First Man In

by Ant Middleton

  ‘How are you, Ant?’ she said. ‘How’s the police?’

  My credit jumped down suddenly on the little display on the phone. I decided to cut straight to it.

  ‘I’m in Wood Green, Nan.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘And what are you doing in Wood Green, love?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ I said. ‘Just trying to find my aunty and uncles.’

  ‘You know, your mum would be very upset if she knew,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, I know that,’ I said. ‘But I’m my own man, now. I want to find them. It can’t do any harm.’

  ‘You’ll break her heart.’

  ‘By why, Nan? Why does it make any difference? My dad’s my dad. Nothing’s going to change that.’ The static crackled down the phone line. ‘She wouldn’t even let us keep a photo of him.’

  ‘She was only doing what she thought was best,’ Nan replied. ‘Why have all those painful memories hanging around the house?’

  ‘But all I want to do is find out about him. What’s wrong with that? I only want to know what he was like.’

  Raindrops started to patter on the glass of the phone box.

  ‘Nan?’ I said.

  She replied with a whisper. ‘Risley Avenue.’

  Then the phone went dead.

  Risley Avenue! Of course! I recognised the name immediately. I raced into a newsagent’s, got directions from the guy behind the counter and ten minutes later was turning into the street. Through my left-hand window there were rows of traditional red-brick terraces, but the houses on my side were much more distinctive, with many of the terraces being joined by unusual triangle shapes that housed the upstairs windows. I could remember looking at them with great curiosity, sitting in the back of the car when I was a kid.

  This, I knew without doubt, was the street where my granddad lived. He’d been a tailor, and me and my brothers had been extremely close to him, even sometimes being allowed to see him for weekends after my dad passed away, before the move to France. When he was dying he’d asked to see us at his bedside so he could say a final goodbye. But we’d not been allowed. I was fourteen when he died. My Uncle Tony offered to pay for flights so we could come to his funeral. Mum, once again, refused.

  As I drove further down Risley Avenue it all kept flooding back. It was almost too much. I remembered running to the shops to get sweets – I could remember the exact route. And down there was the way to the park with the fountain and the massive spiderweb. Although Granddad was no longer alive, his ex-partner used to live just a couple of doors away from him. We called her Nanny Ball. I could only pray that she was still alive and hadn’t been moved into a care home or something.

  I parked up and walked down the road, looking for her house. My heart leapt when I saw the hide-and-seek post box. It was right on the corner of a crossroads that had a small roundabout at its centre. And there was Granddad’s old house. It was strange to see the place where I’d felt such happiness occupied by someone else, with a dilapidated plastic tractor abandoned on the front-yard lawn and a fat ginger cat staring territorially at me from the side passage. It was like seeing a stranger wearing your best trousers.

  I walked on to Nanny Ball’s place. I was thrilled to see that it didn’t look changed at all, with its neat rows of flowers in the beds and the little stone statue of a boy holding a bird bath. I tried to contain my feelings as I gave the knocker a firm rap. Eventually someone came to the door. But my heart sank as it opened to reveal a six-foot-two biker with a huge grey beard and an AC/DC T-shirt.

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb you, but I’m looking …’

  He was smiling at me strangely. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I know exactly who you’re looking for.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘I think so,’ he said. ‘You don’t know me, but I know you. It’s Anthony, isn’t it? Follow me.’

  He disappeared for a moment to fetch his slippers, and then I followed him up the road. We arrived at a mid-terrace house with a hedge-covered fence and a grey gate. I rang the bell and stood back as the faint sound of footsteps grew louder and the door opened. There was a woman standing there. A woman that I hadn’t seen for a very long time.

  ‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘Oh Jesus, I can hardly speak. Anthony! Anthony! I can’t believe it’s you!’

  She put her hand over her mouth and burst into tears. I could barely speak myself.

  ‘Hello, Auntie Maria.’

  She led me next door, to where yet more members of my family were living. There I found a person I recognised instantly from some of my happiest memories. I’ve never seen such shock and joy on a person’s face. He immediately embraced me, all three of us now crying. It was Uncle Tony.

  ‘I haven’t seen you since you were bloody seven years old,’ he said. ‘I’ve been praying for this day. We all have. Anthony, mate. I can’t believe you’ve come.’

  When we finally put each other down, I settled myself on the floor, crossing my legs, as I used to when I was a boy.

  ‘You know, my brother – your dad – used to sit exactly like that,’ said Tony, eyes brimming. ‘He’d never sit on the settee. He’d just go crossed-legged on the rug like a little kid watching telly, even when he was bloody thirty. And he used to walk on his toes like you do. And the way you lift your eyebrows when you talk, Anthony. That’s just like him. He had that caterpillar eyebrow, too.’

  I made a mental note: the monobrow clearly needed some attention.

  ‘It’s incredible,’ Tony continued. ‘It really is. It’s like my brother’s come back to life.’

  As the afternoon fled by I told him everything I remembered of Dad – the bedtime stories he’d read every night, and the pillow and quilt he’d spread out in the back of his car, and the kittens in the swimming pool in Australia. Tony couldn’t believe how much I remembered, considering I was so young when Dad passed away. I found out lots I didn’t know about Dad too, like he was a black belt in karate, he played rugby and supported Manchester United, and how his computer job took him all around the world, to places like America, South Africa and Canada.

  But by the end of the afternoon both the sky outside and the mood inside had grown dark. For too long, my uncle and aunty had lived with the fury of Mum preventing us from seeing them. They were even angrier about her attempts at erasing Dad from our memory.

  ‘It’s as good as murder,’ Uncle Tony said. ‘She was trying to kill that poor man in the minds of his own children.’

  ‘Don’t ever believe he’s not in my mind,’ I said, my eyes getting wet again. ‘I think about him every single day.’

  We talked about it for hours. By the time I left, I’d gone from tearful elation to utter sorrow to vengeful rage. I felt about ready to kill someone.

  The next time I saw my stepfather was when he came to Aldershot to pick me up, on my last day in the army.

  ‘Thought I’d surprise you,’ he said, leaning over to open the passenger seat. ‘You can stay with us while you sort yourself out.’

  ‘I’m not going with you,’ I said.

  ‘You what?’ he said, scowling.

  ‘I said I’m not going,’ I said. ‘I’m going to live with my uncle.’

  ‘Your uncle?’ he said, his eyes draining. ‘And that’s that what you want, is it?’

  ‘That’s what I want.’

  He went silent for a moment, as the shock entered him. Then he punched the windscreen of the car.

  ‘Get in this car,’ he said. ‘Get in this fucking car now.’

  I picked up my bag and walked away.

  With my mood as it was, my relationship with Hayley was only becoming worse. I began dividing my time between Uncle Tony’s house and a place in Hendon where the Met course took place. During the day I was learning about the law, role-playing potentially difficult scenarios, doing riot control. Having already been through the army system made the physical side of it a breeze. One thing I found strange, though, was that nobody at Hendon seemed to have heard of
9 Para. Whenever I’d mention them to anyone, they’d just look slightly blank. There was one guy in particular who I instantly bonded with, called Johnny. He happened to be a bit of an armchair expert on the military, having once harboured dreams of joining the Forces.

  ‘I was a paratrooper,’ I told him proudly, when we’d first chatted in the bar at Hendon after a particularly boring afternoon learning about the various definitions of theft.

  ‘Airborne?’ he said, eyes widening. ‘Fuckin’ ’ell! Sweet!’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘What regiment? One? Two? Three?’

  I smiled proudly and sat back on my stool, bracing myself for his awestruck disbelief and his demands for tales of the legendary 9 Para debauchery. ‘Nine,’ I said.

  ‘9 Para?’ he said. ‘What’s 9 Para?’

  ‘9 Parachute Squadron Royal Engineers. You know, 9 Para. 9 Para! How the fuck can you not know 9 Para?’

  ‘Is it part of the TA?’

  It took a few experiences like this for me to finally realise that I’d been lied to. 9 Para weren’t famous. They weren’t legends. They were delusional. But that didn’t stop me behaving like a cliched, horrible paratrooper. The strange thing was, now I wasn’t in the Forces anymore I began cleaving to my old persona more than I’d ever done. It didn’t matter that I’d totally rejected it when I’d been there – I’d wear my Para shirt at the gym, and use any opportunity to show off the tattooed wings on my left shoulder and to chug pints and shout ‘Airborne!’

  Walking away from the Paras meant walking away from the identity that the squadron had created for me. Now it was gone, I wasn’t sure who I was. I certainly wasn’t the young man who’d joined the services. The only thing I had to fall back on was that I was this 9 Para guy. People would say, ‘Who are you?’ and I’d reply, ‘I’m ex-9 Parachute Squadron.’ It was how I defined myself. But as soon as they heard that, I felt there was an expectation. In order to prove I was a Para I’d have to fulfil it or risk them thinking, ‘You’re not the person you said you were.’ Ex-9 Parachute Squadron might not have been much of an identity, but it was the only one I had.

  So the debauchery and destruction continued, and my new mate Johnny was only too happy to assist. While everyone else was revising for the course exams we’d go out on the piss and come back to the accommodation, wrap ourselves in toilet paper like mummies and smash the place up. The lack of revision I was doing turned out not to be too much of an obstacle, as I’d also made friends with a left-handed genius called Greg. I made sure I sat next to him in the exam hall so he could slide his paper across for me to see. Needless to say, I aced every test.

  It wasn’t long before the inevitable happened and Hayley and I decided to split. Try as we might, the marriage just wasn’t working and we thought it best to go our separate ways.

  When I discovered that more members of my dad’s extended family lived up in Chelmsford I started hanging out there, too. Once I’d formally split with Hayley I moved there permanently. Up in Essex I found myself drawing a lot of unwanted attention. The problem was, I was confident, in good physical shape and the girls seemed to like me. And I liked them right back. I began bulking myself up with the help of regular sessions in the gym and steroids that I’d score from a lad I’d come to know locally. I found that a certain type didn’t appreciate people like me in their vicinity. I was too much of a threat.

  I never looked for trouble, but when it found me I wouldn’t hesitate. There was no in between. I was like a switch: if I was on, whoever was facing up to me would be knocked out – I’d fucking annihilate him until he stopped moving. I quickly learned that if I aimed my knuckle at just the right part of the chin, I could knock anyone out and leave them with a broken jaw as a parting gift. People began to joke, ‘I’ve never seen Ant in a fight,’ because there never was one. Whatever someone started, I’d stop in under three seconds. And I did a lot of stopping. It’s true what they say about steroids. What you gain in muscle mass you lose in control over your temper. It’s a dangerous, stupid trade-off, and one I should never have made. I have Emilie, my future wife, to thank for persuading me to stop taking them.

  Two weeks before the end of my four-month Met course I went out for a boozy Saturday with Johnny in Southampton. We were leaving a club called Oceana at about 2 a.m. and I asked him to chuck me the keys. I’d always drink-drive, and felt that alcohol didn’t really have much of a debilitating effect on me. In the army I’d grown well used to drinking until 4 a.m. and then being up two hours later for an eight-mile run. I jumped behind the wheel of Johnny’s little red Vauxhall Vectra and decided to take a shortcut down a one-way street. I was halfway down it when the entire street started flashing blue. Shit. Police.

  I was twice over the limit. They arrested me and locked me in a freezing cell. As I sat on the edge of the mattress, staring at the concrete floor, I knew this would be the end of my attempted career as a police officer. But I didn’t have a long dark night of the soul. I had a nice kip.

  The fact is, I didn’t care. What with the failure of my army career, the failure of my marriage, the grief Hayley was giving me, the estrangement from my mother’s family and all the turmoil in my head about Dad, my life and existence had started to mean nothing to me. Sure enough, I was kicked out of Hendon on the Monday and was drink-driving again by Tuesday. I was even caught a second time, earning myself a two-year ban in the process. Who cared? If I ended up in prison, nobody would miss me.

  My relationship with my dad’s family was also now causing me pain. I was seeing a lot of my Uncle Tony, and his talk about Dad and what happened to him was becoming so relentless and intense I felt it was bordering on obsessive. At first I’d been proud when he’d tell me how similar I was to him, but it was now overwhelming. Because my nan was in an awkward situation, I didn’t talk about Uncle Tony and the others with her. So I was amazed when, one Saturday afternoon, just as I was leaving her place after dinner, she said, ‘I’ll take you down the grave if you want.’

  ‘Would you? Dad’s grave?’

  ‘If you want.’

  We made the journey a week later. It turns out he was buried in a little back-street church in a pretty tea-and-scones village in Hampshire called Hambledon. We stopped at a florist’s on the way to pick up some flowers. When we arrived, Nan stayed back and pointed me in the right direction. It was a lonely, gusty day and the only sound in the place was the wind in the tall elms. I approached it slowly, not quite sure how I was going to handle it. The small headstone was at the back of the plot, near an old, crumbling wall, and the gold writing on it was already almost completely worn away. It just said: PETER AARON, LOVING FATHER AND HUSBAND. I put the flowers down and collapsed, tears pouring down my face, my sobs getting lost in the roaring of the wind as it barrelled angrily around the graveyard.

  That night I drove back to my new flat in Chelmsford, which had a balcony overlooking a car park. I’d only recently moved in and had invited some of my new Essex mates around to see it. We were all out on the balcony, drinking champagne, when three young guys walked past. One of them shouted, ‘Fucking hell, nice view!’ The switch flipped. I ran downstairs, chased one of them for about ten yards, got him in a headlock and started swinging at his head.

  ‘How dare you?’ I shouted at him. ‘I’m having a nice time up there with my friends’ – punch – ‘I’m not disturbing you’ – punch – ‘I’m a nice’ – punch – ‘polite’ – punch – ‘respectful person’ – punch, punch, punch. ‘And yet you shout at me.’ Punch. My fist was wet with blood and snot. It was disgusting, and only made me angrier. ‘There’s no way I’d be so rude as to shout “nice view” at someone.’ Punch. ‘So why shout it at me?’ Punch. ‘You’re going to think twice about walking past someone’s balcony and saying “Nice view.”’

  It was only when I realised he was unconscious that I dropped him.

  When I woke up the next morning I was alone. I remembered, vaguely, going to a club after the party. I tried to work out what had happened next.
I’d obviously lost my keys and booted the door in. It was completely off its hinges, split in half with a big bootprint on it. And I was covered in blood, even though I wasn’t injured.

  A couple of weeks later, word reached me that the police were trying to track me down. At first I assumed I was wanted for questioning over the guy in the car park. It turned out to be someone else – a known face around Chelmsford who I knew didn’t like me. He was the kind of character who got beaten up regularly, and he’d told the police I’d bitten a chunk out of his cheek. I hadn’t done that, but it was my word against his, and by now I had a reputation. The police were determined to have me locked up, whatever the truth of the matter. Innocent or not, the police had a knack for getting their way. I knew there was at least a 70–30 chance I’d be locked up for six to eight years. There was only one person in the world I could talk to about this. I bought two litres of whisky, got in my car and drove all the way to Hampshire. I drank the liquor and wept, then slept the night on my dad’s grave.

  In order to avoid the police I moved into my mate’s house, above a garage, and made an arrangement to get a fake passport. The plan was to escape to Australia, to lie low for a while. A few days before my meeting with the passport guy I went for a drink with my cousin Terry at a pub called the Ivory Peg in Chelmsford. We’d just rocked up to the bar when Terry jabbed me in the ribs.

  ‘Hey, that’s Emilie Dines.’

  ‘Is it?’ I said, craning my neck to look at the girl behind the bar.

  Emilie Dines was about as notorious around Chelmsford as I was, except she was famous for her incredible beauty. Of course, Essex is crammed with people who think they’re beautiful but, for once, I could see this woman’s legend was well deserved. She had browny-green eyes, and wore a tight white shirt and her long dark hair in a ponytail. Her figure was unbelievable, the kind of body you dream about but somehow never think exists in real life.

  ‘Hi Emilie,’ said Terry, trying to act casual, when it was our turn to get served. ‘Have you met Ant?’