by Nina Jon
“It’s okay, mate – I guess I deserved it. Well, as you’ve confided in me, I’m going to tell you what happened when I was in the Falkland Islands, which changed me. Do you think I’ve changed?” Johnny asked. When Jack didn’t reply immediately, Johnny said, “Well I have.”
Jack looked over at Johnny. He was wondering what on earth he was going to say and hoping it was something he actually wanted to hear. For his part, Johnny had jumped off his stool to lie stretched over the tarpaulin by the side of river bank, staring up at the sky above, blinking rapidly in the sunlight. For a few moments, all Jack could hear was the rushing of the stream, and the birds chirping overhead.
“Are you sitting comfortably?” Johnny asked.
Jack, perched on his canvas stool, nodded and grinned.
“Then I’ll begin,” Johnny said, adjusting the waterproof cap he always wore to go fishing. “When I was in the Falklands, I ended up staying at some commune run by some Christian Fellowship. I hadn’t realised this when I booked it. I wondered why it was so cheap.” Jack giggled.
“Yeah, well anyway,” Johnny continued. “One of the things about the commune was that we used to eat together in a communal dining room at long tables, like at boarding school. One evening, I had dinner opposite a young American couple. Her name was Tami and his was Billy. They were Born-Again Christians or something. Despite both only being about thirty, they already had four kids and another on the way. I’d just sat down to eat, when Billy asked me if I was married and had any kids. I said no. I mentioned I’d had a girlfriend, but we’d split up ’cos I couldn’t offer her the commitment she wanted, with me not being the marrying type, a rolling stone who gathers no moss, and that kind of rubbish. I laughed at my words, but no one else did. Then, mate, suddenly out of the blue, Billy asked me whether I liked my father, like there was some connection between that and what I’d just said. The question caught me off-guard. ‘Don’t know him,’ I said, which is the truth, as you know. I told them how he’d walked out when I was a little kid and I hadn’t seen him since, and didn’t even know if he was dead or alive. I said I’d seen some photographs of him, and I looked a bit like him and stuff, but that was all I knew. At this point, I realised that everyone at the table was listening and looking at me expectantly. Billy basically repeated the same question. ‘But do you like your father? The man you know him to be?’ he said. ‘The man who basically abandoned me and my mum?’ I asked. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That man. Do you like him?’
“I was honest, mate,” Johnny said to Jack. “I said that I didn’t like him, no. In fact, I hated him for what he did to me and mum. Now this is where it gets weird, man,” Johnny said, pointing his finger at Jack. “Billy looked me straight in the eyes, he had these piercing blue eyes, mate, I tell you. He said, ‘If you don’t like your father, why are you allowing yourself to turn into him?’
“I didn’t know what to say. You know me mate. I always have something to say, but not this time Jack. Speechless I was, speechless. Eventually I recovered and spluttered, ‘But I’m not like him. Am I? I haven’t abandoned my missus and kid,’ trying to justify the way I was. At this stage, the whole table was staring at me calmly, quizzically like. The whole place had gone quiet. It was surreal. Billy carried on talking. ‘My dad was a drunken wastrel,’ he said. ‘He’d disappear for weeks on end at a time. One day he didn’t come back at all. He eventually reappeared one night, months later, asking me to go with him, but I wouldn’t leave Mom. From that day on, I could count on my fingers the times I saw him. He didn’t pay a penny in maintenance, and no amount of Court Orders would make him. On the few occasions he arranged to see us, he rarely turned up and when he did it was only to ask my mother for money, usually to pay off his debts. It broke her heart and my sisters’ hearts. It was harder on them than me. They really hoped he’d come back into their lives and be the dad they’d always wanted, and he kept promising them he would. But he didn’t. By the time I was thirteen, I vehemently disliked my father. I have made sure, from that day to this, that I don’t behave the way my dad did. I’ve absolutely no desire to allow myself to turn into that man.’
“I didn’t know what to say, Jack. I tried to steer the conversation away from me. ‘Is your dad still alive?’ I asked Billy. He and Tami shook their heads. ‘He died a few years back,’ Billy said. ‘I visited him in hospital before he passed over. I didn’t want to, but my very sensible wife said I should make my peace with him and I’m glad I did. But I’ll tell you something else, Jonathan. I’m gladder still that I fought all my life against being him. My life is better for it’ he said, taking his wife’s hand in his and kissing it. I thought he’d finished with me, but he hadn’t. He continued to stare at me, not judgementally you understand, more expectantly like. Everyone at the table was all weirdly calm, like I said. ‘I must ask you again, Jonathan, why are you allowing yourself to turn into him, a man you clearly dislike?’ Billy asked. ‘But I’m not,’ I said, indignantly. ‘Aren’t you?’ Billy said. ‘You entered into a relationship with a young woman, allowing her to believe the relationship had a future, caused her to fall in love with you, and allowed her young brother to look upon you as a father. Yet here you are, with them no longer a part of your life, which was your choice, not theirs.’
“I tell you man, I was sweating. ‘If you put it like that,’ I said, real subdued like. ‘I didn’t know I was becoming like him, but I can sort of see where you’re coming from.’ Billy left it at that. I’m not a self-conscious person, Jack, as you know, but man, I’m sure I was bright red by the end of it.”
“That why you came back?” Jack asked, referring to Johnny’s unexpectedly return from the South Atlantic. Johnny sat up.
“It was, mate. It was. I did a lot of thinking that night and pretty much every night since. I realised Billy was right. I was turning into my father, a man I hate. I don’t want that to happen. I don’t want to end up like him and I do want you and your sister in my life. So, I promise you that for as long as it’s in my power to do so, I will be there for you and your sister for the rest of my life, as long as you want me in it, of course.”
Jack gazed at Johnny. He was bathed in sunlight. At that moment, Jack couldn’t have thought more of him, if Johnny had been his own father. Johnny jumped up abruptly. Something was tugging on Jack’s line.
“I don’t believe it,” he said, reaching out to hold onto Jack’s fishing rod. “You’ve got a bite, lad!”
Jack stood up to steady the line. With Johnny behind him, he pulled in a small pink trout. Jack quickly unhooked the small wriggling fish and held it in his hands. With the fish still thrashing in Jack’s hands, and Jack grinning, Johnny captured the moment on camera.
“Best chuck that back in, mate,” he said.
Jack did. “I’m sure Jane could help you find your father, if you wanted to find him,” he said.
“Why would I want to do that?” Johnny asked, surprised that Jack had even suggested it.
“To make your peace with him, like Billy did. You never know, he might be sick. Look what happened to my mum. Anyway, if you want to, ask Jane. She’s very good at that kind of thing. She’d probably give you a cut-price deal,” he added, grinning.
CHAPTER FIVE
A Game of Cat and Mouse
I
A few hours after Jane paid Charity a visit, Charity visited Jane with both Johnny and Jack in tow. Jack clutched a fishing net.
Jane joined them in her back garden.
“Understand you’ve got a mouse problem, Jane,” Johnny said, as though he’d just returned from a weekend away rather than South America.
“It’s good to see you back, Johnny,” Jane said. “He’s in the summerhouse, behind a bookshelf unless he’s moved. I want to make sure there isn’t a colony nesting behind there, but I am going to need some help moving the shelves. Would you mind? I’ve cleared the books out already.”
The party made its way to the summerhouse, where after some discussion, they took their
positions. Charity held a plastic box, and Jack his net. They stood to the right and the left of the bookshelf, while Jane waited by the open back door, broom in hand, to help the mouse on his or her way outside.
Johnny put one hand on the sturdy bookshelf, and the other behind it. The bookshelf was easily as tall as six-foot Johnny, and even with his arms outstretched, as wide.
“This thing’s heavy so I am going to have to edge it forward, one side at a time. He’s likely to scarper soon as I move the bookshelf, so you’ll need to be ready,” Johnny said.
Jack and Charity made ready to catch the tiny animal when it ran out from its hiding place. Both squatted, their attention entirely focused on the bookshelf. Jack raised his net above his head and Charity lowered the box, ready to slam dunk any rodent which appeared.
“On the count of three. Three!” Johnny yelled, moving the bookshelf an inch forward. “Ready, he’ll run out any second, now,” warned Johnny, as the bookshelf crept forward another inch.
Jack and Charity leaned forward, as though skiers about to slalom. Both tightened their grips on net and box respectively. Jane gripped on to her broom handle as the bookshelf edged forward, the tension mounting as bit by bit the bookshelf edged away from the wall. But nothing happened.
Jack asked, “Where is it?”
“It’s hiding, mate,” Johnny said. “It’s probably terrified.
One more shove and I’ll be able to check behind it. Be careful – he, or they, may suddenly dart out.” Johnny moved the bookshelf until he could peer behind it.
But there was no sign of a mouse or a nest. “Anything?” Charity asked. “Nothing,” he said. “Let’s pull it right out to make sure.”
Johnny dragged the bookshelf into the middle of the floor and everyone gathered to stare at the space created. A few droppings were all there were to show a mouse had ever been there. There certainly wasn’t any sign of a nest.
“I’m so sorry,” Jane said. “I’ve got you all over here on a wild goose chase, or rather a wild mouse chase.”
“Don’t think anything of it. Help me push the shelf back, will you, Jack?” Johnny said.
“Best we have a double-check before we leave, in case there’s a colony hiding somewhere,” Charity said.
The other furniture in the summerhouse consisted of three comfy chairs, a corner cabinet and a coffee table. They moved each piece of furniture, and checked for mice. Johnny even stood on a chair to check the inside of lamp-shade. After the extensive search ended with no sign of a mouse or a nest, all agreed it had been a solitary mouse who had moved on.
“If he reappears we’ll come back and get him,” Johnny said.
“Yeah, like the flying squad,” Jack said. “Can I go now?”
“Yeah, you push off, Jack,” Charity said. “Johnny and I want to talk to Jane about something anyway.”
II
With Jack gone, the others moved to Jane’s kitchen. “Johnny was thinking about tracing his father. To make his peace with him. Do you think he could find him after all this time?” Charity asked, glancing at Johnny.
Unusually for him, he was silent. His hands were stretched out on Jane’s kitchen table and his head bowed.
“It might be possible, even after all this time. It goes without saying that I’ll do everything I can to help.”
A short silence ensued, broken by Charity saying, “Thing is, Johnny doesn’t know if he wants to or not.”
“If that son-of-a-bitch didn’t give a damn about what happened to us, why should I care what happened to him?”
Charity and Jane glanced at each other.
“Really you shouldn’t,” Charity said. “But if you want to get things sorted out in your mind, you might have to. He’s still your dad. It’s natural…” She stopped talking.
Jane wasn’t sure how she’d feel if she was in Johnny’s situation. She knew Charity had only once approached her boyfriend on the subject of his father, to which the mumbled reply had been: ‘I’d like to know why he went, but I might end up hating him even more if I knew, so it’s probably best I don’t.’ Charity had never mentioned the subject again.
Jane studied Johnny. She understood his indecision. Johnny’s father had abandoned his family when Johnny was just out of nappies, and had made no attempt to contact them. Rationally, he should not want to have anything to do with his father, but he was a human being, and human emotions were more powerful than mere rationality. Wasn’t it only psychopaths who were entirely rational, she reflected. Johnny wasn’t a psychopath, and it was perfectly understandable that he’d want to meet his father, if only to see his face and hear his voice, yet equally understandable that he should be reluctant to do so, after what his father had done to him.
“It was Jack who put the idea into my head,” Johnny said. “And now the idea is there, I can’t get it out.”
“You don’t need to explain,” Jane said. “Of course you still think about him, wondering where he is and the type of person he is. He won’t be the same person he was back then, you realise?”
“Bleeding hope not,” Johnny said.
“I’ll support you whatever you do,” Charity said.
“So you said,” Johnny mumbled.
Jane attended to the coffee. It had stood for long enough. She poured three cups, adding some milk to Charity and Johnny’s coffee, and serving hers black. “I do believe I have some garibaldi biscuits somewhere,” she said, getting up to open one of the kitchen cupboards. “If you want, I could try and find out if your father is still alive, and where he is.” Charity shot a glance in Jane’s direction. “If I manage to find something, then you can decide whether or not to get in touch. Here they are,” she said, referring to the biscuits. “Let me get some plates.”
Jane rejoined them at the table, a biscuit tin in one hand, and three side plates in the other.
“My dad’s name is Peter Mark Lambert, although he was always known as Pete. I haven’t seen him since I was two,” Johnny said. “He was a lot older than my mum. If he’s still alive he’d be sixty.”
“These are the only photographs Johnny has of his dad,” Charity said, pushing an envelope over to Jane. She opened it. The envelope contained a couple of photographs: one of Johnny’s parents’ marriage, and the other of a young smiling couple with their new baby cradled in his mother’s arms.
“That’s me. Beautiful baby wasn’t I?” he joked.
“Is your mother still alive?” Jane asked, ashamed that she didn’t know. Johnny shook his head sadly.
“Died a few years back. It was …” his sentence ended with him pretending to knock back an imaginary drink, indicating that his poor mother had been an alcoholic, who had drunk herself to death.
“I’m sorry,” Jane said. “Does your father have any relatives that you know of?”
“He has a half-sister, Stella. She’s a lot younger than him, but as far as I know she’s not heard from him since the day he left Mum. We still exchange birthday cards and Christmas cards, so I’d know if he’d made contact with her. Except for one postcard, no-one’s heard from him since the day he left.”
“Postcard?” Jane asked.
“Yeah, get this,” Charity interrupted. “His mum received a postcard from Blackpool a year after he left. What a …” she said, her sentence trailing out, realising that her view on the subject was best left unsaid.
“What did the card say?” Jane asked.
“Hello from Blackpool! Nothing else,” Johnny said. “He didn’t even bother signing it. He just sent it to her as though to say, in case you were wondering, I’m still alive and enjoying life.”
Now it was Charity’s time to bow her head.
“How thoughtless and cruel,” Jane said.
“That’s my father.”
Jane asked if he still had the card. Charity took the envelope from her and shook it until a postcard fell out. The picture on the card was a photograph of Johnny’s father as a younger man, with his face pushed through a hardboard im
age of the cartoon cat Tom, pretending to chase Jerry, played by an unknown woman. Jane turned card over. The shot had been taken at a funfair in Blackpool.
“If your father is still alive and living under his own name, it will be quite easy to find him. We can search against his name, and see what comes up. I subscribe to a database of everyone in the UK telephone book and on the unedited electoral Regis ter. I can also find out if he’s remarried, or unfortunately died.
However, if he’s living overseas, or under an assumed name, or he’s one of those itinerant people who don’t have a bank account or a fixed abode, then it’s going to be much harder to find him, even impossible, unless we get some luck. I can start straight away if you want me to.”
Johnny looked as though he was still undecided.
“I think you at least need to know if he’s still alive, love,” Charity said. “You can’t decide what to do until we at least know that.”
“Well, look who’s here,” Jane said, referring to Addison, Charity’s jet black cat, who had just presented itself at her glass back door. The cat patted the door once with its paw, to let it be known that he wanted to be let in.
“Addison! Mate!” Johnny said, letting him in. The cat meowed once and ran into the kitchen. Charity patted her lap, but the cat surveyed all those in the kitchen only to ignore them and run over to the door which led into the utility room. Jane opened it for him with the words, “If the mouse is still around, hopefully Addison will see him off.”
“Polish him off, more like,” Charity said.
The cat ran into the utility room and jumped straight up onto the top of Jane’s boiler and settled himself down on the cushion left for him there.
“All right for some,” all three said simultaneously.
III
Her neighbours departed (leaving their sleeping cat behind). Two new cases in one day, thought Jane, not that Johnny’s plight could be considered a case – that was more a matter of helping out an old friend.
She decided to start with a search against the name Pete(r) Mark Lambert. There were a number of entries. She opened and read some. The majority related to a famous US Country and Western singer, too young to be Johnny’s father. She then carried out a search against his name on her UK database, which was as inclusive as anything could be. It revealed numerous names, any one of which could have been Johnny’s father. Even after categorising them by age, there was nothing to differentiate one from the other. If she were going to knock on the door of every address listed, she’d end up crisscrossing the entire country and probably end up with many an earful or worse. This was not going to be easy, she realised.