The doctor is about to speak, but Daddy stops him. ‘It’s nothing.’
‘What’s wrong with you?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Stop saying that,’ I snap.
Constance returns, clutching a small brown glass bottle. Dr Carmichael shakes two pills into my father’s hand, and I fill a water glass, but Constance takes the jug from me, using her hip to nudge me aside. I’m the visitor. She’s the queen.
The pills are swallowed. Colour returns to his cheeks.
‘Let me look at you,’ he says, motioning me closer. ‘You’re the spitting image of your mum. Did I ever tell you the story about—’
Before he can finish, the library door bangs open and Finbar charges into the room as though he’s rescuing a hostage. Daragh and Clifton are trying to hold him back.
Finbar is the youngest and tallest of my uncles, with a shaved and oiled scalp and a bushranger beard.
‘Where is he?’ he bellows.
‘I’m ’ere, Fin,’ says my father. ‘Keep your pants on.’
Finbar isn’t satisfied until he has hugged my father and taken an inventory. Daddy humours him and then tells everyone to get out and ‘leave me alone with my daughter’。
Finbar does a cartoon double-take when he recognises me. A moment later, I’m hoisted off the ground and crushed in his arms, smelling his aftershave and breath mints and something metallic like Brasso.
My feet are scrabbling on the floor. Why do these men keep picking me up like a ragdoll?
‘Put me down.’
‘You’ll have to arrest me first.’
‘I can arrange that.’
Daddy looks at my uncles and sighs tiredly. ‘There’s a free bar outside – what are you tossers doing ’ere?’
13
I am alone with my father for the first time since I was seventeen. He pours himself a drink from a varnished wooden cabinet with rows of elegantly shaped bottles. Single malts mainly with descriptors that sound like fairy tale dwarfs. Creamy. Peaty. Grassy. Woody. Smoky.
‘Should you be drinking?’ I ask.
‘It’s my birthday.’
He swallows and pours another. His pale face is puffy and strangely weather-beaten, with wrinkles that branch out from his eyes like tiny river deltas on a flood plain. He has always been a strong man, hardened by exercise and ambition, with a deep rumbling voice that makes everyone around him sound like they’re inhaling helium.
‘So, what’s new?’ he asks.
‘Is that the best you can do?’
‘I’m glad you came.’
‘What’s wrong with you?’
‘I’m getting old.’
‘Is there something wrong with your heart?’
‘You broke it. Now it’s fixed.’
‘Don’t you dare guilt me.’
The harshness in my voice seems to shock him. I take a seat on the sofa. He wants to sit next to me, but I point to a different chair.
‘How is your mum?’ he asks.
‘Hating you is keeping her young.’
He smiles wryly. ‘I have angina. Sounds like Angelina, doesn’t it? I had a girlfriend called Angelina – lovely she was. I used to take her to the pictures at the Hackney Empire. Double-bill. Back row. She had really soft—’
‘Daddy!’
‘Hands,’ he says, grinning. ‘What did you think I was gonna say?’
‘I am your daughter.’
‘I thought you’d resigned that commission.’
‘I tried. What’s wrong with your heart?’
‘Too many fags and full English breakfasts. My arteries are clogged. Should have seen it coming. Your grandad had a heart attack at fifty-two. It’s in my whatsits, you know.’
‘Genes.’
‘Yeah, but you won’t have to worry until you hit menopause.’
‘Thanks for the heads-up. When is the surgery?’
He gives me a non-committal shrug.
‘You are having the surgery?’
‘Right now, I’m busier than a one-legged arse kicker. This Covid-whatsit has put us months behind, plus the banks are up to their usual fuckery.’
‘You have three brothers. Delegate.’
‘They’re not project managers. And if the banks get word of my condition, they could pull their loans.’ He takes the bottle of pills from the table and rattles them. ‘These things are the dog’s bollocks: nitroglycerin. It’s the same shit they use to blow stuff up, but in small doses it widens the arteries and nourishes the ticker. Know who discovered it?’
I shake my head.
‘Alfred Nobel. Same geezer who gives out them prizes for science and medicine and world peace.’
‘How long can you delay the surgery?’ I ask.
‘Few months.’ He glances at the door. ‘Constance doesn’t know. None of them do.’
‘Why are you telling me?’
‘I’ve never been able to lie to you.’
‘That’s a crock of shit.’
He smiles sheepishly. ‘Constance would drive me crazy; and the boys would do something stupid.’ He is close to me now. He reaches out and tries to take my hand. This time I don’t pull away. ‘This has to be our secret, OK? You can’t tell anyone.’
‘Only if you promise to have the surgery.’
‘I will.’
‘And I need something else. A place to stay. Somewhere off the grid.’
‘What have you done?’
‘Not for me. A friend.’
‘Doesn’t Scotland Yard have safe houses?’
‘She’s not a witness. She’s a victim of domestic abuse. The man who beat her up is a police officer who might still be looking for her.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘That’s not important.’
‘If I’m going to help this woman …’
‘Darren Goodall.’
Recognition seems to flare in his eyes.
‘Do you know him?’ I ask.
He doesn’t answer. ‘How long do you need a place?’
‘Until he loses interest.’
I feel a dull throbbing in my head – the beginnings of a hangover that can be curtailed by more champagne or a big glass of water or maybe food.
‘Have the police spoken to you?’ I ask.
‘About what?’
‘Dylan Holstein.’
He looks at me blankly.
‘Don’t play dumb.’
A sigh. A dismissive shrug. ‘He wrote a few bullshit stories about me.’
‘You dumped a truckload of building waste outside his house.’
A smile. ‘I thought that was rather creative.’
‘He was found dead last night. Someone wrapped chains around his chest and weighted him down with breeze blocks, before throwing him in the river.’
I am studying his face. It’s like watching a comedy and tragedy mask in Greek theatre.
‘What are you suggesting, Philomena?’
‘The detective in charge of the investigation is outside your gate.’
Daddy’s eyebrows almost knit together but just as quickly equanimity returns and his features soften.
‘I know what people say about me, Phil, but most of the stories are apocryphal. This country is obsessed with gangsters, geezers and guns. I blame Guy Ritchie.’