Jake's Tower

by Elizabeth Laird

  Then I saw a kind of light go on in his eyes, and this big stupid grin came over his face. He dropped his head and put his hand over his eyes, but only for a moment, before he lifted it again. I had the idea that he’d thought I’d be gone when he looked up.

  ‘My God.’ He was almost whispering. ‘You really are. My baby. Jake.’

  When he said ‘My baby’, Steve’s voice went away out of my head, and I knew I was grinning too.

  He stood up and came over to sit beside me on the sofa. I could feel him trembling.

  ‘You’re just like me, like I was. You’ve got my hair. Your two front teeth are crooked, like mine.’

  ‘I know. I saw you in the photo in the hall. It’s how Grandma knew who I was, because I looked so like you.’

  He jumped up, as if he couldn’t sit still another moment, while I was frozen to the sofa. Then he turned round and sat down again. And he picked my hand up and looked down at it, and there I was, with my hand in my dad’s, and we were so close we were touching each other. We’d both got the shakes so hard now I thought my teeth would start chattering, but it didn’t matter. A moment later I felt something pass between us, I don’t know what it was.

  ‘Jake,’ he said again. ‘I can’t . . . I don’t . . . this is so weird. I never dreamed . . . Why are you here? Where’s Marie? Where’s my mum, come to think of it?’

  ‘At the case conference, with the police and social workers and everyone. They’re deciding about me.’

  ‘The police? You’re not in trouble, are you?’

  If his hand hadn’t still been gripping mine, I’d have worried then. If he got the wrong idea about me, he might give up on me before we’d even started. But his fingers were holding mine even tighter, as if he wanted to protect me.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m not in trouble. Not like that.’

  I think it must have been feeling his hand, so big and strong, and maybe the warmth coming off him as he sat close to me, but my feelings boiled up suddenly out of nowhere, like a fountain being switched on.

  ‘Why didn’t you ever come and see us?’ I said. ‘Why didn’t you write to me? I wanted you to. I dreamed about you all the time.’ I felt his hand twitch. ‘I’ve still got that duck you gave me when I was born.’

  I was crying now, but I didn’t care. I just sniffed the tears back up my nose.

  He made a kind of groaning noise, then he put his arms round me. He did. He put them round me. I could smell the sweat on him, and soap. Nice smells. The collar of his shirt was against my cheek. His chin was pressing down on the top of my head.

  Then I realized he was crying too.

  That jerked me out of it. I didn’t want him to stop holding me, even though I was getting cramp in my shoulder, but I had to give another gigantic sniff and that made him let me go.

  He wiped his face on his cuff.

  ‘Jake,’ he said, ‘I don’t know what to say. I’m all over the place. I’m just . . . This has knocked me out. You’ve got no idea. All these years I’ve . . . I don’t even know how you got here. Why you’re here.’

  ‘I’ll tell you, but you tell me first.’

  He swallowed and looked down. He let go of my hands and felt around in his trouser pocket. He pulled out a crumpled tissue and blew his nose.

  ‘It’s not what you might think. It’s not that I didn’t care. When Marie told me she was going to have my baby I was over the moon. Delirious. I came to see you in the hospital when you were born. I held you in my arms. At that moment, if anyone had come near you, to hurt you, I’d have ripped the stuffing out of them and sent them off to kingdom come.’

  I’d never listened to anyone the way I was listening to him. It was if my heart was in my ears.

  ‘And then . . .’ He stopped. ‘Well, I don’t know how to say this. My mother didn’t believe you were my baby. She kept telling me that Marie had been going around with some of the other lads. Do you know what I’m saying, Jake?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I didn’t listen to her. Not at first. But she was so certain. She kept on about dates, making out it couldn’t have been me because I was away at camp when you – when it must have happened.’

  ‘When she got pregnant.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The doctor reckoned I was early, by three weeks or something. That’s why I was so small.’

  ‘Marie never knew when you were due or anything. She was vague about it.’

  ‘She was sixteen,’ I said. ‘Like she says. No one knows anything about anything when they’re sixteen.’

  He smiled.

  ‘Don’t I know it.’

  ‘So it was Grandma who talked you out of thinking you were my dad?’

  ‘I suppose so. Yes.’ He looked dead guilty then. ‘I didn’t want to believe her, but she was that certain. I suppose you’ll think I’m a real patsy, thinking what my mum told me to think.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ I said. ‘Not when your mum’s Mrs Judd. I know her. You’d have to be Tarzan or Superman or someone to stand up to her.’

  We grinned at each other, as if we were allies.

  This is the first thing we’ve shared, I thought, and my heart was leaping for joy.

  He was shaking his head again.

  ‘I’m never going to get over this. I can’t . . . I’d never have believed . . .’

  He stopped.

  ‘I knew you’d gone off into the army,’ I said. ‘I used to collect pictures of soldiers. I used to imagine one of them was you, and I’d talk to it.’

  He flinched as if I’d hit him, and made a little groaning noise.

  ‘But you didn’t quite believe your mum, did you?’ I said quickly, not wanting him to get upset, ‘because you wrote that letter.’

  ‘It was because of what I felt when I saw you in the hospital. I was so sure you were my baby. I couldn’t get it out of my head. I’ve never got you out of my head. You were this great big question mark hanging over me. It got bigger, not smaller. I was so scared I’d dumped my own kid. Once I thought I was going to have another baby, but it didn’t come to anything.’

  ‘She had an abortion. Grandma told us.’

  He looked surprised.

  ‘What’s got into Ma? She really has spilled the beans.’

  ‘It’s because she feels guilty. She keeps talking about missing out on being a grandma, and saying she never got the chance to take me down the park to feed the ducks. She’s cooking all these gigantic meals all the time to make up for it.’

  ‘Take my advice. Don’t eat them,’ he said, patting his tum. ‘Look what she’s done for my weight. Anyway, it serves her right. What about me? It was her fault I never got the chance to be a proper dad.’

  ‘But you wrote that letter,’ I said, ‘like you knew I was your son.’

  He bit his lip.

  ‘I know this sounds bad. Don’t get me wrong, Jake. I wanted to make sure. Like I said, I couldn’t get you out of my head. That letter was sort of a test. When you were born, Marie went on and on about money. Maintenance, you know? Mum said that was all she was after, trying to con me out of my wages. So when I wrote I told myself if she wrote back with stuff about you, and how you were getting on, if she answered all my questions, I’d know I really was your dad, but if she just asked for money – well.’

  ‘And she just went on about the money.’

  I didn’t know if I ought to be more angry with Mrs Judd for turning my dad against me, or him, for letting her, or Mum, for screwing up her letter.

  ‘We were kids,’ he said, as if he was pleading with me. ‘Just a couple of silly kids. Not a lot older than you are now.’

  I hadn’t thought of it like that. There was no point, really, in blaming them. I’d save up my anger for Steve, who deserved it.

  There was something I wanted to know, though, before I started telling him about Steve. I had to swallow hard before I asked him.

  ‘Are you pleased to see me?’ I said. ‘I know it’s a bit of a shock, but do you mind?�
��

  He made a funny noise, like a choke or a gasp, deep down in his throat.

  ‘Mind? Mind? This is the happiest day of my whole life!’

  He leaned forward and hugged me again, really tight, and I hugged him back, and we were sitting there on the sofa, hugging and crying and laughing, when the door opened and Mum and Mrs Judd walked into the room.

  I thought there was going to be a massive explosion straight off. A real fireworks display. But to start with all that happened was that Mum flushed up a bit and said, ‘Oh, it’s you, is it?’ and Mrs Judd said, ‘Where the hell have you been, Danny? I’ve been trying and trying to get hold of you,’ and my dad jumped up and straightened his jacket and looked awkward, and said, ‘Hello, Marie.’

  I was sweating with nerves. I barged straight in, because I didn’t want them to get started.

  ‘What happened at the case conference?’ I said. ‘Are they going to take me away?’

  ‘They’re taking you nowhere, love,’ said Mrs Judd. ‘Like I said. Over my dead body.’

  ‘You know what you are, Danny Judd,’ said Mum. She’d been standing there, getting steam up, taking no notice of Mrs Judd and me. ‘You’re a rotten little shyster, and I’ve waited all these years to tell you to your face.’

  ‘No, he’s not, Mum. Don’t,’ I said. ‘He didn’t know he was my dad. It wasn’t his fault. He thought I was someone else’s.’

  ‘He what?’ Mum’s face went redder still, and I saw that I’d put my big foot right in it. ‘So that was what you thought, was it? I was that sort of girl, was I?’

  ‘Marie, listen,’ said my dad, looking desperate.

  ‘The truth is,’ my grandma said heavily, ‘that it was all my fault. I persuaded him, Marie. He didn’t want to listen to me, but I did my sums and I reckoned it couldn’t have been Danny, because he was off at camp. I didn’t know till you told me the other day that Jake was premature.’

  ‘To hell with your sums!’ shouted Mum. ‘That wasn’t it! You just couldn’t bear the idea of your precious little Danny being with a tart like me.’

  Mrs Judd looked flustered.

  ‘I know I did wrong, and I’m so sorry for it. You know I am. I’m going to regret it for the rest of my life. But it wasn’t only because it was you. I thought he was too young to be – like that with anyone.’

  ‘Yeah, but they were sixteen,’ I chipped in. ‘Loads of people in my year at school have done it. They say they have, anyway.’

  ‘What?’ They all turned and stared at me, and I saw I’d really shocked all three of them.

  ‘That’s disgusting,’ said Mrs Judd. ‘You’re only kids.’

  ‘We’re not.’

  ‘Jake!’ Mum was glaring at me. ‘You haven’t been . . .’

  ‘Give me a break, Mum.’ I was really embarrassed, in front of my dad and everything, but he laughed and put his arm round my shoulders and squeezed them.

  ‘Well, whatever, Marie,’ he said. ‘You can call me all the names you like. I deserve it. But it’s like all my Christmases and birthdays rolled into one to come in here and find Jake. My own son! I’m so proud of him I don’t know what to do with myself. I just wish you hadn’t had to bring him up on your own.’

  The fizz went out of Mum then. She bit her lip and looked away from him.

  Steve, I thought. She’s got to tell him about Steve. It’s got to come out now.

  ‘You two have a lot of catching up to do,’ Mrs Judd said, looking from one to the other. ‘Come on, Jake. Come into the kitchen and give me a hand with the supper. We’ll have to do extra now Danny’s come home.’

  What Mrs Judd means when she tells you to give her a hand in the kitchen is that you sit down at the table, and she whizzes round you and stops you trying to do anything. Except for drying up. She lets me dry up sometimes.

  There wasn’t any drying up to do, though, so I just sat down and worried about what was going on in the front room.

  I thought, if I keep my fingers and feet crossed, and touch as much wood as I can, with my hands and arms and legs, maybe they’ll make it up. They must have been in love once, or I wouldn’t be here.

  ‘People can fall in love again, a second time round, sort of thing, can’t they, Grandma?’ I said.

  She was stirring something on the cooker and she turned round and looked at me.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking. Better not. It won’t happen.’

  ‘It could, though. He hasn’t got anyone now, has he? And she’s split up with Steve.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘There’s been too much water under the bridge.’

  ‘I suppose you mean his being married once, and Steve, and the baby and everything. I can see the baby might be a problem. Maybe my dad wouldn’t like it, her having Steve’s baby.’

  ‘It’s none of his business. She’s not his girlfriend any more.’

  ‘No, but she might be. I mean, it could happen.’

  ‘Don’t, love.’ She bent forward to taste a spoonful of whatever was bubbling in her saucepan. ‘Don’t get your hopes up. You’ll only end up breaking your heart over it.’

  She was right to warn me. It can’t have been more than another ten minutes before I heard shouting coming from the front room, and my bright little dream smashed like a fallen bubble of glass. Then the kitchen door opened, and my dad stormed in.

  I’d thought he wasn’t the type to get angry. I’d noticed, straight off, that his face was open and friendly, with laughter lines round his mouth and eyes. It was the first thing I’d checked out. I reckoned he wouldn’t be able to look mean and vicious the way Steve did, even if he tried.

  Now, though, his eyes were sparkling with rage and his mouth was tight. I found I was gripping the table, and tightening my face automatically, waiting for the blows to fall.

  They didn’t. He knelt on the floor beside me and held me by the arms. He was gentle, though his face was wild with fury.

  ‘Show me,’ he said. ‘What did that creep do to you? Let me see.’

  There wasn’t that much left to show him, quite honestly. My face was just about normal again, and the bruises on my ribs and back had faded during the last couple of days to a yellowish colour with only a few bits of purple in the middle.

  The trouble was, his anger was paralysing me. Terrifying me. I couldn’t move.

  ‘It’s all right, Jake,’ he said, and he put one hand on my shoulder. ‘I don’t believe this. You’re scared stiff, aren’t you? You poor kid, you think I’m going to do you over. You think I’m like him.’

  I couldn’t say anything. I was trying to breathe properly, trying to smile.

  ‘I would never lay a finger on you, never.’ He was speaking really quietly, like he was trying to reassure me. ‘You’re mine. My kid. I’d just as soon hit myself. Anyway, I’m not like that. I don’t beat up kids. There’s only one person I’d want to lay into. Come on, Jake. Show me.’

  He took hold of the bottom of my sweatshirt and started to lift it up. Mum was standing in the door now.

  ‘Danny, I couldn’t stop him,’ she was saying, crying into a tissue. ‘I tried. You don’t know what he’s like when he gets going.’

  My dad was looking at my back. I twisted my head round to look at him. His face was red, and he was biting his lip so hard I thought he’d make it bleed.

  ‘She did try,’ I said. ‘She couldn’t ever stop him. Nobody could. She did her best. Honestly.’

  He let go of my sweatshirt and stood up.

  ‘I’m going to kill Steve Barlow for this,’ he said. ‘He’s got no idea what’s coming to him. I’m going to tear out his insides and hang them out to dry. He’s going to wish he’d never been born.’

  If my dad had been Steve, once he’d got angry, that would have been it. He’d have been in a filthy mood for the rest of the evening. No one else would have dared say a word, and I’d have been looking for the first chance to slip off out of it before he got going with his fists.

  But my
dad made himself calm down. He said, ‘I’m not going to let that git spoil the best surprise I’ve ever had in my whole life. We’re going to enjoy ourselves this evening. Steve can wait.’

  The three of us, me and my mum and dad, sat down at the table, while Mrs Judd fussed over dishing up the supper. Then my dad jumped up and said, ‘Got any of that bubbly left over from New Year, Ma? I feel like celebrating.’

  I had another wave of worry, then, in case he was going to get wrecked, and the drink would turn him nasty, but it was OK. We all had some. I’d never had bubbly wine before, and to be honest I didn’t like the taste much.

  Getting it out turned out to be a good idea, though, because Mum had been really tense and wound up, and it calmed her down a bit, (even the half glass, which was all Mrs Judd let her have) and after a couple of sips Mrs Judd got so mellow she was almost melting into the shepherd’s pie she’d fetched out of the oven.

  It didn’t seem to affect my dad much at all. He just kept staring at me, and grinning, and saying, ‘I can’t believe this isn’t all some amazing dream.’

  When Mrs Judd had handed round the pie and the veg, and we were all getting stuck in, she said, ‘Don’t you want to know what happened at the case conference, Jake?’

  ‘You told me,’ I said. ‘They’re not going to put me in care.’

  ‘Yes, but there’s more to it than that. Tell him, Marie.’

  ‘We’re going home,’ Mum said. She glanced up at Mrs Judd and looked down at her plate again. ‘When it suits us.’

  I could feel the blood draining out of my face, I sat there with my mouth open, holding my fork halfway up to it, and my stomach was turning over as if I was going to be sick.

  ‘It’s OK,’ she said, stabbing her fork into a piece of carrot as if she was cross with it. ‘Steve’s moving out.’

  ‘Who says? He won’t go. I don’t believe it.’

  I felt like someone who’s recently come off Death Row after years and years, and has just been told they’ve got to go back on it again.