When Did You Last See Your Father? Read online

  Before I could panic, our neighbour knocked at the door. Madame Benoit. She was our childminder and she had Stevie and Alex with her. I must have gawped at her like an idiot. She had a letter for me.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, not looking at me.

  It only dawned on me much later that everyone must have known but me.

  Anyway, Monique was gone. Her letter was full of stuff about how it was her fault not mine, and with just enough sincerity to make her feel good about herself. I didn’t have the luxury of feeling anything. I spent two months trying to juggle job and family and failing dismally at both.

  I don’t know why I didn’t think of it immediately – it seemed so obvious when the idea occurred to me. I invited my mother to come and live with us. She was thrilled – the boys loved her – and suddenly the sun came out for all of us.

  I went back to work and then I got a really good posting back to England. It was a new beginning and a new life. For all of us. Things settled down at once. The boys were much better behaved and hardly ever mentioned their mother. In fact, I wasn’t sure Stevie even remembered her. The house was suddenly full of toys, pictures on the fridge, school projects and the smell of cooking.

  I remembered coming home from six weeks abroad to find them making jam tarts in the kitchen. Alex was standing on a chair and carefully cutting the pastry shapes, Maman was lining the tray, and Stevie, bless him, was dumping jam all over everything. Every surface was covered in jammy fingerprints and a light dusting of flour and after our hello hugs, so was I. Everyone was laughing and our lives were so happy.

  A year later they were all dead.

  There was a flu epidemic. As there often is, but this one was different. It started off normally enough and then picked up speed, erupting out of the Middle East and ripping across the Mediterranean, North Africa and Europe – all the way up to Scandinavia.

  This one was a bitch – it took the old and the young. For some reason, those in between seemed unaffected. People said this was worse than the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918. Many said it was Nature’s way of keeping the population down. Others said it was end of the world. God’s punishment. Whatever it was, millions died.

  Everything stopped. The country barely functioned. The government closed public buildings. Most shops were closed. People stayed at home. There was almost no travel. Certainly, no air travel. Those on the streets wore masks and hurried by without catching anyone’s eye or speaking. Friends ignored friends. A curfew was imposed.

  And then, one day, Maman said she would have an early night. She was feeling tired. An hour later I was pleading with a doctor to call. An hour later she was in hospital. She died quietly. I think she knew me at the end. I like to think so, anyway.

  Then the boys got it. Alex died as peacefully as his grandmother. He just seemed to go to sleep. Stevie suffered. There was nothing I could do for him. There was nothing anyone could do for him.

  I donated armfuls of blood because there was talk of some sort of vaccine. It didn’t always work, they said, so don’t get your hopes up, but I’d have given anything. And everything. And then they told me my blood was no good. Because the boys weren’t mine. They didn’t even have the same father.

  I buried them all on the same day. There was only me at the ceremony. I still had friends then. Good friends who don’t leave you to face this sort of thing by yourself, but I’d asked to be left alone and left alone I was.

  The crematorium was like a conveyor belt, there were so many others waiting. I’m not even convinced the ashes I got back were theirs. I remember I just took what the harassed official offered and walked away, numb and unthinking. The pavements were wet. I walked for hours on that dreary November day. That was the last time we were all together.

  Their mother didn’t come.

  The world had turned upside down for me, but oddly, many things were now much clearer. The sympathetic neighbours. The conversations that died as I approached and started again when I’d passed. Everyone had known but me.

  I went back to France. I searched for her high and low but I was never going to find her. I looked long and hard but she was still in the military and it was like banging my head against a wall. Everyone was very sympathetic and completely unhelpful. If the military don’t want you to find someone then you don’t. Which, given the emotions boiling inside me, was probably just as well. They still have the guillotine in France.

  I began to drink. Well, I’d been drinking already but now I really put some effort into it. Anything to dull the red-hot pain in my head and my heart. The pain that wouldn’t go away. It helped at first, but by the time it stopped helping, it had become a habit. A habit I couldn’t be bothered to break because nothing mattered very much now. I became punchy. There were fights. Bad ones. People were hurt. Including me – not that I noticed at the time. I was warned. Then I was warned again. Then for the third time. Then I was out.

  Not a problem, I thought, and settled down to drink myself to death. The police doctor had said I’d be dead in a year at this rate. I decided to try and do it in six months. Everyone should have an element of challenge in their lives.

  I was in a French bar one night. I can’t remember its name. Or the location. At that stage I wasn’t even aware of my own name most of the time. I do remember it was bitterly cold. There was a kind of icy rain sleeting down. It was one of those nights where the cold could slice into your very bones. Hardly anyone was on the streets. Everyone else had more sense than to be out on a night like this.

  I remember the bar’s blue neon sign reflected on the wet pavement and the sound of cars hissing past. I pushed open the door, found myself a table in a dark corner, ordered a drink and started down the well-worn path.

  And then the door opened. I looked up because of the draught. One or two people muttered about shutting the door but most of us were too drunk to care. It was the sort of place where everyone sat at their own table, encased in their own shell of misery and oblivious to that of others. There was no music. No one spoke to anyone – we weren’t there for company. We were there for the stuff that not only insulated us against the world but if taken injudiciously and in suitable quantities would very soon ease our passage out of it. That sort of place.

  I looked up and Edward Bairstow was coming towards me. Not that I knew him at the time. I barely knew myself. Nor did I want to.

  I do know he was just the sort of person I never really had much time for. Tall, well-dressed, and with the typical I’m better than everyone else expression. You could see at a glance he’d never been poor. That he’d been born with all the advantages. That his life was just perfect. Which just goes to show what I knew.

  His long face was made longer by receding hair. He was older than me – although he didn’t look it at the time – and he had a very bad limp.

  He jostled me as he passed. It was his fault. Well, it couldn’t be anything else, really. I was sitting – well, sprawled – at a table and it’s quite hard to jostle anyone when you’re sitting down, even when as drunk as I was. And my table was in the corner so it’s not as if it was en-route to the literally shit-filled facilities at the back, but, of course, everyone felt sorry for him because of his walking stick and I got the blame.

  He’d made me spill my drink. Aggrieved, I staggered to my feet, flapping my hand dry, and shouted at him. Everyone shouted back at me. I shouted back at them. Edward said nothing, just smiling a smile that everyone else probably thought was polite and I knew wasn’t, and so I went for him and then they threw me out.

  I didn’t go quietly. For a start, I still had half a drink left. I wasn’t happy at all.

  Edward followed me out and ten minutes later I was even less happy.

  I went to hit him but he just wasn’t there. Yes, I was drunk, but I’d spent years in the military and I knew what I was doing, but he simply wasn’t there. I swung again. And missed agai
n. I just couldn’t connect with him. I know I was drunk but even so . . .

  A word of warning – drunk or not, don’t ever get into it with Edward Bairstow. He’s very good.

  So good, in fact, that a few minutes later I was on my back in a piss-filled alleyway feeling the sleet on my face, while he casually leaned against a wheelie bin watching me bleed. The expression on his face set me off all over again. It was irrational and unreasonable, but somehow all the hate and rage I’d been carrying around was suddenly centred upon this one man who had appeared from nowhere and so far hadn’t even said one word.

  Somehow, I managed to stagger to my feet. I rushed at him and woke up – although I didn’t know it at the time – in St Mary’s.

  I don’t know how long I’d been there. I was hooked up to various machines all bleeping away to themselves. All I knew was that I desperately wanted a drink. I demanded a drink and rather to my surprise, they said yes, of course I could have a drink. Just a minute. Then they pumped me full of the evil stuff they give to people like me and gave me a drink, which I enjoyed for nearly four seconds before I went into some sort of violent spasm that would have dislocated every joint in my body if I hadn’t been very firmly strapped down.

  I ignored that – because I still wanted a drink very badly and I thought it was just my body reacting to the punishment doled out by Edward Bairstow. They happily gave me another one and the next moment everything I’d ever eaten in my entire life was ejected from every orifice. I was convinced it was coming out of my ears.

  And that was their treatment. A cruel, vicious circle. I would want a drink. They would give me one. And then I would wish I was dead. Then I would want a drink again. And, because I was a slow learner, this happened many, many times while I fought a terrible war between my craving and the consequences of that craving.

  I survived – and not everyone does – but it was a very, very long time before I could go anywhere near alcohol again.

  These days I like a beer with the football, or a glass of wine occasionally, with Max, but apart from major celebrations, that’s pretty much it. That’s not a path I ever want to go down again. I owe Edward my life, I suppose.

  All this took more than a month or two and when I eventually emerged from my long, cold, sweaty, vomit-filled tunnel, I’d lost nearly a quarter of my body weight and it took me a long time to get it back on again.

  Now that I was finally able to concentrate on the world once more, Edward was waiting for me. He explained where I was, who St Mary’s were, and what they did. Several times, actually, firstly because my mind still wasn’t working that well and secondly because I didn’t believe him. Somehow my fuddled mind thought it was all something to do with the Mars Project, but he persevered, patiently explaining over and over again, while I struggled to make sense of everything around me.

  There was no sympathy or softness from him. He really doesn’t do that sort of thing, but he offered a kind of matter-of-fact understanding. Compassion, rather than pity.

  ‘It’s not time travel,’ he kept explaining. ‘We investigate major historical events in contemporary time.’

  It took a tour in Hawking Hangar and an afternoon in the Technical Section to convince me.

  I met most of the people at St Mary’s – my future colleagues. Complete nutters, all of them. I sometimes wondered what they made of me. And I met the Director, a bright-eyed, elderly man who greeted me politely and never, ever made any reference to the circumstances which had brought me to St Mary’s.

  And then – they offered me a job. I had no life, said Edward – on whom you can always rely for brutal honesty – no family, no ties, no job and no prospects.

  ‘And no choice,’ I said nastily.

  ‘There is always a choice,’ he said calmly. ‘Some of the choices might be very unappealing but there is always a choice. The time has come for you to make yours. You are, at present, clean, sober and functioning. You will be discharged this afternoon. You must now decide between walking out of the gates and picking up where you left off, or choosing a different and far more dangerous path. You probably won’t survive but at least your death will mean something. Something more than choking on your own vomit in a French gutter. I shall leave you to think it over.’

  It wasn’t really much of a choice. They’d cleaned me up well enough for me to be taking an interest in the world around me again. And to realise how close I’d come. Winter had passed and spring sunshine was flooding through the windows. I still wasn’t particularly bothered about what happened to me, but the French gutter had lost its appeal so I signed up.

  The technical aspect was interesting enough. Very interesting, actually, but to be honest, I couldn’t see the attraction of the other stuff. As I tell my wife when I’m tired of living, the History side isn’t really that appealing, is it?

  I divided my time between accompanying Edward on various assignments and working in the Technical Section, learning about pods and their maintenance.

  I got to know Edward better as well, and one day, when we were both stuck in a blizzard awaiting rescue, we told each other our life stories to stay awake, and I realised I wasn’t the only person on the planet who had to deal with loss and betrayal. He even showed me the picture of Annie he carried around with him. He’s still got it. Not the original, of course, not after all this time. Before it became too creased and faded and fell apart, he handed it over to Dr Dowson who tidied it up and made copies. He keeps the original in his box. We all have a box at St Mary’s – or an envelope, or whatever. ­Probably because none of us owns very much, we’re careful about the things that are special to us. Everyone designates someone to dispose of the contents of their box after they’re dead. I’m Edward’s choice. Max is mine.

  And then, one day, I was handed an assignment. A solo assignment, which was quite unusual. For safety’s sake, St Mary’s tends to travel at least in pairs. The unofficial explanation is so that there will always be someone to bring back the body.

  It would seem I was off to the Cretaceous period. I wasn’t particularly keen to go on this one. Slightly worryingly, there were no instructions on how to proceed when I got there. Just to present myself at a specific location and render whatever assistance was required. I remember I was somewhat grumpy about it which seems ungrateful now, because that assignment changed my life.

  That was when I met my Max.

  It’s all on record, somewhere – well, not all of it, I hope, because some of it was definitely adult-rated – so I don’t need to go into any details, but she saved me. I thought I was there to save her and she saved me instead. We had one day together and then, having exploded into my life – she left me.

  I begged her. I begged her to abandon everything. We would run away together. We had a pod. No one would ever find us. I was desperate. I couldn’t stop. Over and over. Come away with me. Come away with me. She said no and she kept saying no. She was gentle and she was kind but she was adamant. Now, of course, I know why, but I didn’t take it well at the time.

  She left the pod, taking my heart and soul with her. She stood at the edge of the clearing. I watched her watching me. I was certain – I was convinced – that she would change her mind. I waited and waited for her to change her mind. To give me some sort of sign. That yes, she would come away with me and we would be together forever. I was so sure she would, but the minutes ticked away and she never did. She just stood under that tree, watching me, and suddenly I couldn’t bear it any longer and I jumped away.

  That was a hard time for me. I saw her eyes whenever I closed mine. I heard her voice in the silence of the night. It was only the knowledge that the cure was worse than the disease that kept me off the bottle again. And it was worse this time round because I’d been given a glimpse of hope, a chance of stepping into the sunshine again, and then had it snatched away from me.

  I threw myself at my work. There were other as
signments – strangely specific assignments – and Edward and I would joke that we were being groomed for something but the joke was on us because we were.

  It was a bold plan – Edward was to jump back to found St Mary’s. I’d follow on when he’d laid the foundations and provide him with technical support. Together, we’d set up St Mary’s. We both spent months on research and familiarisation of that time period. They told us whatever they thought we needed to know – except for events that would unfold after the day we jumped. I mean, obviously we were aware of History in general, they couldn’t do anything about that, but personal events and specific details subsequent to our departure were off limits. I can see why, of course, but it was frustrating at the time.

  We were given our new identities and then, suddenly, after weeks of preparation, the time had come.

  Edward jumped one sunny afternoon. We walked down to Hawking together. He looked very unfamiliar in his civilian clothes. We didn’t say much. Not that there was much to say. We were both turning our backs on everything we’d ever known. We were both hoping our new life would be better than the old one, but there were no guarantees. We shook hands and I wished him luck.

  He said, ‘See you in ten years, Leon,’ and I said, ‘See you tomorrow night, Edward’ – still getting used to our new names – and off he went. I think he was glad to go – like me, there was nothing for him here.

  Twenty-four hours later it was my turn. I had a neat little pod – a single-seater, which was rare because there aren’t many of those. I’d more or less built this one from the ground up. I knew it inside out and I was fond of it.

  ‘You won’t need it,’ they’d said. ‘It’s really just an escape pod. For if things go badly wrong. Just find somewhere quiet to tuck it away and forget about it.’

  That did not work out as expected.

  Edward met me when I landed and gave me the first sight of my new home. Which was my old home but scruffier. It was dark, not many of the lights were working, the smell of plaster and wet concrete was overwhelming and bunches of wires hung everywhere.