by Alan Cumming
“Who is my father then?” I sobbed. “Who is he?!”
Tom said a name. It was not someone I knew, but a name I remembered as a family friend from long ago—from, in fact, the time and the place we lived when I was born. Just hearing that name made everything a bit less abstract. Its familiarity grounded me, and I began to calm down. My breathing became more regulated, my pulse slowed. This was real. It wasn’t just a joke to hurt or scare me, like so many of my father’s edicts from the past. It was real.
“What else did he say?”
“He said that he and Mum were at a dance at the Birnam Hotel in Dunkeld. Mum was gone for a while and this guy’s wife said he was gone too, and Dad and the wife both started looking for them. They went all over the bar and the dance floor and then they went through into the hotel and they saw them, Mum and the guy, coming out of a bedroom together.”
“And then what?”
“And then nine months later you were born,” he added, like he was telling me a really fucked-up bedtime story.
I couldn’t quite believe that my father wasn’t doing this just to hurt me. One last hurrah, if you will, before he died. And the timing of it! How could he possibly think that Who Do You Think You Are? would focus on something so sensational and upsetting and undocumented? And then I remembered my father’s experience of dealing with the media, and it made total sense. Was he actually trying to protect me for once? Of course, I also reasoned, he would also be protecting himself. His cuckolding going public would dent the ego of a man like him immeasurably.
I was not my father’s son.
It wasn’t supposed to have happened like this at all. Tom had discussed it with Grant, and they both felt that I should be told when I was home in New York, with Grant by my side. Tom planned to fly over in a couple of weeks once I had returned from filming in South Africa and tell me in as calm and protected an environment as possible. Poor Grant, therefore, had known this secret for the last few days we were in Cannes, keeping it to himself and never suspecting that events would dictate that Tom would need to tell me so soon.
What had happened was that the reporter from the Sunday Mail had found my father. Once again the tabloid press had managed to cause havoc in our family. Earlier that day, Tom had been driving home when my father called him, fuming and ranting about a reporter outside his front door. It is difficult to express the intensity of my father’s rage. I am sure that even as a dying man it would be terrifying. Suddenly Tom saw a police car parked on the side of the road and so took the phone away from his ear for a moment. When he picked it up again our father was still railing, so Tom assured him he would deal with the matter and hung up. He panicked that our father’s suspicions were correct and that the imminent shoot of my Who Do You Think You Are? had indeed prompted the news of my true lineage to somehow be leaked, and the idea that I might find out the news by seeing it splashed across the front page of a newspaper horrified him. He decided he had to tell me that night and called Sue to find out what time I was arriving.
After he’d spoken to me, he finished his journey home and then called our father back to tell him he’d set the wheels in motion and was on his way to tell me everything before I found out via the press. Of course this is when our father told him that the reporter hadn’t mentioned anything about who my real father was, but had in fact merely wanted a comment about that Times article. Our father’s fury was actually directed at me for having mentioned he had cancer, not that this massive secret had been exposed. Tom was distraught. But now it was too late, and he had no choice but to follow through.
“What about Mum?” I asked. “Did you talk to her about it?”
“Not yet,” said Tom. “I wanted to let her know I was going to tell you but I didn’t get a chance.”
“Don’t!” I blurted. “Don’t talk to her until this is all sorted out in my head.”
Our family had always been one of secrets, of silence, of holding things in. The fact that my mother had never told me this, even in the decades since she and my father had divorced, was, perhaps surprisingly, not a surprise to me. She must have had her reasons, I thought, and whatever they were, I respected them, right now at least. It was incredible to think of my mother being the one who had strayed, when it was my father’s infidelity that had so upset me as a child. Perhaps my mum’s silence was even to protect my father—something we all seemed unremittingly conditioned to do. She was the most loyal person I knew, and if they had made a pact to stay silent all those years ago, it was no surprise that finally the one to break it would be him. Although I was shell-shocked by the news, I was also so glad my mother had had someone else in her life, some love, someone who hopefully treated her with kindness and tenderness. If I was the product of that, it couldn’t be such a bad thing, I decided.
Tom told me more of what our father had said in the phone call, how he had suspected my mother of having an affair with this man and how when he had seen them come out of the hotel room that night all those years ago he merely said, “Well, there’s no point in staying here any longer,” grabbed her by the arm, and marched her home. It was never spoken of again.
“Well, there’s no point in staying here any longer.”
That was exactly the kind of thing I would expect my father to say in that situation—something gruff, uncaring. Though I had never imagined the idea of my father being in a situation where he would be the one discovering his spouse’s infidelity.
You see, my father was a big philanderer. His disregard for his wife’s feelings, and indeed anyone who knew him, by the audaciousness of how openly and often he paraded his infidelity was almost autistic in its terrible repetition, and it still manages to shock me. Everyone knew. Even when I was at primary school I was aware that he was having affairs. I can’t remember exactly how I came to know, but I do remember the first time I recognized the pain that knowing gave me. I was eight years old, sitting on the grass of the playing field at Monikie Primary during lunch break. A little girl from my class was threading a daisy chain nearby.
“Why are you sad, Alan?” she asked me, out of the blue.
I hesitated, slightly shocked that my sadness was palpable. I realized I needed to learn how to hide my feelings better, even outside the home. My training in the ways of the actor came early, you see.
I wasn’t sure how to articulate it.
“Today is my mum and dad’s wedding anniversary, and they’re not celebrating it,” I said finally, a dry lump in my throat.
It was true, but it wasn’t the whole story of course. Somehow I understood that the whole truth was shameful, and must not be spoken of. I understood that I had to collude, to protect my father, even though he didn’t deserve it.
My father continued to have affairs throughout my childhood, and they were not subtle or discreet. He had no shame about parading his conquests in public, sometimes even at the rare events our whole family, albeit separately, would attend. I remember a barn dance at a farm down the hill and watching my mother’s face as my father arrived with another woman in tow. At school, I would hear little comments and jokes about his affairs. One of them was actually a teacher of mine. Now, decades later, it was all beginning to make sense. Was his brazen disregard for my mother’s (and anyone else’s) feelings about his affairs due to the fact that he felt justified because my mother had committed the original sin? And was this the reason for her stoic acceptance of his behavior too?
It certainly explained the way he treated me. Hundreds of flashbacks of acts of violence and humiliation were being replayed in my mind. Now I saw them through a filter of knowing that my very existence was a reminder to my father of betrayal, even of his failure. But as Tom pointed out, our father was an equal opportunity abuser, and I was not alone in my place as his target. Our father was just as harsh, irrational, and violent to Tom.
I felt a bit calmer, even though there were still mental fireworks going off inside my head. I needed to make a plan. I knew that the shock waves of this news
would not be confined to this evening. The repercussions of this bombshell would reverberate in my life for a long time to come.
“And there’s another thing,” Tom said. I looked up at him with dread. “Dad’s considering talking to the Mail.”
“What?!” I couldn’t believe this could get any more awful.
“Not about you not being his son,” Tom clarified.
“Well, what then?”
“He’s angry that they know about him having cancer and they are telling him he should have his say about you before he dies,” Tom’s voice trailed off.
“Oh perfect. Well, good luck to him,” I said. “If he wants to go down that road, that’s his decision, but he’ll regret it for the rest of his life. He has no idea what shit they’ll make up.”
I couldn’t believe it. Any of it.
But at least, I was not my father’s son.
It felt like someone had died. And I suppose in a way someone had. My father was dead, or at least the father I assumed to be mine, both literally and physically. I felt like I had created a narrative about my father over the last forty-five years, and now I was mourning its death.
I needed to give myself some time. I needed to recover. I knew I would have to eventually speak to both my parents, but I couldn’t fathom that yet. The idea of contacting my new father was too daunting to even think about.
I also wanted to get off the roof! It was getting dark now, and cold. I was shivering, whether from the cold or pure shock, I didn’t know. I knew that Sue and Dom would be worried sick. I wanted to put them out of their misery. Tom and I had been up there for ages. And I wanted to actually speak the words to another human being to make them real.
We went down and told Sue and Dom, and spent the rest of the night talking and drinking and marveling at the insanity that can descend in an instant. Mostly we talked about memories from our childhood, horrible moments we had shared, somehow trying to tie them to what we now knew, reassessing and realigning.
Tom stayed over that night. We both bunked down in the sleeping loft at the very top of the flat. We were spent, dazed, cried and talked out. We said good night and I switched the light off, but after a while I could feel him still awake across from me.
“You know, Alan, you’re lucky,” he whispered. “You’re lucky you’re not his son.”
“I know,” I said.
THEN
For a few days every June in Arbroath, a town about ten miles from our house, something magical called the Angus Show happened.
It was a traditional agricultural show, with sheep shearing and dog trials and highland cows and tractors and tugs-of-war, but also vans full of household wares and trinkets being flogged by men who lured you to spend by shouting ever-decreasing prices through their tinny microphones. There were stalls selling all sorts of food that seemed to a country boy like me incredibly exotic. Things like corn on the cob and doughnuts. But the thing I liked most of all about the Angus Show was the humanity, the seething crowds of people that flooded the Victoria Park. I loved the feeling of being part of a crowd, of being one amongst many. It made me feel safe.
Every year as June drew near I’d see the posters for the show appearing on trees and telegraph poles all over the county. They were colorful and full of promise, and I yearned to be able to go. That was the thing, though. I never knew if I would be permitted to go. It would mean getting a lift from my dad, and as it was so difficult to predict his mood and his willingness to keep his promises, I came to never rely on him at all and eventually just stopped asking him for a lift anywhere. Occasionally a friend’s parent would offer to pick me up, but we lived in such a remote place I rarely engineered it. Plus, I knew my father would see such an arrangement as a betrayal or an act of cowardice on my part. If I did, I would make sure to be dropped at the estate gates and not risk the friends coming anywhere near our house. This was a form of protection for my family, but as I got older it was more about protecting my self-esteem than shielding my father’s potential behavior. The older I became, the less concerned I became about people knowing what a monster he was. I was waiting for the day I could leave home and escape him.
And anyway, my brother and I biked mostly everywhere. Even as little boys we would cycle for miles up and down the hills and lanes of Angus. I seriously think the reason I have strong legs today is because my formative years were spent in daily intense exercise of them. We biked to the Cubs’ and Scouts’ meetings, to badminton at Monikie hall, several miles there and back, and then later when we were older we’d bike all the way to Carnoustie, at least a ten-mile round trip, starting the journey by freewheeling down the enormous hill called the Marches just south of the estate gates, exhilarated by the rush of the wind as we sped and the rush to be free of our father’s rule for a few hours. Cycling back up at the end of the night was not quite so exhilarating. But hey, as I say, we both have calves to die for.
This particular summer I was thirteen. As usual I was working my entire summer break on the estate, brashing. Brashing involved taking a saw that was attached to a long pole and cutting away all the branches of a spruce tree as far up as you could reach and all the way down to the ground, thereby allowing the tree to send its energy up to the higher branches and grow taller faster, and also giving future foresters easier access when they came to cut it down and sent it off to the sawmill.
Each morning at the crack of dawn I set off with a few older boys, our saws balanced precariously across the handlebars of our bikes, our packed lunches in bags slung round our shoulders. We would spend the day in some remote part of the estate, brashing away, regularly abandoning our work to race off in every direction to avoid the attacks by wasps whose nests we’d disturbed.
My father would come and inspect our work at least once a day. We would hear his van approaching and immediately we would double our efforts. Nobody wanted to get on the wrong side of him, least of all me. Often one of us would be called back down our row to inspect a substandard job on a tree. The walk of shame across the forest floor strewn with newly hacked branches was something I dreaded. He wouldn’t hit the other boys, just humiliate them. I did my best to give him no reason to hit me in front of them, but sometimes it happened, and I would have to endure the awkward silence as I returned to my saw, trying not to cry, trying to will the sting in my ear or my face to go away.
One night I slumped into a chair in the living room, exhausted from my day in the forest, my hands blistered from the chafing of the saw shaft. We had no sofa, I realize now, only individual chairs. You’d think that would make the living room feel lonely and isolating, but actually I remember it as feeling safer because you could sit alone. That night my father did something very surprising.
“D’you want to go to the Angus Show this Saturday then?”
I don’t think his eyes left the TV screen. A program called Crossroads was on. Of course I knew he wasn’t the least bit interested in a soap opera about a motel in the Midlands, yet he would rather look at it than me, even during this rare act of kindness.
“Yes,” I said in the neutral, flat way I had learned was best when asked a question by him. This was manlier and offered less chance of being disappointed by showing emotion.
“Fine. We’ll leave here at half past twelve on Saturday.”
My mother was through in the kitchen doing the dishes and I knew she would have heard this exchange. Later, when my father was upstairs changing for his night out, she came through and sat down in the chair opposite me.
“Your father’s going to take you to the Angus Show?” she said, picking up her knitting.
“Yes,” I replied, avoiding her eyes. “But I don’t have to go.”
I felt torn. I really wanted to go, but I also wanted to show my mother that my loyalty lay with her, for we both knew what my going with my father would entail.
In the past, the only times my father had ever taken me anywhere of his own volition were bittersweet experiences. For even though I enjoyed these rar
e glimpses into a life that might have been—a seemingly loving dad taking his son swimming, or out to a café for a strawberry tart and a glass of pop—I knew that in so doing he had made me an unwilling accomplice in his affair of the moment. The time at the pool, years before, had been traumatizing. She was waiting for us at the entrance. Neither my father nor she made any attempt to explain her appearance, and I knew better than to question it. It was a woman I knew. I even knew her husband. As I splashed around on my own in the shallow end I could glimpse them farther up, smiling and nuzzling, she with her back against the pool wall, my father facing her, his arms outstretched, gripping the ledge on either side of her, right under a sign with a big “NO” at the top, followed by a list of the sorts of behavior not tolerated in this establishment, including, to my horror, “HEAVY PETTING”—exactly what my father and this woman were engaging in right at that very moment.
Even then, as a young boy, I was amazed at my father’s brazenness. There would surely have been people they knew in this pool who would have seen them. They seemed to have absolutely no care that they might be compromising or embarrassing those people with their actions. I realized that my father had total disregard for anyone’s feelings, let alone his wife’s, or indeed his small son’s, who at this very moment felt he was being dragged down into a cesspool of deceit and crime just by being near them. Afterwards my father informed me that the woman would be joining us for a cup of tea and that I could have a strawberry tart, a seasonal delicacy so delicious and so rarely experienced that my brother and I would speak of them in hushed tones. Even as I savored it, I knew I was being bought.
But why did my father take me on these meetings, I have often wondered? He must have known my mum would ask me and I would tell her that we had not been alone, and while my mother seemed to tolerate my father’s pandemic infidelity, she drew the line at her children being accessories. A huge row between them ensued as soon as we got home that day.