OK. Think about this for a second. How would you even begin to explain to Grandpa Byron what had gone on?
No. Me neither. In fact the first thing I say, as I sit at the kitchen counter, is, “Is there anything to eat?” He gives me a glass of milk, which I down in one while he heats up some aloo chaat in the microwave, then I eat and eat and eat. I take Alan Shearer from my backpack, and the look of incomprehension on Grandpa Byron’s face is replaced, briefly, by a smile, and he gives him a Brazil nut and a saucer of water, and he seems to relax a little. It’s good: I think my hamster has given him something else to look at apart from me, and the tension I have felt since the doorstep lessens slightly. Grandpa Byron pulls up a stool to the counter and sits opposite me while my hamster and I eat.
Having my mouth full means I can’t really talk, so I look around a bit and I’m surprised to notice that he doesn’t seem to have tidied for a while. It’s not that his kitchen is dirty, it’s just messy. Grandpa Byron’s house was always full of stuff, but he had an amazing ability to keep it all tidy, only he must have been too busy lately, or something. I notice another thing as well: his long plait of hair isn’t there. There is the beginning of an uneasy feeling in me, which isn’t helped by the following exchange. I clear my mouth of spicy potatoes and say:
“Grandpa Byron, can I ask …”
“What did you call me? Grandpa Byron?”
“Oh. Yeah. I’ll explain in a minute.” This has kind of thrown me, as you can guess, but I press on. “What is the capital city of, ooh, I dunno … Greenland?”
Grandpa Byron squints at me. “Gree …? I’ve no idea, son. Why do you ask?”
And then we start talking. I won’t tell you everything. It goes on for hours. I’ll give you an idea, though, of what it is like from my side. Imagine trying to explain what a book is to someone who doesn’t know what reading is, like someone from some ancient jungle tribe centuries ago.
I guess it could be worse. At least he doesn’t assume that I’m crazy, or lying. He just lets me talk and talk, asking occasional questions, trying to keep my story on track, but it is hard, and I keep thinking at any point that he will say, “All right, bonny lad. That’s enough, and this is ridiculous. Either you tell me the truth, or I’m phoning the police. You’re a young boy in my house, I don’t know who you are from Adam and Eve, and it’s the sort of thing that could get a fellow into a lot of trouble …”
And so on. But he never does. Because here’s the thing:
I think he believes me.
It’s things that I can tell him, like:
When I talk about Pye, Grandpa Byron sits still, shaking his head, drinking in every word like a thirsty man. “My boy,” he keeps saying. “My poor, poor boy.”
Then I do something that almost – almost – proves my story to Grandpa Byron. I plug in my phone and give it enough charge to revive it, and there are the pictures I took, just a few days ago for me, but thirty years ago for Grandpa Byron: me and Pye on the beach, and me, him, and Hypatia. “Do you remember this?” I ask him, and he does a slow, sad head-wobble.
“I think so. Sort of. My memory’s … well, it’s not what it was, shall we say?”
We sit in silence for a bit, and Grandpa Byron gazes at the picture on my phone before saying, quietly, “Why did you run away after the … the accident?”
I find I can’t really answer, and when I lift my eyes I can see he’s looking intently at me. Not harshly, or angrily, but he wants an answer to something that I can see has been tormenting him for thirty years. And I hate myself at that moment, because all I can do – and I know it’s pathetic and childish and unworthy – all I can do is look away, and turn my mouth downwards, and give a half-shrug, and say, “Dunno.”
There’s a long pause as I squirm inside at my own wretchedness at giving such an inadequate answer. Looking back, I wonder if it was in those few seconds that Grandpa Byron’s attitude to me shifted slightly. From that point on, it has felt as if he believes my story, but also that he blames me for the death of Pye, and for not facing up to it at the time; for running away like a coward and leaving him to grieve, unknowing, for thirty years.
All he says, though, is, “It’s late, son. Shall I take you to your room?”
“My room?”
“Well, you look tired – and where else are you going to stay?”
The small bedroom was Pye’s old room. It’s got a bookshelf crammed with science books, and a wallpaper mural of earth seen from space, and from the ceiling a dangling model of the solar system. There are even still some schoolbooks on the desk and a pot of pencils.
“I haven’t been able to change it since he … since Pye left us.”
But it’s not actually as creepy as it sounds. There’s something nice about feeling this close to Pye.
“I like it,” I say, and I give him my best smile, but he’s just looking through me, a bit vacantly. Hard to blame him, really. I don’t think this was how he was expecting his evening to turn out.
Then it hits me. I knew there was something else about him that was different and it’s his arms – both of them straight and strong – and I ask him, “Do you remember me asking you to double-check the bolts on your pyro rig?”
His eyes roll up as he searches his memory and then he nods. “Aye, I suppose I do remember you sayin’ that. Why?”
“I see you kept your word.”
I’m sitting on the bed and he kneels down in front of me and starts taking off my shoes.
“Ha’way son. You must be most cream-crackered …”
(Cream-crackered = knackered. I haven’t heard him use that one before, and I smile.)
Then he pulls my socks off and he’s about to turn away when his head snaps back like it’s on a spring or something and he’s staring at my feet, like really staring, and he reaches his hand forward nervously towards my foot. He’s doing this odd goldfish-gaping thing with his mouth and I could swear he’s gone a bit pale. The old Grandpa Byron, the one from before, obviously knew all about my webbed toes. This one, though, looks horrified and I try to put him at ease by wiggling them at him humorously (if that’s possible, I don’t know, he didn’t laugh).
“Yep – ‘syndactyly’ it’s called. It’s pretty rare! Have you ever seen it before?”
He nods. “Once.” But he says nothing else apart from, “Sleep well,” as he backs out of the room. He smiles, but there’s something going on behind the smile, and although I’m super-tired I don’t sleep because I can’t stop thinking about Grandpa Byron’s confused smile and his over-the-top reaction to my pretty insignificant toe thing.