by Alexis Hall
“Oliver,” I said. “My dad’s got cancer.”
I was fully prepared for him to tell me to shut up and go to sleep, or to kick me out entirely but instead, he rolled over. “I imagine that’s going to take some getting used to.”
“I don’t want to get used to it. I don’t want to know him at all. And if I do have to know him, it’s deeply unfair I have to know him as a bloke with a cancer.” I snuffled in the darkness. “He opted out of being my father. Why does he expect me to opt in just for the shit bit?”
“He’s probably scared.”
“He was never there when I was scared.”
“No, he was clearly a bad father. And you can punish him for it if you want to, but do you honestly think that will help?”
“Help who?”
“Anyone, but I’m thinking mainly of you.” Under the plausible deniability of the bedclothes, his fingertips brushed mine. “It must have been hard to go through life after he abandoned you. But I’m not sure it’ll be easier to go through life after you’ve abandoned him.”
I was silent for a long time. “Do you really think I should see him?”
“It’s your decision, and I’ll support you either way, but yes. I think you should.”
I made a plaintive noise.
“After all,” he went on, “if it goes badly, you can walk away at any time.”
“It’s just…it’s going to be all hard and messy.”
“Lots of things are. Many of them are still worth doing.”
It was a sign of quite how fucked up I was feeling that I didn’t try to make a joke out of hard, messy or, indeed, worth doing.
“Will you,” I asked, “will you come with me? If I go.”
“Of course.”
“You know for…”
“Verisimilitude,” he finished.
He still hadn’t moved his hand. I didn’t ask him to.
Chapter 15
“Okay, Alex,” I said. “How do you get four elephants in a Mini?”
He thought about this for longer than it should have required. “Well, I mean, elephants are very big so normally you wouldn’t expect that even one of them would fit in a Mini. But if they were very small—if they were, for example, baby elephants—then I suppose you’d put two in the front and two in the back?”
“Um…y-yes. That’s right.”
“Oh good. Have we got to the joke yet?”
“Nearly. So how do you get four giraffes in a Mini?”
“Once again, giraffes are very large but we seem to be ignoring that for the purposes of this exercise. So I’d expect two in the… Oh no, wait. Of course, you’d have to take the elephants out first, assuming it was the same Mini.”
My universe was imploding. “Also right. Okay, final question.”
“This is splendid. It’s making a lot more sense than the jokes you usually tell me.”
“Glad to hear it. Anyway. Final question. How do you get two whales in a Mini?”
Another pause. “Gosh. It’s not really my area of expertise, but I think it’s up the M4 and over the Severn Bridge. Maybe you should check with Rhys, though, because he’s from there.”
I was about to say something along the lines of “Well, this has been fun,” meaning, of course, “I don’t know what’s just happened” when Alex cupped a hand theatrically round his mouth and shouted, “Rhys, can we borrow you for a second?”
Rhys Jones Bowen poked his head around the door of the glorified cupboard that we called the “outreach office.” “What can I do you for, boys?”
“Luc wants to know how to get to Wales in a Mini,” explained Alex.
“Well, I don’t see why it matters if you’re in a Mini or not.” Rhys Jones Bowen had even more of a look of perplexed helpfulness than usual. “But usually you’d go up the M4 and over the Severn Bridge. I mean if you were going somewhere in south Wales, like Cardiff or Swansea. But if you were going somewhere in north Wales like Rhyl or Colwyn Bay, you’d be better off going up the M40 via Birmingham.”
“Thank you?” I offered.
“Are you going to Wales then, Luc? Best country in the world.”
“Er, no. I was trying to tell Alex a joke.”
Rhys Jones Bowen’s face fell. “I don’t see what’s funny about wanting to go to Wales. I’ve known you for a long time, young Luc, and all these years I’ve never had you pegged for a racist.”
“No, it’s a pun. It’s a series of jokes about trying to get incongruously large animals into a small car, and it ends with how do you get two whales in a Mini.”
“But we’ve just told you that,” complained Alex. “It’s straight up the M4 and over the Severn Bridge.”
“Unless you’re headed north,” added Rhys Jones Bowen, “in which case you take the M40 via Birmingham.”
I threw my hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Okay, I’ve got the information now. Thank you both very much. Rhys, it was not my intent to speak ill of your homeland.”
“It’s all right, Luc. I quite understand.” He nodded in a reassuring way. “And if you did want a trip up to God’s own kingdom, I’ve got a friend who’s got a lovely little place outside of Pwllheli that he’ll let you have at mates’ rates for three hundred quid a week.”
Alex gave a little gasp. “Why don’t you take your new boyfriend?”
“Yeah, the whole idea of a getting a new boyfriend, which you ought to remember because it was your fucking idea, is to be seen dating someone appropriate. I’m not sure even the most farsighted paparazzi are going to be lurking around rural Wales just on the off chance I’m over there for a weekender.”
“Ah. Well. We could do that thing they do in Westminster.”
“Fiddle my expense claims?” I suggested. “Send pictures of my penis to journalists pretending to be teenage girls?”
“Oh Luc, I’m sure both of those situations were taken very much out of context by an unfair press establishment.”
“So what are you talking about?”
“We should leak it. The next time you’re having dinner with the CFO of an international news organisation, casually let it slip that you’re planning to go to Wales.”
I stifled a sigh. “Do we really need to have the ‘what sorts of people the average human being has dinner with’ conversation again?”
“Well, gentlemen,” announced Rhys Jones Bowen, correctly concluding that he didn’t have much more to contribute to the conversation. “I think I’ve done enough good here for one day. If you need me, I’ll be updating our Myspace page.”
And with that, he ambled off, providing me with a narrow window in which to steer things in a less ludicrous direction. “The trouble is, Alex, I’m not sure the plan’s working. And now I say it out loud, I don’t know why I ever thought it would.”
He gave one of his slow, bewildered blinks. “Not working how?”
“Well, I’ve managed to avoid getting flayed in the press for the last week or so, but I’ve tried reaching out to some of the donors we lost and nobody’s biting. So they either haven’t noticed I’m respectable now or they don’t care.”
“I’m sure they care, old thing. They care so much they dropped you like a light-fingered footman. You just need to get their attention.”
“The only attention I know how to get is the wrong kind of attention.”
Alex opened his mouth.
“And if you say, oh it’s easy, ring up the Duchess of Kensington, I will stick this biro up your nose.”
“Don’t be silly. I’d never say that. There is no Duchess of Kensington.”
“You know what I mean.” He probably didn’t. “You have a whole bunch of nice society people you can reach out to, and they’ll get you in Hello! or Tatler or Horse & Hound or something. I can get in the Daily Mail by sucking somebody off in a fire escape.”
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br /> “Actually, I was going to suggest that you come with me to the club. Miffy’s always got men following her with cameras. I mean”—he wrinkled his nose—“I think they’re mostly journalists, although there was that awkward business with the kidnapping last February.”
“Sorry. Did your girlfriend get kidnapped?”
“Silly business. They thought her father was the Duke of Argyll when he’s actually the Earl of Coombecamden. How we laughed.”
I decided to let that go. “So you’re telling me that if I hang out with you, I’ll either get my picture in better-quality magazines or I’ll be abducted by international criminals.”
“Which will also get you in the papers. So I think that’s what the kids today are calling a win-win.”
For the sake of my sanity, I decided now was not the time to explain to Alex what slang was and, more to the point, what it wasn’t. “I’ll see if he’s free,” I said and then retreated to my office via the coffee machine.
Since Sunday, Oliver and I had been sporadically fake-texting, which was becoming increasingly indistinguishable from real texting. My phone was never far from my hand, and my sense of time had distorted around my understanding of Oliver’s schedule. He always sent me something first thing in the morning, usually an apology for the continued absence of dick pics, then it would be silence ’til lunchtime because important law stuff was happening, and sometimes he would work through lunch so I wouldn’t hear from him at all. Come the evening, he’d check in before and after hitting the gym, and diligently ignore my request for updates on his V-cut. And once he was in bed, I’d bombard him with as many annoying questions as I could think of about whatever he was reading, usually based on the Wikipedia plot summary I’d just Googled. All of which was a long-winded way of saying I was surprised when he rang me at eleven thirty.
“Is this a butt-dialling,” I asked, “or is someone dead?”
“Neither. I’ve had a bad morning, and I thought it would look suspicious if I didn’t call the person I’m supposed to be dating.”
“So you thought they’d notice you not calling me, but they wouldn’t notice you saying ‘supposed to be dating’ aloud on the phone?”
“You’re right.” He was quiet a moment. “I think, perhaps, I just wanted someone to talk to.”
“And you picked me?”
“I thought giving you an opportunity to laugh at my expense might make me feel better.”
“You’re a strange man, Oliver Blackwood. But if you want to be laughed at, I won’t let you down. What happened?”
“Sometimes people don’t help themselves.”
“Okay, there’d better be more to this, or I am going to let you down.”
He appeared to be taking calming breaths. “You may be aware that occasionally defendants change their stories, and this tends to get brought up in court. My client today was asked why, when originally questioned regarding a recent robbery, he’d claimed that he was with an associate of his. Who, for the sake of this anecdote, I shall call Barry.”
There was something about the way Oliver was relating this to me in his best “I care deeply about the right to a fair trial even for petty criminals” voice that made me giggle before I was probably supposed to.
“What are you laughing at?”
“Your expense. I thought we’d established.”
“But,” he protested, “I haven’t said anything funny yet.”
“That’s what you think. Do go on.”
“You’re making me self-conscious.”
“I’m sorry. I’m just happy to hear from you.”
“Oh.” A long silence. Then Oliver cleared his throat. “Anyway, my client was asked why he had previously said he was with Barry when he was now claiming to have been alone. And my client said he got confused. And so the council for the prosecution asked why he got confused. To which my client explained that he got confused because, and I quote, ‘Me and Barry get arrested together all the time.’”
“Did you shout objection?”
“We’ve been over this. And even if that were a feature of the British judicial system, what would I have said? Objection, my client is an idiot?”
“Okay then. Did you do that thing where you rub your temples and look really sad and disappointed?”
“I don’t recall doing so. But I couldn’t swear that I did not.”
“So what did you do?”
“I lost. Although I flatter myself that I made the best of a bad situation by attempting to characterise my client as, and once more I quote, ‘a man so honest that he voluntarily introduces prior arrests not in evidence.’”
At this point, I just gave up and burst out laughing. “You’re such a trier.”
“I’m glad I could amuse you at least. It means I’ve done somebody some good today.”
“Oh, come on. It wasn’t your fault. You defended the guy as well as you could.”
“Yes, but if one must lose, one prefers to lose honourably rather than ignominiously.”
“Y’know, I was going to be sympathetic, right until you started referring to yourself as one.”
He gave a little chuckle. “One is sorry.”
“One fucking well better be. One isn’t the fucking queen.”
“Will you come for a drink with me after work?” he said. It wasn’t exactly a blurt, but it had definite blurty qualities. “That is, I think we should be seen together more often. For the sake of the project.”
“The project? This isn’t an episode of Doctor Who. But if you’re that keen to preserve the integrity of Operation Cantaloupe, we’ve had an invitation to an expensive private members’ club from the biggest nitwit in the Home Counties.”
“Does this sort of thing happen often in your line of work?”
“Not so much,” I admitted. “My get-a-respectable-boyfriend plan isn’t doing what it’s supposed to because none of our donors have noticed. And my very lovely, very posh, but very, very silly coworker has suggested we go out with him and his partner in order to generate a little bit of society buzz. But we absolutely don’t have to do it. To be honest, it’s probably a bad idea anyway.”
“We should go.” I was beginning to recognise Oliver’s decisive voice. “The entire purpose of this exercise is to improve your public image. If we started turning down opportunities to do that, I’d be remiss in my fake boyfriend duties.”
“Are you sure? There’ll be other opportunities to score fake boyfriend points.”
“I’m sure. Besides, meeting your coworkers is what a real boyfriend would do.”
“You’re going to regret that. But it’s too late. I’ll text you the… Will you fake dump me if I say ‘deets’?”
“Without hesitation.”
I hung up a few minutes later and delivered the news to Alex, who, once he remembered that he’d invited us, seemed genuinely delighted.
Next on my list of personal things to do on company time was—and I could not believe I was even thinking about this—get in touch with my father. I’d been putting it off since Sunday, but Oliver was the kind of thoughtful bastard who’d probably ask how it was going and I didn’t want to have to tell him I’d wussed it.
Of course, now I came to it, I realised that I didn’t have any way to contact Jon Fleming, and the thing about famous people is they’re actually pretty hard to reach. Probably the quickest and most effective strategy I could have tried was asking Mum, but quick and effective wasn’t really what I was aiming for. Basically, what I needed was a way of trying to get in touch with my dad that left me with as little chance as possible of having to be in touch with my dad.
So I got his manager’s name off his website and his manager’s number off his manager’s website. The manager in question turned out to be a guy named Reggie Mangold, who by the looks of things had been a hotshot in the ’80s, though now
Jon Fleming was by far his biggest client. Very, very slowly I poked the number into my office phone and hoped for an answering machine.
“Mangold Talent,” said a gruff Cockney voice that definitely wasn’t an answering machine. “Mangold speaking.”
“Um. Hi. I need to talk to Jon Fleming.”
“Oh, well. In that case, I’ll put you through directly. Please hold.”
The absence of hold music and the sarcasm dripping from his tone suggested that I was not, in fact, about to be put through directly. “No, really. He asked to speak to me.”
“Unless you’ve got way nicer tits than you sound like you’ve got, I very much doubt that.”
“I’m his son.”
“Pull the other one, mate, it’s got bells on.”
“My name is Luc O’Donnell. My mother is Odile O’Donnell. Jon Fleming actually is my father and does actually want to speak to me.”
Reggie Mangold wheezed a smoker’s laugh. “If I had a quid for every little shit who’s tried that on me, I’d have eight pound forty-seven.”
“Okay, so you don’t believe me. That’s fine. But if you could just tell him I called, that would be peachy.”
“I will certainly do that. I’m writing your message down right now in my imaginary notebook. Are we spelling O’Donnell with two l’s or three?”
“Two n’s. Two l’s. And it’s about the cancer thing.”
And then I hung up, which gave me a sense of satisfaction that briefly counteracted the nausea. Key word being briefly. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what was worse: having to reach out to my waste of a father in the first place, or trying to reach out to him and discovering he’d made no effort to actually let me. And, yes, I’d gone about it in a slightly half-arsed way, but you’d think telling your manager that he might get a call from your son at some point fell somewhere between “bare” and “minimum” on the trying-to-connect-with-your-long-lost-family scale.
It was gradually sinking in that if Dad did kick the bucket, my last, and pretty much only, words to him would have been “fuck off and literally die.” And I resented how shitty that made me feel about myself because, while a lot of people had an absolute right to make me feel shitty on account of the many years I’ve spent systematically letting them down, Jon Fleming was just some prick I’d never met.