fifty

I drove back to the cottage and went indoors.

Subconsciously, I’d always recognised the simmering violence beneath the skin of the man I called Dad. He’d never raised his hand to me. No need. In the same way Otto Vellender had bullied his son, my father had cowed and controlled his children with words.

It made me remember one defiant and defining night.

A family meeting was called to discuss my aberrant behaviour. My wild child years, as I thought of them, had involved smoking, drinking, and having sex with farmer’s boys every time I came home for the holidays. I’d viewed it as making the most of turning sixteen. It wasn’t rocket science. I was searching for love.

The assembled included both my brothers, Luke and Guy; Luke’s wife, Jessica; and Guy’s latest squeeze, whose name I forget. Annette, the woman in my father’s life at that time, dispensed drinks as if it were a social gathering instead of what it was: a mock-up of a Star Chamber.

We crushed into the room in which I now sat, me perched on a single upright chair, others on sofas. Luke, I remember, sat on the raised hearth and looked deeply uncomfortable. When everyone but me had strong liquor in his or her grasp, Dad took charge, as though speaking for the prosecution. My “crimes” were listed in humiliating detail: my lack of self-respect, and the family displayed and disseminated for the voyeurism of others. I was described as a tramp, a no-good, and worse. There was no defence. There were no mitigating circumstances. All that remained was to pass sentence. Before my father, as both judge and jury, pronounced, Luke stuck his hand up.

“Yes?” my father said.

“May I say something?” Luke’s face was pale with strain. A thin blue vein pulsed in his neck.

I watched my father’s deep-set eyes and saw him calculate the odds. Luke was the favoured one. My father expected a vote of support. He could count on him. “Of course, son. Go ahead.”

Luke looked at me straight and in a way I found confusing. Afraid, I shrank inside. Tears, like thin rivulets of sulphuric acid, sprang and slid down my burning cheeks. I suffocated with shame. Dad was known to be cruel but if Luke condemned me, I was forever lost.

“No one here would tolerate this level of intrusion,” he began, pausing for the full import of his words to catch on and take effect. Turning to the others, he continued, “Which one of you can, hand on heart, declare you have no vices? Do you smoke?” he said, his eyes roving the room. “Do you drink?” He raised his glass. The room crackled with tension. My heart pounded. There was a hell of a sense of a hammer blow about to fall and smash wherever it landed. White-faced, bottom lip curling, his fists knotted in a physical display of rage contained, my father stared at Luke with astonishment and venom. How far would Luke, my father’s favourite child, go? All the way, as it turned out.

“Which of you act with morality and integrity in every second of your lives?” He put down his glass, stood up, and looked directly at our dad. “Don’t you have sex with who you choose when you choose?”

I almost passed out at the accusation. My father practically choked. Blood spread like a tidal wave up from his neck to his cheeks, turning his white face purple. I sprang to my feet and crossed the room. Fists bunched, nostrils dilated, Dad swung back one arm, ready to strike. Luke didn’t move. He had no need. I stood between them knowing that my father would not hit a woman and he would never hit anyone in public.

“Step aside,” he glared at me.

I didn’t budge.

“I said—”

“I heard what you said. Luke,” I called behind me, “can I come back to yours?”

Jessica answered. “It’s fine, Kim.”

“You can’t go. I forbid it,” my father said.

We quite simply walked out, every one of us except Annette. We went back to Luke and Jessica’s tiny flat and I had one of the best nights of my life. I stayed there until it was safe for my return a week or so later, by which time Annette had gone. No words, cross or otherwise, were exchanged between my dad and me about that night. The evening was never mentioned again and I stopped screwing around. But my father never forgave Luke, which was why Luke went to the States and why my father never left him a penny.

How strange that a man could leave such a legacy of pain to his family and yet be elevated to mythical proportions by those who knew him least. The fear my dad once inspired in me had long gone, although he continued to inspire it in Monica years after his death.

“Next time you’re there, go up into the attic and check the floorboards.”

“Check the …?”

Her eyes flashed. “Just do it.”

I climbed the stairs to the narrow landing, dropped down the hatch, and mounted the loft ladder, flicking on the light on my way up.

Before putting Cormorants on the market, I’d cleared as much as I could. All that was left was a box of vinyls, an old metal tool kit containing rusty implements, dust, and a tapestry of cobwebs clinging to the eaves. I marched up and down, flexing every inch of floor in search of a loose board. Everything seemed solid. Next I dropped to my hands and knees and, despite the splinters, tapped and carried out a forensic fingertip search, right up to the water tank.

Turning around tortoise-style, about to make another pass of the attic, I spotted a floorboard where the nails were missing. I pushed but there was little give. Taking a tissue from my pocket to mark the spot, I straightened up, crossed to the toolbox and dug around for something long and thin that I could use to lever the board. Ditching a broken hammer and selecting a file, I went back and, slipping it between, lifted and eased away the floorboard in the same way as you open a can of fish. The wood gave and, after one final dig, broke free to reveal a hollow in which sat a small canvas bag with a drawstring. I reached inside with both hands and lifted it out. The bag was bulky and whatever was in it weighed less than a bag of sugar. Loosening the drawstring, I plunged one hand in, grasped hold, and pulled out a revolver.