‘OF COURSE I remember your mother.’ Freddie Burdon had a broad Bronx accent. Ya madd-ah. ‘Of course I remember Maria. Who wouldn’t? Whaddya think I am, a monster? …’ And his speech broke up into coughing.
He looked older than his age, Joshua thought. Old, shrunken over an imploded chest, face angular and bony. He was like a sick bird. His skin tones were grey. Even his clothes, a worn jacket and trousers, looked grey, as if stained with ash. He claimed that his emphysema was a legacy of heroic volunteer work he’d done in the aftermath of Yellowstone, helping the victims escape, even though he’d already been in his fifties then. Joshua suspected that was bullshit, that smoking had done the damage; even now Freddie’s fingers were stained nicotine yellow.
They were in a charity home, a big boxy construction of timber and concrete typical of a Low Earth footprint city. Outside, the air of this version of Brooklyn was faintly smoggy, like a memory of how its Datum parent had once been.
Freddie looked dwarfed, out of place and out of time. He was lucky, Joshua thought, to have finished up in a refuge like this. Joshua made a silent resolution to pump some money into the place, but out of his father’s sight, and out of his reach.
Freddie, Joshua learned, had trained as an electrician but had never got a qualification. He’d drifted from job to job, spiralling down as he’d aged. He’d never had family – not after Maria – and had never accumulated money.
‘Of course I remember Maria,’ Freddie said again. ‘Look, I was no stepper. Even with a box, when I tried it, I puked my guts up. But I had the genes – didn’t I? And so did your mother. And look what we made.’ He coughed again, but grinned, a ghoulish expression. ‘The great Joshua Valienté! The world’s most famous stepper! Only good damn thing I ever did was you, son.’
‘How did you find my mother?’
‘Well, they sent me the name, an address.’
‘“They”?’
‘A bunch of bankers representing the families. The Fund, you know. And there was a cheque inside that first letter, with a promise of more if I went to see her, if we got to know each other, if we married, if we had a kid. A regular instalment plan. But it wasn’t, you know, compulsory. Just a kind of suggestion. And the money wasn’t that much, looking back. If I’d ever had any money I probably would have turned it down.’
‘But you had no money.’
Freddie grinned wider. ‘Not then, not now. So I thought, what’s there to lose? At least I can go meet the girl. You have to understand she was only fourteen then; this was in the nature of setting up a long-term relationship between us. So I pocketed the dough and headed over to Madison, Wisconsin, and looked for the family. Only to find—’
‘She’d run away.’
‘Yeah.’ He coughed, hawked, and spat into a handkerchief. ‘She’d had some version of the same letter. Wasn’t happy at home anyhow, and now there was this pressure to hook up with some stranger. Only fourteen. Well, I tracked her down.’ He tapped his forehead. ‘See, I’m no stepping superhero like you, but I had a brain on me then. She was in this home for kids—’
‘On Allied Drive.’
‘Was it? Can’t remember. I do remember those nuns. I asked for Maria. Said I was a cousin. Well, I was, wasn’t I? They didn’t trust me further than I could spit. Don’t blame them, looking back; I was seventeen years old and a piece of work, you know what I’m saying? I might have given up.’
‘If not for the money.’
‘If not for that. Then I saw her coming back from school, that was what did it for me. God, she was beautiful. You got your looks from my side, God have mercy on you. Well, I wasn’t going to give up after that. I found a way to get to her.’
‘How?’
‘Bribed a cleaner. It all became a scandal when—’
‘I know. Freddie, she was only fourteen.’
‘Yeah, mister high and mighty? Well, I was only seventeen, so there. Look, Joshua – you want me to tell you it was love at first sight? All I know is we liked each other, and I took her out a couple of times, she found a way to sneak out.’ He submitted to another coughing spasm. ‘We were just kids, OK? But I made her laugh, and she was rebellious and as cute as hell. We had fun, that’s all. At first. Though the nuns gave her a tough time.’
‘But you had the letter from the Fund in your pocket. Did you think you were entitled to her? This beautiful kid? That you had some kind of rights over her?’
‘No! It wasn’t like that. Christ, you should have been there. Look,’ and he seemed embarrassed, he leaned forward and whispered, ‘we never went past first base, OK? Until one night—’
‘Do I want to hear this, Freddie?’
He shrugged his hunched shoulders. ‘You came to me, remember. It was a summer night, 2001. She was looking her best. She had this cute pink angora sweater, and I remember she always wore this dumb little monkey bracelet that her mother had once given her. And I had a bottle of Jack Daniel’s I’d lifted—’