Half-truths & White Lies Page 7

  The story that I told Andrea as she recovered in hospital was a truth of sorts. One over-simplified version of a potted history of what was a very complicated relationship. It was certainly the truth that I thought she needed to hear. There are things that are better left unsaid. I honestly believe that it is unfair to unburden yourself on another soul when you have no idea how they will deal with that information – if they are capable of processing it at all. I grew up in a decade where free love was supposedly acceptable (although I saw little of it) but talking about feelings was completely foreign. Besides, it would have been quite inappropriate for me, as her godfather, to tell her any more.

  I have spent years looking into her eyes and at times it has felt as if I am looking into a mirror, seeing a reflection of my own emotions. With her, I have experienced a little of the love that I hoped I would feel one day for a child of my own. I spoilt her because I never ad the opportunity to spoil my own child. Occasionally I have wondered: 'What if?' The great question that haunts all of us. I suspect that I may have a longer list of what ifs than most, but human beings are so much more complex than the labels we like to saddle them with. Even Andrea, whom I like to think of as one of the most honest and decent people I could hope to meet. I know that I only see the side of her she chooses to show me. I expect that she too has moments when she battles with her demons.

  I hope with all my heart that if she discovers our story, she will realize that there was love at its centre and that it was strong enough to survive whatever the individuals put each other through, whether in the heat of the moment, intentionally, or in jealousy. Love has many faces. It is not always as pure as St Paul would have us believe and I have found it to be both a blessing and a curse, but I wouldn't have missed out on it for all the world. You cannot appreciate the moments of joy unless you accept the pain that comes hand in hand with them.

  In telling you my story, I will try to do away with any embellishments I have added with time. I will try to strip it back to the bare facts – if I can remember what they were. It's such a long time ago that I can barely recognize the person that I was.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Looking back, it seems that missing persons have always had a huge influence on my life.

  An only child, I was born in 1952 and christened Jonathan Augustus Churcher after my father's identical twin brother. I grew up with the vague explanation that Uncle Jonathan had been 'lost' in the war. I remembered the terror of getting lost in a department store after breaking free from my mother's tight grasp on my wrist. The humiliation of wearing reins meant nothing to me after that.

  'Who's looking for Uncle Jonathan?' I asked my mother once.

  'Shhhhh!' She glared at me, a finger raised to her lips.

  On another occasion when he had been mentioned, I suggested as sympathetically as I could, 'I expect they'll find him soon.'

  'Jonnie.' My mother shepherded me out of the sitting room door with both hands. 'Go and play in your room.'

  As soon as I had a clearer understanding, the idea of being named after a much-loved brother who had died a hero's death struck me as quite a responsibility. My father had returned from the war physically unscathed but haunted by what he had seen – and probably by what he found himself capable of. In those days his condition was referred to in hushed tones as shell-shock. Sufferers either put on a brave face and got on with life as best they could or hid themselves away. Now we have given it a far grander title: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and, having such a grand title to describe it, people can be far more open about it without fear of showing weakness.

  My father changed from a good-humoured, even-tempered young man to one who looked considerably older than his years and was alternately withdrawn and uncommunicative or demanding and volatile.

  'Quiet! Quiet!' he would yell, covering his ears, even though there was nothing louder than the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece that could have caused his distress. 'Can't you stop that confounded noise?'

  My mother would come running, assuming that I had done something to disturb his peace.

  'Jonnie, why don't you come and help me in the kitchen and leave your father to his paper?' she would suggest, steering me by the shoulder.

  I almost preferred his explosions to the silences that took him as he shut himself away from the world in the parlour for days on end without so much as a book for company. Then, nothing and no one could reach him.

  'Take your father this nice cup of tea,' my mother would encourage me, standing behind me at the door. 'And while you're at it, why don't you tell him what we did at the park?'

  'We fed the ducks,' I explained slowly, so that he would understand.

  'Yes, we did, didn't we?' My mother patted my head.

  'Take him away, darling.' He stared into the empty fireplace. 'I don't want him to see me like this.'

  His sadness permeated the very fabric of our house. I imagined it circulating perpetually, like the cigarette smog that stained the ceilings and my father's hands indiscriminately. His moods dictated our family life. I learned to monitor them and modify my behaviour, in the same way that you would check the weather forecast before deciding what to wear in the morning. Make hay while the sun shines. Tornado warning: batten down the hatches. Showers expected: remember your umbrella.

  It was obvious that he came to regret breaking with the family tradition of calling the first-born son Frederick. I think that it was one of the ways that he chose to punish himself. There were times when my father could barely bring himself to use my name. He developed a stutter as he tried to say 'J-Jonnie.' It must have been quite pronounced because when I learned to say my own name it was with a definite double 'j'. None of this escaped my mother, who feared that he was distancing himself from me. Even she was wary of using my full name, as parents tend to when they want to put the fear of God into you, concerned about the effect this would have on my father. I learned to fear her whispers far more than the times when she raised her voice. It was only in a sharp whisper that she ever called me Jonathan Augustus Churcher: such a big name for a small child, and a sure sign of what was coming my way.

  She played around with various shortened versions when I was small, but each prompted a different but distinct memory and a similar reaction: the slight but noticeable pained expression, and a distinct change in the atmospheric pressure.

  Brought up in a house where nobody explained anything, especially to a child, I spent my early years studying my uncle's grinning photograph, trying to imagine how he would have aged so that I could form a search party of my own. I could detect the distress on my father's face when his brother was mentioned in conversation and he was unprepared for the intrusion. I had long since given up hope that anyone else would make an effort to find poor, lost Uncle Jonathan and I felt that, as his namesake, it was my duty.

  Once, as a seven-year-old on a rare trip to a crowded beach, I was convinced that I saw him up ahead and started running to follow a man who changed direction frequently and easily outstrode me. I ended up completely disorientated, trying in vain to find the way back to my starting point. The problem with beaches is that everything constantly shifts. I didn't appreciate that the tide was going out. By the time I wanted to return to my parents, the beach had grown and its population had expanded. Following the waterline, I was actually moving further and further away from them.

  Just as despair was about to set in, I saw a small hut with the words 'Lost and Found' on it. I picked my way over the tangle of limbs to a kindly soul sitting at the door in a deckchair and announced, 'I'm looking for my Uncle Jonathan.'

  'Is that who you came with today, lovey?' she asked.

  'No, I'm with my parents, but it's my Uncle Jonathan who's lost. Isn't this where all the lost people come?' I danced from side to side to try to look past her into the hut, where a number of children were sitting on wooden slatted benches anchored firmly in the sand. There wasn't another adult in sight.

  'That's right, da
rling. And where are your mummy and daddy?'

  'Over there.' I pointed vaguely with a circular motion.

  'I think you'd better stay here with us. This is where they'll come if they can't find you.'

  I joined the other children, certain that the reason that we had come to the seaside was to look for Uncle Jonathan, and proud to have been clever enough to locate the Lost and Found first. Surely it would only be a matter of time before he turned up? But my initial optimism subsided as the day wore on and my thoughts turned to how disappointed my father would be and the effect that this would have on him. It later turned out that this misery was nothing compared with the thrashing I'd receive after explaining the reason for my disappearance.

  It was not just the punishment that upset me, although it was about the worst I had received in all of my seven years. I simply didn't understand what I had done to deserve it. I truly hated my father for failing to appreciate that I had been trying to do something nice for him. And I hated my mother too for not standing up for me and making him understand.

  As I lay face-down on my pillow in bed that night, I heard the door opening and feared that I was in for it again. I clenched my eyes shut and pretended to be asleep, but instead of a harsh hand, I felt my hair being stroked.

  'Jonnie,' my mother whispered softly (a good sign), 'you must understand how worried we were about you. You must never wander off and get lost like that again. Anything could have happened to you.'

  'Is that what happened to Uncle Jonathan?' I asked in all innocence, imagining him lost among armies of men, trying to find his way through to the person in charge.

  'Jonathan Augustus!' Her tone changed to one of anger. 'You got lost today. Uncle Jonathan was left behind in the war.' And then I think the penny must have dropped, because her voice lost its harshness. In avoiding the words that might have caused further anguish for my father, she hadn't thought to make things clear enough for me to understand. 'You do know that Uncle Jonathan was killed in the war, don't you? He's dead, Jonnie. And I don't think your father will ever get over it.'

  Dead? But he was a war hero who had saved the lives of countless others. How could he be dead? Heroes didn't die, did they? Certainly not in the comic books I read.

  Then something strange happened. I became aware that my mother was openly sobbing and she lay down on the bed beside me. I had never seen her with her guard down before and I watched with fascination as the hate melted away into something closer to pity. Displays of feelings like this were rare in our house. The only person who was allowed to be upset or annoyed was my father.

  After a while had passed, I announced, 'I think I will be called Peter from now on,' picking the first name that came to mind. I had no idea where the thought came from until the words came out of my mouth. Once out, I wasn't sure I should have said them.

  My mother sat up on the bed, wiped her eyes with her hands and straightened her clothes, before saying, 'Do you know, I think that's a very good idea. Peter. Yes, I think we can live with that.' She clung to the name, as pleased as if she had thought of the idea herself. 'Peter Churcher. That's not too bad at all.'

  I have no idea what discussions took place behind closed doors that night, but I was never called Jonathan or Jonnie or John at home again. Not by my parents or any family members, or by my teachers in school. Overnight, I became plain Peter Churcher, and it was about as liberating an experience as a seven-year-old is capable of.

  I don't want you to think of my father as an unkind man or a bad father. I appreciated his moments of kindness all the more, because I knew that they didn't come naturally to him. It used to frustrate him that I spent so much time admiring his brother's photograph. The grin on Uncle Jonathan's face almost seemed out of place in our gloomy sitting room. Occasionally, my father would rise from his olive armchair, walk slowly to the fireplace and turn the photograph to face the wall, saying nothing. It was my mother who would pipe up, 'That's enough for today, Peter.'

  One day I went into the sitting room to find that the photograph was gone. Before I could help myself, I blurted out, 'Where's Uncle Jonathan?' I recoiled instantly with the shock of the sound of my own voice, waiting for my father's reaction. The clickity-click of my mother's knitting needles stopped, suspended in the air, and I could see that she was holding her breath.

  My father took the cigarette from his mouth and exhaled slowly, then said, 'He's exactly where he belongs, son. I've found him a new home.'

  I had surprised myself so much by my outburst that I didn't feel able to ask where that home might be, although I strongly suspected that it was somewhere I would no longer be able to look at him. It was with sadness and heavy feet that I trudged up the stairs to my room, to find it lit with the yellow glow of my bedside lamp. There, under the lamp's halo, was the photograph, tilted at an angle so that I would be able to see it when lying down in bed. My father, who very rarely entered my bedroom, was standing in the doorway behind me. I hadn't heard him follow me in his carpet slippers.

  'You approve, I hope,' he said seriously. 'I know you'll take good care of him.'

  'Oh, yes!' I nodded, picking up the picture by the frame. I wanted to thank him, but he disappeared just as silently and the moment passed. I was careful to put the photograph back in the exact same position he had placed it. It struck me later that he must have lain down on my bed to work out where it needed to go and I imagined that I could still see his imprint on the covers. Lying down inside my father's outline and staring at his brother's photograph was the closest that we came to a physical embrace before the days of manly handshakes and backslaps.

  As Jonathan Augustus Churcher, I could only have disappointed my father. As Peter Churcher, I was capable of a far closer relationship with him than we would have otherwise enjoyed. Despite this, the uncle that I never met remained the most interesting character in our family history for me. I find it sad that I know so little about him, as my father volunteered only snippets of information. Once I no longer had need of it, the name Jonathan became almost taboo in our house. For the most part, the image that I have of my uncle is the product of my imagination. But how clear that image is, even now! I do know that he hoped to follow a career in the legal profession. And that there was only ever one woman for Jonathan: his childhood sweetheart, Betty, whom he'd met at school and loved from the moment he clapped eyes on her.

  I met Betty once when she was well into her sixties. She turned up at a family gathering.

  'On a whim,' she said, after introducing herself, and directed her gaze at the back of my father's head. 'I wondered if enough time had passed. I don't think he knows me. Look at me! I hardly know myself.'

  Oh, he knows you all right, I thought to myself. Just look how skilfully he's avoiding you.

  She had never married, never had children and didn't seem to have aged at the same rate as those who had.

  'Tell me about my uncle,' I asked her. 'What was he like?'

  She replied simply, 'He was my Jonnie,' as if I had asked the most extraordinary question. Now, of course, I know exactly how she felt. She was not interested in Jonnie the man of action, Jonnie the war hero.

  I recognized a kindred spirit. A person for whom the most important person in her life had been absent for most of it, who had lived with the thoughts of what might have been.

  'When I was a child,' I told her, 'no one was prepared to tell me what had happened, so they just said he was lost.' I went on to tell her about my childhood misunderstanding and my change of name.

  'You shouldn't have stopped looking for him.' She smiled. 'I never have. Occasionally I see him, too. It was him on the beach that day. I'm absolutely sure of it.'

  Chapter Fourteen

  Laura Albury. I wish I could tell you exactly when I first met her, but I can certainly remember how it happened. If I had known at the time how important that meeting was, I would have written down the date. Instead, I just wrote her name repeatedly in the margins of exercise books.

  A
t St Winifred's School, it was the rule that anyone who had arrived late had to go and report to the secretary's office immediately. Ironically, they would have to queue there until the secretary had time to deal with them, making them even later for the start of lessons and resulting in an unreasonably severe ticking off in front of classmates. This may well have been a deliberate ploy, to make us understand what it is like to be kept waiting by someone who seems to have no respect for the value of your time. If it was, it was lost on us.

  Laura and I had both run from the school gates to the double doors of the main school entrance, arriving at much the same time. I was nervous at the thought of being late, a blot on my otherwise immaculate record. We collided as we both stretched our arms out to push the doors inwards. A flash of white-blonde hair and Laura dazzled me with one of her trademark smiles.

  'You first.' I gestured, an automatic response given the circumstances, despite my growing need to use the toilet adding to the urgency of the situation. I was left holding the door, blinking rapidly, as if her image had been burned into my retina and I could see that mesmerizing smile with every single blink.

  It was several seconds later that I joined her in the queue.

  'I thought you'd done a bunk,' she turned round to say, still smiling.

  'And miss all this?' I mumbled, feeling myself redden. I was not the sort of boy that girls talked to, especially very pretty blonde girls. I wasn't equipped with the small talk or the repertoire of witty replies that seemed to be called for.