Senor Nice

by Howard Marks

  ‘But that stuff doesn’t happen now, Marty.’

  ‘I know, but it wasn’t that long ago, not hundreds of years ago. That hard nut in the pub did have a point, as he did about the mines. Don’t forget the English poured into the Welsh coal mining areas and tipped the language balance forever.’

  ‘They weren’t trying to destroy the Welsh language; they were just looking for work.’

  ‘I’m not saying it’s the workers’ fault,’ protested Marty. ‘The English fat cats never came to the mines; they just owned them and packed people off to work there. They didn’t care what was happening to the Welsh language and culture. The Welsh cared, all right, but no one listened. There’s still plenty of resentment against English domination; you’ve just experienced some of it.’

  Less than a week later a professionally made gelignite bomb blew up a transformer at the Tryweryn Valley dam site. Other blasts followed. Mudiad Amddyffyn Cymru, the Movement for the Defence of Wales, had dramatically announced its existence and purpose. Plaid Cymru, the largely ineffectual forty-year-old Welsh nationalist party, quickly distanced itself from the attacks, preferring to carry on whining. The police quickly caught the bombers but English-owned cottages in Wales started to go up in flames and Welsh language societies mounted demonstrations tinged with confrontation. Some of the protesters carried placards bearing the slogan ‘Free Wales Army’ and sported the emblem of a white eagle in tribute to the legendary White Eagles of Snowdon, who from their lofty crags would swoop down on any invaders. A militant Welsh terrorist group had briefly overtaken the IRA as a thorn in England’s side. There would be no more grovelling to the English. Welsh patriotism was no longer safely consigned to history. The Welsh had the most beautiful flag in the world, the most stirring national anthem and one of the oldest living languages. Wales, with its vast resources, could become the envy of the world’s independent nations. I would never again forget I was Welsh.

  Despite these distractions, I managed to do enough revision to get three grade As in my A Levels. I celebrated by going to see the Everly Brothers’ midweek concert in Cardiff. Unfortunately, one of the brothers was ill, but the solo performance was excellent. After the show, special buses took us back to the valleys. I sat next to a beautiful girl who smiled shyly.

  ‘Great show, wasn’t it?’ I said.

  ‘Yes, but I wish both the brothers had been there. I love them.’

  ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Ireland, but my family have just moved to Kenfig Hill.’

  ‘That’s where I live,’ I said with unconcealed excitement.

  ‘I know. I’ve seen you a few times waiting for the school bus in the morning when my dad drives me to my job. I work in the council offices. You’re called Howard, aren’t you?’ Her smile broadened at the look of pleasure on my face. ‘My name is Susan.’

  ‘Any chance of a date?’

  ‘OK, but I can’t come out until Friday. Dad doesn’t like me going out in the week much. I could only come to the concert tonight if I promised to stay in until then.’

  ‘Let’s make it Friday then.’

  ‘OK, but where shall we meet?’

  ‘Elim Chapel Youth Club. I’ll be there from eight o’clock.’

  ‘OK, my dad will drop me off there. Look out for me won’t you?’

  Now, almost forty years later, I was on my way back to Britain to meet for the first time the outcome of that chance meeting, my daughter.

  I already had four children. Four years ago Myfanwy, now thirty-two, had provided me with a delightful grandson and was living on a farm in Devon studying to become a Rudolf Steiner teacher. She had been just one year old when I left her and her mother Rosie for life on the run as a fugitive, but we never lost our love for each other and still spent wonderful times together. Amber, my first of three children with Judy, was twenty-seven and a brilliant barrister who would go on to work for the Court of Criminal Appeals. Francesca, twenty-three, had qualified as a yoga teacher and would soon gain a philosophy degree from Trinity College, Dublin. Patrick, sixteen, was convalescing from a number of serious and lengthy surgical operations on his back.

  He had been born with scoliosis, a helical twist of the spine, and had aggravated his condition by jumping off a roof, breaking both his legs, when four years old. Despite Judy’s unceasing efforts to improve his condition through treatments other than surgery, nothing worked. Mustering more courage than I had ever had to, Patrick submitted himself to the surgeon’s knife. The operations worked, and he is now a tall proud teenager with a will and a spine of steel.

  The pride I have for each of my children continues to make my life the most precious joy, but it wasn’t all happy families. My relationship with Judy did not outlast the seven years of separation caused by my imprisonment. Survival in prison forces you to abandon, or at least significantly reduce, emotional attachments to those outside. Failure to do so is a prescription for vulnerability and continuous psychological pain. I left the penitentiary with emotions and ideals hardened to the limits. Judy had kept the family and family house together without the children calling someone else ‘Daddy’ and I am certain that had the positions been reversed I would not have been a model loyal husband. However, I found it impossible to accept her admitted infidelities as insignificant, had no intention of being faithful myself, and found the prospect of renewed marriage vows a restriction on the precious freedom I had regained on my release from prison. So I had got my bedsit in Shepherd’s Bush and was seeking a divorce.

  At Gatwick the immigration queues doubled back on one another several times. Mobile phones beeped despite the notices commanding them to be turned off. Two-way mirrors gave distorted reflections, and several hundred CCTV cameras swept every inch of airport space. I wondered how difficult drug smuggling must be these days. Passing through passport control, I picked up my bag and strolled through the green channel. A dog with brown and white patches slightly resembling a spaniel ran its snotty nose over my luggage, emitted a machine-gun burst of hard sniffs and winked knowingly at its handler.

  ‘Where have you just come from, sir?’ asked an officer of Her Majesty’s Customs & Excise.

  ‘Jamaica.’

  ‘Holiday?’

  ‘No. I’m writing a travel piece for the Observer.’

  ‘Are you carrying any marijuana or other prohibited goods?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you smoke marijuana while you were in Jamaica?’

  ‘Yes, I did. I think your dog picked that up from my clothes.’

  ‘Are you Howard Marks?’

  I nodded and gave a smile.

  ‘I enjoyed your book, Mr Marks. Thank you. Have a good day.’

  Maybe smuggling wouldn’t be that hard.

  It was mid-morning. I took the Gatwick Express to Victoria and a cab from there to my bedsit. I telephoned the number Tina had given me. A strong Welsh accent answered. ‘Hello. Who’s speaking please?’

  ‘Can I speak to Tina? It’s Howard.’

  There was a short but definite pause then, ‘This is Tina.’

  A long silence followed.

  ‘Rather than try to talk now, perhaps we should just arrange to meet somewhere soon,’ she suggested, trying to break the impasse. ‘Are you still living in Majorca?’

  ‘No, I live in London these days. What about you?’

  ‘Gowerton, just outside Swansea, not far from Kenfig Hill. Do you ever go back there?’

  ‘Yes, sometimes, to see a few close friends. Do you ever come to London?’

  ‘Once in a blue moon, but I can come up for the day pretty much when I feel like it. In fact, I would rather see you alone the first time, so we can have a private chat. You can meet the children later.’

  ‘Children? How many do you have?’

  ‘Three – two sons in their early teens and a daughter doing her A levels next year.’

  I was only just getting used to having one baby grandchild and suddenly I had three teenage grandchildren,
the oldest older than my son. I felt strangely disorientated about my decades of ignorance; I had no idea how to deal with it.

  ‘We could meet halfway,’ I said, aware of my words awkwardly stumbling over one another. Why was I treating this next meeting as a business appointment, politely trying to reduce any inconvenience to her?

  ‘That’s an excellent idea,’ she said. ‘I could see you in Bristol, I have to take a train there anyway in the next few days to pick up some medical results. When would suit you best?’

  ‘What about tomorrow, Tina?’

  ‘Tomorrow’s fine. I can be there by two o’clock. Or is that too early for you? You can make it later if you want.’

  ‘No, two o’clock is perfect. I’ll meet you at Temple Meads on the platform where the trains from South Wales stop, and we’ll have some lunch. How will I recognise you?’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll recognise you easily enough. I’ve got books and books of photographs of you.’

  Twenty-four hours later I was on a busy station platform watching hundreds of people getting off the Swansea train and trying to identify a daughter I had never met and of whose existence I had been aware for less than a week. A beautiful blue-eyed smiling face shone from the crowd and headed towards me. Still behaving as if I was a travelling salesman meeting a new client, I shook her hand and kissed her lightly on each cheek. I was slightly taller than her. She was slim with soft skin and a reddish tinge in her dark hair. Was this from her mother’s Irish ancestry or was it dyed? I couldn’t tell. Why did it matter?

  ‘What do you fancy for lunch?’ I stammered.

  It was two thirty, and most places were closing for the afternoon; an upmarket Chinese restaurant was the only visible exception. Tina and I shuffled in and ordered some instantly forgotten food and a bottle of red wine. The ice of our embarrassment began to thaw as she summarised her life story.

  Susan Malone had no idea she was pregnant when, in the summer of 1963, her family left Kenfig Hill to live in the Swansea area, where her father had secured a good job. Susan met another man, who also had no idea she was pregnant. They married and Tina was born, far too soon for the new husband’s liking. Knowing Tina was not his daughter, he left to seek another life. During her early years Tina thought her real father had abandoned both her and her mother the moment she was born. I felt intensely sorry for both her and Susan’s husband, and I felt angry with her mother.

  ‘But why didn’t Susan tell me she was pregnant with my child?’ I asked incredulously. ‘She knew where I lived in Kenfig Hill. She could have easily come to see me or at least written a letter.’

  ‘You can imagine how many times I’ve asked my mother that,’ said Tina, ‘and her answer has always been the same. She heard that you had got into Oxford and didn’t want to ruin your life by saddling you with me. Not that she’s always that saintly, mind, especially these days.’

  ‘That’s a hell of a sacrifice. Are you sure her husband wasn’t a better catch – like very rich?’

  ‘Positive. And my mother said that after she left Kenfig Hill you started going out with her best friend, Mavis. She didn’t like that much,’ said Tina with a disapproving look on her face.

  ‘But I wouldn’t have if I’d known Susan was pregnant with my child,’ I protested.

  ‘I know that now,’ said Tina, ‘but I honestly don’t think my mother did then.’

  ‘So when did Susan tell you I was your father?’

  ‘When you were arrested in 1980 for bringing in all those tons of marijuana into Scotland and the newspapers were full of you being an MI6 agent with connections to the IRA, Mafia, CIA and God knows who else, my mother said, “That’s your dad.” ’

  ‘So, until then you thought Susan’s husband was your father?’ I asked.

  ‘No. My mother told me when I was about twelve that my real father had left her before I was born. She just never told me your name. Once I found out, I tried to see you. You were on remand in Brixton prison. The prison guards just laughed at me and said I wasn’t on your list of family members. I asked if I could see you anyway, and they said you were too high a security risk for that sort of visit. So that was that. I was gutted.’

  ‘But why didn’t you write to me? I would have arranged for us to see each other.’

  ‘Look, Howard …’

  I had been wondering whether she would call me Dad or Howard. I was relieved she had chosen Howard.

  ‘Look, Howard, it took a lot of courage for me to go to Brixton and do that. My mother really didn’t want me to. And when I was refused I felt rejected and felt I had done wrong by trying to get to know you. Maybe your family – or should I say families – would also reject me. I couldn’t take the risk. I was too scared. When I had plucked up enough courage to try again you had been caught in Spain doing some even bigger dope deal and were being extradited to America never to return. Then when you surprised everyone and did come back you became a bloody superstar, and I was just too shy and nervous to contact you. I was worried you would think I was after your money.’

  ‘I haven’t got any.’

  ‘Really? Everyone thinks you’re loaded, what with money in Swiss bank accounts from the old days and writing two bestsellers and touring up and down the country doing shows.’

  ‘I know people think that, but I promise you I’m skint.’

  ‘Well I’m glad that you know that I know. That means you’ll know for sure I’m not after your money. I haven’t cost you anything so far, and I never will. I just want to know you and us to be friends.’

  Her eyes welled up. I caught hold of her hand.

  ‘What do you do, Tina?’

  ‘I look after old people. I have to pick up some medical reports today. The three children don’t leave me too many spare hours in a week, so I’m only working part-time. I’ll go full-time when I can. I love the work. The children’s father and I split up ages ago – I’m alone now. I prefer it, to be honest.’

  Tina was caring and good. I noticed how her hands were the same shape as mine. This was the first physical likeness between us I had discovered.

  ‘You’re looking at our hands, aren’t you? Shall we have a DNA test?’

  ‘No,’ I said without thinking for a split second.

  ‘What! You are that sure you’re my father?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘You mean you’re one hundred per cent sure you are not my father?’

  ‘I didn’t say that either. No one could be sure—’

  ‘You would be if we took a DNA test.’

  ‘Tina, I’m saying no one could be sure given just what I know now. Anyway, what would be the point of a DNA test?’

  ‘You would know whether you’re my father.’

  ‘Would there really be any point in knowing that? You and I can’t have a normal father–daughter relationship – it’s too late for that. We could be close friends. I’m sure we will be, and I don’t want our relationship to depend on some biological connection. I want us to be friends whether you’re my daughter or not. Don’t you?’

  ‘Of course I do, Howard. I see what you mean. OK, let’s forget the DNA test. I know: we can take it if we end up not being friends.’

  My main reason for not wanting to have a DNA test was my lack of certainty as to whether Tina was actually my daughter. Having my doubts confirmed would deprive her of the shaky security of knowing that she could, at least, identify her father even if he had not fulfilled a single paternal duty. But in thinking the way I was, perhaps I was being fatherly. It was confusing.

  Mr Nice had now been translated into five languages – Hebrew, German, Spanish, French and Italian. The Italian edition was on the point of being distributed and the publishers, Edizioni Socrates – who had also published Italian translations of Wim Wenders and Alexander Trocchi – had asked if I would come to Italy to help with promotion. Apart from my visit to Campione d’Italia, I had not been to Italy for almost twenty years. The country and the people had alway
s captivated me. My first schoolboy history interest had been the Romans, their amphitheatres and their debauchery. Pythagoras and Archimedes – who spent their lives in what is now Italy, not Greece – were my first scientific heroes; Roman Catholicism provided my first religious enigmas; Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida and Claudia Cardinale were my first pin-ups. Much of my postgraduate work at Oxford in the late 1960s involved Galileo and other Renaissance heavyweights while some of my first hashish smuggling ventures during the early 1970s took place in Italy. Shortly afterwards, when I first went on the run from the forces of injustice, I lived in Genoa. My favourite wine is Brunello di Montalcino and my youngest daughter’s name is Francesca. My most profitable period of dope smuggling was the late 1970s, when I was airfreighting tons of Pakistani hashish and Thai marijuana on Alitalia planes destined for New York’s Kennedy Airport, where the Gambino crime family made sure the shipments got through. (I of course made sure they got well paid.) During the years I spent imprisoned in the United States I became good friends with members of the Genovese, Colombo, Bonnano and Lucchese crime families. On my release, they – who will never be released – begged me to step on Italian soil and pass on their prayers to their native land, a country which has always ruled the world – through its food, fashion, culture, ancient armies, religion or criminal organisations. It would now give me great pleasure to do so. During the same trip I could visit Scott Blakey in Lugano and see how the Mr Nice Seedbank plantations were progressing.

  Edizioni Socrates wanted me to visit Rome for some press and television interviews and Milan, a few days later, to give a talk. I planned my itinerary. I would fly to Rome, stay two nights, fly to Sicily for a couple of days to pass on a hello (or goodbye) from my Mafia friends, fly to Milan for one night to give the talk, and the next day take the train to Lugano to look at marijuana plants. It looked like being an interesting week.