Not Much to Tell

It was answers Annie said she wanted. What the questions were was never clear. She talked a lot about responsibility. He was her father after all; he should want to be a part of her life, didn’t I agree? I said I supposed I did. I was just happy that she was talking; that she got up in the morning, washed and dressed herself. The day she hired the private detective was the first day she’d worn lipstick for three months. She sat at the breakfast table with her face painted and her hair combed, ordering piles of paper. We’re really making progress, she told me.

It was years ago, before we were married, when Annie first told me about her family situation. She had never met her father; her parent’s relationship had fallen apart before her mother discovered that she was pregnant. Her father had been informed of the birth and had sent a a bunch of crushed carnations to her in the hospital, along with a money order for £50.

‘Quite a lot of money in those days,’ Annie had said.

‘And you’ve never been curious? You’ve never wanted to find him?’

‘No. He’s got nothing to do with me really, has he? He’s just a name on my birth certificate.’

Even after her mother died and we were clearing out her bungalow, it was I that convinced Annie to keep the box of letters and old photographs labelled ‘Jack Harwood’. She’d been all for tipping it into the skip with the other junk that we couldn’t find a place for in our house. I said that if we had children some day, they might like to know where they came from. Jack Harwood. She never called him that; she never called him Dad or Father either, back then he was merely ‘the biological factor’. Recently, she’s been referring to him as Pa.

It’s taken time to track him down and most of our money. Private detectives don’t come cheap and we’ve not had as much cash to play with since Annie stopped working. In the end I took a weekend job driving a taxi to help pay the bills. I didn’t mind, it was nice to get out of the house; forget about everything for a while. Annie wanted me to put a flyer up in the cab: ‘Have you seen Jack Harwood?’ but I told her that my boss wouldn’t like it. In truth, I never asked him. I just wanted to keep things separate. We both need our different escapes.

There have been a lot of false leads; trails of addresses that run cold. Jack’s proved a hard man to track down. Annie must have been to every house and flat that her father has rented in the past thirty-five years. Every one but the last. She knocks on doors and asks if she can look around; mostly people let her in. She has a process, she tells me: living-room first; then bedroom; bathroom and finally the kitchen. She asks whoever’s living there if the walls have been painted or if they’ve had new units installed; she notes down stains on the work surfaces and views from the windows; she has a special notebook, like a reporter’s, that she bought for the purpose. After she’s finished with the house, she visits the local shops and asks if anyone remembers her father. The private detective will have already covered this ground, but she likes to go herself. She says that it gives her a sense of her father; this way it’s like she’s already met him; like they’ve already caught up on lost time.

When the private detective phoned to say that he’d found Jack, Annie was very quiet. She wrote down the telephone number and address that he gave her and then sat staring at it.

‘You don’t have to contact him if you don’t want to. It’s OK if you’ve changed your mind.’

‘It’s not that,’ she said, still staring at the paper. ‘It’s just that I don’t think I can phone him. I want to see him. The first time we meet, I want to do it properly.’

In the end I made the call. He answered on the third ring, reciting the number I’d just dialled, like they do in old movies. A strong male voice. I explained who I was and told him that my wife had been trying to find him for some time; she was the daughter of Diana Gregory. Annie watched me from across the kitchen, her hands folded in her lap. She had written out a list of things I was to say, marking each point with a little star. As I spoke, she mouthed the prepared sentences, staring at the receiver in my hand. She looked very pale. Jack Harwood took my call in a business-like fashion; he asked if this was anything to do with money; he’d offered to help, but Diana had written to him and said that she was able to support the child. He was an old man now and a pension didn’t go far. I told him this was nothing to do with money; my wife merely wanted to get in contact with her father; was there the possibility that they could meet?

***

He came to lunch today. Annie spent the morning fussing with sofa cushions and flowers; she changed her clothes twice, finally settling on a pale blue suit that she’d bought for her first week back at work, but never worn. I brought in fresh rolls and fixed a salad. We waited in the living-room, watching the window.

When the doorbell rang, we stared at one another. I got up, but she grabbed my arm.

‘I don’t know if I can do this.’

‘Just wait here. I’ll get the door and bring him through to you.’

I left her on the sofa, picking at the fold in her skirt, and found Jack trying the door handle.

‘Ah, there you are. Wasn’t sure if you heard me,’ he said, stepping back.

He was a short man, grey hair smoothed back over a ruddy scalp, broken veins across his nose and under his eyes, very blue eyes. Annie’s eyes are brown. I invited him in and held the door as he passed into the hall. He smelt of charity shops and cigarettes, like someone’s grandfather.
Annie stood up as we entered the living room. Her heel caught in the carpet and she tottered towards us; Jack put out his arms as if to catch her and they stood facing, each unsure how to greet the other. It was Jack who broke the silence.

‘You must be my daughter then.’ He chuckled and took hold of her hand. ‘Pleasure to meet you at last, I must say. But better late than never, as my mother always said.’

‘Yes,’ was all that Annie found to say. She looked confused. Finally, with a weak kind of smile, she sat back down on the sofa.

I left them and went into the kitchen to fetch a bottle of wine. The unfamiliar rumble of Jack’s voice followed me through and I wondered how long it had been since anyone had spoken loudly in this house. Apart from the daily updates in the search for Pa, Annie and I hardly spoke a word.
When I came back into the room I saw that Jack had seated himself next to Annie on the sofa. He’d pulled a leather tobacco pouch from his pocket and Annie was watching his hands as he rolled a stout cigarette.

‘Ah, there you are,’ he said again, looking up at me. ‘You don’t mind this do you? Filthy habit I know, but one of life’s great pleasures all the same.’

He pinched some stray tobacco from the end of the cigarette and looked about for an ashtray. I tipped the glass beads out of one of Annie’s little decorative plates and handed it too him.

‘Thank you. Oh, and wine too. Bit early for me, but I wouldn’t mind a small one.’ He took his glass and settled back against the sofa cushions. ‘Lovely place you have here. I was saying to Ann, I’ve always liked these new builds. Nice and clean.’

Jack lit his cigarette and exhaled loudly. The smell of smoke filled the room, overpowering the perfume of the lilacs carefully arranged on the coffee table. I watched the smoke drift and thought of it making its way through our nice clean house, up the stairs and into the waiting bedrooms, like an intruder. The smell would linger. Days later, long after this man was gone; after we’d opened windows and flushed the rooms with clean air, we will stumble into the whiff of stale smoke; a souvenir of Jack’s visit.

‘I was sorry to hear about Di. Not that we’d kept in touch, but there always a card at Christmas to my Mum and Dad. She was like that. Nice woman. What took her in the end?’

‘Cancer.’ Annie said. She was staring at her wine glass now, rotating the stem slowly between her fingers. ‘Five years ago.’

‘Five years! Well, as I say we weren’t really in touch. I don’t suppose she told you much about me?’

‘Not much.’

‘Well there’s not much to tell, if you want the truth of it. We weren’t together that long. I had lots of girlfriends back then and a fair few of them were careless. Your Mum was one of the good ones though. Yes, I’ve always kept a soft spot for Di. She never called me up asking for money or reading me lectures about what I should or shouldn’t be doing. No, she minded her business, did Di. My Dad always said I should have married her.’

‘Are you married?’ I asked.

‘No. Never went in for marriage myself. Thought about it once or twice, but they never seemed to be the right girl. I’m happy enough on my own – happier even – and I’ve got my daughters, of course.’

‘So you have other children?’ I looked across at Annie, but she was still turning her wine glass, her eyes fixed on the swilling liquid.

‘Oh yes. I was telling her while you were out there getting the drinks. This is my third stop like this one. Three lovely girls. Sue and Lizzie, those are my other two. Tracked me down, like you did. Wait, I think I’ve got some pictures somewhere.’

He set his wine glass down on the coffee table and reached into an inside pocket of his jacket. He handed me three photographs.

‘Your sisters, these are,’ he said, with a nod at Annie. ‘That dark one, that’s Lizzie. She’s a bit of a high-flyer in computers. Got her own flat in London and always jetting off somewhere new. She’s a lovely looking girl, isn’t she? Must get that from me, because her mother was nothing much to look at. She’s been trying to get me on to using that internet stuff, says it’ll be better for us keeping in touch. She got me all the gear, but I just can’t get used to it.

‘Now that’s Sue and her husband Jeremy. He’s a nice bloke. Sue’s my homemaker; that other picture there is of her three. Charlotte, Harry and Jack. Can you believe that? Called her boy after me before she even knew me. I found out about her a couple of years back and they have me round for all the holidays. She doesn’t get on with her mother, so it’s all right my being there. They love their Grandpa Jack, those three; always making me little presents. You two got any kids?’

I’d passed the photographs to Annie. Three smiling blonde-haired children shone in her pale blue lap. Jack looked from me to her, his cigarette end between his lips.

‘We had a son,’ Annie said. ‘Peter.’

‘Shame. I’m always hoping for another Jack. Still you never know I might have a son out there somewhere. I’ve always fancied having a boy, to carry on the family name and all that.

‘Here love, you know you don’t look well at all. Are you all right? Take that glass off her before it goes everywhere.’

Annie got to her feet and stood awkwardly in the space between the sofa and the coffee table.

‘I’m afraid there’s been a mistake,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid that you’ll have to leave now.’

***

I managed to get Jack out of the living room and into the hallway without too much fuss.

‘I’m sorry about this,’ I told him. ‘It’s just that this is a difficult time.’

‘Don’t worry about me, son. It’s a shock for the girl, seeing her father after all these years. It’s to be expected. And I did say, didn’t I, that it’s never a good idea to be drinking this early in the day, especially with a scrap of a thing like that. I mean to say, those clothes are hanging off her. It might be an idea to get her to the doctor’s; I’m healthy as an ox, but after her mother and all that. You never know with these things.’

We were at the door when he paused again.

‘Not one for pictures are you? I notice these things. Not even a snap of your little one. It’s just that I wondered if I could trouble you for a couple of photos of Annie and the boy. It’s a silly thing, but I like to have them by me. Just one nice photo to go in with the others. Then I can keep the family together.’

***

After he’d gone, I went back. The bay window was open and Jack’s ashtray and glass were missing. I refilled my glass and sat down. As the room cooled, I listened to the murmur of distant traffic. Much later, Annie joined me. She’d scrubbed her face and changed into jeans and a sweatshirt.

‘He wasn’t right,’ she said at last. ‘I don’t know who that man was, but he wasn’t Pa.’