I left Harry’s room, crushed by disappointment. The old man knew something. Of that I had no doubt. But why was he being so tight-lipped? Who was he protecting?
Standing with my back to his closed door I considered going back in and having one more attempt at getting him to open up. But the way he’d turned over on his bed, presenting his back to me, was too strong a signal to ignore. If I returned to the room, I’d surely only alienate him.
Perhaps the next time I came to see Mum I could try him again.
My feet felt heavy as I made my way downstairs and out to my car. I’d called in sick for nothing. It was all a waste of time. And there were still all those papers to mark and a head teacher who would be scrutinising every sick day I had from then on.
Almost on automatic, I drove to my parents’ house instead of going back up to the city. Once inside, I wandered through the downstairs rooms as if searching for some sign of them.
In the living room, I sat in my mother’s seat facing the TV and looked around the room, trying to see it as a prospective buyer might. It could do with a fresh coat of magnolia and a reduction in the number of flower-based patterns, but like the kitchen everything was in its place.
As I shifted in the seat my right foot connected with something on the floor. I looked down to see an opened TV magazine lying there. That was out of character, I thought as I leaned over to see down past the arm of the chair to the stand where Mum kept her reading material, which like this one, was mostly magazines reporting and dissecting what was on the telly. Mum loved soaps, and when the programmers made The X Factor and Strictly overlap she had a strop. How could she miss even a minute of one of them? This was compounded by the fact she couldn’t cope with technology and had no idea how to record anything.
It occurred to me that Mum might have been reading this magazine when her stroke happened. It really would take something that major for her standards of tidiness to lapse.
Mum.
I felt a tightening in my throat at the thought of her lying in that bed in the nursing home. Her hand reaching for mine. Just like in my dream. And felt shame that I wanted to move away before she touched me. Her disintegration after the stroke was just too difficult to witness. I could hardly bear any contact with her.
Enough. I got to my feet, feeling the purpose in my thighs, reminding myself I was here for a reason.
The air in the attic was thick with dust, and although the floor space was mostly covered a tidiness had been imposed. Order in the chaos of experiences and lives shed. Nothing had simply been thrown up here. Instead, it felt like everything had its own space.
Perhaps it was Dad who’d been the clean freak? Was Mum’s work in the house her effort to appease her husband?
The small box with the shoe in it was still on top of the larger box, where I’d left it previously. I picked it up and brought it to my nose, hoping my brain would pick up some signal from its scent. But sadly there was nothing there but the stale smell that permeated the room.
I continued sifting through the detritus of my family’s life, but instead of thinking about what could be recycled to charity shops, or what should be taken to the town dump, my question when I touched something was, would this offer up any clues?
The ceiling was low so I’d alternate between standing up and bending at the neck, or bending my knees and stooping over. After what felt like several hours of this my neck was sore and my back was aching so much that I was on the point of giving up. There was nothing of note in this attic that would teach me anything about this other boy. Just the photo and the stained shoe.
It was then that I found something in the furthest corner, and it felt like everything else had led to this moment. Looking back over my shoulder to the ladder I noted there was even a sort of path, as if this was a natural route my father had taken every time he’d been up here.
The light shifted. The room grew even darker despite the small bulb. The building creaked. A gust of wind, and I could hear a loose slate on the outside of the roof above me clicking back down into position.
I reached out to the box, and with the index finger of my right hand I drew a line across the thick dust that had settled on the top. How long had this been here?
The box had been sealed with brown tape, but the adhesive was no longer effective, and the tape came off with little effort. Feeling trepidation about what I might find, I pushed the box leaves out of the way and peered inside.
The first thing I spotted was a pair of football boots – black with three white stripes. I plucked one out and compared it, sole to sole with the solitary shoe. They were a match. Next I saw a Scotland football scarf and a football programme. Scotland versus Spain in November 1984. Someone had written the score across the cover – 3–1 to Scotland, as if they couldn’t believe it.
Pushing those to the side I noticed a mix of vinyl, CDs and cassettes – U2, Bruce Springsteen and Prince.
Tucked away in the bottom corner was a paperback. Michael Moorcock’s Elric of Melnibone and Other Stories. It looked like it had been a much-loved read. The paper seemed to warm to my touch as I leafed through the pages, noting where they’d been turned down at the corners, and where the spine had been cracked.
On the first page I saw the sticker for a library. It had been taken out of the Mitchell Library in Glasgow numerous times. The last entry was for the 10th March, 1986.
I felt shock, and an ineffable sadness. A living, breathing boy had handled this book. It had been in his bedroom when he’d left my parents’ lives – and my life too – and it felt like I was following in this boy’s footsteps. Who was he? Did Mum have another child before she had us? Dad was a little bit older than Mum, so perhaps he’d been married before and this boy was from that relationship. Or maybe he was the offspring from another relative? His resemblance to me was striking.
Jesus.
This was like something from a movie.
And again I wondered: if he was my brother why would our parents keep this from us?
Now he was more than a mysterious image in an old photograph. He played football, listened to music, read books. He’d possibly lived in this house. So what had happened to him, and why had my parents never mentioned him? I imagined all of this stuff strewn around one of the bedrooms downstairs. And felt with certainty that I had to carry on looking into this. Regardless of who it might hurt.
Then it occurred to me that this was my father’s space. This was his way of remembering his son – whatever had become of him. And if he had his space where he would sit quietly in remembrance, surely my mother had hers?