“Dad was in London, making deals,” Jack replied, “and Mum was in London, working as a bank clerk. There she was, going about her business, when a brash Aussie bloke came along, promising to take her away from her gray, cramped little island to a land where the sun always shines.” He grimaced apologetically. “Dad doesn’t have much use for England, either.”
“So your mum married your dad and emigrated to Australia,” said Bree. “Didn’t she miss her brother—her only sibling?”
“Mum was too dazzled by her new life to spend much time thinking about her old one,” said Jack.
“It must have been like going from black and white to Technicolor,” I remarked.
“Dad’s Technicolor, all right,” said Jack. “He’s bloody blinding. I reckon he picked Mum because he could dazzle her. Big houses, big cars, big boats, everything bigger and better than she’d ever imagined it could be. She kept her part of the bargain by producing not one, but two sons to carry on the family name.”
“You have a brother,” I said interestedly. “Are the two of you close?”
“No,” Jack replied. “Conor, Jr., is a chip off the old block. I’m the disappointment.”
I surveyed his rumpled pullover and raised an interrogative eyebrow. “Would I be correct in assuming that your father’s high-flying lifestyle doesn’t agree with you?”
“Let’s just say that Dad and I didn’t see eye to eye when it came to arranging my future,” said Jack. “It was his way or the highway and I chose the highway. When I left school, I left home, and Dad cut me off without a cent. I’ve been making my own way in the world ever since.”
“Good for you,” I said.
“Good for my soul, maybe,” Jack said wryly, “but not so good for my bank balance.” He turned to Bree. “The jobs I’ve held are jobs worth doing, but they’ve never paid much. If they had, I would’ve visited Uncle Hector more often.”
“More often?” Bree repeated skeptically. “Did you ever visit him?”
“I did,” said Jack. “When I was six and Conor was nine, Mum and Dad brought us over to meet Uncle Hector.”
“Impossible,” Bree declared, shaking her head. “If you and your family had ever come to Finch, someone here would have remembered you.”
“Dad? Come to Finch?” Jack threw his head back and laughed. “Now that’s impossible. Dad’d never waste time in the wop-wops, Bree, not unless he was planning a land grab. We didn’t come down here to see Uncle Hector. Uncle Hector came up to London to see us. It was a bit of a disaster, really, because he spoiled Dad’s plans.”
“How?” I asked.
“By being himself,” said Jack. “He came to our posh hotel and he didn’t seem to notice it. It wasn’t beneath his notice, it just wasn’t important to him. He wanted to see his sister and to meet his nephews. Everything else was just window dressing.” A wicked twinkle lit Jack’s eyes. “It drove Dad mad. He took us to a flash restaurant for dinner and Uncle Hector ordered fish and chips. Dad flapped his jaws about his newest yacht and Uncle Hector sat there, playing with a piece of string.” Jack looked toward the fire and smiled reminiscently. “Uncle Hector showed me how to tie seven different knots with that piece of string. I can still tie ’em.”
“You admired your uncle because he refused to be overawed by your father,” I said.
“It wasn’t that he refused to be overawed,” Jack elaborated. “He just . . . wasn’t. He and Dad didn’t value the same things. Dad wrote Uncle Hector off as a loser, but I didn’t think he was a loser. I thought he was a nice bloke who looked me in the eye and listened to what I had to say. He paid attention to me. That sort of thing means a lot, when you’re six and your big brother’s a bullying git.”
“Was that the only time you met your uncle?” said Bree.
“Yep,” said Jack. “Dad never brought the family over again and he didn’t invite Uncle Hector to visit us in Oz. He told Mum that her brother was a bad influence on Conor and me, and in my case, he was right. Dad wanted me to go into the family firm, but Uncle Hector encouraged me to do all sorts of things before deciding for myself what to do with my life.” He smiled wryly. “No prize for guessing whose advice I took.”
“You seem to know a lot about your uncle,” said Bree. “He didn’t eat the fish he caught, he didn’t like to impose his will on nature, he didn’t entertain, he didn’t share your father’s values, he encouraged you to make your own decisions . . . How could you know so much about him if you met him only once, when you were a little boy?”
“We may not have met face to face,” said Jack, “but we wrote to each other. Letter writing is old-school, I know, but so was Uncle Hector. He and I—”
“Sorry,” Bree broke in brusquely, “but if you’d written to your uncle, all of Finch would have known about it. As you’ll find out if you spend any time at all here, our local postmistress isn’t the soul of discretion. Letters to or from Australia would have been a big-ticket item for Peggy Taxman. She would have told everyone about them.”
“Crikey,” said Jack with an air of enlightenment. “That would explain it.”