From the Kitchen of Half Truth (12 page)

“Err…hello…is that Tony?”

“Joan?”

“Err…no. My name's Meg May. I…um…I got your number from the lady at fifteen Gray's Inn Road—”

“Oh, I thought you were the wife. You're not from the council, are you? I already said I'd sort out that smell—”

“No, no. I…I know this is a strange question, but I'm trying to get in contact with whoever lived at that property about twenty years ago. Well, twenty-one years ago, to be precise. I know it's a long time, but I was wondering if you owned the house then, and if you did—”

“Get in contact? This isn't bleedin' Friends Reunited.”

“No, I just—”

“How am I meant to remember that?”

“I just…I'm sorry, I was trying to track someone down, and I came across this flier at home for some band called Chlorine, and on the back there was this address—”

“Oh, crikey! You're not a groupie, are you? Blimey, I haven't had one of you lot call me for donkey's years. Look, I'm not giving you the number for fizz, or Fuzz, or whatever the heck he used to call himself. He moved out a long time ago, and I haven't seen him since. All right? So good-bye—”

“Wait!” I shout, although I'm not sure why. Something seems to have just come together, though I haven't had time to work out what.

“So this band,” I say, working it through in my head, “Chlorine. They used to live at that house?”

“Oh yeah, they used to live there all right. Might have been about the time you're saying, come to think of it. Causing a racket day and night. Smashed up the bloody kitchen. The damn drummer threw a TV out the window once and nearly killed a homeless person down on the street. And then there were these two young groupies who went and moved in with them. Right messy business, it was.”

“Groupies? You mean two young women?”

“I'm hardly going to be talking about blokes, am I? Mind you, not even young women, really. Just girls. Barely out of school. And one of them had a bleedin' baby! I tried to evict the whole lot of them, but turns out the drummer had a bloody law degree and—”

“Sorry, did you say baby?”

I put a finger in one ear and moved closer to the wall, trying to block out the noise of a garbage truck passing slowly by.

“Yeah. Tiny thing it was. Poor mite.”

“Whose baby was it?”

“How am I meant to know? Could have been any one of them. These lads, you know, once they're in a band, tight trousers and all that malarkey.”

“But what about the mother? Who was the mother?”

“I dunno. Long as I get the rent, what do I care who bleedin' lives there? I don't know who the girls were. Just a couple of gymslip groupies, one who had obviously got herself knocked up by someone in the band. She didn't stay long, though, the one with the baby. And I don't blame her.”

“Do you know where she went?”

“Do I sound like someone who gives a monkey where these people go? Look, if you want to know the ins and outs of it all, just go ask the guys yourself.”

“But how—”

“You've got the flier for one of their gigs, haven't you?”

“Well, yes, but it's ancient.”

I hear a deep, rasping, smoker's laugh.

“You don't really think a bunch of no-hopers like that ever moved on, do you?”

***

It takes me fifteen minutes to walk to the Frog and Whistle, during which time I swing from being convinced that I am on the path to finding my real father, who was probably a musician in a band called Chlorine, to being convinced that I am simply wasting my time and should probably just go home. By the time I arrive at the pub, I am sweaty, confused, and have a large ice cream stain on my top from bumping into a woman with an orange lollipop. I have been offered drugs, accosted by a beggar, and nearly run over by a taxi running a red light. Really, I just want to go home. But what if I'm getting somewhere?

I can't give up now.

The Frog and Whistle doesn't look nearly as cheerful as its name might suggest. In fact, it's old and dingy, with tinted windows and a peeling door. I linger outside, wondering whether it's really necessary to go in.
So
what
if
a
young
girl
and
a
baby
lived
in
that
house?
I ask myself for what must be the one-hundredth time.
It
could
have
been
anyone. Why on earth would my mother have been living there anyway? But then, why would she have a flier with that address on it if it didn't—

“Oh, just go inside, you idiot!” I snap.

An old man who has been struggling to open the pub door turns and looks at me with wide, startled eyes.

“I'm so sorry. I didn't mean you,” I say quickly, opening the door for him by way of an apology.

I am beginning to see why Mark gets so frustrated with me at times. There are only two ways to go: forward or backward. What's so hard about that?

Impatiently, I shuffle inside after the old man, shocked that anyone who moves so slowly still bothers to leave the house, and am immediately struck by the stench of stale smoke, beer, and urinals. I can't believe anybody would choose to spend time in here, and judging by the fact that the pub is practically empty, I'm not the only one who feels that way. The only customers (apart from the old man, who has sat down at a table in the corner without even buying a drink) are a man in a flat cap with a Rottweiler and a woman with a beer gut, a pint, and the words
Hot
Stuff
printed on the seat of her tracksuit trousers. It's dim and dreary, the only redeeming feature being that at least it's cool.

I quickly approach the bar, hoping to make my visit as short as possible.

“Excuse me, do you know of a band called Chlorine?” I ask, getting straight to the point.

The barman, a flabby middle-aged man in a white-gray vest, looks up from where he is slumped across the bar, studying a photo of a scantily clad woman in a tabloid newspaper spread out in front of him.

“What's the capital of Turkey?” he asks drearily.

“I'm sorry?”

“Turkey. What's the capital?”

He places the end of a pen in his mouth and chews lazily on it.

“Ankara.”

He looks down, and I realize he's actually attempting to complete the crossword.

“That can't be how you spell ‘phlegm,' then,” he mutters, crossing something out.

“Goal!” shouts the old man from his table in the corner.

He is staring at a large TV screen on the wall, which, much to my confusion, is showing snooker.

“All right, Jimmy?” shouts Hot Stuff from her bar stool, winking flirtatiously at the old man.

I have got to get out of here quickly.

“I heard that a band called Chlorine sometimes plays here. Is that right?”

“Yeah.” The barman yawns, throwing his pen down on the bar and stretching his arms up in the air. The bottom of his vest rises up, and I try to avoid looking at the tire of white flesh that hangs over the belt of his jeans.

“I'm trying to get hold of them. You don't happen to have a contact number, do you?”

The barman nods slowly. “Yeah.”

He picks up his pen from the bar, and I prepare to grab the number and leave. But instead of writing the number down for me, he puts the pen up the bottom of his vest and uses it to scratch his belly.

“Can I have the number?” I ask, feeling slightly sick.

The barman shakes his head lethargically. “No.”

“Goal!” shouts the old man again.

“Shut up, Jimmy,” mumbles the man with the Rottweiler in an Irish accent.

“Why not?” I ask.

“Women,” says the barman, as if this is an explanation in itself.

“I'm sorry?”

“Wizz says don't give his number to women.”

“Wizz?”

“The singer.”

“I'm not some sort of groupie—”

“Are you after child support?”

“No! I've never even met them. I just want to contact them because they might have known my mother a long time ago, that's all.”

“Is she after child support?” The barman looks me up and down lazily. “Because you might be a bit old for it.”

“Nobody wants child support,” I say slowly and clearly. “I just want to get in contact with one of the band. Any one of them will do.”

The barman leans on his newspaper and stares vacantly at me. I wait for a response, but I'm sure his eyelids are actually closing. I think he might be falling asleep.

“So can I have a number?” I ask loudly.

His eyes snap open. “No. Can't. Women.”

“No, I'm not—”

“Goal!” shouts the old man.

God, this is hopeless.

“How do you spell ‘phlegm'?” drawls the barman, staring at his paper.

“I don't know,” I nearly snap, “I just need a number—”

“F–L–E–M,” shouts Hot Stuff.

“You sure?” says the barman, putting the end of his pen inside his ear and jiggling it around.

“Forget it,” I mumble, turning and walking out of the pub.

“They're here last Friday of the month,” says the Irishman with the Rottweiler as I pass his table. He's staring into his pint, so it takes me a moment to realize he's talking to me.

“I'm sorry?”

“Chlorine. Last Friday of the month, they're here, if you're trying to get hold of one of them.”

“Oh.”

I am so tired and confused that for a moment I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not. I had just decided to give up this wild goose chase, and now it seems the challenge is back on.

“Thank you,” I tell the Irishman, “that's very helpful,” although I'm not sure if it is.

As a gesture of gratitude, I lean down and tentatively pat the top of his dog's head. It growls at me, baring the sharpest teeth I have ever seen, and I jump backward, clutching my hands close to my chest in case the dog tries to bite them off.

The Irishman doesn't even look up from his pint.

“Last Friday of the month,” I say, shaken, backing toward the door as the dog glares angrily at me. “That's great. What a stroke of luck.”

“Not really,” mumbles the Irishman. “They're here last Friday of every month. Nowhere else will have them.”

***

Fifteen minutes later, I am on the 9:10 p.m. train back to Cambridge, eating a Cornish pastry I bought from a stall in King's Cross station and feeling strangely optimistic all over again, having worked myself up into a state of excitement.

What if I really am onto something here? What if my mother really was a groupie and Wizz is my real father? What if he's been looking for me all these years but just didn't know where to find me? Maybe my mother has been trying to hide the truth from me because my father was a hard-partying rocker living a life of hedonism, playing his electric guitar night and day, and throwing TVs onto tramps? I might have an emotional reunion with my father and discover another side to myself. Maybe I'll start throwing TVs out of windows, too. I've never demonstrated any musical talent, but perhaps that's just because I've never tried.

Through a mouthful of pastry I start to hum, measuring my voice for any possible potential. I think I at least sound in tune, until I start choking on a flake of pastry and end up coughing and wheezing while the woman next to me slaps me on the back.

By the time I walk in the front door, I am buzzing. This is it! I'm sure of it. Mark was right. He always is; I should never have doubted him. My mother's distress at seeing that flier clearly was a clue. I'm like a detective unraveling my own past. Who knows what secrets I'm about to uncover? If Wizz is my father, perhaps I'll be able to reunite him with my mother for a final reconciliation. Whatever happened in the past will surely be forgotten, and, for a short while at least, we'll be a family! Once my mother knows I have discovered the truth, there will no longer be any point in lying, and she will throw her hands up in the air, say, “All right, then, I give in!” and tell me all the missing details to fill in the gaps. And her final moments will be clear and lucid, and we'll be honest with each other once and for all, together in those final moments of peace and understanding.

On the kitchen table sits a plate of lamb chops and vegetables and a bowl of pink blancmange dusted with sprinkles. Both are covered with plastic wrap, and I feel a pang of guilt. My mother would have made the blancmange just for me. It's my favorite, but it's about the only thing she cannot stomach.

“It gives me enough wind to blow a forest down,” she always says rather inelegantly.

I eat the blancmange and then tiptoe through the hallway. It's silent and the lights are all out, apart from the little lamp by the telephone, which my mother has left on so that I can make my way safely upstairs. But just as I am passing the lounge, I see her in there, lying asleep on the sofa, a tartan rug covering her legs. I am about to switch the light on and tell her to get up, that she will get a backache sleeping there all night, when I pause, my hand lingering over the light switch.

She looks so fragile. So childlike and vulnerable. She's not the mother I once knew, who carried me on her shoulders and lifted me up every time I fell. She's not the mother who swung me around, or raced me across the park, or turned me upside down while I shrieked with glee.

She's weak now. A shadow of the woman she once was.

What am I doing? I should have been here this evening. I should have been thanking her for making pink blancmange and spooning it down while she watched me eat each mouthful as if I were still a little girl.

“I get just as much pleasure from watching you enjoy it as I would if I were eating it myself,” I can hear her saying.