Jemma Forte - When I Met You

‘Just the basics,’ I fume. ‘That you were a pilot and that you pissed off to Australia because you couldn’t handle family life. Made for a lovely bedtime story I can tell you.’

Ray just stands there staring sadly into his cocoa. Then, to my absolute annoyance, a grin slowly spreads across his big brutish mug and he chuckles. He throws back his massive ugly head and actually laughs.

‘What?’ I say, and at this point I’m beyond seething.

‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘It’s just I can’t believe she said I was a pilot.’

The world tips on its axis and I become keenly aware of the fact that I can’t take much more tonight. She said he was a pilot.

‘Well, what’s so funny about that?’

‘I was never a pilot,’ he says, his face grave once more. ‘Marianne, I don’t know how to tell you this, so I’m just going to come out and say it. I was in prison.’

I don’t believe this is happening. I put my mug down on the side and go to take a seat at the dining table, the one nearest the radiator. Needing time to fully absorb what he’s just said I use warming my hands as a delaying tactic. My head’s spinning and it’s also occurred to me that Mum could be back at any time. I glance back at Ray to see whether he’s joking but he looks deadly serious.

‘Prison?’ I manage eventually, not sure I want to hear anything else he’s got to say. Not convinced I don’t want him to just leave, so I can pretend that none of this ever happened. So that life can continue as … well … not quite normal, but as good as.

‘Yeah. I’m not proud of it, but at least I’ve served my time, though I can honestly say that living with the regret of what I did and what I put you, your sister and your mother through hasn’t been easy. You look so like her by the way. Not the colouring, but around the eyes and that.’

‘Right,’ I say faintly, not trusting myself to say much more apart, that is, from the question from which there’s no escaping. ‘So … what did you do? Why were you in prison?’

Ray inhales and looks up at the ceiling as if deliberating whether or not to tell me.

‘If you don’t tell me, I’ll find out somehow,’ I say, steeling myself to hear what heinous crime my long-lost dad committed all those years ago.

‘All right,’ he says quietly, his huge bulk making our kitchen look smaller than usual. ‘I was arrested for murder.’

‘You murdered someone?’ I sob. It couldn’t get any worse. It all feels so surreal and part of me hopes I’ll wake up in a minute. I know if the floodgates open I won’t be able to close them again so fight to keep calm.

‘Well yeah, but not on purpose. It’s a long story,’ he says sadly. ‘In the end I got done for manslaughter … and arson.’

I can’t look at him. It’s as if the walls are closing in on me, and it dawns upon me that I know virtually nothing about this man who’s standing in my kitchen. This man, who’s taken the liberty of helping himself to milk from our fridge. This monster, who’s telling me now, calmly, that he’s killed someone. What was I even thinking when I let him in the house? I have to get him out, preferably before Mum and Martin get back.

‘Well, now you’ve got out, it’s nice you thought to look us up,’ I say, sarcastically, yet with a hint of caution. I’m a bit worried for my own safety. I don’t want to rile him. He’s just told me he murdered someone. My dad’s a murderer. As thoughts pop relentlessly into my confused head, they’re more like newsflashes.

‘I got out eight years ago,’ he says abruptly.

‘Oh,’ I say, taken aback.

Another shocker I wasn’t expecting. In fact, if this evening takes any more curve balls I’m going to get the bends. Strangely, the fact he’s been out of prison for eight years but has only just got round to looking us up pisses me off even more than finding out he’s killed someone. I know that probably displays an awful lack of perspective but it’s more personal I suppose. Plus I’m probably not really thinking straight.

‘So, why didn’t you come looking for us eight bloody years ago then?’ I demand to know, feeling such a surge of white fury it almost overpowers me. How dare he? How can he say he’s dreamed of this day when he could have had it any time he liked over the last eight years. I’m so angry I feel like screaming.

‘I promised your mum I wouldn’t, but things have changed.’

‘Oh yeah? Great, well what’s happened then? Have you murdered someone else?’ I cried. ‘Or did it just occur to you what a shitty job you’d made of being a dad. Or maybe it’s not something you’ve ever taken particularly seriously so you just thought you’d do it on a whim. Is that it, or what?’

‘I’ve got cancer, Marianne. They’ve given me six months to live.’

And these words change the direction of everything once again. I stare at his face, willing him to be lying but can tell immediately he isn’t. Instead, I see a man who looks strangely resigned to the news he’s just imparted and even though I barely know him the anger dissipates and is joined by crippling sadness at the injustice of the whole shitty, crappy situation.

‘Cancer of what?’ Even though I’m already sitting down, my legs feel decidedly wobbly. I wipe my face as tears fall silently down it.

‘Of bloody everywhere at this stage, but it started in my colon. Cancer of the bumhole basically. Not the most glamorous,’ he jokes, though it’s so far from being funny, it’s tragic. His face is stricken.

‘Right,’ I manage. ‘Well … I’m sorry.’

‘Me too Marianne, me too,’ he says, rolling his green eyes heavenward in order to quell and stave off whatever it is he’s feeling, which can’t be good.

‘Are you scared?’ I ask, curious to know. Was it fear that had made him come back? Was he so selfish that he was only seeking us out because suddenly he needed us? I’m so confused right now I don’t know what to think.

‘No,’ he says simply. ‘I ain’t scared of dying. What does scare me though is not explaining anything to you and your sister. I’ve always left you alone for good reason but lately I’ve realised that might not have been the best plan after all. I’m so sorry I frightened you earlier.’

I think he can tell my brain is completely overloaded because the next thing he says is, ‘Look, it’s a lot for you to take in. I should go now anyway, in case your mum and her bloke get back, but I’m gonna give you my number and if you could just give me a call, maybe tomorrow, I’d appreciate it.’

I must have nodded because he picks a biro up and looks around for something to write on, settling eventually on an old receipt.

‘There,’ he says.

I take it from him and he crosses the room, clearly planning on making his exit the same way he arrived.

‘Why tonight?’ I ask, a swell of emotion suddenly surging through me as I desperately try to figure out so many things. I don’t want to cry while he’s here.

He shakes his head and smiles ruefully. ‘Didn’t have a plan really. I’ve just been watching the house a bit, you know, trying to figure out the best time to approach you.’

‘Right,’ I say, not knowing quite what to make of that either. I’m pretty sure what he’s just described amounts to stalking, not that it seems to matter very much somehow.

He slides the glass doors open a fraction and as he does the rain howls in again. As I watch him pull on his still wet coat, it occurs to me that I hope he has somewhere warm to go to. And that confuses me even further because a big part of me hates him, and yet this instinct contradicts that. He’s just about to disappear into the stormy night when he stops, turns and says one final thing, and of all the things I hadn’t expected about tonight, including seeing my dad for the first time in decades, finding out he went to prison, discovering he killed someone and is dying of cancer, the thing he says to me as he vanishes back into the storm is the thing that surprises me the most.