David Mathew - O My Days

‘Here and there.’

‘What you been doing?’

‘This and that.’

He wasn’t giving anything away, not at first. What else could I do? I did what the British do in times of crisis: I talked about the kettle.

‘I’m just brewing up,’ I told him. ‘Would you like one?’

The smile he gave me was yellower than it was when he left, but no less charming. Is this too much information? It probably is, but I want you to understand that once you let someone into your heart it’s impossible to free them completely. You might think you’ve let them go, but it’s like when you break a glass or a mug by accident: you’re forever finding miniscule shards on the linoleum. And on that subject, William, try your best to give Julie away but I bet you can’t. And you definitely won’t be able to give away Patrice. You’re a good boy. And it seems, despite what I thought, I didn’t give away your father.

‘Come in, Harvey,’ I said. ‘Welcome back.’ I walked away.

He entered the flat, saying, ‘Bailey, Sylv. It’s Bailey now.’

‘Why?’ I turned to look over my shoulder.

‘Bit of bother,’ was how he put it. ‘New start and all that.’

I was fairly decided on what he meant. ‘How long you been inside?’

I took hold of a dishcloth and removed the old kettle from the gas; the handle was scorching. I poured boiling water into the cup I’d prepared: milk and teabag, two spoonfuls of sugar.

‘You can have this one, Bailey.’

‘Thanks.’

Standing in the doorway, he seemed awkward, ill-at-ease.

‘I like what you’ve done to the place,’ he said.

‘You haven’t answered my question.’

Frustration—maybe fear—was making me stab his teabag with my spoon, again and again, even though the tea had brewed quickly and the liquid was the brown of shoe polish.

‘Okay. Three stretches,’ he said. ‘Six months. Eighteen months. Three years. Do you want to know for what?’

‘We might as well start with your war stories.’

‘Nothing serious. Promise. Burglary, burglary, aggravated burglary. The last one I was coerced into it; I owed a man a favour.’

I interrupted him. ‘I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to hear your war stories. What are you doing here, Harvey? Why now? If you haven’t been able to find the time to call or write since you left, why now?’

‘I’d like to see the kids,’ he tells me.

‘Well, that ain’t gonna happen!’

I started to prepare a cup for myself, and I swear to you, William—even now I hadn’t put two and two together. I knew that Julie had a fella called Bailey, and now, here was Bailey. I’m so stupid, I was in a kind of trauma, but I just didn’t think of them as being the same person. I did a few minutes later, but first we had a row to get through. I won’t bore you with the details, but in a nutshell he wants to see if he can try to be part of your lives again. He’s mended his ways. My guess is, he’s penniless, possibly homeless, and he needs a permanent address in order to claim benefits; but you’ll forgive me for being catty and mean, I hope. I told him I’d speak to your sisters about it first, and I said that when it comes to you—to you, Willy—his timing couldn’t possibly be any worse. I showed him the frigid letter you wrote me—you wrote your mother. He was perplexed. He knew you were in prison, of course, but he didn’t understand this new resolution of yours, not to see anyone. He said that if he’d been allowed to choose he would have seen us every day. I told him I doubted it. Most likely you’ll be angry that I even took place in a conversation like this. Sorry. If you’re angry—sorry. I know you don’t need advice from your dad at this late stage, but he really has acted to help you. What he says is, he found out stories about you, most of them local (and I didn’t even know he was still in the area), but occasionally further afield. It’s a bit late in the day for a guilt trip, I told him but he didn’t smile. Late or not late, he said to me, that’s what I’m wearing. He got in touch with Julie in order to help with the baby. This is what he thought would be the hard part, but after he’d shown her the photographs I didn’t realise he would have kept—you know the picture of us all by the Christmas tree that Ronald Dott from downstairs took one Christmas morning when you were still in nappies? that really cute one? Julie believed your father’s claims. Even felt sorry for him. She soothed his bleeding heart, the poor lamb and she tells me that he was a good ‘father’ to Patrice. Julie’s family were only too happy to have someone else on board—but Julie was working up to the part where she told them he was actually your dad and a good deal older than she was. Not that there was ever a relationship there. Julie kept it secret from everyone, including me. I can’t help feeling disappointed about that but life goes on. I think I can see her point. I would have probably had a few words to say on the subject of your father turning up out of the blue and demanding access—not to you or your sisters, but to your daughter. All things balanced, Julie did the right thing, I am sure of it. What your father needed the money for—what exactly this investment happens to be—I have no idea. To be frank, I doubt any investment exists. Do you know what I think? When we finished our cups of tea, and I was silently willing him to leave because the last hour had been too stressful, that was when he attempted again to palm the cheque off on me. I didn’t even need him to explain what it was or where it came from. I’m not sure I said thank you. I was washing around in my theories, William. The overriding one is this: In addition to proving, as I say late in the day, there he does in fact have a modicum of parenting skills, I think your father wanted to prove he could also be trusted with money. The clear implication, of course, is that he believes Julie cannot—cannot be trusted with money. Or not with your money anyway. So he talked her into transferring it to his account. How hard could that have been, these days, with phone banking? Internet banking? She would have provided him with any codes or passwords he needed—say what you think about your skills as a ghetto boy, William, but you always were sloppy when it comes to matters of personal finance. I think your father believed that it was a matter of time before Julie dipped into your account anyway, and he was trying to protect you. That’s what I think. He let it get a few bob’s worth of interest in his own account—maybe—but he didn’t steal it from you. He has given it to me for safe keeping. You can have it upon release—so in spite of what I’ve written above, you will have to see me after all. Hard lines. I’m your mother and you don’t lose me so easily. Bailey drives a van now. He has an income. He is living locally, and swears he is going straight. I think prison shat him up worse than it has for you, Willy—pardon my French again. He’s too old, he feels, to lose even more time in a cell. And if I’ve got my facts right, if he does go away for a crime related to those he was convicted of (let’s forget the ones he probably got away with), isn’t it a case, these days, of three strikes and you’re out? He might go to prison for a long, long time. He’s trying not to do that, I believe. Will I see him again? That’s impossible to say. He claimed to have no land-line phone number and said he’d forgotten his mobile number too. Should I be so sceptical? It’s hard not to be, really it is. Bailey was even shady about where he was living—a mate’s settee for now, a deposit down on a bedsit for the new year, was the best explanation I could pluck out of the man—so I didn’t push any harder. When he left I looked over the balcony at both ends of the flat, to see if he climbed into a white van. He headed off on foot. Now you know. Your money is safe, unless Bailey has creamed off a few pounds for his expenses. Either way, the numbers on the cheque read: £85,104. You can be the judge who says if anything is missing or not. Just rest assured that when you get released, you have here the sort of nest-egg that most people—definitely round these parts—never see in their lives. This has been a long letter; but I have been a long Mum. What I mean is, I’ve been a Mum for a long time. Next birthday I will be forty. I’m not looking forward to it: you were still be in prison. What I wouldn’t give to have you home for a weekend—that weekend—to cut the cake and kiss me happy birthday, with your sisters nearby in the room. To be a family again. But barring a miracle overturning of justice—an appeal against the verdict of godlike proportions, Willy—I’ll be here and you’ll be there. I’ll be waiting.