The Anagram

by Russell French

  He refused the ministrations that Rhiannon offered and wished her goodnight, with thanks for everything she had done. “I’m just going to have a large mug of strong black coffee and have a rummage in my grandfather’s desk.”

  “Are you sure you’ll be ok?” Rhiannon asked, looking worried. “Remember what Mr. Lyttle said.”

  “I’ll be fine, Mrs B” Gareth laughed. “Now off you go before it gets too late. And thanks again. Good night.”

  Rhiannon squeezed his arm affectionately. “Good night, Master Gareth. Take care and God bless.”

  Gareth wandered wearily into the kitchen and made his coffee. The wind was still blowing hard and the rain continued to batter the creaking windows of the old building. Gareth was glad he had at least managed to persuade his elderly grandparent to have central heating installed—he wouldn’t need to fire up the ancient boiler which still rumbled away in the back kitchen. The old place needed a lot doing, to it, though. Gareth sighed as he made his way to the front of the house and into his grandfather’s study, which stood to the left of the front door. The old yellow-brown wall paper, dulled through the passage of time, gave the room a gloomy, unwelcoming feel. He pulled together the dubious-coloured musty curtains which guarded the large bay window and made his way towards his grandfather’s desk, a sturdy eighteenth-century English piece, the sort that would have Messrs Bly and Payne drooling on the Antiques Roadshow. Having fiddled around to switch on the antiquated desk-lamp, he fumbled about for the key that Mr Lyttle had given him and which he had safely deposited in his trouser pocket. “I don’t know if I’m going to like this”, he thought to himself miserably, as he sat down at the desk. “I’ve got a feeling this is going to change my life forever.” With a bit of a struggle, he inserted the key into the lock in the top drawer and, with some trepidation, pulled it open.

  4

  To all intents and purposes, for the first twenty-one years of his life at least, Gareth was secure in the knowledge that he was the son of Brian and Betty Mendlove, of Hammersmith, North London. He was their only child, a bit of a surprise, as they were both in their early forties when he appeared on the scene. Brian did something obscure but well-remunerated in the City and Betty was a full-time housewife and, now, mother. They lived in a comfortably large semi-detached house in a tree-lined street filled with similar dwellings, where there was an unstated but distinctly obvious air of competition as to who had the cleanest car, the neatest lawn, the most colourful roses. This was not a thoroughfare where Labour party posters abounded in times of political activity.

  Brian was an affable chap who liked nothing better than to settle down of an evening in front of the fire with his pipe and the Daily Telegraph crossword, while the sounds of a good Radio 3 concert emanated from within his state-of—the art stereo system. Betty, a rather plump but very house-proud lady, would be knitting her latest creation for the next parish jumble sale, the inevitable cigarette hanging precariously from the edge of her mouth. She chattered away aimlessly, pausing for the occasional non-committal but good-natured grunt from her husband. It never ceased to surprise him how someone who stayed at home all day could have so much to say at the end of it! Gareth had inherited his love of classical music from them, not having had much choice really. This was not a household from where the strains of the latest Number One emitted with any regularity. The occasional burst of Queen, perhaps, if Brian was in one of his “wild” moods but that was about it, really. True, Gareth had dabbled with New Kids on the Block and later Take That in their first incarnation, but pop music was not really to his taste, nor did he have any great musical talent, so did not derive much pleasure from the wonderful improvisations of Jazz. As an only child who did not make friends easily, he was from an early age a real loner. He had had few pals at junior school and had not felt any need or inclination to stay in touch with any of them. Facebook and Friends Re-united were not for Gareth Llewellyn!

  At the age of eleven, he had been sent away to a minor but very good Public School in the Midlands, not because his parents wanted rid of him, far from it, but because it was the right thing to do. He excelled both academically and on the cricket field, being an opening batsman and occasional leg-spinner of considerable promise. His 251 not out against Rugby was still remembered with affection by older members of staff at his school and was as yet by some way the highest score ever made by one of their students. Again, not many friends, although he acquired a strong dislike for two particular individuals in his year, but more of them later. He did forge a strong friendship with Richard “Smashem” Bateman—they had gone up to Cambridge together, and still met up for a game of squash and a meal after work. Richard was now Dr. Bateman and worked in an extremely busy practice in the East End. The two of them had batted together for a while during Gareth’s record-breaking innings and they had become known as the SAS—Scarface and Smashem—in homage to an even more powerful duo who were wreaking havoc in the Premier League that year. Gareth was even godfather to Richard’s daughter Kate. Looking back on it, it was clear to Gareth now that a pattern was emerging—not many bonds of friendship established, but those that were proved unbreakable. Where had he seen that before? Gareth smiled ruefully to himself as he remembered the words of Noel Lyttle in the pub. Yet again, the similarities between himself and his grandfather struck him forcibly.

  Again, at Cambridge, academic work did not provide him with much of a challenge, the only interference provided by a passionate but short and ill-fated relationship with a very “posh” girl called Lucie Middleton-Smythe. She definitely had him earmarked as bridegroom fodder, despite his mere middle-class background, but their relationship was fatally wounded when Gareth discovered that her father was a supporter and financial backer of the BNP. A lucky escape, our hero told himself afterwards, but something that, to use the old cliché, he could “chalk up to experience.” The odd dalliance with the opposite sex took place at times thereafter—one or two of the ladies involved might have taken it further, but they did not have what Gareth was looking for, that elusive extra spark. Cricket continued to be his other love. He got his Blue in his second year and even made a few reasonably successful appearances for Middlesex seconds—half a dozen games yielded a century and a couple of fifties—but the rather false camaraderie of the dressing-room and the need for “team-bonding” were alien to his solitary nature and he played less and less, particularly after coming down from Cambridge. He remained a vague Arsenal supporter, hailing as he did from that part of the world, and went to the odd game at Highbury, then later the Emirates Stadium. In his glum moments, he would sometimes smile at the memory of United’s eccentric keeper Fabian Barthez having one of his crazy days and gifting the great Thierry Henry two goals in the space of a few minutes. But apart from his games of squash with Richard, that was pretty much the full extent of his participation in sport. His temperament did not lend itself to the true-blue diehard support of the genuine football fan.

  In the summer of 2000, his life took a sharp turn in an unexpected direction. While working during the long vac in his local supermarket, he received an urgent call from Brian, asking him to return home immediately. To his surprise, he was ushered into the front room, usually reserved for state occasions, and gently invited to sit down. His father, looking distinctly more perturbed than Gareth could ever remember, said: “Bad news, I’m afraid, old son. Your Mum’s got lung cancer, six weeks to live at the most. I’m sorry… .” He stood up and, for the first and only time in front of Gareth, burst into floods of genuine unrestrained tears. “Knew she wasn’t well, of course, but… . and the smoking didn’t help. Sixty-five, it’s no age at all.” Gareth did his best to console the poor bloke but emotion, as with so many men, was not his strong point and his feeble pattings and embarrassed muttering proved totally ineffectual. Six weeks later, they stood together at Betty’s funeral, proudly British and not a tear between them. A few days further on, Gareth was summoned to the inner
sanctum again.

  “Need to have another chat with you, old boy. Don’t think I’m going to last much longer myself to be honest with you. Miss the old girl more than I can say.” Gareth knew this to be true; Brian had been totally lost since the passing of his wife of forty years. His recent retirement had not helped and he spent most of his time wandering aimlessly round the house, not even seeking the consolation that Beethoven and Brahms might well have provided.

  “Come on, Dad. You’ve got years to go yet. You’ve got your music, your books, crosswords, the odd round of golf.”

  “No, no. I think the man in black’s got my number.”

  He looked at Gareth with the expression of one who had made a big decision. “I’ve got to tell you this, son. I’ve cleared it with your grandfather and he’s allowed me to inform you.”

  “Grandfather? What grandfather? I haven’t got any grandparents—at least, that’s what you’ve always told me. What are you hiding from me, Dad?”

  “Well, that’s it, old son, you see. You’re adopted. We were never your real parents at all.”

  “ADOPTED? Why didn’t you tell me? I mean, I’m twenty-one, it’s not as though I’m still a young kid. Surely I had a right to know a lot sooner! What’s going on?”

  “It’s not that easy, old chap. You’re rather… . special. Your grandfather wanted to protect you as long as possible.”

  “Protect me? Protect me from what? And what about my parents?”

  “Can’t tell you much, son, I’m afraid. One of the conditions of our taking you on was that we should know as little as possible. Just told your parents were killed in an accident. Bring you up as ours, which we did gladly and as well as we could.”

  “Of course you did, Dad. I couldn’t have asked for better parents. So, what now?”

  “Well, we’ve stayed in touch of course. Occasional progress report—that sort of thing, don’t you know? There’s a phone number here. Get in touch. Leave you to it, eh?” Brian shuffled out of the room almost apologetically.

  Looking back now, Gareth could see that, although he had felt loved and cared for, it had been at one level removed and he realised that he had always deep down known that he didn’t belong there. After allowing himself a few moments in which to compose his thoughts, he had lifted the receiver, dialled the number and said hesitantly: “Er… I’d like to speak to my grandfather, please. I’m afraid I don’t know his name.”

  Two weeks later, Brian had followed his wife to the Elysian Fields, his head blown off by a shotgun borrowed from a farming chum at the Golf Club. A note, in typically self-deprecating style, simply said: “Gareth Sorry old son Did our best I’ll say hello to your Mum B.” Of course, everything, and they were not without means, was left to Gareth, including the house, worth the best part of half a million on its own. This enabled him to buy a rather luxurious penthouse flat in a converted warehouse in Limehouse. He had not gone back to his old North London home since. That period of his life was over.

  5

  The drawer Gareth opened was almost entirely filled with a large brown envelope, which had his name on it. It was filled with pages of lined paper covered in his grandfather’s now-familiar green-ink scrawl.

  “Gareth. I shall have moved on by the time you come to read this.” The young man felt a lump in his throat and surreptitiously flicked away an unbidden tear. “I shall do my best to explain what I feel you need to know and to fill in a few gaps.” Gareth recalled their first meeting at the railway station—a nervous handshake followed by an unexpected but wholeheartedly warm embrace. He soon realised that physically and in many other ways he was very like his aged relative, even down to the deep frown of concentration they both adopted when reading or thinking. There was an immediate bond struck.

  “As you know, your parents were killed in a flying accident out over Liverpool Bay. It was never established why both engines failed. You were with them, of course, asleep in a wicker basket behind their seats. It floated on the water, which is why you survived. I had had a terrible premonition about the day, I begged Gwyneth not to go but your father just laughed it off—said I was worrying about nothing. Barry-John Llewellyn wasn’t the sort to let something like an old boy’s fears put him off, not a macho Rugby hard man like him!” The heavy sarcasm was almost as bad as a physical slap to Gareth. “After they had gone, I realised what was going to happen. There were no mobile phones in those days, of course, so I got in touch with an old sailor friend of mine and managed to persuade him to take his boat out into the Bay. That’s how he got to the wreckage before it sank and was able to hide you away in his vessel before any one else got there. It suited us to have certain people think you were dead—kept you under the radar for a while, as it were. Didn’t want the wrong sort of individuals looking for you.”

  Gareth had gone over this sequence of events many times with his Grandfather but never got any more than “I just had a feeling” or “I just knew” or “Our Gwyneth felt something, I think, but she was so proud to be going off flying with her husband and son that it got the better of her.” So that would have to do.

  Gareth knew that his mother Gwyneth had been Seth’s only child. His beloved wife Elizabeth had died in childbirth, not that uncommon in 1953, but it had left Seth bewildered and embittered; never the most out-going of men, he had withdrawn increasingly within himself. He loved his daughter deeply but was not always able to show this affection outwardly, although she knew it was there. She in her turn almost inevitably became a bit of a loner with few friends—John Phillips and later on his childhood sweetheart Bernice were very much the exceptions. Not for the first time, Gareth reflected on the similarities with his own upbringing and wondered to what extent it was inevitable. Nature versus nurture—would any children he might father be similarly introverted? “Not if I can help it!” he vowed inwardly, although for the time being he could not see when that moment might arrive.

  Gwyneth started to gain a reputation as a promising poet in her teens, being published in several magazines and quarterlies. A volume for publication was in the process of preparation when Death so cruelly nipped off the burgeoning bud of talent. Seth had locked all the poems away in his desk but at least he hadn’t destroyed them. Gareth knew that a published collection of his mother’s works was long overdue and would be not only welcomed but acclaimed. With his grandfather gone, this was something he could now attend to. It would be a fitting tribute and lasting memorial to the mother he had never known.

  He knew also that his mother was a manic depressive. “Bi-polar, they call them, now” Richard had informed him cheerfully, “Sounds much better”. Evidence of these mood-swings was there for all to see. The title that he knew he would use for the collection was on its own proof enough: “The Good Days and The Bad.” A good pithy title, but very much a summary of its contents. Even the “good” poems usually had a hint of darkness about them. Gareth remembered one written when his mother was in her early teens. She had always been a good sailor and often went out sailing on her own, even as a young girl.

  Be with me, gentle lord

  When I am out at sea.

  Be near me here on board

  To guide and comfort me.

  Oh lead me with your hand

  As I sail across the bay

  And steer me to the land

  Yet keep the Dark away.

  Her belief in the protection of the Divine was still evident at this stage, although it would gradually disappear. For his part, Gareth was beginning to understand more of the idea of light and dark, good and bad. He realised what sort of heavy burden his mother carried with her and the joy she felt when she had found someone to share it with. A chance encounter on a train led her to Barry-John Llewellyn, a London Welsh and soon to be Wales inside centre. He was everything in character that she was not: dark-haired, gregarious, with a great sense of fun; confident, ea
sy-going with more friends than he could remember. But he was also sufficiently intelligent to notice the inner charms that lay behind Gwyneth’s diffidence. Before long, they were engaged, married and expecting their first child. Barry-John did not share his wife’s pessimistic views on life but he was wise enough not to belittle or pooh-pooh them. He inspired in Gwyneth a confidence she had never felt before, hence her ability and willingness to override her father’s misgivings on that fatal day in May 1979.

  Gareth had researched some of the newspaper coverage on the day after the accident. The front pages were filled with an event of far greater national significance:

  TORIES ROMP HOME

  Thatcher to become first woman P.M.

  But in the bottom right-hand corner of one front page he had found:

  Rugby Star killed in Plane Crash

  Welsh Rugby Union star Barry-John Llewellyn and his wife Gwyneth, the well-known poet, were killed in a mysterious plane crash over Liverpool Bay yesterday afternoon. Their baby son Gareth is also believed to have been on board with them.

  Full story—Page 7.

  “We had had Brian and Betty Mendlove on standby in case something of this nature happened. Not that we wanted it for a moment, of course, but it is always wise to be prepared when PP are involved. Rightly, as it turned out. A number of reasons for choosing them; childless, very important, and not in the first flush of youth. Lived in London, again important, because it meant the other side were less likely to pick up your tracks—it is far harder to latch onto someone’s aura in a big city—anyway, they thought you were dead, or so I hoped. And Betty being a, how shall I put it, larger lady, it meant it would be easier, more acceptable, for her to go away for a few weeks and come back with a baby. I think it worked, nobody ever said anything, to my knowledge at least. I’m sorry if they imposed their brand of Anglo-Catholicism on you—yells, bells and incense smells, all that sort of thing.” Gareth smiled as he recalled his vigorous and ultimately successful attempts not to join the choir, aided in no small measure by his complete lack of musical skill and his innate inability to sing in tune. “They seem to have done a good job at any rate. I’m sorry it ended as it did. I had hoped to protect you for a few years longer but perhaps it was for the best.” Gareth recalled briefly Brian with his inevitable pipe and Betty’s superb Sunday roast dinners. Good people—he had surely undervalued the role they had played in his life.