Looking for Mrs Dextrose

by Nick Griffiths

  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 th
e 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?

  I tried to drive into town but the place was heaving, so we parked just outside. The streets were thronged with families, who seemed to be gathering for an event. They ate chips from paper cones and children sucked on ice-lollies, though the moon was out. Flags had been tied between all the lampposts lining the promenade and coloured lights added a festive glow to our route. Out across the sand the waves slurped over shingle and moonshine sprinkled magic dust out at sea.

  Dritt-on-Sea was buzzing. That definitely wasn’t how I had remembered it.

  As we wandered down the main street into town, I heard a sound that took me right back. ‘Ting-ting!’ – it came from behind me, and when I turned I saw that train I had remembered from all those years ago. It was a tram. Of course: a train driving through the town. A tram! Not the biggest of trams, more a tourist attraction fit for a couple of dozen passengers, boxy and blue, with its headlights on. At my feet was track laid into the tarmac.

  ‘Ting-ting!’ went the tram again. I could have listened to that sound all night, floating among the least troubled memories of childhood, reliving moments when I was carefree and my socks came up to my knees.

  Dad still shuffled rather, and I had to button up his overcoat over that prison garb, lest people mistake him for some sort of criminal.

  “Have you recognised anything yet?” I asked.

  “Too many minking people,” he grumbled, though I failed to see how that affected his memory.

  Tapping the nearest adult male on the shoulder, I said, “Excuse me. Is there some sort of event tonight?” It struck me that, not so long ago, I would never have actively spoken to a stranger.

  “Don’t you know?” he replied. He had a long face, was bald and looked like a vicar. “It’s Moren Day…”

  He studied me expectantly, as if I might suddenly exclaim, “Of course! Moren Day!”

  When I didn’t, he explained: “The Moren’s a mythical sea creature that eats fishing boats. On Moren Day the Dritters banish it from the waves with flaming torches – not that there’s been a fishing industry here for 20 years.” He paused. “You’re not a local, then?”

  “No,” I said.

  He smiled. “The torchlight parade starts at eight. Don’t miss it,” he said. “You won’t be allowed a torch if you’re not from Dritt, though.”

  We followed the flow of human traffic heading into the centre of town. While enjoying the atmosphere, I was also aware that we had nowhere to sleep and time was marching alongside us. Dad was proving no help at all.

  Then a brainwave hit me. Why take Mohammed to the mountain? If Dad were unlikely to recognise anyone, perhaps someone else might recognise him? And where better to enquire than in a place that sold alcohol? He must have been once known in every hostelry in town.

  There was the obvious and major snag: dare I take him into a pub? Then again, dare I try to leave him outside?

  We passed into a narrow street, inadequate for the number of revellers, shoulders everywhere and a back-pack in the face. I had to keep checking behind me, that Dad hadn’t been dragged backwards amid the sea of people, and downwards to ensure I didn’t tread on a small child. Claustrophobia began setting in. When I spotted diamond-shaped lead lights to my left, a mass of bodies behind the glass, knowing it must be a pub I made a snap decision.

  Grabbing Dad’s collar, I pulled him inside. If the scent of hops hit me, it must have assaulted him.

  His eyes grew very wide and he was gritting his teeth. His face had gone white, even the scar tissue.

  “Are you alright?”

  “No,” he managed.

  I reached for his hand, which was shaking. He pulled it away.

  “I’m going to ask at the bar, see if anyone knows you. You can wait outside if you want.”

  He stiffened. “I minking will not!” He be
gan parting drinkers on his way to the bar, like Moses through the crimson-nosed.

  Clutching on to his coattails I was dragged along with him. The three bar staff, all wearing ‘Moren Day’ T-shirts featuring a sea-serpent drawn by a small child, were working on the edge of panic. Nearest to us was a woman furiously chewing gum, in her early-twenties with straight blonde hair pulled so tightly back she looked like she’d had a facelift.

  I got in before Dad could order, pointing at him: “Excuse me! Do you know who this is?”

  She surveyed me oddly. “Why don’t you ask him yourself?”

  I hadn’t phrased it right. “No, no, I know who he is…”

  “You’re weird,” she said, and turned her attention to Dad. “Yes?”

  Time stopped. It was as if I were observing the bar from up among the old rafters, and everyone had turned to stare, anticipating his response.

  He took a breath. “Ah, what the mink,” he blurted, on the exhale. “I’ll have a minking… what d’yer call it? Cooler?”

  Cola? Cola! He wanted a minking cola!As I slapped his back, embarrassingly happy, a voice came: “Harry? Harry Dextrose?”

  A porky chap in his sixties, belly bursting from an old-bloke shirt, slacks and comb-over, was standing in a doorway behind the bar. Sweat ran in rivulets off his forehead and his cheeks resembled a well-spanked arse.

  Judging from Dad’s expression, he was none the wiser.

  “It is!” exclaimed the porky chap. “Harry Dextrose! I’ll be damned! We thought you’d left us for good. Where you been?” It dawned on him that Harry had no idea who he was. “Robin Botham, landlord – remember?”

  That did it. “Well mink me! Lord Rubby-Bottom! How is yer?”

  Lord Rubby-Bottom lowered his voice. “Yeah, listen, keep it down, Harry. That’s not for the customers, eh?” Then he added: “Here, I know someone who’ll be keen to see you!”

  Dad shrugged.

  “Mrs Dextrose!”

  I was stunned. “Mrs Dextrose?” The nape of my neck tingled. “You mean she’s here?”

  The landlord waved a thumb at me. “Who’s this, Harry?”

  But Harry didn’t speak.

  “I’m his son,” I explained hurriedly. “Mrs Dextrose – is she here?”