The Would-Begetter

by Maggie Makepeace

  Jess was a great source of support and help, in spite of being frantically busy and enviably successful. Caroline acknowledged their changing fortunes with a wry smile. She had once suggested in a joke that Jess might buy her house and then rent out the basement to her, to make their role reversal complete. Then she was upset when Jess, for a moment, appeared to consider the idea seriously.

  Hannah, at fourteen, predictably saw everything in relation to her own concerns. ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘You won’t be hanging around here all the time now, will you, like a real mother?’

  ‘Thanks, Hannah. Give the knife a good twist while you’re about it, why don’t you.’

  ‘When I have kids,’ Hannah said virtuously, ‘I’m going to stay home full-time and look after them properly.’

  ‘Fine,’ Caroline said. ‘So why don’t you get in a little practice now, with the hoover.’

  ‘You’re barking!’ Hannah said contemptuously. ‘I’ll get a woman in to do that. You do!’ Yes, her mother thought. But for how much longer? It’s not cheap.

  The golden handshake, which had seemed so generous to begin with, now appeared alarmingly finite. They were accustomed to a high standard of living, and Hannah would need a lot of support when she went to university in four years time. Caroline knew that she had to get another job at all costs. She took to going down to the basement of an evening, to discuss her financial worries at length with Jess.

  ‘Well… what about Hector?’ Jess suggested tentatively. ‘He’s not short of a few bob.’

  ‘I’d have to be pretty desperate!’ Caroline laughed shortly. ‘But yes, I suppose as a last resort… Funnily enough, Hannah and I were talking about him only last night.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. She wanted to know who her father was, so I felt I had to tell her his name, but not much else. I don’t know much more! Maybe you could talk to her about him one of these days?’

  ‘Well… yes. Does she want to meet him?’

  ‘I’ve said no. Absolutely not. Not until she’s eighteen. Then she’ll be officially adult and I can’t stop her. So… how is handsome Hector these days. Does he still phone?’

  ‘Yes, pretty regularly. I think he’s lonely.’

  ‘You don’t ever wish you’d let him leave Wendy for you?’

  ‘Well… very occasionally I do, if I’m honest. I haven’t met anyone since him who was such fun to be with… and we might have had children together too, I suppose.’

  ‘Well yes, but they can be a constant worry,’ Caroline said, sighing. ‘Look at me and Hannah. She’s my darling only child, and yet now I feel I barely know her. I’ve missed so much of her childhood, through working all the time, and in five years or so she’ll be grown up and gone and that will be it. And now I’m out of a job and wondering whether it was all worth it. D’you remember when I said I wasn’t going to let my baby change my life? How could I have been so incredibly naїve! Maybe I should have stayed at home and been a proper mum.’

  ‘Oh I don’t know, but then again…I probably would have,’ Jess said slowly, ‘but then it’s easy for me to say that, isn’t it, when it’s only hypothetical.’

  ‘It might still happen.’

  ‘Face it; it’s getting less and less likely.’ Jess looked sad.

  Caroline changed the subject. ‘Does Hector ever see his other son?’

  ‘Florian? Oh that’s a saga that runs and runs, and Hector never seems to get anywhere. At first Florian wouldn’t see him at all. He just ran away whenever Hector turned up. Then Hector did manage to take him to the cinema a few times, but Florian behaved so badly and used so much foul language that he had to give that up. So then he stopped paying maintenance, and Zillah threatened him with the Child Support Agency, but Hector couldn’t allow her to do that so he began paying again, but he still wasn’t seeing Florian…’

  ‘Hang on,’ Caroline interrupted. ‘Why didn’t Hector just let her go to the CSA if he was prepared to go on paying her anyway?’

  ‘Because Wendy still doesn’t know that Florian is Hector’s son! Amazing, isn’t it?’

  ‘She must be a bit dim, surely? It doesn’t sound like much of a marriage. I’m only surprised Hector’s stuck it all this time.’

  ‘Well… I suppose he feels responsible for her and Morgan, and Wendy is very devoted you know. He likes his creature comforts, does Hector. I suppose he just needs more… complexity than Wendy can provide. I think he phones me for a spot of therapy – to get it all off his chest.’

  ‘He phones you because he’s still in love with you,’ Caroline observed. ‘I could do with somebody like that!’

  Hector was lonely. He brooded a lot on the unfairness of life. Here he was, three times a father and yet his quest for paternal contentment had got him nowhere. Yes, it was true that Wendy looked after him well. The house was spotless and there was always a meal on the table when he wanted one. She meant well, poor woman, but Hector felt his spirit being eroded away by terminal boredom, which was barely enlivened by sporadic regulation sex.

  He wished he had left Wendy seven years before and had gone to London with Jess. He blamed himself for failing to convince Jess of the depth of his feelings when he’d had the chance. It was too late now. She was a high-flyer. She wouldn’t have any time for him. She listened patiently and kindly to his troubles each time he telephoned her, but he could tell that she was mostly just humouring him. He was fifty-six and past it.

  Over the years he’d learned to live within his own limitations. He knew he didn’t want to be alone again; he wouldn’t be able to cope. There was nothing for it but to remain shackled to Wendy, but to try and find the odd spark of life and excitement wherever he could. For a short while he’d had an affair with Jackie Poole, slipping round there at lunchtime whilst her kids were at school, but she’d got too demanding so he’d had to give her up. The final straw had been when Barry had come to him all unsuspecting to ask for advice, man to man. Hector experienced an uncomfortable sensation in his guts, which he later identified as guilt. Since Jackie, he’d found no one.

  He began to ring Jess more frequently. He liked the sound of her voice.

  ‘Hector? Hello! This is a surprise. You only phoned me last Saturday, didn’t you?’

  ‘It was three weeks ago, in fact,’ Hector said.

  ‘Really? I don’t know where the time goes these days! So, how’s things?’

  ‘Oh much as usual.’

  ‘Any news on the Florian front?’

  ‘Only that they’ve been evicted from that cottage for not paying the rent. God only knows what Zillah does with all my money! The new tenants tell me she’s living in a caravan not far away, but I haven’t found out where it is yet, so I’m feeling even more hacked-off with them than usual.’

  ‘Oh, poor you,’ Jess said.

  ‘Maybe daughters are easier?’ Hector suggested.

  ‘Not if Hannah’s anything to go by! I gather Caroline finds her very hard work.’

  ‘How are they both?’

  ‘Oh poor Caroline’s in a bad way at the moment. She’s lost her job and is trying desperately to find another, but it seems almost impossible, in spite of all her qualifications and experience. “Yoof” is everything, it seems.’

  Hector sat by the telephone for some time after phoning Jess and then, once he’d made his mind up, he opened his study door and called out, ‘Any chance of a coffee, Wend?’ and sat back, waiting for it to arrive.

  He would give Florian one last chance, he decided. If that didn’t work out, then he would wash his hands of him, and Zillah could beat him with the CSA or any other branch of officialdom. He really couldn’t give a stuff. And if Wendy found out? Well, he’d just have to put up with the consequences of that.

  Whilst he was at his desk, he wrote out the usual cheque for Zillah and then on impulse wrote out a larger one for Caroline. If she was in financial trouble, then this might just be his entrée to a life including Hannah. He wrote each name on an envelope,
put both cheques inside, and slipped them into his inside pocket just before Wendy came in with the coffee.

  ‘You haven’t forgotten you’re taking Morgan over to his friend’s this afternoon, have you?’ she asked.

  ‘No.’ For a change, Hector was looking forward to it. Getting out of the house alone was not as easy as it used to be when he’d had the excuse of a ‘story’ that needed pursuing. Mudgeley Goggles was very much a nine to five job, and he was conscious that Wendy could always phone Ifor to check up on his whereabouts.

  Morgan’s friend lived on the southern edge of town, the right side for Hector’s purposes. As they drove through the traffic, he tried to get the boy interested in a number-plate game.

  ‘The rules are easy,’ he explained. ‘You have to look out for any three-letter combination that will make a word by the addition of just one more letter, ignoring the figures of course, and the yearly prefix. OK?’ Morgan looked unhappy. ‘See? There’s one,’ Hector pointed. ‘It’s a good one because it’s a word already – RAN – so I get one point to start with. Then I can add an I to it to make RAIN for another two points, or a T to make RANT for a further two, and so on. So I’ve got five points so far, d’you see? The only other rule is that if you make a rude word or a swear word you get docked ten points. OK? Shall we play it?’

  ‘No,’ Morgan said sulkily. ‘It’s stupid.’

  Hector sighed. ‘Oh well,’ he said, ‘please yourself.’ He dropped Morgan off with some relief and then drove swiftly out of town towards Zillah’s old cottage, hoping that the new people who lived there might by now have found the forwarding address. The place looked better already. Someone had dug the garden and cut the lawn, and there was a new gate with two good hinges at the bottom of the path. Hector swung it open and advanced to the newly-painted front door.

  ‘You could have phoned,’ the new female occupant said brightly. ‘We’ve just got connected.’

  ‘Bit late now,’ Hector said.

  ‘Yes. Well, I’m ever so sorry. We did have Mrs Brakespear’s address. She wrote it down for us on a little scrap of paper, but we haven’t used it and now I think the puppy must’ve eaten it. I looked everywhere after you came last time. Sorry.’

  ‘But can’t you remember the name of the place, or anything at all?’

  ‘I think it was over there,’ she said, vaguely gesticulating in the general direction of the distant Tor, ‘over Glastonbury way’.

  ‘Thanks,’ Hector said shortly and went back crossly to his car. He clearly wasn’t going to have any luck today. He would have to fall back on his old journalistic skills and track her down through local sources. Luckily he’d kept his contact book in which, over the years, he’d written down the names and phone numbers of everyone he’d ever spoken to, who might be useful to him in future – from the local rat catcher (or rodent operative) to the region’s faceless Euro MP. Hector discovered that he was looking forward to doing a bit of detective work again.

  By the following weekend he had a pretty good idea of where Zillah might be. He finally managed to escape Wendy’s vigilance on the Sunday by saying he was going to take his latest car out for a run to see if he could detect the source of an irritating squeak that had been bothering him. ‘Nasty, tatty modern cars,’ he complained. ‘The Jag never squeaked!’

  ‘It’s a lovely car,’ Wendy said. ‘You know you’re chuffed to bits with it. You polish it enough! Its just an excuse to zoom round the place like a boy racer. How about taking Morgan for a ride while you’re about it.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Hector said with careful nonchalance. ‘He’d only be bored.’

  ‘You mean, you would!’

  Hector pretended not to hear her. He got into the car and started it up, pressing buttons to erect the roof aerial and to open the sun-roof and one window. Then, selecting Classic FM, he drove off in a blaze of Kiri Te Kanawa. He was heading for a travellers’ camp near Glastonbury.

  He found it without too much difficulty, but as he parked he felt distinctly uneasy. Two large mongrels bounded towards him, barking, and a group of youths sitting in the spring sunshine on the steps of an old bus looked definitely threatening. There were half a dozen vans, a few derelict vehicles minus their wheels, and a lot of grey washing hanging limply on lengths of string or draped over bushes. A few daffodils, in a solitary clump surrounded by rubbish, looked like innocents abroad.

  ‘I’m looking for Zillah Brakespear,’ Hector called to the youths. One of them said something inaudible and they all sniggered. He got out of his car self-consciously and warily fended the dogs off with the only thing he had to hand, a rolled up copy of the Westcountry Chronicle.

  The youths turned their backs and ignored him. Out of the corner of his eye Hector noticed something moving. He turned and caught sight of a tall boy with long, red dreadlocks emerging from the furthest caravan.

  ‘Florian?’ he called uncertainly. Florian looked startled and then, giving Hector a vigorous V-sign, he started up an ancient motorbike and clattered off. Hector, carefully avoiding the puddles and all too aware of the dogs close behind him, walked across to Florian’s caravan and banged on the door. It opened a little way.

  ‘Yeah?’ A child of about seven wearing round glasses peered out and said, ‘What d’you want?’ His index finger was marking his place in a heavy book.

  Hector looked up at him. ‘Hello Alaric.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I’m looking for Zillah.’

  ‘She’s not here.’

  ‘Do you know when she’ll be back?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Well I was hoping to talk to her about Florian.’

  ‘He’s not here either.’

  ‘No, I know. So, can I come in for a moment and wait for Zillah?’

  ‘No,’ Alaric said, and shut the door firmly. Behind Hector the youths cackled. He turned and saw that the dogs had left him and were now peeing enthusiastically over his car wheels. Then he looked beyond the car and saw someone walking up the path through the freshly greening trees, a slim woman wearing a long flowery skirt and carrying a basket of shopping. Thank God for that! Hector thought, and walked briskly to meet her.

  ‘How did you know I was here?’ was the first thing she said.

  ‘You weren’t that hard to find,’ Hector said. ‘I mean, how many other Zillah’s do you know? Here, let me carry that for you.’

  Zillah handed the basket over to him without thanks and glanced at him dispassionately as they began to walk on towards the camp. ‘Well?’

  ‘I’ve just seen Alaric,’ Hector said. ‘He must have been deep in a book; rather like a startled mole who’s suddenly broken out into the sunlight by mistake!’

  ‘That sounds like my boy,’ Zillah said proudly.

  ‘And how’s Christian?’ Hector enquired, putting off the evil moment when he had to ask about Florian.

  ‘He’s great. He’s up at Edinburgh, doing a PhD in Genetics.’

  ‘Good God!’ Hector said involuntarily.

  ‘Just because we live like this, it doesn’t mean we’re bone from the neck up,’ Zillah said sternly. ‘You should endeavour to rise above meaningless stereotypes, you know.’

  ‘So, how’s Florian doing then?’ Hector asked, challenging this.

  ‘Oh well, pretty much as you’d expect, I shouldn’t wonder,’ Zillah admitted with a grimace.

  ‘You mean he’s in trouble?’

  ‘He’s what’s officially known these days as a Young Offender – joyriding, mugging, into drugs, well-known to the police, you name it – all in all a well-rounded delinquent.’

  ‘You’re joking!’

  ‘Do I look as if I’m laughing?’

  ‘Well, no…’

  ‘I always said he had bad blood, didn’t I?’

  ‘There’s no such thing, surely?’

  ‘So what are you going to do about it then? I take it you had some reason for coming over here?’

  ‘I just wanted to make
contact,’ Hector said uneasily. ‘I think I caught sight of him just now – long hair? On a motorbike?’

  ‘That’s him.’

  ‘But he isn’t legally old enough to ride one, and he wasn’t wearing a crash helmet.’

  ‘Fine,’ Zillah said, sighing heavily. ‘So you tell him. In fact, I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t you just take him away with you and sort him out? I’ve had him up to here!’ She waved a slim hand near her forehead.

  Hector recoiled. ‘Well, now I know where you are…’ he began, weakly.

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ Zillah said.

  ‘I’ll come and see Florian again soon, maybe even talk to him.’

  ‘Fat chance.’

  ‘Well… anyway… best be off…’

  ‘If you’ve got any more spare books,’ Zillah said, ‘Alaric would be glad of them.’

  ‘Right. I’ll see what I can do.’ Hector waited by his car until Zillah had got over to her caravan, and then he waved as she turned to shut the door behind her. The huddle of youths regarded him watchfully. He bent a little twitchily under their gaze to unlock the door, and then he saw the damage. Someone had walked the length of his expensive top-of-the-range BMW with a sharp object like a nail in one hand, and had scored a deep groove in its paintwork from end to end. Hector jerked his head up furiously.

  The youths stared silently, insolently straight back at him, and Hector, to his eternal shame, dropped his gaze, got into his car and drove sheepishly away.

  Chapter 21

  Hector arrived outside Caroline’s home early one Saturday afternoon and parked his car nearby, going over what he planned to say in his head and hoping against hope that he would at least get inside the house. He walked towards it, looking up at the windows in case Caroline or Hannah might by chance be looking out, but they were blank. He took a steadying breath and rang the doorbell. Nothing happened. He couldn’t be sure whether it was ringing somewhere deep within, or whether it was simply broken. He rang it again and hammered on the door with his fist, to make sure. Still no one came. Just my luck! Hector thought bitterly. I drive all the way up to London, and then they aren’t bloody well here. I suppose I should have phoned first. But I didn’t want to give Caroline the chance to poison the child’s mind against me. Maybe I should pop down to the basement instead, and see if Jess is in.