The Missing Man

by Nathan Dylan Goodwin

  His meandering thoughts of Margaret snapped like a twig when Alice tapped on his door. He knew that it was her from the light tap, tap, tap, that she always did. He hastily shoved the letter and photograph back into the drawer then called: ‘Come in.’

  Alice stepped in and pushed the door closed behind her. He could tell that she was anxious about something; her eyes always gave her away. They were chestnut brown—just like his but more striking, somehow. He could always tell if he’d annoyed or upset her, just from a quick look into her eyes.

  ‘What’s up?’ he asked, drawing his knees to his chest.

  ‘You,’ she answered, sitting in the space where his feet had been.

  ‘Me?’

  Alice ran her fingers through her thick curly hair and faced him. ‘I’ve got a plan,’ she said, taking a long, dramatic breath. ‘You come with me back to college—get yourself a job in the city someplace—until you figure out what it is that you want to do with your life. You can sleep on the floor in my room until you get yourself sorted out.’ She stood up and added: ‘Come on, I’ll help you pack.’

  Jack reached out, grabbed her hand and pulled her back down beside him. ‘It’s real sweet of you, Ali, but no; I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’ she said, her eyes conveying her disappointment.

  ‘I can’t just run away like that. I need to stay here and figure things out.’ He placed a hand in between her shoulder blades. ‘I’ll be okay—really. I’m twenty, for God’s sake!’

  ‘And what—you’re going to live here forever?’ she jibed.

  ‘Probably,’ Jack answered with a laugh.

  ‘What are you going to do tonight?’ Alice asked. ‘Come downstairs and watch M*A*S*H?’

  ‘I think I’ll pass.’

  ‘You mean you don’t want to hear Dad’s it-wasn’t-actually-like-that-in-Korea comments?’

  ‘Tempting, but no. I’ll read for a bit then get an early night.’

  ‘Me too—once I’ve finished packing.’ Alice stood and made for the door.

  ‘Thanks for coming in,’ Jack said.

  ‘I was serious, you know.’

  She was serious, too; again, her eyes said so. He nodded and watched her leave. Then he lay back down, placing his hands behind his head, as his thoughts returned to his time in England with Margaret.

  The next morning, the house was filled with mildly chaotic activity. The snow had stopped falling at some point in the night and the sun was pushing through the kitchen window, harsh and bright. Jack was sitting at the breakfast table, sipping coffee while his sister, mom and dad flapped around the place preparing to get Alice back to Boston. His dad was loading the car; Alice was finalising her packing and his mom was hauling yet another tray of cakes out of the oven.

  Not for the first time that morning, Jack’s gaze had fallen onto the five storage boxes lined up neatly by the kitchen door. At first, when his dad had brought them up from the basement, Jack had presumed that they were going to Boston with Alice. But then his dad had revealed that they were the boxes of junk awaiting collection.

  Several minutes later, after Jack had said goodbye to his sister, he took advantage of the opportunity of his mom waving them off to take a look inside the boxes.

  He peered inside the first one—the only one labelled ‘private’ and removed a bundle of official-looking papers. Certificates and insurances, by the looks of things. He thumbed through the stack, pausing briefly with each new document. Why on earth his parents were getting rid of such important paperwork was a mystery. He continued flicking through tax and car records, stopping suddenly at an official-looking certificate. He caught sight of his dad’s name.

  ‘What’s that you’ve got there?’ his mom asked, suddenly appearing in the kitchen.

  Jack quickly concertinaed the papers back together. ‘Are you sure you want to get rid of these? They seem pretty important, if you ask me.’

  ‘Oh my goodness!’ she said, snatching the papers and placing them back inside the box. She carried it to the other side of the room, muttering as she went. ‘Your dad—honestly.’

  ‘Do you want me to take it back down to the basement for you?’ Jack suggested, wanting to get another look at what he had just seen.

  ‘Oh, no—I’ll do that. But you could check the rest of the boxes for me—make sure your dad didn’t bring any others up that he shouldn’t have.’

  Jack knelt beside the other boxes. As he removed the lids, he tried to recall what he had just seen among the official family paperwork. The isolated words that he had glimpsed before his mom had derailed his thoughts didn’t make any sense.

  ‘Are they the right ones?’ Velda asked.

  Jack looked inside them. ‘Yeah, I think so,’ he answered, picking through an assortment of items: candlesticks, old picture frames and a selection of unsightly ornaments. Opening the final box, he asked, ‘What’s all this?’ He carefully withdrew the contents, setting them down on the kitchen floor. Medals. Bullets. A leather map case. Dog tags. Ammunition pouches. A watch. A bayonet and scabbard.

  ‘Just old family stuff—my dad’s old war junk,’ Velda said, barely flicking her eyes in his direction. ‘Stuff that belongs in the past.’

  He removed the last item from the box—a First World War Colt M1909 handgun—and held it in his hands, slowly rotating it around and examining it in detail. As he looked down the scarred barrel, his mind began to slip into the imagined history of his grandfather’s war holding this very weapon. It fell to the fantasy of his mind to recreate the scene, for his mom and dad had always refused to be drawn on their family’s past. He didn’t even know in which theatre of war his grandfather had served. ‘Mom, what do you know about your dad’s time in the war?’ he tried again.

  ‘Oh, goodness, not more questions about the past. He died in the winter of the Great Depression, Jack, when I was three. What he did in the war is anyone’s guess.’

  ‘Did your mom never speak of it?’ Jack pushed.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t you want to know more about your ancestors?’

  ‘No, I really don’t,’ Velda said firmly. ‘The past is in the past—let’s leave it there, shall we.’

  Jack continued to examine the artefacts, as his mom busied herself with the mountain of washing up that had risen from her baking efforts this morning.

  The doorbell rang. ‘I’ll go,’ she said. ‘It’ll be Betty calling to collect me for church.’

  As his mom trundled to the front door, muttering something about Betty’s being far too early, Jack rushed over to the box containing the private papers. He quickly opened it and flicked through to the piece of paper that he had either imagined that he had seen, or that didn’t correlate at all with his known narrative of his family’s past. He found the certificate but had no time to read it: his mom’s voice at the door, brief and surprised, revealed that she was heading back inside.

  ‘Jack—it’s Laura,’ she called.

  Jack pocketed the certificate, set the lid down in place and strolled casually into the hallway, where he passed his mom. ‘Laura. What are you doing here?’

  ‘Well that sure is a nice greeting,’ she teased.

  Jack reached the front door, perplexed to see her. Whatever the reason for her visit, it was fleeting, for her red Plymouth Barracuda was parked up outside, the engine still running. ‘Sorry, I wasn’t expecting you.’

  ‘It’s a flying visit. My dad wants to see you.’

  ‘Your dad? Why? What have I done?’ Jack asked.

  ‘He’s got a job offer for you,’ she revealed in a hushed voice.

  ‘Oh. Doing what?’

  ‘You’ll have to wait and see. He’s expecting you today. Bye,’ she said, leaning in and kissing him on the cheek.

  Jack, slightly dumbstruck, watched her jog back down the steps, then give a little wave as she climbed into her car and drove off. He looked out over Hyannis Harbor, wondering what on earth sort of job her father could be going to offer him. As far
as Jack was aware, he had been retired for several years. ‘Mom, I’m going out. See you later.’

  Once clear of the house, Jack pulled the document from his pocket. It was a marriage certificate.

  He read it meticulously several times, but each reading added nothing to his understanding.

  Chapter Three

  15th August 2016, Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, USA

  Morton killed the engine of the hire car, silencing the whir of the air conditioning. He stepped out into a strange stillness that pervaded Iyanough Avenue, observing the run of exclusive detached homes that lined the water front. Each was distinctly different from the next, but all were cladded in white or grey weatherboarding and each came with an unobstructed view of Hyannis Harbor—now bustling with small private yachts. He had parked the car on a grass verge close to the driveway of 2239—the house in which his father had resided until his disappearance in 1976.

  Morton took out his mobile phone and took a series of photographs of the house and the street, then ducked his head back inside the car. ‘Wish me luck.’

  ‘Good luck,’ Juliette said.

  Morton strolled up towards the house as casually as he could, but inside he was trying to work out exactly what he was going to say. He hadn’t figured it out by the time he had pressed the doorbell.

  The door was opened quickly by a middle-aged man in a shirt, jeans and bare feet. ‘Hi,’ he greeted.

  ‘Hi, sorry to disturb you,’ Morton began, hurriedly removing his sunglasses. ‘I’m looking for—’

  ‘The Kennedy Compound?’ the man interjected. ‘It’s just at the end of this street, but unless you’re a very good friend of theirs, you’re not even going to get a glimpse of the place. Your best bet—’

  It was Morton’s turn to interrupt. ‘No, I’m not looking for the Kennedys—I’m looking for my father—he lived here in 1976—the year it burnt down…’

  ‘Oh, I see—forgive me—I thought you were another Kennedy tourist. People see the Kennedy house marked on Google maps and think that they can just drive right up to it and knock on the door. Sorry. So your dad lived here, you say huh?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. I was just wondering if you had any information about the fire, what happened, or…?’ As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Morton realised how silly they sounded. ‘I know it’s a long shot,’ he added.

  The man shook his head. ‘We moved here back in 1994. I mean the place was completely rebuilt before we even got here.’ He stepped to one side. ‘You’re welcome to come take a look around, but there’s literally nothing of the original house left. From what I can gather it was razed to the ground.’

  ‘No, it’s okay—thank you. I knew it wasn’t very likely, but thought it was worth a try.’

  ‘Didn’t someone die in the fire?’ the man asked.

  ‘Yeah, my grandfather—my father disappeared soon afterwards and now I’m trying to find him.’

  ‘Wow—you’ve sure got your work cut out. I just don’t have anything here that relates to the old house—not even any old paperwork or anything.’

  ‘I didn’t really expect that you would,’ Morton acknowledged.

  ‘I’m just trying to think if there’s anyone in the neighbourhood who was here back then and there’s just nobody that I can think of, sorry. The neighbours on either side of us are all relatively new.’

  ‘Don’t worry—thanks for your time, though. I’ll leave you to it.’

  ‘Okay. Well, I hope you find the answers you’re looking for.’

  Morton ambled slowly down the drive, absorbing his surroundings. He paused before he climbed into the car, taking in the view before him—exactly the same view as his father would have seen every day until he vanished forty years ago. He turned back to the house and imagined it as it would have been on that fateful Christmas Eve. Snow on the ground. Darkness but for the flames eating the house from the inside out. His father watching the building collapse. His grandfather trapped inside. What happened next? Morton knew that his father had gone to stay with a friend in the next street, from where he had written his final letter to Morton’s mother. It was time to go and visit that house.

  ‘No joy?’ Juliette asked, as he climbed back into the car and fired up the engine.

  ‘No—they don’t know anything. He said I could go inside and take a look around, but what’s the point? I might as well look in any old random place on the street.’

  ‘Where to now?’

  ‘Ocean Avenue—not far away.’

  ‘Where your dad stayed after the fire?’

  ‘Yep.’

  It took less than two minutes to get there. As Morton swung into the drive, he knew he was in for another disappointment. The house was crippled by years—possibly decades—of abandonment. Among the wild undergrowth rose a broad grey three-storey building. On the floor around it were puddles of smashed glass, the open cavities an access point for a range of vermin now treating this place as home. Something—whether deliberate or natural—had torn a large hole in the roof, exposing the inside to further destruction.

  ‘Looks like the owner might be out,’ Juliette quipped.

  Morton shot her a strong look. ‘I’ll just have a peek inside.’

  ‘Please don’t,’ she begged, ‘I can’t save you over here.’

  It was a fair point; she had come to his rescue on multiple occasions back in England. ‘I’ll be two minutes,’ he promised. ‘And I won’t leave your sight.’

  ‘Just to warn you—I won’t pay the bail.’

  Morton grinned, closed the car door and walked up the steps to the porch. He tried the front door. Locked, though God only knew why; anyone with the remotest inclination could easily have gained access. He peered through a narrow, glass-less window beside the door. As expected, the inside was dilapidated, ripped apart and, in places, burned. If he’d been alone, he would have climbed inside, just to see it for himself, to stand on the very floorboards upon which his father had also once stood.

  He stepped from the porch and looked at the upstairs rooms. His father had slept up there, somewhere. But whose house was this? And where did his father go from here? This ramshackle building was his final clue. He stared at the house and, for the first time since leaving England, doubt crept into his mind. They were on honeymoon for three weeks, but with the final week being spent in New York. That gave him just one week and six days to find his father. A massive challenge, now that he was actually here, facing yet more setbacks.

  ‘I’ll find you,’ he whispered under his breath, turning from the house back towards the car. He climbed in and added the next destination to the GPS: Oak Neck Cemetery. Four minutes.

  ‘What’s there?’ Juliette asked. ‘Or who’s there, should I say?’

  ‘My grandfather—possibly my grandmother, too, for all I know,’ he replied, pulling out onto the quiet back streets of Hyannis Port.

  The sprawling green lawns of Oak Neck Cemetery spilled down to meet the roadside. Morton drew the car to a stop and they both climbed out. The cemetery was large but the gravestones were sporadic, which didn’t bode well for him. In England, a sparsely memorialised cemetery was usually an indication that below the perfect lawns were thousands of unmarked graves.

  ‘You take that half in the sun and I’ll take this half in the shade?’ Juliette suggested with a smile.

  ‘Done. Remember—any Jacklin graves at all—give me a shout.’

  He watched with a pang of tenderness, as Juliette made for the first memorials, seeming to float in her white summer dress and floppy straw hat. He really was a lucky man to have married her.

  He turned to the first headstone. Dolloff, large letters shouted from the top of the granite. That was one good thing about modern American headstones—there was no need to get right up close in order to determine the name of the deceased. He moved along past a large pine tree to the next two stones. Clark and Walton, both replete with small American flags. Then he moved to the next row. Five more gr
aves—none of them correct.

  He wiped the sweat from his brow and marched along the next line. There were more graves here, but none for which he was searching.

  ‘Morton!’

  He turned to see Juliette waving frantically at him. She pointed animatedly to the grave beside her. ‘Look!’ She’d found it. Despite the debilitating heat, he ran towards her. He reached her and glanced at the nearby graves. There was something he clearly wasn’t getting. ‘Isn’t that a funny name? Geoffrey S. Skull—Geoffrey’s Skull?’

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘It’s funny,’ Juliette defended.

  ‘Hmm,’ Morton mumbled humourlessly, as he walked back to continue his search.

  More rows of graves with names other than that for which he searched.

  Then, a few minutes later, Juliette called out again. ‘Here.’

  ‘Is it his headstone or another funny one?’ Morton shouted before he bothered to traipse over to her.

  ‘It’s his—Roscoe Jacklin.’

  Morton didn’t run this time, but, even before he got close to her, he could see the name etched into a low gravestone: Jacklin.

  ‘It’s him,’ Juliette repeated, as he reached her. ‘Your grandfather.’