Looking for Mrs Dextrose (34 page)

Turning off the motorway we passed first through Little Upshott, where I used to throw bread for the birds on the duck pond and bought my first gobstopper from Christie’s the Newsagent
(now an estate agent, I noticed). “That used to be a newsagent. I bought my first gobstopper there,” I told Dad, pointing.

He looked but said nothing.

Under the old railway bridge, part of the Buttercup Line – now disused – on which they once ran steam trains, we drove downhill into Framingham, best known as the home of the late
local author, Greta Hildred. Mother had read all of her books, their covers invariably featuring swooning maidens in bonnets melting into the arms of frilly-white-shirted gentlemen named Red with
dark hair and cheekbones.

“Greta Hildred’s house,” I duly noted. “She was a local author. Mother… I mean, my other mother, she read all her books.”

“Mmph,” went Dad.

Past the triangular Miller’s Green, where I occasionally kicked around a football if I could find a spontaneous playmate, and down through the leafy boughs on the approach road to Glibley.
To our left was the path into the woods, where I had spent much of my childhood, when allowed out to play.

I had made camps in there, formed from dumped carpet and dead branches, and there was an abandoned old house, broken and foreboding, if you dared walk far enough into the wilderness.

I tried again. “I used to love that wood.”

“U-huh?”

“Yeah, I was always in there. Every summer.”

“On yer own?”

That caught me unawares. I laughed uneasily. “Not always!”

“Well,” he said. “I’m sorry about that.”

“I did have friends!”

“I know,” he said.

I ceased the commentary after that, since we were nearing my house. There I would be obliged to form a bond with this man, whose moods were so unstable, and his demons.

By the time we reached the end of my road – there was the sign, where I had left it: ‘Cherry Tree Drive’ – I was having second thoughts. Wouldn’t
it be easier to turn around and fly away abroad again, escape all the responsibilities? Dad would have been happier, that was almost certain. Perhaps I would too? What if I weren’t cut out
for the family-life lark? My foot faltered on the accelerator.

“This is my road,” I announced. “We’re up the end, number 72, on the corner of Laburnum Close. You’ll have to excuse the tweeness. It’s all rather
floral.”

He fidgeted.

I knew something was wrong when we reached Denholm and Marcia Graham’s house, and I couldn’t see my roof. It had always come into view at that point: those black eaves and red brick
tiles…

Not there.

Perhaps the Grahams had grown some foliage?

Was our house further down than I remembered?

I put my foot down for the last 100 yards.

All that came into view was an ugly, unpainted wooden hoarding, on which had been scrawled in white paint: ‘DANGER – KEEP OUT’. The hoarding may have been half a dozen or so
feet tall, but there was no building appearing over the top of it.

Number 72, Cherry Tree Close, formerly two storeys high, plus attic space, had simply vanished.

Driving up onto the pavement in my panic, I yanked on the handbrake, leapt out of the car with the engine running and flung myself at the wooden screen, hooking fingers over its top to pull
myself up. Head over the parapet…

It was a scene of destruction. All that remained of my home were the foundations, vast piles of blackened bricks, and one small wall, formerly housing the fireplace, standing resolutely amid the
devastation, like the last chap alive on a battlefield. The flowerbeds were trampled into oblivion, the garden shed had lost its roof and was leaning crazily; only the trees remained apparently
unharmed.

It reminded me of documentaries I had seen about the Blitz.

Charred and crushed effects from within the house had been piled high in one corner. Half of my green leather sofa, now black; a melted video recorder; the desk at which I used to do my
homework, legless; half-burnt books; a kettle, smashed plates; that Delft vase Mother used to covet, scattered in shards…

I could not bear to look any further.

What the hell had happened? There had been a fire, that much was beyond doubt, but how? When?
Who?
A terrible sensation appeared in my gut, and swam around like a trapped eel.
Was this
my fault?

Dad was sitting on the bonnet of the hire car, looking expectant. “When we moving in?”

Not now. “This… was my house,” I mumbled, in shock, barely able to believe it myself.

“What?” he said. “Behind there?”

“Mmm.”

I had another look, hoping my eyes had played tricks on me. They had not.

“I’ve got to find Benjamin,” I said, and scrambled back into the car.

There was a ringing in my ears as I headed up the road towards Benjamin Grebe’s house, as if I had witnessed an explosion and my head had gone numb.

Fortunately, given that state of mind, he lived only two streets away, in Hollyhock Lane. His parents had left the place to him after they retired to the seaside. Suzy Goodenough used to live
next door with her mother, but had since moved into the estate at the top of town.

Surely one of them must be in and could tell me what had happened.

When I reached my friend’s house, having ignored the speed limit, I was delighted to see a car in the driveway. Benjamin had followed in his own father’s footsteps and become a
travelling salesperson; if the car were there, chances were he would be too.

I parked behind his motor, tyres screeching and barely missing his bumper, and sprang towards the doorbell.

‘
Bing-bong!
’ So suburban.

I strained my ears to hear inside. Yes, footsteps on stairs. He’d tell me what had happened.

The door opened.

Suzy Goodenough!

Suzy Goodenough?

“Bloody hell!” she exclaimed. “Alexander bloody Grey! You’re a sight for sore eyes!” She stopped herself. “Hold on. Don’t tell me: you want to know what
happened to your house, right? Shit. Yuh?”

“What are you doing here?” It wasn’t the question I had intended to ask.

She still looked great – all sleek curves and occasional chicanes, with those deep-blue eyes set against her long, bronze hair, and pouty-lipped. Though not quite as great as I had
remembered her. Her face was curiously orange, her dress sense a little stiff, and as for those pearls…

Suzy dropped her head and regarded me through her upper eyelashes. “Yuh, it was all rather sudden, but I think it was happening before you left. I did ring you to tell you, but you
didn’t answer. In that funny little bar in… Moo-Moo? Was it? You know?”

I shook my head. “You’re
going out
with Benjamin?”

She bit her lower lip. “Mm. Yuh… you saw your house burnt down, right? The local paper said someone left the gas on.” She sucked her teeth. “
Whoops
!”

“Whoops?”

“I suppose you’ve got nowhere to stay?”

Dad appeared beside me.

Suzy shrieked and made a posh shooing gesture. “Go away, you horrible tramp! Alexander, there’s a tramp on my doorstep – make him go away! Shoo! Shoo!”

“Actually, that’s my Dad,” I said, suddenly enjoying myself.

She peered at me. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Trust me, he’s my Dad.”

“But he’s… he’s wearing some sort of prison outfit!”

“I know. Can we come in?”

Suzy looked Dextrose up and down, wearing an expression like a llama’s. “Well, I… you see, we’ve only got the one spare bedroom and that’s being
redecorated…”

I’d been inside Benjamin’s house countless times. He had three bedrooms. “It’s OK, forget it,” I said. “But thanks for your help.”

She became flustered. “Look, honestly, I would. Right? Help, you know? It’s just that… when we…”

I put my arm around Dad’s shoulder and turned him back towards the car. “Come on, Dad. Let’s go.”

Suzy called after us, “Come back in a couple of days, maybe? OK? When the paint’s dry! Alexander!”

As I drove away, I was trying to remember what I had seen in her.

That, I decided there and then, was the last I would ever see of Glibley. Once the decision had been made, it actually felt like a weight off my shoulders. I almost managed to
convince myself that I was lucky my house had blown up.

If you’re going to make a clean break, why begin back where you started?

I couldn’t believe Benjamin and Suzy were together. I hadn’t had an inkling. Or only a tiny one. (That time I had caught him sucking her finger; she’d snatched the digit away
and claimed to have had a bee sting – until I offered to have a go, when miraculously it had stopped hurting.) And what a snob she was! Although I guess I’d noticed that too. It’s
funny what one is prepared to overlook when one’s choices are limited.

Fuck the house, fuck Benjamin and… balls to Suzy. New life.

I should have been suicidal; instead I felt rejuvenated.

Just the one glaring snag to overcome. I had been driving without thought for destination, which would not do, what with the afternoon wearing on. We could have checked into a B&B – I
still had some of Quench’s cash left even after paying the airfare, plus access to my own still-sizeable inheritance – but if I had been set adrift by fate then I needed to lay down
some sort of root, or face the possibility of drifting further and further until… well, until I started to become my Dad.

He had increasingly withdrawn into himself since departing the ruins of my house. Now he seemed vulnerable: the antithesis of his usual bullish demeanour. He was out of his comfort zone –
a boozer, anywhere that responsibility did not exist – and it was taking its toll. He was toying absent-mindedly with the cord on his pyjama-style bottoms.

“Dad?” I said. “Where do you live?”

“Minked if I know,” he mumbled.

“Because we’re going to have to go there. Right now.”

He sighed deeply.

“Are you alright?”

I touched his shoulder. He whipped it away. “Don’t touch us!” He banged his head on the window under the sideways momentum. “Ow! Mink!”

The vehemence took me aback. “I was only trying to help.”

“Well don’t.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Stop. Minking. Asking. Us. That.”

“But I’m your son. You’re my father. And I only want to help.”

“Gah,” he went.

I continued driving southwards on the motorway, heading for the sea. In his book Dextrose had mentioned settling on the south coast, so it wasn’t completely
arbitrary.

The drizzle persisted as the ‘thhhhkt-thhhhkt’ of the windscreen wipers over the engine’s drone became hypnotic. The light was poor, though it was only late-afternoon, and my
headlights were on.

Unexpectedly, my father spoke. “If you must know,” he began, impatient-sounding, “I’m having trouble with me booze.”

I knew he’d keep talking if I stayed quiet.

“…Only it’s hard.

“…Us not drinking.”

Though I wanted to butt in, I dared not break the spell.

“…See, us want to. Drink, yer know.

“… And then again us don’t want to.”

“Really?”
Just let him talk.

“No,” he said. “Because of what yer said. I knew what yer meant.”

“How do you mean?”

“That guff yer said.”

“What guff?”

He turned to look out of his window.

“You mean the stuff about us being father and son?”

“Mm.”

Amazing – the old softy(ish) was coming around! “So let’s sort ourselves out and find somewhere to stay. Let’s get this show on the road!”

He slapped his thigh, causing a faint urine odour to permeate the vehicle. “Mink it, boy! Let’s do it!” And he smiled at me.

I’d seen him cackle, chuckle and roar with laughter, but I don’t believe I had ever seen him smile. It was quite unnerving; that basic expression of contentment somehow upset his
face. It was like watching a politician feigning sincerity, or a gameshow host commiserating with a thick contestant. It didn’t suit him.

I tried again. “So where do you live?”

“I told yer. I. Don’t. Minking. Remember.”

We would narrow it down, then. “Was it by the sea?”

He thought for a while then exclaimed, “It were! How d’yer know?”

I told him it was in his book.

“Were it?” he said.

But where by the sea? “Can you remember any landmarks? Any famous hotels?” – He shook his head – “Funfair?” – Same reaction –
“Theatre?” – He screwed up his face – “Pier?”

“That’s right! There were a pier! We got minked on it some nights and Dan Panorama fell into the briny! The mink.”

The south being my area, I knew a few of the resorts with piers.

“Brighton?”

“Nope.”

“Worthing?”

“No.”

“Hastings?”

“Nah.”

Eastbourne?”

“Mink off! How old d’yer think us is?”

That exhausted my pier-based knowledge.

Or was there one more, at the back of my mind? That quaint little town we’d visited a couple of times, way back in my childhood…

“Dritt-on-Sea?”

He practically leapt out of his seat. “THAT’S IT!”

We arrived in Dritt-on-Sea shortly after seven. It was already dark but the rain had stopped. I had quizzed Dad further about where he lived, but he had grown restless like a
child overburdened with sums. For light relief, I had switched on Radio 4 and we’d listened to a documentary about women who made bras for the outsized lady. That had settled him down.

My own memories of the coastal town extended not much further than its name and the fact that it boasted a pier. And there was a funny little train that ran through the town, which I recalled
finding both odd and exciting. I guessed I must have been aged five or six when we had visited those couple of times, so during the early Seventies. I’d been treated to an ice cream and there
were donkey rides on the beach; I’d wanted to have a go, but Father had told me that donkeys carried diseases.

I wondered whether Father, Mother and the Dextroses had met up – in my company, even – or was that a conspiracy theory too far?