‘Jus’ thinking ’bout it.’ Something was stopping Hal’s words from getting out normally, but the man nodded and said, ‘You have a read of this. Get your mum or dad to sign the form if you’d like to join. Or you can just pay per session if that’s easier. And - look—’ He gave Hal a separate sheet. ‘There’s special half-term activities all next week. You don’t need to be a member for those. Have a look, see if you’d like to come.’
‘Uh, thanks.’ And now Hal’s eyes swung to the sign on the wall behind - a slotted bracket into which a card had been placed saying DUTY MANAGER: WESLEY PRINCE. This was him. Him! Really him! Hal could hardly stand upright, hardly breathe normally. And just in case there could be any doubt, the man wore a badge saying WESLEY PRINCE, CENTRE MANAGER, with the running-man logo.
Hal was face to face with - actually talking to—
He stared and stared, taking in as much as he could of Wesley Prince. The glossy dark skin, the very white teeth, the brown eyes that looked at him kindly. He was tall, over six feet, Hal guessed. Fit and athletic - well, he ought to be, working in a sports centre. Smart, in the blue sweat top that must be the centre uniform, as the woman wore the same. The sleeves were pushed up, showing muscular forearms.
‘OK, then?’ Wesley Prince was saying. ‘Have a look round now, if you like? I can get someone to show you around.’
‘No. No. Thanks.’ Was he imagining it, or had the kindly gaze turned suspicious? Hal looked around in confusion. There were chairs and low tables; through glass doors he saw a café. ‘I’ll just - er - get a drink—’ he mumbled.
‘Fine! Take your time. No pressure,’ said Wesley.
Moving towards the drinks machine, Hal chose a seat that gave a good view of the desk. Wesley Prince picked up some papers and went through to an office behind, leaving the blonde woman in charge of reception. While Hal waited to see if he’d come back, Wesley’s wife returned from the crèche; another woman coming through the main doors called ‘Hi, Valerie,’ and they went upstairs together, talking and laughing.
Hal felt dizzy, his mind buzzing, sparking with impressions. With hope and doubt. With a hundred new questions.
Wesley Prince. He’d met Wesley Prince. Spoken to him.
And - Wesley Prince was exactly the kind of father he’d hoped for. Fit, tall, handsome. Friendly and approachable. A father to be proud of. Hal imagined himself walking in the street with Wesley, meeting people: Wesley would say, ‘This is my son, Hal.’ He’d say it like that, to show that Hal was the son he’d always wanted.
But did Wesley know?
Hal could tell him, now. Go to the desk and ask to speak to him. Wesley would come to the counter, ready to listen to whatever request Hal had. And Hal would say, ‘My name’s Hal. Hal Marborough,’ to see what effect that had.
But what next? Would Wesley’s face show recognition? Shock? Guilt? What would he say - what could he say? Marborough, Mum’s name, he’d know that - but did he know Hal existed? And if he hadn’t known, what then?
In a turmoil of indecision, Hal got to his feet and walked over to the desk. The blonde receptionist gave him a bright, expectant look; behind her, in the office, Hal saw Wesley Prince seated in front of a computer screen, with papers spread out next to the keyboard.
‘Yes - how can I help you?’ the woman prompted.
‘I—’ Hal began; then changed his mind, and mumbled vaguely about coming back later. He veered away and out of the wide doors to the car park. She must think he was a total space cadet. On the plus side, he knew now where Wesley worked, where Wesley could be found again. When he wasn’t at work, the staff would know when his next shift was.
Centre Manager. A good job. The kind of job Hal would have wanted his father to have. Wesley was a dad to stand up next to Luke’s; Luke’s dad was sporty and fit but had a boring job in insurance.
Hal felt so energised, his whole body fizzing with it, that he ran all the way to the beach. He was making for Don’s, but as he reached the first of the beach huts he stopped, seeing huge letters drawn in the sand.
HAL CZESZKA HERE BY
A peeled stick lay nearby, discarded, but Czeszka was nowhere in sight. Hal puzzled over the message. So that was how she spelled her name - he’d thought it was Chesska. But what did it mean? Czeszka was here? Or Czeszka will be here? He hadn’t said anything about meeting her, had he? She had no reason to expect anything from him. Still, he picked up the stick and wrote 2MORO below her words. She probably wouldn’t see it before the tide washed in.
Don was sitting in the doorway of his hut staring out at the sea, doing nothing at all.
‘Aren’t you painting today?’ Hal asked him.
‘Can’t paint all day long. Have to sit and think.’
Now that he was here, Hal felt an urge to tell Don all about his discovery. I’ve found him. My dad. My DAD. Seen him. Talked to him. I know where he works.
But no, of course he couldn’t. Not without making Don promise, first, not to tell Aunt Jude. Once Wesley knew, then things would be different. Already Hal was imagining himself in a Luke-type arrangement, living with Mum but spending alternate weekends with his dad - with Wesley. It was just a shame that Wesley was married already, so there was no chance of him getting together with Mum.
‘Hey, relax!’ Don told him. ‘You’re making me anxious, jittering about like that. What’s up - ants in your pants?’
‘Oh. Nothing.’ Hal sat on the step, but couldn’t be still; with a piece of broken shell he poked and raked at the grains of dry sand that had blown and collected in the angle of the doorstep.
‘You missed your girlfriend, if that’s what’s biting you.’ Don gave him an amused look. ‘She was here about an hour ago. Said she’d be at the lifeboat-house.’
‘She’s not my girlfriend,’ Hal mumbled, indignant. ‘I don’t even know her.’
Don shrugged. ‘Up to you.’ He got stiffly to his feet. ‘It is about time I did some work, though. Hang around if you want. Or maybe you need to burn off some of that energy.’
Hal looked at his watch; he had an hour before Aunt Jude would expect him back at the house. He might as well go and see what Czeszka was up to. ‘OK. See you later,’ he told Don, and set off along the beach, breaking into a run, his trainers biting into the pebbly sand.
He could have run for miles and miles. Weird, how different he felt. Taller. More confident. More excitingly himself.
12
FAMILY
Having expected Czeszka to be sitting on the ramp on the lifeboat-house, flicking stones perhaps, waiting for him, he was surprised to find her inside, in the new extension. Work was still going on there: two electricians were positioning spotlights in the roof-joists, and a young man in overalls was tidying up. Czeszka was helping him, carrying stuff out to a white van parked on the gravel.
Hal loitered by the entrance until she saw him. At once she came over, carrying a bucket.
‘What you doing?’ he asked, looking at the bucket.
‘I help my brother. Gregor. He work here three days.’ Czeszka called to the young man, rapidly and incomprehensibly. He came over too, held out his hand for a formal handshake and said, ‘Please to meet you.’ He had a very deep voice and a quick, alert expression, like his sister’s.
‘You live in Ryton?’ Hal asked Czeszka, while Gregor climbed inside the van to stow things properly. ‘I mean you’re not just here on holiday?’
‘Yes, my family all here. Gregor is plasterer.’ She managed to put a z in it. ‘Our father is chef at Ocean Hotel since one year. Now my mother and I come also to live, and Gregor to study. I start at Southdean School after the half-time holiday.’
Hal grinned. ‘Half-term.’
‘Thank you. Half-term,’ Czeszka repeated. ‘Yes, I wish you tell me when wrong.’
‘What year you in?’
‘Year?’
‘Yeah, year. You know. At school.’
‘Oh. I see.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Year nine I think is calle
d.’
So she was the same age as him. When he’d thought she was a boy, she’d looked younger, but now it was hard to tell.
Gregor climbed into the driver’s seat, and spoke to Czeszka in Polish, adding, ‘Bye,’ to Hal before driving off.
‘He did this. Good work, yes?’ Czeszka swept an arm towards the high wall that backed onto the original lifeboat-house, and was now smoothly and flawlessly skimmed in plaster. ‘And you?’ she added. ‘Family?’
Hal hesitated, then said, ‘Yes. My dad lives here. He works at the sports centre.’
It was good, how that sounded. And true.
That evening, while they ate supper, Hal saw Don watching him closely. Don knew he’d been agitated earlier, but Hal wasn’t going to let Aunt Jude know why. If Don thought Czeszka was the big secret, that might be a good thing. Hal hid his excitement behind a front of bored gruffness, barely looking up from his plate, hardly speaking except to answer questions with monosyllabic grunts.
He managed to speak to Mum on the phone without giving anything away. Then, when he’d positioned himself at the dining table with Aunt Jude’s laptop and was about to email Osman, the phone rang again. He didn’t take a lot of notice; heard Aunt Jude reassuring whoever it was that Yes, everything was fine; then she said, ‘All right, I’ll fetch him,’ and appeared in the doorway.
‘It’s your grandad,’ she told him. ‘From Spain. He wants a word with you.’
‘With me? What about?’
‘I expect he’ll tell you.’
Slouching to his feet, Hal mumbled, ‘Do I have to?’ but Aunt Jude shushed him, a finger to her lips. She put the receiver firmly in his hand, and left him to it.
‘Uh. Hello,’ he said, in a toneless voice.
‘Hal!’ said the grandfather’s voice. ‘It’s good to hear you. Your Aunt Jude is really enjoying having you around, you know. I hope you like being at the seaside?’
He sounded just like he had at the funeral: falsely cheery, as if speaking to a six-year-old.
‘ ’Sall right,’ Hal replied.
‘Sleeping in your mother’s old bedroom, eh? That must feel a bit peculiar.’
Hal said nothing. Yes, it did when he thought about it, but all he could imagine now was Mum in her room dreaming about Wesley, and the grandfather spoiling it all.
There was a small cough at the end of the line, and the voice went on, ‘Anyway, Hal, I’m looking forward to seeing you when I get back. It’s grand out here but there’s nowhere as good as home, is there? So I’ll - er - see you soon. Goodbye, then - and keep your pecker up.’
‘See you,’ Hal said, and put the phone down.
Keep your pecker up! He was like someone in an ancient film. No one talked like that, no one in this century, anyway.
‘OK?’ said Aunt Jude, from the kitchen where she was cleaning the hob. He knew she’d been listening. Don was in the front room watching TV.
Hal shrugged. ‘Is he coming back, then?’
She looked at him. ‘Well, this is his house. He lives here.’
‘Yeah, I know, but - like, soon?’
‘Second week in November.’ Aunt Jude looked at the kitchen calendar. ‘That’s right. His flight’s booked for the seventh.’
Hal was relieved. ‘I’ll be home by then.’ But at once he was caught in dismay: how could he go back home and carry on as before, when Wesley was here?
‘He wants to make an effort,’ Aunt Jude said. ‘Make up for all the wasted years. I think your grandmother dying made him see things differently.’
Bit late for that, Hal thought. Thirteen years too late.
‘And,’ Aunt Jude went on, ‘if he knows he’s been stupid, done himself out of all the pleasure of having a daughter and a grandson, shouldn’t he have a chance to put things right? Your mum wouldn’t have come to the funeral, would she, or agreed to you coming here, if she didn’t think so. I’d hate - you know I’d really hate for him to get old and die without things being sorted out.’
‘S’pose.’ Hal couldn’t think of anything else to say. But, really, he didn’t see that it was up to him. He didn’t see how both Wesley and the grandfather could fit into his life.
Later, in bed, he planned and planned ways of approaching Wesley, what to say. He’d forgotten, till Mum reminded him, that Aunt Jude was driving him up to the hospital tomorrow. He’d have no time to himself at all. He’d see Mum; but at the moment he felt awkward about that, too. Never before had he kept such a big secret from her.
Still, how could she blame him, when she’d kept her own secret for years and years?
Soon after lunch, Hal was in the passenger seat of Aunt Jude’s silver Focus, setting off for the hospital.
How odd it felt, how dull, once they’d driven over the Downs to the flat land beyond. Not to feel the pull of the sea, not to see the shining water, the big sky, the heaped clouds. Away from the coast, every direction looked the same, flat and uninteresting: too many roads, too many directions, with no sense of the land’s edge. Here, you’d have no idea whether the tide was in or out. Hal felt as if he must always have lived by the sea, he missed it so much.
In less than two hours, they were finding a parking space outside the huge modern hospital, and following signs for Wards, past Orthopaedics and Maternity, X-Ray and Theatre and Outpatients. A friendly male nurse directed them to Mum’s bed, in a bay of four.
There she was: in her blue dressing-gown, sitting up in a chair beside her high bed. She looked pale and tired, but gave Hal a big hug. He smelled her familiar scent and the stuff she put on her hair, and felt as if they’d been separated for weeks and weeks.
She wasn’t alone: Claire was there, arranging a big sheaf of lilies in a vase on the bedside cabinet. And there were three other women in the bay, one lying in bed, the other two sitting out, but none of them with any visitors. How could you tell anybody anything, so publicly, so exposed?
First there were introductions, as Claire and Aunt Jude hadn’t met before. Then Mum wanted to know all about Hal’s week and what he’d been up to, and how he liked Ryton. He gave evasive replies, saved by Aunt Jude’s interruption: ‘But what about you? How are you getting on?’
Mum told them about the little bits of progress she’d made each day, walking the length of the ward, being allowed to have a shower. ‘They’re probably letting me out tomorrow,’ she told them, ‘once the consultant’s been round. But I’ve got to take things carefully for a while yet. No lifting, no getting tired. That’s why I’ll be staying at Claire’s, for next week at least. She’s offered to look after me.’
‘Quite right too. It’ll be fun,’ said Claire. ‘You’d only be bored at home, and - I know you! - you’ll start cleaning windows, or sorting out cupboards.’
‘And - Hal - Claire’s got another suggestion,’ Mum said, smiling at him.
‘Yes. I thought you could come and stay too, Hal. I’ve got the space, with Stephen away - your mum’ll have the guest room, and you can have his.’
‘That’ll be good, won’t it?’ said Mum. ‘It’s half-term - you’ll be able to see your friends and go to your usual places. Aunt Jude can bring you up on Sunday.’
So they’d discussed it on the phone, Hal thought. No one had told him.
‘No!’ he burst out. ‘I don’t have to, do I? I want to stay where I am!’
‘Hal!’ Mum reproved. ‘It’s very kind of Claire - a lot of upheaval, whatever she says—’
‘I just thought you’d rather be with your mum,’ said Claire; but she sounded a bit relieved.
‘Yeah, but not - I mean it’s not like being at home. I like it at Aunt Jude’s. The sea, and Don, and—’ The thought of leaving Ryton made Hal feel panicky and sick. Even if he didn’t go to Claire’s, he’d only have another week there.
‘It’s fine with me, if Hal prefers to stay on,’ Aunt Jude assured Mum. ‘No problem at all. We like having him.’
‘Oh well, if you’re sure. But thanks again for offering, Claire. It’s reall
y kind of you - isn’t it, Hal?’
‘Yeah,’ said Hal, able to produce a smile now that he definitely wasn’t going. Imagine! Being snatched away from Ryton, so tantalisingly soon after making such a breakthrough!
There’d be no chance of talking to Mum on her own, however much he did or didn’t want to tell her. A friendly black nurse arrived to check Mum’s blood pressure; then a trolley came round with cups of tea. And now Mum was talking about a new worry.
‘Jacky came to visit yesterday. And - well, it was a bit of a shock. She didn’t want to tell me, but I could see she was holding something back, so I got it out of her. JJ’s is closing down. I won’t have a job to go back to.’
‘What?’ and ‘Why?’ from Claire and Aunt Jude.
‘She hasn’t been doing specially well lately - there are so many new hairdressers opening up all the time! - and now the rent’s gone up, too,’ Mum explained. ‘She’s decided to cut her losses. She was really apologetic about it, but she’s made up her mind.’
Aunt Jude asked, ‘What will you do?’ and Claire made sympathetic noises. Hal said nothing, but looked at Mum in dismay. What - she’d be jobless? On the dole? What if she couldn’t pay the rent? What if they lost the flat as well? What if—
Mum sighed. ‘I don’t know. I can’t think about it, yet. I’ll look around and see what I can find. It might turn out for the best. I never intended to be a hairdresser for my whole working life.’
They chatted a while longer, until it was time for the patients’ supper. Claire left at that point; Hal and Aunt Jude waited while Mum picked at quiche and salad. Soon after, Aunt Jude said that she and Hal ought to be on their way. ‘Friday traffic’s always busy.’
‘Thanks for coming.’ Mum looked suddenly small and alone beside the high hospital bed, huddled into her dressing-gown.
‘Don’t worry too much about the job,’ Aunt Jude told her in an undertone. ‘Something’ll turn up. It will, I promise.’
Hal wasn’t sure how fragile Mum was, but she caught him in a big hug, and whispered, ‘Bye, Prince Hal. I’ll see you again soon as soon.’
The Sandfather Page 9
