There was one thing, of course, that Greg did want to talk to his father about: the standing order. The subject, however, was a potentially delicate one, and he saw no point in broaching it before the facts were established. Time, however, was against him: it was now Tuesday, and in little more than three days his father would disappear for good.
Wednesday morning dawned and Greg climbed out of bed early. He took a quick bath, shaved and dressed formally; ate a bowl of cereal, drank two cups of coffee and left the plates in the sink. He put his father’s death certificate and letter of administration in a large brown envelope, checked his passport was still in his wallet and then drove to the branch where his father had banked. He arrived early, and waited in the car until the bank opened for business.
Once the door was unlocked, he entered the premises and explained his business to one of the cashiers. He was shown to a small office and met there by the assistant manager, a woman in her late forties. She remembered Lyle and offered Greg her condolences. He thanked her and then asked about the standing order – how long had it been in place and the name and address of the recipient. She left him, and returned five minutes later with the details he’d requested. His father, she told him, had set up the standing order fifteen years ago for a Ms Gillian Diamanti.
Greg thanked her, returned to the car and phoned Billy. He asked if he recognised the name Gillian Diamanti or the address where she resided. Billy didn’t recall the name but was familiar with the street, which was about a half mile from their father’s house and just off the top road.
It took Greg less than ten minutes to drive there. Rather than park on Bateson Street, he decided to leave the car on the top road and walk to number 15. The houses were a mixture of old terraces and newer semi-detached and number 15, he discovered, was a small hairdresser’s shop.
He glanced through the window and saw a woman of about his age putting curlers into the hair of a woman about twice his age. He was debating whether to wait until the customer left the shop before entering, when the door opened and his father stepped out – or, at least, a fifteen-year-old version of his father.
Greg gasped. The boy looked at him questioningly for a moment and then climbed on a mountain bike and pedalled away.
Greg braced himself and walked into the shop.
The hairdresser looked up from her work and gave him a half smile. ‘It’s Greg, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘I was wondering if you’d turn up.’
‘There’s no doubt about it, Billy. He’s the spitting image of Dad.’
‘But has she actually said that Dad’s his father?’
‘No, but she couldn’t talk. She had some old biddy in the chair with her and she said she had appointments booked for the rest of the day. I’m supposed to go back at four.’
‘What was she like? Is she nice?’
‘I don’t know if she’s nice or not, but she looks to be about our age. Mid-to-late thirties, at a guess. She’s attractive though – I’ll say that for her.’
Billy did some quick calculations in his head. ‘Dad must have been about sixty-eight when he met her then, and if she’s in her late thirties now she must have been only in her early twenties when they had their affair. It doesn’t make any sense. Why would an attractive younger woman go out with someone like Dad?’
‘Mum did,’ Greg said. ‘She was nearly twenty years younger than him. Maybe he had got a thing for younger women and this hairdresser’s got a thing for older men. Maybe she was looking for a father figure.’
‘Dad was old enough to have been a grandfather figure,’ Billy said. ‘The only women you read about going after men that age are gold diggers. Dad wasn’t rich. She could have done a lot better than him… oh that sounds bad, doesn’t it? I didn’t mean it like that.’
‘I know what you mean: the same thought crossed my mind, too. Are you sure you don’t want to join me when I go back?’
‘I’d like to, Greg, but I’m taking Jean and Katy to the outdoor swimming pool today. I can’t really get out of it. What did the boy look like – apart from like Dad I mean? Did he look a decent sort?’
Greg shrugged. ‘He seemed pleasant enough. He didn’t spit at me or try to run me down with his bicycle, if that’s what you mean.’
‘Hang on a minute, Greg…’
Greg heard Jean’s voice in the background and Billy telling her he’d be with her in a minute.
‘I have to go, Greg. Call me on my mobile as soon as you know anything. I don’t know how I’m going to break this news to Jean. She already thinks my side of the family’s a dead loss.’
And that’s without her knowing the half of it, Greg thought.
He walked to the front room and lay down on the settee. He had five hours to kill before returning to the hairdresser’s – five long hours. While Gillian Diamanti washed, cut, and styled hair of varying lengths, age and gender; Greg remained on the couch prostrate and motionless. He closed his eyes and thought about what he’d say to Gillian Diamanti, thought about what she might say to him, and wondered about the boy whose name he didn’t know: the half-brother his father had failed to mention. His father, he calculated, had made an expensive mistake: £200 a month for fifteen years amounted to £36,000!
He considered the circumstances of their meeting and tried to imagine how two people from such opposite ends of the spectrum had been drawn to each other. He blenched when he thought of the consummation that had led to the birth of the boy on the bicycle, the boy who hadn’t spat at him or tried to run him down. Would his father expect him to take responsibility for his half-brother as well as Billy and Uncle Frank? Was he supposed to assume the burden of the standing order and embrace the child as a Bowman?
If his father did want these things, he was going to be disappointed. As far as Greg was concerned his responsibilities ended with Billy and Uncle Frank. They were his family. He had no use for a half-brother. The boy was Gillian Diamanti’s responsibility, not his. What Billy decided to do was a matter for him.
He drifted in and out of sleep and rose from the settee with a crick in his neck. He did stretching exercises and then went to the bathroom and splashed water on his face. The day was warm and he decided to walk to the hairdresser’s shop. He sauntered slowly and deliberated his opening words. He wanted something short and to the point, something that would put her on the defensive and not him.
But why was he so nervous? He never felt nervous. He walked into lecture halls every day of his working life and felt no more intimidated than if he’d gone to a 7-Eleven for a loaf of bread. He was known for not being nervous. After further reflection, he decided that it was probably because he was going to visit a hairdresser. Hairdressers always made him nervous.
He arrived at the shop and noticed two bicycles propped outside, the one belonging to the boy and the other, presumably, to an adult. The sign said CLOSED, but the door was unlocked and Greg walked in. A bell rang.
Inside, the shop was empty, but he could hear voices from above and then footsteps of people descending stairs. Gillian appeared, followed by the boy and a man of about her age clad in tight-fitting Lycra.
‘I’ll be with you in a minute, Greg,’ she said, and then turned to talk to the man.
‘Make sure he wears his helmet, Ben, and don’t take him on any busy roads.’
‘You worry too much, Gill. Lyle’s not a child. He knows what he’s doing.’
Lyle! Wasn’t it sufficient for his father to have sired the child without her flaunting the boy’s parentage to all and sundry? What had possessed the woman to give the boy his father’s name? Was she stupid, lacking in tact, or simply without imagination?
The boy recognised Greg from the morning and smiled at him when he passed. At least he has manners, Greg thought. At least there’s something positive about him I can tell Billy.
‘You’re sure you don’t want me to stick around?’ Ben sai
d to Gillian, looking at Greg.
‘I’ll be fine, Ben. Now scram. And don’t bother coming back if Lyle isn’t still in one piece.’
Ben smiled and the two of them kissed on the lips.
Lips! How brazen was this woman? His father had been dead for barely a month and she was already involved with another man. Gillian Diamanti certainly didn’t let the grass grow under her feet.
Lyle (the boy) was already outside the door sitting on his bike, resting an arm against the wall. ‘Come on, Ben!’ he called.
Ben walked past Greg but didn’t smile. Instead he gave him a look, a hard look if Greg read it right. What the hell was with this man? What reason did he have to be so high and mighty?
Greg waited until the two of them had disappeared, and then turned to face Gillian.
‘I believe you’re the mother of my father’s child,’ he said, in a voice more sonorous than he’d intended.
She stared at him incredulously and then burst out laughing, as if Greg had just told her the funniest joke in the world.
He waited while she composed herself, surprised by her reaction. Had she no shame?
‘You really don’t know, do you?’ Gillian said eventually.
Greg said nothing. He was used to power plays from attending departmental meetings and knew when to remain silent.
She spoke again.
‘I’m not the mother of your father’s child, Greg. I’m the mother of your child!’
The colour drained from Greg’s face and he gazed at her dumbfounded. How in the name of God could he be the father of a child whose mother he’d only met that morning? The idea was preposterous – far too preposterous to be true. The woman was trying to con him, trick him into paying her the money his father no longer could. The charlatan! He was about to call her bluff when another and altogether more uneasy thought nagged him: the notion was also too ludicrous to be a lie. Why, in times of DNA testing, when parentage could be proved or disproved in a matter of hours, would anyone make such a claim if not true?
‘You don’t even remember me, do you?’ Gillian said, in a voice more hurt than angry.
The sad truth was that Greg didn’t. He couldn’t place her name and neither could he find any familiar contours when he searched her face. He was unable to say with any certainty, however, that he had neither met nor slept with her, and this realisation troubled him. His younger years, he was aware, had been hedonistic – fuelled as often as not by drugs and alcohol – and his memory of them was worryingly cloudy. For all he knew, there could be a platoon of Gillian Diamantis lurking in these shadows. But what was he to say? How was he to explain this to Gillian without devaluing both her and himself? In the event, he did what any decent person placed in similar circumstances would have done, and lied through his teeth.
‘I don’t know if my father mentioned this to you, Gillian, but I had a serious motorcycle accident last year and suffered some brain damage. It’s not irreversible, I’m glad to say, but my memory’s temporarily impaired and there are gaps in my life that I still know nothing about. You couldn’t help me out here, could you?’
‘Oddly enough, I don’t think your father ever did mention this,’ Gillian replied somewhat sarcastically. ‘Perhaps the incident slipped his mind.’
‘Well, he was getting on in years,’ Greg volunteered.
‘He was old, Greg, not senile! Anyway, I’m always happy to assist those less fortunate than myself – especially the brain-damaged – so, if it’s of any help, you knew me as Sudge and we met in The Cat.’
The name Sudge did ring a faint bell in Greg’s mind – how could a name like Sudge not? It tinkled at first, dinged for a while and then started to clang loudly. Of course, Sudge! No wonder he hadn’t recognised Gillian. Gillian was… well, just plain normal by comparison, another person entirely. And yes, she was right: they had met in The Cat – or to give the club its full name, The Little Fat Black Pussycat.
The events of the evening Gillian spoke of, events that had occurred approximately two weeks before he’d left for America, slowly fell into place. He remembered meeting up with friends in The Continental Coffee Bar, popping some pills and then moving on to The Coffin, another of the city’s underworld clubs. They’d stayed for a couple of hours and then moved on to The Little Fat Black Pussycat to listen to some live music, and it was here that he’d met Sudge, a strange-looking girl with short pink hair, green lips and coal-black eyes.
They’d fallen into conversation at the bar and then, after what passed as a respectable length of time for two people as high as kites, into each other’s arms. They’d spent the evening dancing together, sweating, gyrating, and then, during a break in the band’s performance, gone outside and smoked a joint. And then what had they done? As far as Greg could remember they’d gone back inside and danced some more. So when had they slept together? When had they made love? Surely not in the street!
And then it dawned on him… Little Lyle had been conceived in Big Lyle’s bed after all.
‘Sudge!’ Greg said, holding out his hand and smiling. ‘It’s good to see you again.’
‘Fuck you, Greg!’ Gillian replied.
Cafetière
The meeting with Gillian Diamanti – mother of his child and friend of his father – had been a sobering experience that left Greg in need of a stiff drink. Rather than return home after leaving the shop, he headed instead for the nearest pub and ordered a large whisky.
The sun had long since set on the fortunes of The Rising Moon, and though the hostelry was still open for business it was now for sale. A large sign invited potential purchasers to make a difference to the local community by restoring the inn to its former glory – which, so far as Greg could determine, would have entailed not only gutting the premises, but single-handedly reversing the economy, overturning the smoking ban and securing permission from the brewery to buy alcohol from supermarkets.
He avoided the possibility of being dragged into conversation with any of the regulars hovering at the bar, and took his drink to a table at the far end of the room. The air in the pub was stale, the carpet worn and sticky and the upholstered benches torn and in need of repair. The Rising Moon, he decided, was highly suited for a man who’d just had the stuffing knocked out of him.
Once Greg had acknowledged their relationship, Gillian had led him to the upstairs flat and left him in the lounge while she made coffee. The room was neat and tastefully decorated; the furniture distressed and framed posters on the walls. A large yucca plant stood in one corner, a large flat-screened television in another and, on every available surface, photographs of Lyle Jr – or Bicycle Boy, as Greg preferred to call his son.
He’d been lost in thought when Gillian returned to the room, silently rueing the day he’d taken it upon himself to investigate the standing order instead of leaving Billy to tie up the loose ends of his father’s estate. If he’d done that, he’d have never called at the shop that morning and come face to face with the consequences of his past. He’d have been happy simply not to have known. Ignorance, as people so often said, would indeed have been bliss.
Instead of doing this, however, he’d opened the lid of a Pandora’s Box and now had to deal with the repercussions. What was wanted of him? Was he supposed to renew his relationship with Gillian and become an actual father to the boy he’d unknowingly sired, or was he simply expected to take on the mantle of his father and carry the financial burden?
In the event, Gillian expected neither. She simply depressed the plunger of the cafetière and poured out a story: what had been and what would be.
They’d made love just the one time, maybe twice, but on the same occasion. The moment, as Greg had surmised, had been his leaving party, though at the time, she pointed out to him, he’d failed to mention either the small matter of it being a leaving party or the fact that he was decamping for America. As far as she’d been concerned,
it was the first of many parties they’d attend together. She’d given him her number… he’d promised to call… nothing!
Had she fallen in love with Greg that evening, fallen apart when he hadn’t called and locked herself away in a dark room? No. She’d chalked it up to experience, a drunken fuck, and was annoyed with herself for having been so easily sweet-talked into spreading her legs for a boy she’d only just met. She got on with her life – something she always did – and forgot all about him until she missed her period and bought a self-testing kit. Then she remembered him – remembered him in spades!
She’d been nineteen at the time and he’d been her second partner – yes, second! If he’d been under the impression that she was ‘easy’ and slept around, then he’d be wrong. She wasn’t that kind of girl – still wasn’t. Convincing her parents of this, however, had been a different matter. They were old-fashioned Italians, set in their ways and strict Catholic. Sex before marriage was a taboo in their eyes, and as far as they were concerned she’d brought shame on the family. She’d made her bed and now she had to lie in it, her father told her – making it clear that it wouldn’t be a bed in his house. It was then that she’d moved into the flat above the hairdresser’s shop.
Gillian had been training in the salon for two years by then, and had become friendly with the middle-aged woman who owned the shop. A kind and nurturing person, Elsie Barraclough had empathised with her trainee’s plight and invited her to move into the upstairs rooms, which at the time had been unoccupied. Even though Elsie charged only half the rent she normally asked for, Gillian had still struggled. On top of the rent, she had gas and electricity bills to pay and food to buy, and on a trainee’s salary this proved difficult. It was then that she’d reluctantly decided to track down Greg.
The Last of the Bowmans Page 23
