Martin puts his phone into his pocket as he enters our hotel room and smiles affectionately.
‘Prynhawn da,’ I say. I’m sitting at the hotel desk, laptop open.
‘What’s that?’ Martin asks.
‘Welsh for good afternoon,’ I reply.
‘Since when do you know Welsh?’
I pause, unsure. ‘Uh, must have picked up a word or two somewhere I guess.’ It’s a weak answer.
Martin shrugs it off. ‘Okay. Well, anyway, I called your sister, she’s coming here.’
‘Martin, that should’ve been my decision.’
‘You’re right, but she can help and you never would’ve called her,’ he says. His voice soft, his eyes moist. ‘I was so worried last night. I’m still worried. That fucking…fit, or whatever it was, that was a bad sign.’
‘It was a one-off. I’m fine,’ I say, knowing I’m not.
‘Look, you’re going to need more support than I can give. And that’s not because you’re weak, it’s because this mess is too big for the two of us.’
‘She’s got her own bullshit father to deal with,’ I say, fully cognizant of the fact that he’s done precisely the right thing. I’m not sure what’s happening to me, but I do know it’s outside my experience. May has lived a slightly more colourful life than I have; she may well have some insight that neither Martin nor I possess.
Martin sighs, places his hands on the back of the chair. We handed the box over to the police first thing in the morning. They won’t be doing much – the photos are from a long time ago, identification of the girls (now women, presumably) would be damn near impossible. And the perpetrator is dead.
So, that’s that. No closure for these victims, no retribution. And I’m supposed to carry on as if everything is normal.
‘So when’s May getting here?’ I ask, ‘We’re meeting Donald for lunch, remember?’ I’d messaged the old man in the morning, told him about what we’d found and arranged a lunch date to talk things through. I’m going to find out whether he knew of my father’s proclivities.
‘She should be here at about five, assuming the train doesn’t take a wrong turn.’
I nod. It’s been a while since I’ve seen my half-sister. Truth be told, I’m not sure I’ve seen her more than half a dozen times in the four years since mum’s funeral. We were so very close for a few years there, much less so now. We message here and there, call once a month or so, but it’s all pretty superficial. The mitochondrial ties that bind us feel so much less concrete without our dying mother here, pulling us together as surely as she falls apart herself. Cancer’s a bastard.
We meander about our room, readying ourselves for what may prove to be the most awkward lunch appointment in human history. We agree that Martin will take the car to pick up May from the train station after lunch; I’ll bus to the university library in the city centre and see if anyone can give me any information on the swirling, geometric script my birth father’s journals are written in. I’d rather do that alone. I’m not sure why.
We arrive at the designated restaurant, a Dim Sum place with great Google reviews and stunning photos online, about ten minutes early. This proves fortunate, the nearest available parking is three streets away. From what I’ve seen thus far, Ferenbrooke is many things, driving friendly not among them.
The restaurant lives up to its digital reputation in appearance if nothing else. Classy red leather, oiled hardwood, brass fixtures as far as the eye can see, essentially a limitless distance due to the mirrored walls along either side of the long dining room.
Donald rises to meet us. He’s at a circular booth table, the centre a raised plinth which no doubt spins.
I shake his hand. Martin does the same. We sit, myself in the centre, Donald to my right and Martin my left. We allow Donald to order for us; the menu has some of the most laughable translations this side of social media. I’m certain it’s a deliberate gimmick, much like the overplayed Chinese accent from our waiter, who switches to native Sheffield English when speaking to his colleagues.
Meritless small talk fills the table. I find out that Donald is a retired architect, that he never married and has no children of his own. He has five surviving siblings, younger than himself but older than my father. Catholic family, of course. Welsh father, Scottish mother. I hadn’t known that I was part Scottish before.
When the food arrives, a veritable mountain of dishes in a cascade of colour, it’s contained in the traditional bamboo steam pots common to Dim Sum restaurants. Gorgeously executed Chinese calligraphy graces the side of each. They bring to mind the obscure text in which my birth father’s journals are written.
We pass around the dumplings, fill our plates with rice and shellfish, smile awkwardly at one another. I eat slowly, chew my food carefully. I am, in truth, not all that hungry. I didn’t come here for a meal. I glance at Donald. It seems apparent that he didn’t either.
‘So, Donald, you know we called the police this morning, right? They’ll want to talk to you, to find out whether you knew about the photos.’
He pauses, places his chopsticks next to his plate, chews and swallows. His eyes close for a moment. A deep inhale through the nose, a slow exhale through the mouth. His eyes open and he adjusts the positioning of his chopsticks, lines them up, examines them more closely than I’ve ever looked at anything.
‘I am fully aware, yes, the police have already contacted me,’ he says, speaking slowly. ‘I was not aware that my brother possessed photos like that, that he was doing things of that nature. I would have warned you, if I had known. I promise you.’
His face is angled down slightly, his eyebrows raised. His eyes are wide and sincere. I find myself inclined to believe him, though the rational part of my mind is reluctant to do so.
‘What do you know about his journals?’ I ask. I reach into my messenger bag and retrieve the journal I’d brought from my birth father’s house. I stack several of the bamboo containers atop one another to clear some space and place the journal down, angled for Donald to read, open at a random page. Donald pulls a pair of glasses from his inside pocket. He settles them on his nose and leans over the journal. His brow furrows as his eyes wander across the page, his gaze analysing the cryptic script with academic care.
‘I’ve never seen this before,’ he says, ‘and I have no idea what it is. I couldn’t even tell you what language it’s in, I’m afraid.’ He closes the journal, eyes the spiral design on the front for a long moment.
I sigh. I suspected he’d have no idea what it was, but nonetheless I had to check. Donald seems a simple enough fellow. I am, broadly speaking, a good judge of character. There is little doubt in my mind that this man, my uncle in the biological sense, is telling me the truth. He’s as oblivious as I am. Perhaps more, given my recent tendency towards unwanted insight.
The rest of the meal passes calmly enough. It’s quiet, almost sedate. Here and there Donald asks me little questions about unimportant facets of my life. Where I work, do I like it, what are my interests outside of work, the usual social garnish that people take in before they’re ready to digest the meat of human interaction. Values, loyalties, responsibilities.
At the end, Donald pays. I notice that he leaves a good tip, shakes the waiter’s hand. I like that. We part at the door of the restaurant. Martin makes for the car, Donald for the bus stop heading to his home in a village near town. I head for a bus aimed at the town centre and thus the university library. My messenger bag, with its cargo of cryptic texts, weighs heavy on my shoulder. I make it to the stop at the same time as the bus. I board, pay my fare, and sit towards the middle. I watch Georgian shop fronts fleet past, small crowds of teenagers block pathways, couples alone and with prams, solitary folk and pairs of friends. The town is alive, occupied, a moving moment in time. It’s easy to think of it as nothing more than the setting for my father’s story, the background for the life he’s led since my mother nd he parted ways thirty years ago.
The world outside the bus passes ever faster. It produces a hypnagogic effect. The vibrations of the vehicle’s engine sync up perfectly with the thrumming tinnitus in my ears.
That’s new.
My eyelids grow heavy. I force them up each time they fall, though it takes exponentially more effort with each drop. Once, twice, three, four times I teeter on the edge of sleep. I slip. For a moment I’m gone. The bus shudders in response to uneven road, I force my eyes open and I’m elsewhere.
It’s a kitchen, cheaply outfitted with lino on the floors and chipboard work surfaces. A chest freezer sits beneath an unclean window, a rough and ready table against the wall.
A woman is screaming at me. I face her, my body doing what it will, my mind along for the ride.
‘She’s thirteen!’ the woman screams at me. Her face…I know it. It’s younger, thinner than I remember, and I haven’t seen her in years, but I know that’s my mother looking at me through tear-reddened eyes. A younger version of my mother without the scars on her face, but it’s her.
I feel the burning in my stomach, the animalistic focus as a guttural roar forces its way up my throat. I raise my right hand to my left shoulder, feel the sick glee as my young mother flinches. I bask in that for a moment, wait for the moment she drops her hands from her face then deliver a savage back-hand that flings her into the door frame behind her. Her shriek just enrages me further.
I take two steps towards her. She shrinks back, losing her spirit, her tears mingle with the blood dripping from the corner of her mouth.
‘Look at you,’ I say. ‘You’re a fat, screaming mess. Of course I went elsewhere. I have needs, you used-up bitch.’ My voice is high, accented.
My mother sobs, cradles her swollen belly with her arms. ‘Can’t you just leave me alone?’ she pleads. ‘Aren’t we done?’
This breaks something in me. I grab a fistful of her top in my left hand and plunge my right into her face, again and again. I grunt out words between the blows.
‘WE’RE’
Punch. Something cracks in her cheek.
‘DONE’
Punch. Her left eye is swollen closed.
‘WHEN’
Punch. The split in her lip opens further, revealing cracked teeth and ravaged gums.
‘I’
Punch. I open a fresh cut on her eyebrow. Warm blood coats my knuckles, gets into the abrasions I’ve received from pounding her face. It stings. This pisses me off.
‘SAY’
Punch. Harder this time. She tries to duck her head down, I end up hitting her forehead. There’s a sick cracking sound, a flare of pain in my palm. I let her go and stagger backwards, cradling my broken hand.
‘You fucking cunt!’ I shout.
She slips down to the ground, weeping. Her face is purple, black, blue, blood-soaked. Bruised, battered, dented and swollen beyond recognition. She’s still guarding her belly with her arms. She chose to defend her baby rather than herself.
Her baby.
Me.
Fatigue battles with rage in this borrowed body, this borrowed mind. Vision swims. I vaguely recall that there’s junk in my system and that I (he?) haven’t slept.
I mutter, pace for a few moments, unsure of what comes next.
A key rattles in the door.
It opens.
May. Nana May. My sister’s namesake, the matriarch of the family, steps through in her motorcycle leathers, helmet under arm. It must already be five thirty.
Nana May glances at me, down at her daughter, back to me. Her expression is hard, resolute. She adjusts her grip on her helmet and swings it at my face. I’m too slow to react.
It hits hard, shocks me back to myself.
Back on the bus, aching pain spread across my face, blood dripping from my nose.
Bodily I’m back where I should be, mentally I’m caught halfway between my present and another’s past. Seeing my mother like that, through the eyes of her abuser, sickens me and makes me feel like I’ve lost her again.
The bus rolls to a stop. The doors open. A man in a brown raincoat steps on, the same man I saw at the bus stop near my birth-father’s house, the same man who drew the spiral in our window back in Cambridge. I know it’s the same man now. He smiles at me, advances towards me, whistling tunelessly.
‘Mind if I sit here?’ he asks, gesturing at the empty seat next to me. I glance up and down the bus. No other passengers, just me and him.
I don’t answer.
He sits anyway.
The bus sets off, rumbling its way along a street I don’t recognise.
The man leans towards me. ‘It’s been a bit of a thrill watching your progress. I didn’t think it’d work, you know. Very few of us thought it would. And yet, here we are,’ he says. He examines my face, paying particular attention to my eyes. ‘We’re not quite there, are we? Still, two instances of memory survival! That’s pretty good going, Owen. Pretty good indeed.’
‘Who the fuck are you?’
‘I think you know. If not now, you’ll remember soon.’ He stands, pats my shoulder, and heads for the front of the bus. It rolls to a stop and releases him onto the pavement. Within a second we’re moving again.