Veronica
BOLTON
JUNE 2012
I have done whatever I had to do in order to survive. If this has made me hard or vitriolic, then so be it. I am what I am.
I must accept the fact that Patrick is what he is, too. But it is difficult to conceal my disappointment. I did not expect perfection. I did not expect affection, either. I know better than that. But this? I despair. It is yet another slap in the face from that cruel dictator commonly known as Fate.
How is it possible that this disgraceful, smeary, drug-befuddled creature could be my own grandson? Doesn’t he know about the existence of soap and water? And his bedsit! I simply do not understand how anyone can live in this squalor. Even a rabbit would find it tiny. Even a rat would find it filthy.
I deliberately didn’t give the boy much advance warning of my visit because I wanted to see how he truly lived. I’m already regretting my decision. He’s had a good few hours to tidy up in any case, yet he hasn’t made the slightest effort on my behalf. It appears he hasn’t been brought up to respect other people. No doubt his mother’s to blame.
He turns his back on me entirely, stomps to the far end of the room and mumbles something I can’t catch. Then he comes back and stands in front of me. He’s smoking like a chimney. I have no idea what substance he is using to pollute the already fetid atmosphere and destroy both his lungs and his brain cells, but it certainly isn’t tobacco. I examine him as best I can through the layers of grime that besmirch his features. His face has a structure similar to my own, with slightly prominent cheekbones and a strong jawline. He is a large lad with olive skin and messy brown hair (too much of it at the top and too little of it at the sides). His eyes are dark, but apart from that I can’t see any resemblance to the man I once adored. A sinking sensation gathers in the pit of my stomach. I should have steeled myself for this.
I steel myself now.
“So you reckon you’re my granny?” No offer of tea after my long journey.
I’m tempted to say that this has been a most inconvenient and inexplicable administrative error, and, in fact, no, I am not his grandmother after all; but I was brought up to be honest, and truthfulness has become a habit. “Yes, indeed,” I say. “It appears to be the case. I have printouts of certain documents.” I take them out of the clip file to show him. The druggy stench intensifies as he comes closer and bends to look. “Here is your birth record,” I tell him. “You will observe that your father’s name is entered as Joe Fuller. That is the name given to my son by his adoptive parents when they took him to live with them in Canada. Various other references also indicate that this is the same Joe Fuller. DNA tests can provide further proof if necessary, but I’ve been assured by legal experts that these references are one hundred percent reliable.”
Patrick scarcely bothers to look, as if his long-lost family simply doesn’t matter to him. “I took my mum’s name,” he remarks. “My father didn’t hang around for long after I was born. Less than a week, in fact.”
He seems to think I should apologize for this. I do not.
“So are you going to tell me what happened?” he asks unpleasantly.
“About your father?”
“Yes, my father, the guy who deserted me and my mum. Your son. You said you were ‘estranged’ from him. How come?”
I refuse to descend to his level of rudeness. I provide the briefest sketch of the facts. “I parted with your father when he was only a little baby, just a few months old. Sadly, I have never seen him since. It was impossible to track him down—until it was too late.”
I tried so many times over the years. It was only in 1993 that I received any information, when that awful letter arrived at The Ballahays.
Patrick gives a noise like a harrumph. “So when did he die?”
“My son died in 1987.” The words drop from my mouth like stones.
“Right.” He is unmoved. He goes to the window and comes back again, breathes a long line of putrid-smelling smoke into the air. “How did he die?”
“He was a keen mountaineer,” I reply, tautly. “He went mountaineering in the Rockies and was tragically killed falling down into a gorge.”
“Clever.”
I wince at his insensitivity. I am starting to loathe this Patrick. I go on, nevertheless. “I never had any contact with the couple who adopted him. They were apparently unable to have children themselves. By the time of his accident they’d both passed away. A few years later some relatives of theirs—cousins, I believe—finally sorted through the family archives and discovered an old document that stated I was his birth mother. One of them, a woman living in Chicago, contacted me by letter to let me know what had happened. This was back in 1993.” I’d given up all hope of ever seeing my son by then, but the last thing I’d expected was news of his death. The memory of that letter is still raw. “She had only met him on a handful of occasions, as they were far-flung geographically. She couldn’t give me nearly as much information as I’d hoped. He died unmarried and, she wrote—and I had no reason to doubt it—childless.”
Patrick breathes smoke in and out again. His expression is inscrutable. “But now you say he was my dad.”
“Yes.” I know I’m glaring at him with ice-cold eyes. Rarely have I experienced such bitter disappointment. “Recently, it occurred to me that this cousin might have been wrong in her assumptions. I decided it was worth delving a little further—just to be one hundred percent sure my son didn’t leave any offspring. And, to my utmost astonishment, the agency uncovered all this.”
“And nobody over there knew about me?”
“It seems not. As you say, he left England again soon after your birth.”
My son, the tiny baby who used to wave his miniature fingers in the air, trying to clutch at my loose curls of hair; who cuddled into my lap and gazed up at me while I read to him . . . he became a man; he produced his own son. Did he search for me when he was in this country all those years ago? Or perhaps he didn’t even know I existed? The cousin hadn’t known he was adopted, so it’s possible he didn’t even know himself. When we parted he was too young to remember me, and his Canadian parents might never have seen fit to enlighten him. I don’t know, and it seems the man in front of me, my far-from-delightful grandson, knows nothing, either. So many questions remain unanswered.
Patrick grunts. “Seems like he conveniently forgot all about Mum and me.”
Who can say if he forgot? It does appear that he severed any contact with his partner and child. I have no idea why a man would do this. I assume my son had his reasons. Again and again throughout history men have deserted their women and babies. No doubt they’ll continue to do so as long as there is life on this planet.
I can see Patrick’s brain trying to grasp it all. I wish he’d sit down. He looks strained and hostile. He runs his fingers through his hair with one hand, still holding the cigarette in the other.
“So did you find out anything else about his life?”
“Yes, but only a little, from the cousin.” I tick off the points I’m prepared to tell him. “He spent most of his life in Canada. He liked to do dangerous things such as skiing and parachuting as well as the mountaineering. He traveled a lot. He came to England for a brief spell in his early forties. During this time he must have met your mother, and you were born soon after.”
“My daredevil father. My not-so-proud father,” Patrick mutters, and adds, “my poor mother.” He screws up his face. Then he confronts me again.
“So what made you give him away when he was only a baby?”
Patrick is so blunt in his questioning, so accusatory. I feel my hackles rising. I resent having to justify myself to such a person. Still, I believe he has a right to know.
“I was very young.”
“And?”
“And unmarried.”
Patrick paces the room. “Seems like deserting babies is a family trait.”
How dare he speak to me like that? I am his flesh and blood, and I have traveled all this way to find him. I see now that this whole thing has been a mistake of colossal proportions. The history is too complex, the distance too wide. Patrick is what he is. I am what I am. We are very different animals.
I ask myself if I want this newfound relationship to go any further. The answer comes back sharp as a razor. I do not.
“How old were you when you gave birth to my father?” Patrick demands.
I am equally bald in my response. “Too young.”
I observe something flashing in his eye. It could be sympathy, but I doubt it.
“And how old are you now?”
“Too old.”
“How old is too old?”
I note he didn’t ask me how young was too young. I sigh. “I shall be eighty-six on the twenty-first of June, which is next Thursday.”
He frowns. “I see. And do you live alone?”
“Yes. I have a woman who comes in to help with the cleaning, though. Eileen. The house is rather too large and ramshackle for me to keep in order by myself.”
“Well, Granny,” he says. I cringe at the word. “You’ve done all right for yourself, then.”
I bow my head in acknowledgment. “It very much depends on your definition of all right. But yes, the house is worth a few million.”
He chokes, and a shower of ash scatters over the carpet. I am immediately furious with myself. On no account should I have mentioned my wealth. Now he’ll automatically assume he has a right to it. At least I didn’t refer to the other few million that are sitting in various bank accounts accruing mountainous interest.
Patrick is unable to speak for some time and then doesn’t seem to want to look at me, instead focusing his attention out of the window.
“So how come you got to be so rich?” he says to the drainpipes.
“I married. My husband was in the property business. I helped him with it for a while, before the divorce.” That is all I am prepared to share about myself.
It is my turn to ask questions, to grill Patrick as he has grilled me. I am far more civil in my approach, even if I fail to muster much enthusiasm. I establish that Patrick works just one day a week at a bicycle shop. Even this is solely because of the charity of a friend who is his boss there. For the rest of his income he scrounges off the government. He has recently split with his girlfriend. I can’t say I’m surprised at this. What surprises me is that such a man can find a girlfriend in the first place. I dread to think what kind of a girl she was. I refrain from asking Patrick if he ever takes a bath. I feel in need of a good wash myself after being here, but I have absolutely no desire to see his bathroom.
Our conversation runs out of steam very quickly. I am increasingly anxious to extricate myself from this man’s malodorous company. I’m quite certain I haven’t missed anything by not making his acquaintance earlier. I ask him to call me a taxi as soon as it is polite to do so.
I am extremely relieved to get away.