Your Father Sends His Love (4 page)

‘Be about half an hour to forty-five minutes,' the pizza man replied.

‘Thanks,' Dean said.

He took his beer into the vacuumed lounge; Rachel had done it before she'd left. She'd tidied away the play-mat and stowed the toys in a cardboard box, shunting it behind the armchair. Three bars on the fire and its sidelights gave a soft, adult kind of glow. He sat down on the red sofa they hadn't yet paid for and turned on the television. There was a film he'd recorded, something
she would not watch. He thought of Rachel arriving at the hotel, the way she would be dressed, the picture of Jack in her purse, on her phone. He pressed play and watched a man kill another man using a plastic shopping bag. The victim sucked in the last of the air; his eyes went slightly, then completely. Dean drank his beer. The title music began and he turned down the volume, glancing at the baby monitor; its brow of lights, its plastic-grille speaker. He put it to his ear, the boy's breath. He put it down and went back to his film.

Rachel called as the killer slashed a man's eye with a razorblade. Dean pressed pause. He saw the aftermath on the screen as he said hello. He turned off the screen. His beer was almost finished.

‘Hey, love,' she said. ‘I've just got in.'

‘You made good time.'

‘Yes, it was fine in the end. How is he?'

‘Fine. Asleep.'

‘Did he get off okay?'

‘Yes, no problem at all.'

‘You ordered your pizza yet?' she said. There was bathwater running in the background.

‘What's that?' he said.

‘Have you ordered your pizza yet, cloth-ears?'

‘What makes you think I've ordered pizza?' he said. He was smiling a little; she was a fine and regular tease.

‘You always order pizza when I'm away. Always.'

‘How do you know? How do you
know
I always order pizza?'

‘Because I love you and I know you better than anyone else in the world and because you always leave the box unbroken in the bin.'

He laughed and walked into the kitchen for another beer.

‘I might have ordered a pizza,' he said. ‘But you can't be certain.'

‘I'm naked,' she said, not listening. ‘Naked's different when you're in a hotel, isn't it? Feels different, anyway.'

He opened his can of beer and watched the suds poke through the hole like wool. ‘That was a lovely hotel we went to, that last time.'

‘We should do that again,' she said.

‘Yes,' he said. ‘Yes we should.'

The quality of the call changed; the slight echo of the bathroom, the sound of her turning off the taps. A bathroom bigger than their bathroom no doubt; a bath bigger than their bath.

‘I used to look forward to you going away,' he said. ‘Years ago, I mean. Nothing too exciting. A pizza, some beer. Footie on the Saturday. Something on the video. Sounds sad, doesn't it?'

‘Don't you look forward to it now?'

‘No,' he said. ‘No, I don't look forward to it. I miss you, you see. He misses you too, I can tell.'

‘Oh, don't say that,' she said.

He saw her sitting on the lip of the bath, cool plastic on her warm behind.

‘I used to look forward to it too,' she said. ‘Staying in a hotel. Fried breakfast every morning. All of that. I still do a bit.'

Dean heard something on the baby monitor. Something brushing something else, something moving. He put his palm over the handset, the white noise of the quiet house.

‘Everything okay?' she asked.

‘Everything's fine, love,' he said. ‘I thought I heard the doorbell, that's all.'

Dean woke as the killer shot a man through the kneecap; his screams childlike and loud, exactly like Jack's. He looked over to the baby monitor, but the bulbs were dark and he only heard the dead air. The killer shot the man through the other kneecap. Dean wanted to know how much research they'd done, whether they'd watched someone put a bullet in a man's leg for real, or whether this was guesswork and imagination. As he turned his head he was briefly looking neither at the screen nor at
the baby monitor. At that moment he clearly heard a male voice say: ‘Interesting.'

The lights remained out on the monitor; he heard the boy's breath. He had definitely heard a man's voice, an older voice, one that sounded familiar. Even had the killer on the video been the kind to make a remark after a kill, it could not have been his voice. Dean pursed his lips. He picked up the baby monitor again. He put it down and had a sip of beer. He waited in the near silence, eyes on the monitor. After a few minutes Dean rewound the film at 64x speed, back through what he had missed. He saw five frames: a grenade, a knife, two guns, a pair of breasts, a man with his head in his hands. He pressed play and the speed was out for a moment, the voices not quite synching. He heard the same voice clearly say: ‘I have no interest.'

Dean pressed pause and in his haste hit the button twice; the picture stuttering, starting, finally resting. A gun to the head of an air stewardess. He looked at the baby monitor, its unlit bulbs. He heard a voice say: ‘I have no interest in talking about my childhood.' And after that an elderly male laugh. He heard the boy's breath, the dead air, the white noise of the quiet house.

He did nothing. There was nothing to do. He pressed play on the film. He drank the rest of his beer and was reminded of the chill opening of a church door. Following
his father into the nave, the hot light blasting the stained glass, the birds, crucifixes and men. Watching his father walk, crane-necked, to the altar, then cross the aisle to where two small candles burned. His father dropped coins into a metal box and took a candle. He held a flame to the taper, watched it catch, and fixed it beside the others. In Jamaica, his father was dying, was dead, was on his way to hospital, was eating his dinner before the heart attack. Dean had never seen his father enter a church before; Dean had never seen him light a candle. As they left, Dean asked his father why.

‘Sometimes you just know something and you just don't know how,' he said.

Dean supposed it was all to do with frequencies. A radio interfering with the signal; a pirate station did the same when, as a kid, he used to listen to BRMB late at night. The man's voice was interference, nothing more. He looked at the plastic speaker, the snub aerial, the red, green and orange LEDs. He heard Jack move and an elderly man's cough. The voice said: ‘People talk about their childhood and it's so mundane. I don't remember much about it, if I'm honest. I can't even tell you what my father's voice sounded like. And that's the truth.'

The background hiss suggested the voice had been pre-recorded and was now being broadcast. He heard the
boy's breath again. The broadcast had stopped. He picked up the monitor and put it back to his ear.

‘I'm not even sure I would recognize my mother and father. They were such dull people. Such short and dull people. So very short and so very dull.'

And then again his son's breath: in out, in out. You could count those breaths for comfort. And then a cough, whether on the recording or from Jack it was not clear. On the baby monitor, the red light flickered, and down in the bottom right of the speaker he heard a recorded laugh, low and embarrassed. A short laugh without humour.

‘There is a saying,' the recording said, ‘that the children of lovers are orphans. It suggests something mythic, something epic about the nature of romantic love. It casts romance as murderer; as assassin. They were not epic, my parents. They were dull. Short and dull. They loved each other, my parents. There is no denying that. But it was without heroism. Together they wanted to be good parents. More than anything that's what they wanted. Cruel, isn't it, desire?'

Dean turned off the baby monitor. He left it there, adrift, powered-down on the sofa, and went upstairs. He opened the door to Jack's room and sat on the armchair. He looked at his son. The boy's breathing was soft and regular. Dean moved the chair so he could look out of the
window, out over the yards and gardens, and at the boy sleeping. He texted Rachel –
I love you, goodnight
– and listened to his son breathe. In out, in out.

Twelve minutes past seven and the boy had his hands on the bars of the cot, prisoner crying in foggy morning light. Dean picked up the boy, held him to his chest and the boy made clicks and dada noises with his mouth. The nappy was full; sweet and rotten, like old apples. More clicks and more dada. He looked down at the boy. At Jack. The boy would not hold his gaze; he went rigid as Dean wiped him down. He wriggled and tried to turn over.

His scream was siren-loud and sharp. The second and third the same. Three of them, short burst, long shriek, short burst.

‘Jackie,' he said. ‘Come on, quiet now.'

The boy still would not look at him. Short burst, long shriek, short burst. Dean smiled and gurned and made noises. One long shriek now. Still the boy would not look at him.
I'm not even sure I would recognize my mother and father
.

Dressed after a long and bitter fight over socks and a jumper, Jack sat in his high chair. The television was tuned to a children's channel. They tried not to have it on, but
they couldn't argue with the fact it soothed him. Dean heated porridge in the microwave, warmed milk on the stove.

‘Everything okay?' Rachel said. He had the phone crooked in his neck as he sliced a banana.

Her hotel room would already be untidy, messy without him around.

‘Yes,' he said. ‘Did you sleep well?'

‘Not really,' she said. ‘He's eaten his breakfast?'

‘I'm just heating it up now.'

‘Check it's not too hot. Be sure to stir it up well.'

‘I know,' he said.

‘Are you sure everything's all right?' she asked.

‘I didn't sleep well either,' he said.

‘Oh, love. To be expected, though, don't you think?'

‘I'm sure you're right.'

‘Put him down for his nap at nine.'

‘I know.'

‘What time are you heading over to Andy's?'

‘Just after he's had his nap.'

‘Don't let poor Lena look after all the kids while you watch the football.'

‘I won't,' he said.

‘I need to go,' she said. ‘I love you so, so much.'

Long, long shriek.

‘I love you too,' he said.

Jack took the milk and ate the porridge and didn't once look at his father, his eyes only for the television. He was sick after eating, his clothes covered in it. Dean looked at his watch. Under two hours before nap time.

‘Your mummy will be home tomorrow,' Dean said after two hours of screams, soft play, watching the boy crawl. Jack was chewing on his rubber giraffe, its hoof, its neck. Dean pulled down the blind and put the boy in his sleep suit. ‘She'll be back and it'll all be good. Sleep time, now, yes?'

The boy went down without complaint. Dean watched Jack breathe as he ran through what he needed to do before the boy woke again. Rachel had made a list of what needed doing and most of it was focused within this two-hour period. Lunch and dinner preparation, unloading the washing machine and reloading it. He looked at Jack and at the baby monitor. Its plastic speaker, the snub aerial.

‘Oh for fuck's sake,' he said and closed the door behind him. He turned on the monitor when he got to the foot of the stairs. He put the monitor on the kitchen counter and began the washing up. He unloaded the washing machine, hung out the clothes on the airer. He put in a new load and set it to 40 degrees, added a detergent tablet and turned the dial.

‘I never hated my parents,' the recording said. ‘Hate is too emotive a word. Pity is the word I would use. Pity, yes. I pitied them.'

Interference. Nothing more. Something to do with frequencies.

‘I pitied my parents,' the recording said. ‘Pitied them even before I knew what the word meant. I know I said I remember nothing of them, but just saying that has made me recall something. They would take me to Sunday school. I had forgotten this, but it is true: Sunday school. And I was sitting reading a magazine. In the magazine was a cartoon of a boy saying to another boy, “Your drawing's good,” but he was thinking, “But not as good as mine.” And next to this was another cartoon with the same scene but the boy saying, “Aren't our paintings good?” and thinking, “Together our paintings are really great,” and underneath it said: W
HO
WOULD
G
OD BE HAPPIEST WITH?
I didn't know the answer. I could not understand what God would want me to do. Because the first panel, the one I knew was the supposed “wrong” answer, was truthfully what I would have done. It was like God had looked into my soul and found me wanting. He had found me wanting, and found me pitying my own parents: “Your lives are good, but they're not as good as mine.”'