‘Yes, Billy,’ he said, crouching in front of her and taking her clammy hands in his, fighting revulsion. ‘Your son. You remember Billy, don’t you?’
‘My Billy,’ she said. ‘I lost you. They made me give you away.’ Her voice, her accent retained some of the well-to-do household in which she had been brought up. How had she had come to this, this state, this place?
‘Billy, yes, Billy,’ he battled on. ‘You lost him but I’m not him, I’m his friend. They made you give him up. He went to America but he’s come back to find you, Rebecca.’
She narrowed her eyes at him, something in her body twitched and he knew she was listening, that it was going in.
‘He was in America?’
‘Yes!’ He squeezed her hands. ‘He’s come all this way. He’s going to be at the Wilsons pub at 7 p.m. tomorrow night. Is that clear? That’s Friday. Friday, 17 April, do you understand?’
‘I’ll make sure she gets there,’ said the man. With a brief nod and a frown, apparently to signal his reliability in the matter, he turned and left the room.
‘I’ll write it down.’ Christopher let go of her hands.
‘March twelfth he was born,’ she said, smiling and toothless as a carnival sideshow.
Christopher’s mouth filled with a sour taste. He swallowed and exhaled heavily.
‘Tomorrow,’ he began again. ‘Look, have you got a piece of paper?’
She smiled, laughed and collapsed against the back of the sofa. Her eyes closed.
‘Billy,’ she said, so high and quiet. ‘My Billy.’
In the kitchen, he found the man pushing at a tea bag in a dirty Kit Kat mug.
‘She’s out of it,’ he said. ‘But I’ll get her there for you.’
‘It’s not for me – it’s for her son. He’s come a long way. It’ll do her good to see him, it might help her.’
‘You think?’
‘It might.’
Christopher tried to keep his eyes on the man, tried not to see the state of the kitchen. Failed. It was like being trapped inside something decaying, a grim soup of rotten food and wasted life. There was a cooker, coated in grease, what looked like a washing machine. There was no table, no chairs, no furniture really, only the sofa and the television in the other room. One of the kitchen cupboard doors was missing. His chest tightened, the all-too-familiar rope knotting. He had to get out.
‘Do you have a piece of paper and a pen?’ he said again.
The man pushed past him into the living room. Christopher was unsure whether he’d heard, but he dug around in a box on the floor and after a moment produced a piece of card and a biro. ‘Here,’ he said.
‘Thanks.’
There was nothing to lean on, nowhere to sit. Christopher pressed the card into the palm of his hand and wrote the instructions:
The Wilsons pub, old Runcorn. Friday, 7 p.m. Your son Billy will be there. He wants to see you. On Saturday he goes back to America. It is important you come, please be there. This is your only chance. Don’t let him down.
He stopped, wondered whether to sign and decided not to. He handed the note to the man.
‘Right. This is the situation. Billy is Rebecca’s son. They took him from her—’
‘I know that.’
‘Right. Right, well now she has a chance to see him again. Can you try and straighten her out, at least a bit? It’s very important she gets there – for her as well as Billy.’
The man nodded briskly. ‘I will. She talks about him all the time. It’d break her heart to miss him.’
‘So you understand how important this is? Do you know where the pub is? It’s in the old town, by the canal.’
‘Of course I know where it is. I’ll get her there, don’t worry.’
Christopher made to shake the man’s hand but thought better of it. He made himself walk slowly down the dark hall and out of the flat. At the door, he stopped and dug in his pockets. There was a five-pound note and a few coins.
‘Here,’ he said, pushing the money into the man’s hand. ‘Put her in a taxi. Use this, it’s all I have.’ He opened the door, stepped out into the walkway. He was about to leave but stopped and turned back. The man was still at the door, as if watching to check that he was definitely going, as if this were a place anyone would want to stay.
‘Listen,’ Christopher said. ‘This Billy. Her son. I know it won’t make any difference to her, but he’s not short of a bob or two, if you know what I mean. There’s money, is what I’m saying.’
The man said nothing but pushed his bottom lip up against the top and shut the door.
* * *
By the time he got home, Phyllis’s car was already on the driveway. He parked on the road and sat for a moment in the silent car. He made himself breathe in and out, anxious to erase any trace of anxiety before going in to her, his family, his home. He had spent the day in the library… no, he had been for a walk on the hill. He sniffed at his clothes. Did they smell of that awful place? Was it possible the smell would stay on him forever, no matter how many times he washed himself, his clothes? Certainly the sight would remain, branded on his memory for the rest of his life. Poor Billy. To have come so far, to have spent a whole life wondering, as he, Christopher, had done, only to be faced with that, with her.
He pulled at his sweater and sniffed himself again but was not sure. Cigarette smoke – and he no longer smoked. Maybe he smelled like he’d been in a pub. He could say he’d been for a walk on the hill and called in at the Traveller’s Rest for a pint on the way home. Yes, that would do. He would go in, say he needed a bath. Tonight he would be calm; he would be normal. For the next twenty-four hours he would find things to do. Keep busy, that was all he had to do. He feared he would not be able to look at her now, not until this was over. Tomorrow morning he would go with her to Good Friday Mass. Then in the evening he would meet with Billy and hopefully Rebecca would get herself together enough to come. He would reunite them and leave them to whatever conversation they needed to have. He would do this. And he would be free.
As he made his way towards the house, he saw a young lad walking towards him. Something in his gait, the way he held his head… Christopher stopped dead. His skin prickled, his breath caught in his throat.
Jack Junior. Here, where he had no business to be.
Forcing himself to his senses, Christopher continued past his own driveway.
‘Jack!’ he called out, and waved.
Jack’s face was a scowl. He had worn it since he was a small boy – the sullen scowl of a spoilt child, and it had evidently taken up residence on his face and, like a cuckoo, booted all the other expressions out of their own nest.
‘Christopher,’ he said. They were close enough now to stop, to talk. They did not embrace.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘Came to see you, didn’t I?’
‘What are you… I mean how did you find me?’
Jack dug into his pocket, but before he withdrew his hand, Christopher knew what would be in it. He was right. Still scowling, Jack pulled out the letter Christopher had written to Phyllis four years earlier.
‘What’s this?’
‘Have you opened it? That’s none of your business.’