minutes, then kneel up from my lying position.
Dad was hiding that bag. Why else would he shove it down the back of that bookcase? It’s not a bag I’ve seen before.
I nudge my way over to the shelving on my knees. I manage to drag the bag out and lie it in front of me. I slowly unzip it.
And then wish I hadn’t.
Because what I see in the bag changes my opinion of my father irrevocably.
Inside is an old video tape. And a packet of photographs. Black and white photographs showing a mixed race lad. He can only be about fourteen. I feel sick. I put the photos and then the bag back.
Where did he get the pictures from? I dread to think what might be on the video. Is this what my dad is into?
He didn’t stay round long enough for me to ask him.
But when he went missing I knew the police would be sniffing round the house. And that’s when I decided to bury the bag. The last thing we needed was the papers finding out about the photos. Maybe he didn’t know what was in the bag. Maybe it wasn’t his bag.
I was trying to protect him. Or maybe I was trying to protect myself. But either way I disposed of the crap. I didn’t dare light a bonfire, would’ve created too much interest. But there was that new estate being built down the road.
Who was I trying to protect?
I was trying to protect him, I decide. God knows why.
And that’s why I can never tell Mum what I know. It would destroy her.
Nan got it into her head that he’d been hiding a gun in the loft. I don’t know how she knew he’d been hiding anything in the loft. I put her right the day I went round and met Dad’s brother. He was so like him to look at. But he had a Canadian accent. And was a bit dull. I think he’d bored Nan, actually. She kept saying, ‘I feel like taking something.’
‘It wasn’t a gun, Nan.’
‘How the fuck would you know?’
‘I’d’ve known. And the police would’ve found it.’
She’d looked nonplussed. If she’d only known the truth!
Some days I think Dad must have been . . . it’s so hard to say that word, or think it. It’s the worst thing in a world where there’s stiff competition for vile, evil things. Some days I put everything that has gone wrong in my life down to Dad’s unhealthy interests.
And other days I think . . . well . . . I never saw any other evidence of him being like that. He never touched me inappropriately. And then it’s easy to pretend I never saw the bag, or buried it underneath the houses where we’re now living.
I stare up at the stars. And know.
I’ll take that secret to the grave.
Sometimes you have to.
A shadow crosses me. There’s someone outside. The doorbell rings. I haul myself up and go to the door.
‘Who is it?’ I say, anxious, through the glass, not looking.
‘Is this Natalie’s house?’ a man calls back.
I open the door. A bloke in his forties stands there. Mixed race. He looks familiar.
‘She’s away,’ I say.
‘You’re never baby Owen,’ he says.
I nod.
‘My name’s Sam. I was a friend of your dad’s. I gave him something to mind. Years ago. Can I come in?’
My heart leaps, and I let him in.
Danny
Chino
The less said about the journey over, the better. We were sailing for six weeks and it’s safe to say I never really found my sea legs. In retrospect it would have been easier, quicker and less problematic, especially with my new passport, to just fly to Cancun. Still, I’d never be making that journey again.
Martin Swann lives a quiet life in a ramshackle hut on the beach near Tulum. Martin Swann doesn’t even have electricity, but that’s OK, coz he charges his phone up at work. He works behind the bar in a much-lauded restaurant where his chief occupation is preparing the limes for the house cocktails. He now speaks fluent Mexican Spanish and his nickname at work is Chino, because the boss refuses to believe he is anything other than Chinese. Oh, the irony. His life is simple again, straightforward, and the family he left behind is but a distant memory. Losing them was tougher than he thought it would be; it was like going through a period of mourning when he first got here. But they say time’s a great healer. And it has been.
Until that night. The place was heaving. December, the area gets overrun by fashion wankers, and it was clear that the table in the corner was full of cokeheads. That instinct has never left me. Plus, it was only the models who were ordering any food.
And then I saw her. Heading to the bogs with some other skinny rake. She didn’t see me. I look so different, with the beard and the ponytail and the year-round tan. And I dress for ease, looking like something blown in from a Goan rave. But it was definitely her. And in that second, my world and head exploded.
I’d worked so hard to push all thoughts of the family to the outer reaches of my brain.
And here she was. So elegant. So tall. A woman. Fuck.
And she was going to the toilet to do coke. Any fool could tell that a mile off. I told the boss. She got them kicked out. It was pandemonium. I ran out the back and hid till it had blown over.
I was all over the place after that. I practically stalked her. And then I heard her on the beach. Talking to Natalie on the phone. I just knew she was. And then she told that bossy black bird she was with that her mum was coming out to see her.
My family. Here. In Tulum. This didn’t make sense. It’s about as far away from England as you can get. How? How did this happen?
I stopped eating.
I stopped going to work.
My daughter was now a fucking MODEL. How did that happen?
And why was she here? And why was Natalie coming here?
I felt like my head was about to explode.
I hid away in my hut.
Were they onto me? Had they had a tip-off?
I’d spent years avoiding looking at the internet or Googling to see what had gone on in my absence. Was I front-page news? Had I just slipped away unnoticed? It was too much. Was Owen coming as well? I was making myself ill, unable to stop obsessing about it all. Lying on the mattress in that dark hut fretting, picking at the sore that was my life. Knowing I had to get away.
And that’s when I had the idea.
It had been theatre last time.
This time I’d do it properly. There was a beautiful symmetry to it, the more I thought about it. I was meant to have died five years ago. Now I actually would.
Danny had become Jimmy had become Danny had become Martin had become Chino had become . . .
A cry in the dark.
A whisper on the breeze.
Then gone.
Natalie
I had a phone call from Raymond Lee the other day, sexy police guy, saying there’d been a development in the case. Someone had contacted the police in Brighton to say they thought they’d found Danny’s necklace. A friend had found it on the beach years ago but hadn’t seen the publicity about Danny’s disappearance, so hadn’t seen the detail about the necklace. It was only when showing it to this friend, and her seeing the engraving, that alarm bells of familiarity started to ring. Raymond was going to have it sent back to me.
If only that beachcomber had handed it in all those years ago. I’d have known he was dead back then.
I now hate my new house. Been there but a few months, and it feels grimy with stalactites and stalagmites of despair.
I know. Pretentious or what? I hate what I’m becoming.
I’ve never needed a holiday more.
Mexico’s a bugger to get to. Because I booked so late I couldn’t get a direct flight, and I have to change at Philadelphia of all places. Our air stewardesses all have tinsel in their hair. One of them is called Pepper. I’m not sure why that tickles me, but it does.
Cally told me she’d been about to do some cocaine with someone from the modelling shoot and they were kicked out of a bar and it’s caused all kinds of drama. I think she thought I’d kick, scream and shout but I didn’t. I just felt this huge compulsion to get over there and give her a hug. I’ll kick, scream and shout at a later date.
Of course, she has no idea what her dad did for a living when I first met him. And she doesn’t need to know, frankly.
I’ve told Owen he can stay at the house while I’m away. I really don’t know how I feel about him. I’m hoping to get some perspective on this trip. I think I’ll be washing my hands of Dylan and Lucy, though. Every time I think of them, I’m hit by a wave of nausea.
It’s about forty-five minutes from Cancun airport to Tulum, where the hotel is. It’s baking. All along the coastal road, I stare at the sea from the back of my cab. Eventually the dual carriageway becomes more of a dirt track, and on either side are hippy shops and boutiques, achingly cool restaurants, art galleries.
We stop to let a man cross the dirt track with a goat. A goat, in this heat, the poor thing.
There’s another cab on the other side of the road, heading towards the airport. I wonder where the person in there is going. Have they found some perspective in Mexico? Or is their brain as fried as mine? I can’t see much in that cab as the windows, like this one, are all blacked out. Must be about the heat. Our two drivers know each other, and give each other a little brap of their horns.
Brap! I like that. It’s like a klaxon sounding for the good times to happen.
And I feel something I’ve not felt for so long. I feel a rush of elation.
I’m excited. For the first time since Danny left, I am looking forward to the future. Now that I know he must be dead, it feels like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. The cab driver stalls. He tries the key in the ignition. Eventually we drive on.
Danny
I take a taxi to the airport. We stop en route to let that weird fella with the goat past. I’ve spent my last dollars on the flight and this cab. I’ve nothing else in the world except a few bits of change for water. When I get to Acapulco, I will walk up to the cliffs there. Finish what I started. They say when you’re about to die, your life flashes before your eyes. I’ve got a four-hour flight ahead of me. I can take my time thinking about it.
I feel excited. It’s weird. But then, I guess I’ve never been dead before.
Always good to try new things, eh?
Natalie
I could charm the birds from the trees. They always used to say it was Danny who had the gift of the gab, but I can pull it out of the bag when I need to. It became quite clear that the restaurant Cally had been kicked out of was the only place to eat round here, so I popped in one daytime and had a word with the owner, who was complete
ly charming and apologetic (God knows why) and a bit at sixes and sevens because she was training a new guy to do the limes. Seriously, people need to be trained to do that?
Anyway. Now the people from the shoot have gone home, we’ve been allowed in there to eat. It’s some of the best food I’ve ever tasted.
Cally’s like a different person. It’s like she’s finally starting to grow up. She tells me about this boy she saw a few times but now his family have gone back to England because their room got broken into, or something.
We have a bit of girly chat after we’ve ordered our meal. I’m going to try the lavender prawns and we’re sharing a bottle of rosé. Well, it’s nearly Christmas.
A loud American on the next table is spouting forth about suicide rates in Mexico and how it’s a preferred place for Americans to come to kill themselves.
Jolly.
I tell Cally what’s happened with Owen, and I’m brought up short about how young she is because she gets a complete fit of the giggles about it and is almost crying with laughter by the time I’ve finished.
‘It’s not funny, Cally.’
‘I know. Sorry.’
And she’s off again. Slightly hysterical now.
Then I tell her about the necklace. The laughter turns to tears. But fortunately they don’t last very long.
‘So you think he’s dead?’ she asks in a soft voice, quite unlike her.
‘Yes, darling, I do. I think he did something silly. Had an affair, I don’t know. Felt very guilty about it. And jumped off that cliff.’
She stares at me. I think she might start crying again. And then she sort of makes this sighing noise, like something is frustrating her.
‘What?’ I ask.
‘Well . . .’
‘Go on. Say it.’
‘Well, he was a bit of a selfish cunt really, wasn’t he?’
And now it’s my turn to laugh. Really laugh. Belly laugh, like she did, till I’m almost in tears. The loud American looks at me.
‘It’s not funny, Mum!’
‘I know. Sorry.’
But I’m off again. Slightly hysterical now.
The Secrets We Keep Page 34