Friday reading

Deb tells Marge about going to meet her real father for the first time in the latest chapter of Family Lines

Next day

Here I am again, with a new biro and an hour of peace – I hope! – So where was I? oh yes, okay, I was building up to telling you about my meeting with Jim. But first I have to admit I can’t help wondering whether you knew the whole story from the get go. You were always there, part of our lives, Auntie Marge who babysat and who came for Sunday lunches, Christmas, Easter, birthdays and Hallowe’en.

Did you enjoy those occasions, Marge? It seems so kind of Jane Austenish, you know the ‘spinster’ aunt helping the family with no suggestion that she might have a life of her own. Don’t worry, I don’t think of you that way, it’s just that looking back I see how we probably took you for granted. That includes Mam and Dad Denis. No one ever asked you about yourself, you just blended in with the parents, another of those remote people who minded us and scolded us and read stories to us and gave us gifts. Like the diaries which Lucy put to good use when I went away.

I know now that children are wilful egotists which means they can’t imagine an adult having anything better to be doing than minding them. We knew you were a teacher but that didn’t really impinge on us as anything meaningful. We didn’t even connect you with the teachers in our school. You were Auntie Marge. Always and ever.

This is probably a good moment to say I realise you must have had a life of your own, friends, outings, maybe even lovers, or at least admirers. I seem to remember you played bridge, mainly because I didn’t understand what it was and eventually I dismissed it as likely something boring.

Betty was different. She seemed exotic because she lived abroad, wore mad clothes, and was forever changing her hairstyle. When she landed in from Berlin, armed with teddy bears and chocolates and funny spicy biscuits that we didn’t really like, it was party time. She always brought Mam a record of the latest hit on the Berlin club scene and the two of them would dance to it, and get us to join in until we all collapsed in giggles. Poor Betty, she ended up getting a raw deal, didn’t she? Her fella never came back with her but she told us about him, how he had long hair down his back and didn’t eat meat which sounded way out back then. Gerhardt, my heart, she called him. A bit of a weirdo, was Dad Denis’s assessment of him.

Sorry, I’m wandering off the point here. Really I only wanted to let you know I’m glad you were part of our lives, even if we were too self-centred to take the time to get to know you. When I come back in the summer – if, big IF, that’s what Lucy still wants after you tell her everything – I’ll come to visit you and we can talk about you for a change. A long as you want to, that is. I don’t mean to sound nosey! Except for needing to know whether Mam told you the whole story about her and Jim.

Photo by Jeremy Stewardson on Unsplash

By the time I got on the train for York I was planking with nerves at the thought of meeting him. Suddenly, once the reality was about to dawn there were all sorts of doubts and second thoughts and what ifs running through my head. My friends at the campsite at Greenham had busied themselves priming me for the trip and the reunion – if that was what it was. Maybe it would be a first meeting? I didn’t even know if Jim had ever laid eyes on me before.

One woman, Cynthia, who was a hairdresser, cut my hair to ‘get rid of the rats’ tails’, she said. Another, Laura, read my cards, to see was I walking into trouble, which, apparently, I wasn’t, according to her. So much for that! A few others gave me clean clothes, ‘you don’t want to look like a waif’, they said. There were a couple who thought I was mad, saying what good would it do me to meet Jim, especially when I’d got this far without him and when he’d left my pregnant Mam to sink or swim on her own. One said I could have her father, a gambling, skirt-chasing bastard. At least you know that much about him, I said. Which means you can choose to see him or not. I just want to have that choice.

Another said she understood. Her dad died when she was five. All she had was photographs and her mam’s and gran’s memories. Then she got a stepdad. She said he wasn’t a bad man but she didn’t like that he thought he could replace her real dad. He didn’t understand why not and so he got it into his head that she didn’t like him which pissed him off. Oh boy. She said she was better off at the camp with a family she had picked for herself than back there with her mam telling her to be nice to her stepdad. Parents! Who’d have them? she laughed. All I could think was she had a photo of her real dad. I didn’t even have that.

Barb, who was kind of the leader, or mother figure, in our section, gave me a lift to the station in her jalopy. She also bought my ticket and handed me £20 for a night in the youth hostel. Naively, I’d been thinking I’d stay with Jim and his wife but Barb warned me they might not want that, especially his wife might not, if she even knew I existed. I gaped at her like a goldfish and said I’d sort of thought or assumed I’d be welcome in their house. She wagged her finger at me and said, Never assume anything. Good advice, as it turned out. I spent the return journey, the next day, in tears. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Jim had told me he’d meet me off the train. He said he’d be wearing a tweed flat cap and a red anorak. I hurried down the platform to the station concourse and stood turning my head this way and that. The place was crowded and every second man was wearing a tweed cap and a red anorak. Or one or the other of those things. None of them looked as if they were looking for me.

I stood up on a bench and tried to pick him out in the crowd. I was sure there’d be a flash of recognition when we saw each other, a chemical reaction between father and daughter. Which goes to show how unreal my expectations were of this meeting. A Hollywood cliché in my head. I might have been there for an hour, wandering around, now and again accosting a man and asking was his name Jim. For the most part they said no and went on their way. One or two gave me the brush off, probably thinking I was a pickpocket or an addict trying to turn a trick for money.

Eventually, a station security man came over and asked me what I was doing. Someone had reported me to him, saying I was either sick or part of a gang of delinquents. Up to no good, anyway, was what he’d said. I broke down in tears when the security guy told me that and I spilt my story to him. He softened then and brought me to a scutty office behind the information booth.

The glow of a two-bar electric heater made it cosy and I was glad when the man told me to sit down and offered me a cup of tea. There was a small sink in the corner, and a kettle on the draining board. A couple of minutes later he handed me a stained mug full of strong tea. I stared at the steam curling off the surface and then to my embarrassment saw tears slip over my nose and into the mug setting up small ripples as they landed. The guard tore some sheets off a loo roll standing on his desk and handed them to me.

Now, he said, let’s start at the beginning.

When I had finished my story he said the easiest thing to do was to call for Jim on the Tannoy system and tell him to come to the office. I panicked thinking that might scare him off. That he might think it was a trick or he’d done something wrong. The guard shook his head. Don’t worry about that, love. Just give me his full name. He’ll know it’s got to be you, if he’s been waiting for you all that time.

That was when I copped the possibility that Jim might not be waiting for me. He might have chickened out of meeting me, or he might think I was the chicken. So I agreed to let the man make his announcement. The words ricocheted around the concourse and high glass dome, scrambled by the clatter of people and trains and the music blaring from the shops, hot dog stands and cafés. Peering through the open door of the office beyond the counter of the information desk, I could see the odd one pause, listen and try to make out the words, then shake their heads and move on. My shoulders sagged. This was hopeless. I had just decided to get the next train to Newbury when a red-faced man appeared at the information desk. He was wearing a red anorak but no tweed cap.

I heard my name being called, he said. What’s the problem?

Some lost property ere for you, said the guard and beckoned me out to the front desk.

Jim? Dad? I craned forward.

Are you Deborah? He asked.

I nodded.

Not a bit like her, he said. Come on, let’s get out of here. He tucked my arm into his.

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