Tuned Out

by Keith A Pearson

  “You know how ridiculous that sounds, right?”

  “Yep.”

  “But you still want me to admit it?”

  “If it’s the truth.”

  I look around for hidden cameras filming this madness. I don’t see any but I do see the path back to the car park.

  “Great talking to you, Craig. Goodbye.”

  I turn my back on him and stride away; managing just a dozen steps before he barks a parting statement.

  “Insane as it is, Toby, I’m pretty sure you’re my biological father.”

  43.

  “Cup of tea, please?” I ask the woman behind the counter.

  “Sure. Take a seat and I’ll bring it over.”

  I plod to a table by the window.

  I’ve already eaten but flick through a menu which has barely changed. What has changed is the smoking policy at Jill’s Cafe, thankfully.

  Six days on from my return and the little cafe is all that’s left of 1969; a token reminder of the life I lost. I’m not sure they consider me a regular yet, but they will.

  “Here you go, love.”

  Delivered with a warm smile, a cup is placed in front of me. You don’t get this kind of service in Starbucks.

  “Thank you.”

  The woman who definitely isn’t Jill returns to the counter as I take a sip of strong tea.

  Being the middle of the morning on a Monday, I’m one of only three customers. Too late for breakfast, too early for lunch. I’m glad of the quiet — it offers an opportunity to gather my thoughts and reflect. I’m in no hurry. Forty hours have now passed since I officially became free of the Probation Service and my community service obligation. All that remains is a chat with Trudy this afternoon, and the signing of a few forms.

  I did return to Trinity Place the day after my breakdown but Tammy said it was too soon. She was right, but for the wrong reason. I made it to the middle of the afternoon before accepting it was too painful being in the place where my life was torn apart, and my reluctance to be in the same building as Vernon Kirby didn’t help. A few phone calls and it was decided I should serve the rest of my punishment at the Sports Centre; painting, sanding, and generally grafting. The gruelling work proved therapeutic, much like it did at the Morland Court Hotel.

  Although I only spent another six hours at Trinity Place, I didn’t want to leave with a head full of negative thoughts. Consequently, there were two residents I spent time with on what proved to be my final day.

  Miriam — the fragile, white-haired lady and the first resident I met — was still staring at nothing when I entered her room. I’d been thinking about her the night before while removing Vernon’s former radio from my coffee table at home; intent on hiding it away forever. Although the retro radio could no longer make a difference to my life, it struck me another radio might make a difference to Miriam’s. After a search, I found what I was looking for at the back of a drawer.

  The look on Miriam’s face when I turned on the little radio proved priceless. Trapped in a blurred world with her sight failing, she suddenly had the gift of music and entertainment. I left her listening to Radio Four; the blank stare replaced with an engaged smile.

  The other resident I spent time with was Barbara — the poor woman with early onset dementia. Still struggling to adapt to her new surroundings, it was Barbara who claimed we’d met before. Ten minutes into our chat, she recounted the day she and her husband went on a works outing to Eastbourne, and one of her husband’s colleagues turned up at the meeting point with a young man in tow. That young man was the absolute spit of me, apparently — hence Barbara’s confusion.

  Not wanting to add to her confusion, I told a white lie — my dad dated a girl called Jan back in the late sixties. The familiar face explained, Barbara spent a good half hour joyfully reminiscing about that day out, and her late husband. Although she didn’t know Jan, it was lovely to hear her stories from a period I considered home, and I promised to pop back and visit her again so we could continue our chat.

  I also made a promise to myself — one I’ll fulfil tomorrow morning with an interview at the local College of Technology. After kicking various career ideas back and forth, there was one obvious contender. It’s a career which helped both Dad and George built comfortable lives for themselves — the kind of life I’ve always craved. I've therefore decided to train as a plumber. Of all the madness I’ve experienced this year, the decision to follow in my dad’s footsteps is right up there with the most unbelievable.

  When I told him, he couldn’t have been happier. The first benefit of choosing a trade my dad knows so well came when he took me to meet one of his old mates who runs a bathroom fitting company. We shared a few pints and Ken then offered me a job assisting his fitting team. It’s the bottom rung of the ladder and the pay isn’t great but it’ll give me a chance to learn on the job. Ken wasn’t bothered about my criminal record, although he and Dad laughed about my moonlit tryst a little too long for my liking. As I’ll be moving back home next week, the money isn’t an issue, anyway. It’s enough to live on, and as Dad says: one step back to take two forward.

  Although I’ve kept myself busy and my mind occupied, there have been a few dark moments. Using the same website which helped me discover Jan’s fate, I went through the same process for Father O’Connor. I discovered he passed away in 1979 and the cemetery at St Mary’s became his forever home due to the lack of a cemetery at St Joseph’s. I paid his grave a visit after I’d spent an hour at Jan’s and laid a dozen pink roses. We had a particularly one-sided chat, but I left him knowing how much he’ll be missed, and how sorry I am for what happened. I also apologised again for breaking his Hoovermatic twin-tub; a crime I don’t think he ever forgave me for.

  My second visit to the cemetery mercifully ended without the same confrontation I endured on the first. That was a mind-fuck like no other.

  After Craig’s ridiculous claim, I didn’t hang around to hear any more. I made it to the car park, but he caught up with me and blocked the exit with his Audi — refusing to move until we talked. Left with no choice but to hear him out, I reluctantly sat in his car and listened.

  He started by quoting a page from Jan’s diary — referencing the night we spent together while George and Alice were away visiting friends in Kent. Nine months on from that night — almost to the day — Craig was born. Meeting a son you didn’t know about is shocking enough, but not even close to the shock of knowing that son is nineteen years your senior. The anxiety attack I suffered felt like a reasonable response.

  Once I’d finished hyperventilating, I asked the obvious question: how on earth could he remain so calm considering the totally implausible allegations he’d made? I couldn’t comprehend how a man could remain so calm when faced with evidence of the impossible. If the roles had been reversed, I’d have suffered the mother of all anxiety attacks, yet Craig acted like we were just two blokes discussing last night’s football match.

  I challenged him on that observation and he dropped yet another bombshell — he told me all about his experience of red tinted vision, psychedelic headaches, and waking up naked in a different time.

  Open mouthed, I stared at the man claiming to be my middle-aged son, and a son claiming he’d also travelled back in time.

  I’d heard enough.

  Looking back, I could have been a little more sensitive. As it was, his statement was the final straw. I didn’t so much ask Craig to move his car, but demanded it with menace. My mind simply couldn’t cope with the barrage of insane claims.

  He forced a slip of paper into my hand before I fled. I’ve no idea how I made it home without crashing the car.

  Several hours later — once I’d calmed down sufficiently — I retrieved that slip of paper from the bin and examined it. There, in scrawled blue ink, was Craig’s phone number.

  With so many unanswered questions, and despite the madness of Craig's claims, I had to call the number. That call lasted two hours; the result being th
e reason I’m now enjoying a cup of tea in Jill’s Cafe. Time, in this instance, had helped.

  The door opens and a middle-aged man with fair hair scans the tables. He spots me, smiles, and comes over.

  I stand and we shake hands.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d turn up,” Craig says.

  “Let’s just say I’ve calmed down. Last week was … testing.”

  “For both of us.”

  “Agreed.”

  We sit down and I order another tea. A minute of swapping small talk and the waitress delivers a cup to my son.

  Pleasantries out of the way, I get the first question in.

  “Does Colin know anything about me?”

  “Nope, and he never will. He’s not in the best of health and I think it’d finish him off.”

  “Understood, but I’m guessing he knows the truth … well, that he’s not your biological father?”

  “I call him Dad, but yes, he knows — Mum was already pregnant when he proposed. As you’re no doubt aware, the sixties were different times; particularly for unmarried mothers. It made sense for her to marry, and in his own way I think Dad tried to do the right thing.”

  The reason Jan married Colin Pelling so soon after I departed is now clear.

  “No disrespect to Colin, but your mum must have hated me for leaving her in that situation?”

  “Mum never had a hateful bone in her body. You of all people should know that.”

  I reply with a nod which is more a bow.

  “But she understood why,” he adds.

  “Her theory about where I came from?”

  “Yep. She had a lot of time to think about it, and over the years I guess she convinced herself it was the truth.”

  “I’m not sure I’d have ever believed it.”

  “When she told me during her final days, I think it was a reluctant confession.”

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  “Which is why I told her what happened to me when I went back in time.”

  “Eh? You did?”

  “Yep, every bit of it.”

  “Bloody hell. That must have been some conversation.”

  “It was surreal, but I didn’t want her to think she’d lost her mind. And I’m glad I did because she died knowing the truth; the man she fell in love with and the father of her only child didn’t abandon her. It was never his choice to stay or leave; any more than it was mine. Time has a knack of doing what it wants to do — that much I learnt during my own experience.”

  “So I’m learning, and thank you.”

  “For?”

  “Telling her. You have no idea what a relief it is to hear your mum didn’t think I left of my own free will.”

  “Trust me, she didn’t.”

  “I just wish I’d been able to tell her myself.”

  “I watched you at her grave. She definitely knows.”

  “It … it means a lot to hear that.”

  Noting the slight crack in my voice, Craig takes a sip of tea to give me a second.

  “I, um … meant to ask: how did you know I’d be at your mum’s grave?”

  “It was a long shot really but considering it was the first anniversary of Mum’s passing, there had to be a chance.”

  “Why didn’t you look for me before? It would have been fairly easy to find me.”

  “Easy enough to find you, yes, but have you considered the implications of what happened when you went back?”

  “Err, not really.”

  “Up until you made that journey, I didn’t exist. I’ve no idea how this all works, and believe me I’ve tried to fathom it out, but when you went back in time, you changed the future. In some parallel world, you never made that journey, and I was never conceived.”

  “Shit,” I gasp. “I’d never even considered that.”

  “It’s a complete head fuck, but I could only come and find you after you’d returned. Before that point … well, I guess we’ll never know. Perhaps that’s for the best.”

  “Agreed. I think we’ve both had quite enough to contend with as far as head fucking goes.”

  He raises his cup.

  “Amen to that.”

  I then ask the question I've been trying to answer since the moment I returned.

  “Was she happy?”

  “She was,” he smiles.

  “Not the kind of happy we’d planned.”

  “Maybe not, but don’t forget you left her with one hell of a memento.”

  “Did I?”

  “Yes. Me.”

  We share a chuckle.

  “I’m guessing you were close,” I then ask.

  “Although it took a while to realise, I was blessed to have her as my mother. Maybe she didn’t have the life you planned together, but she made the most of it … always with a smile on her face and a kind word when you needed it.”

  “She was the most caring person I’ve ever met.”

  “And she never changed.”

  The table falls silent as we share a moment of reflection. Two strangers trying to make sense of the tangled web one of us has woven the other into.

  As much as I’d love to talk about Jan all morning, I fear the wounds are still too raw. And judging by Craig’s demeanour, I suspect he has a fair amount of his own grief lying dormant. I don’t wish to wake it up.

  “Tell me about what happened to you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, when you, um, went on a journey.”

  “It’s difficult to talk about it; even to you. The last time I told someone … let’s just say it didn’t end well.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologise. At least I’ve now got someone to talk to. You’re the only person who is ever likely to understand.”

  We then share a look which says all that needs to be said. It’s a look which tells me Craig and I are connected by more than just improbable genes.

  “This is seriously fucked-up,” I snigger; shaking my head.

  “Totally. But I hope we can be … you know …”

  Craig might be my biological son but there’s no denying our situation redefines the word complex. However, I can already tell he’s inherited the best of his mother. Tiny slivers of the woman I loved, but it’s enough to convince me we should try to make the most of our situation; for Jan’s sake as much as ours.

  “I know, and I’d like to.”

  “Great,” he smiles.

  He then necks a mouthful of tea before asking a question of his own.

  “Are you busy tomorrow?”

  “Not particularly. Why?”

  “I thought we could go to the park. You can push me on the swings if you like.”

  If I were in Craig’s shoes I’m not sure how I’d be coping with all this. As it is, I think we both need to laugh before we cry.

  “Yeah, okay,” I chuckle. “But if you turn up wearing shorts and a Batman t-shirt, I’m off.”

  “I won’t … Dad.”

  “Sod off.”

  “Language.”

  “Excuse me. Who’s the parent here?”

  “Fair point,” he laughs, slapping me on the arm.

  A thought occurs.

  “Have you got kids, Craig?”

  “Sadly not.”

  “To be honest, I’m kind of relieved. It’s one thing discovering I’m father to a middle-aged man, but finding out I’m a grandfather at twenty-nine would have pushed me over the edge.”

  “You’re okay, but there is one other matter I feel we should discuss.”

  His expression switches from jovial to sombre.

  “Err, what’s that?”

  “The forty-eight years of birthday presents you owe me.”

  Relieved we seem to share the same sense of humour, I answer the only way I can.

  “Only if you’re prepared to discuss the twenty-nine pairs of socks you owe me.”

  “Eh?”

  “Every Father’s Day we've missed.”

  “Haha, touché!”


  And with that, I suspect we’ve taken the first steps on a long bonding process. How or where we end up is anyone's guess, but one thing is for sure: there was nothing I could do about losing Jan from my life, but what happens with our son is in my hands.

  “Fancy another tea?” Craig asks.

  “Love one.”

  “I’ll go order,” he replies, getting to his feet. “But first I need the loo. As you’ll discover, once you hit middle age you never want to stray too far from a toilet.”

  “And I thought it was my job to impart advice.”

  “It’s up for discussion.”

  “Fair enough,” I smile.

  “And when I come back, maybe we can discuss our mutual … adventures.”

  “Yeah, I’d like that.”

  “That’s settled, then. Make yourself comfortable because what happened to me is quite a tale.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, yes. In fact, if someone ever wrote a novel about it …”

  THE END

  Actually, it’s just the beginning …

  If you’d like to try your hand at time-travel, you can zip back to 2016 and follow Craig’s tale in The ‘86 Fix — my very first novel. Admittedly, the writing is a little clumsy (some might argue it still is) but it’s the novel which launched my career and it went on to become an Amazon bestseller so it can’t be all that bad.

  If you’ve already read it, I hope all the dots are now suitably joined. If you haven’t, I genuinely hope you enjoy it.

  Either way, thanks for making it to the end.

  Before You Go…

  If you enjoyed reading Tuned Out and have a few minutes spare, I would be eternally grateful if you could leave a (hopefully positive) review on Amazon. A mention on Facebook or Twitter would be equally appreciated. I know it’s a pain, but it’s the only way us indie authors can compete with the big publishing houses.

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