From the Kitchen of Half Truth (16 page)

Ewan shrugs. “Perhaps that's the question,” he says through a mouthful of plum.

I turn a squishy strawberry over and over in my fingers.
Perhaps
that's the question.

For someone who questions the purpose of everything, I am surprised to realize that there is one thing I never wondered about my mother's stories: what purpose do they serve? If Ewan is right, if stories help to make the world a more manageable place, then what is it that my mother is trying to manage?

I hear Ewan calling something to me, but I don't hear what he says, so lost am I in this new wave of thought.

Perhaps I have always been too caught up in the frustration, the anger, the battle to find out the truth, to ever ask the question that really counts: Why?

I am vaguely aware of the rain beating harder and harder on the strawberry plants, hitting the wet soil around me.

What purpose do these stories serve?

Perhaps
that's the question.

Suddenly my mind is whirring.

What if there is a purpose to all these lies, and what if I never find out what it is? How will I ever make sense of my own life? How will I ever find a meaning to all this? What happens when you don't know the truth but you can't believe the lies, when you can't find a way—through fact or fiction—to give meaning to your own existence? Without a narrative for your own life, do you ever really exist at all?

Do you go mad without meaning? Is that what will happen to me? Will I go madder than my mother? After all, her life has a story to it. It might be crazy and ridiculous and a lie, but it's something, at least, to provide explanations and reasons and meaning. Whereas what do I have? Nothing. I have no explanation for anything, nothing I can cling to, nothing that makes sense.

Is that enough to drive someone crazy?

“Meg!” Ewan shouts, trying to get my attention.

I look up at him, a strand of wet hair plastered to my face.

“Go inside,” he says, raindrops dripping from his hood. “You're getting soaked.”

What day is it today? Friday. And what's the date? The twenty-eighth.

The last Friday of the month.

I stand up quickly, my joints clicking, pins and needles shooting up my legs.

“I'm going to London,” I suddenly announce.

Ewan frowns at me as I quickly make my way out of the strawberry patch, hopping over rows of bedraggled-looking plants.

“Now?” I hear him ask.

But I am already jogging up the garden path, my feet squelching inside my trainers, and don't stop to turn back.

“I've just remembered,” I call over my shoulder. “I have a gig to go to!”

 

When I burst through the door of the Frog and Whistle, dripping wet and out of breath from my sprint down Euston Road in the middle of a thunderstorm, for a second I think I must have the wrong pub. This evening there are people leaning on the bar, slouching at the tables, hovering around the ancient slot machines, standing in little huddles nursing their pints, all enjoying the rowdy, high-spirited atmosphere. If it weren't for the familiar stench of stale beer and urinals, and the sight of Hot Stuff shrieking with laughter and spilling lager all over herself, I could easily think I was in the wrong place. I am surprised to realize that the aging rock band Chlorine is obviously quite a crowd puller. And when I hear them play, this surprises me even more.

As I linger uncertainly in the doorway, from the back of the pub a noise suddenly erupts that sounds like a car being mangled and someone screaming in pain. It is some time before I can make out a tune, but eventually I recognize the banging and wailing as a horrendous rendition of “Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones. The customers, however, seem to love it. A group of shaven-headed men start shouting the words and punching their fists in the air while Hot Stuff gyrates her large, tracksuit-clad bottom for their entertainment. I stand on tiptoes, trying to see the band, but all I get is the odd glimpse of a guitar, then the sleeve of a leather jacket, then a microphone stand being waved in the air.

What
if
one
of
them
looks
like
me?
I wonder, my heart starting to thump nervously. What if I recognize my own face in one of theirs? Will our eyes instantly connect across the crowded room? Will the music suddenly stop, one of them gazing at me in awe and amazement, recognizing his long-lost daughter?

I work my way through the groups of people, narrowly avoiding being elbowed by one of the singing men, trying not to stare at Hot Stuff's distasteful dancing, until I reach the front of the pub. Standing before the band, I watch them—four men in their mid-forties with receding hairlines, haggard faces, too-tight jeans, out-of-tune voices—and can't help feeling slightly disappointed. Just like my first surreal encounter with the infamous Dr. Bloomberg, I somehow expected that this band, who might have some tenuous but genuine connection to my mother's past, would seem different, special, in some way magical. But instead they just look like four men in a state of midlife crisis.

Each of them catches my eye at some point, but none of them lingers there for more than a second. If one of them spies something familiar in my face, a memory from long ago, a ghost from his past, then it doesn't show. Not one of them looks like me, and it suddenly seems ridiculous that I ever wanted, or expected, them to.

Not knowing what else to do, and suddenly feeling rather self-conscious standing on my own, I find a stool at the corner of the bar and order a bottle of orange juice from the same flabby, lethargic barman I met before. I have no intention of drinking it for fear of catching something, but at least I don't feel so conspicuous with a glass in my hand. All I can do now is wait for the band to take a break.

***

After almost two hours of listening to Chlorine wailing and groaning with no break in sight, I am starting to get frustrated. My ears feel like they have suffered irreparable damage, and from the other side of the pub a man with a mermaid tattoo on his forearm keeps winking at me. Each time the music stops, I get ready to collar one of the band, but they only ever pause to swig their beer and exchange banter with the customers, who after the first thirty minutes started to dwindle considerably in number. The ones who remain seem to be on first-name terms with the band, and I imagine these are the faithful followers—friends, relatives, and a handful of loyal, tone-deaf fans. The lead singer—I guess this must be Wizz—is so drunk that he keeps forgetting the lyrics, and the lyrics he does remember are increasingly out of tune. Hot Stuff is even drunker than he is, and at various points in the evening she has flashed her breasts at the band, tried to start a fight with the barman, and attempted to commandeer the microphone for a karaoke-style sing-along.

And then, finally, I hear the sound I have been longing for…

“Ladies and gentlemen, you have been wondervul,” Wizz drawls drunkenly into the microphone, “a wondervul crowd of…of ladies and…and of gentlemen. And we apprece it…appreciate it. We will be back next week. No, next month.”

“Don't bother!” someone shouts.

During a mixture of booing, halfhearted clapping, whistling, and some screaming from Hot Stuff, I tentatively make my way forward. The list of questions I so carefully prepared on the train suddenly vanishes from my mind, and when I find myself standing in front of the tall, skinny drummer, who is the first to start making a beeline for the bar, I don't quite know what to say.

“Hello. Erm…can I talk to you? I have some questions. I…sorry, this probably sounds a bit strange, but I was wondering—”

“I love you!”

Hot Stuff suddenly pushes me out of the way and throws her arms around the shocked-looking drummer.

“Take me into the back alley and pretend I'm a groupie!” she shouts, licking her lips and pulling at the poor man's clothes.

“Can't we just go home?” asks the drummer, looking disgruntled. “I've got to work tomorrow. And it's probably still raining anyway.”

“Oh, you're meant to be wild and crazy!” moans Hot Stuff, shoving the drummer angrily so that he almost loses his balance. “It's part of your job!”

“I work at B&Q,” he says meekly, straightening his T-shirt, which she has half pulled off his bony shoulder. “You didn't marry Noel Gallagher, you know. I can't go doing my back in by getting up to no good in a back alley. I've got eighteen boxes of ceiling tiles to move tomorrow.”

As Hot Stuff stomps off, ranting about how what a catch she is and how she could have married anyone she wanted, the drummer follows her, leaving me staring after them.

“All right, sweetheart?” someone drawls in my ear.

I turn around to find the drunken bass guitarist swigging from a bottle of beer and staring at me in a way that makes me pray he doesn't turn out to be my father.

“What d'ya think, then?” he asks, gesturing to the pile of instruments that have been discarded on the floor. “Good, eh? I played the bass guitar.”

“Yes, I know,” I say, forcing a smile. “I saw.”

“It's the hardest part,” he boasts, swaying slightly, “because there are so many strings and…and notes and stuff.”

“It was very good,” I lie. “Actually, I was wondering if you could help me.”

In the background, a slot machine suddenly toots its winning tune, and loud cheering accompanies the clatter of coins falling down its shoot. Music starts up on a sound system.

“What?” he says, leaning toward me and cupping his ear. The smell of stale alcohol in my face makes me want to retch.

“I said I was wondering if you could help me,” I shout. “I'm trying to find out if any of you once knew my mother.”

The bass guitarist takes an unsteady step back and eyes me warily.

“Is this about child support?”

“No. I found this flier in my mother's house,” I say, pulling the crumpled paper out of my pocket and showing him, “and it has this address on the back. See? And I understand from Tony the landlord that you once lived at that address. And I need to know why my mother had your address written down and—”

“Wizz!” the bass guitarist suddenly shouts excitedly over his shoulder. “Come here!”

Wizz, who is struggling to get his arm inside the wrong sleeve of his leather jacket, chucks the jacket on top of a speaker, picks up his beer bottle, and weaves a very wonky line over in our direction.

“Look at this!” grins the bass guitarist, waving the flier at him. “This is, like, really old! From when we were old!”

“Young,” I say, correcting him.

“From when we were young!”

Wizz examines the flier closely with bloodshot eyes. His face is scrawny, his stubble shot through with gray. He might once have been good-looking, but twenty-odd years of living the rock-and-roll lifestyle have definitely taken their toll.

“It's hers!” exclaims the bass guitarist, pointing at me with a straight arm, even though I'm right in front of him.

“Hey, Rocket!” Wizz shouts over at the keyboard player. “Look what Beasty has found!”

Rocket, a chubby man with a receding hairline and an earring who has been helping a group of people celebrate their win at the slot machine, shuffles over.

“Wow,” says Rocket, taking the flier, “that's old!”

“It's hers!” exclaims Beasty again, pointing at me.

“It's my mother's,” I explain to them all. “It was inside an old suitcase of hers. I came here because I'm trying to find out if any of you ever knew my mother.”

Wizz and Rocket immediately look worried.

“It's nothing to do with child support,” I say, and immediately they relax. “I just need to know why my mother has your old address. That was your address, wasn't it?”

They all stare at the flier. “No, that's not our address,” says Wizz, shaking his head. “That's the address of a pub.”

“That's the address of
this
pub,” says Beasty, “the one you're standing in.”

“No, on the other side,” I say impatiently, taking the flier and turning it over. “Fifteen Gray's Inn Road.”

“Oh, there. Yes, we lived there.” Rocket nods.

“Did we?” asks Beasty.

“Yeah. You remember. That place we had when we were just starting out. The place with mold on the walls and the hole in the bath.”

Beasty shakes his head, looking confused. “That could be anywhere,” he says. “That could be where I live now.”

“The place where you broke a door by driving a motorbike through it. The one where Wizz set fire to his own pants and I had to spray him with lemonade to put him out. The place where Bomber threw a TV set out the window and it nearly killed a tramp.”

Beasty continues shaking his head.

“The place where we used to watch that girl getting undressed in the window opposite,” says Wizz.

“Oh, that place!” says Beasty, his face lighting up. “I remember that place!”

They all laugh and slap each other playfully, and I no longer know what I hope to achieve this evening, but it definitely isn't to discover that one of them is my real father.

“Apparently there were two girls who lived with you for a while,” I say, trying to make myself heard now that they are all laughing about their wild past.

“Oh, there were lots of girls!” Wizz says with a grin, attempting a drunken wink, and they all start laughing again.

“Those were the days!”

“Do you remember the twins?”

“Oh, the twins! Suzy and Sarah.”

“How could anyone forget them.”

“Now, that's why you join a band!”

“One of the girls had a baby,” I say over the laughter.

They all stop laughing and look at each other.

“Really?” asks Beasty. “When?”

“Wasn't me,” says Wizz.

“Wasn't me,” says Rocket.

“Which one was it?” asks Beasty. “Suzy or Sarah?”

“No,” I say with a sigh, shaking my head and wishing they were all a lot more sober. “There was a baby who lived with you at the time. That's what Tony said. Two girls lived with you, and one of them had a baby.”

“Oh!” says Rocket. “Yes. There was a baby.”

“I don't remember a baby,” says Wizz. “I remember a cat. I think we had a cat.”

“What did it look like?” asks Beasty.

“It was ginger and white…”

“Not the cat, the baby!”

“What do you mean, what diz it look like?” says Rocket, slurring his words. “It looked like a baby. It was very small.”

“All babies are small.”

“No, but it was
really
small. You remember. Too small. That's what I remember about it. She thought there was something wong…wrong with it.”

“Who did?”

“The mum. What was her name again?”

Too
small?
My heart starts pounding in my chest as I wait for them to tell me the name. It couldn't be. Could it?

“I remember!” Wizz suddenly cries. “Little baby. Cried a lot. Ahh, she was a cute little thing. You remember, Beasty.”

“No, I don't. Are you sure? Why would a baby have been living with us? Are you sure you weren't hallucinating? Because you did used to hallucinate a lot, when you were, you know…”

Wizz hiccups loudly. “No, we both remember it, don't we, Rocket? You
must
remember, Beasty!”

“What was her name?” I ask impatiently.

“It was small, Beasty,” insists Wizz, leaning heavily on Beasty's shoulder, “and noisy. I used to sing to it, but I don't think it liked it much.”

“But what was the name?” I almost shout.

“The mum or the baby?” asks Rocket.

“Either.”

“No idea. Hey, what was the name?” he asks, tugging on Wizz's T-shirt.

“Oh, now zat's a diffcul…difficult question,” says Wizz, wagging a finger at me, “and you should ask someone who hasn't drunk so much.”

“Was it Val?” I ask, my heart in my mouth.

They all shake their heads.

“Val. No. Not Val,” says Rocket. “That wouldn't suit a little baby.”

“Babies are called things like…like Emily and Lucy,” drawls Wizz.

“And Thomas,” adds Beasty.

Wizz slaps Beasty heartily on the back. “Thomas is an ess…excellent name for a baby.”

“Thank you, mate,” says Beasty, slapping him back.

“No, not the baby,” I insist, “the mother. Was the mother's name Val?”