we left before. I was looking for an ink cartridge for uni stuff, and thought he might have one stashed away on his shelves and so on. I accidentally knocked a picture frame off the shelf, which smashed on the floor. It wasn’t a picture inside, but a certificate. A certificate for an award recognizing ‘Exceptional Enterprise By A Small Business’ in favor of Quaycrest Mortgage Brokers. It was Dad’s business - well, he was a sole trader, but traded under that business name. He acted as an intermediary between home-buyers and mortgage lenders, negotiating favorable rates in exchange for commission. He had done it as long as I had known him.’
I try to work out where this is going but I wasn’t expecting such a mundane start.
‘I reached down to pick it up, but I noticed the embossed hologram had flaked right off. It was a fake. A forged certificate. Out of its frame, the smart certificate looked like just a printed piece of A4, nothing special about it at all.’
Better, I think.
‘So I do a little digging into Quaycrest, like on Dad’s website and stuff and everything looks fine, like there’s a bunch of testimonials and the like, and a commission pricing structure set out but... everything didn’t ring quite true to me. I’d never looked at Dad’s business before, in any detail. When I finished school he had not offered me a job with him on the assumption I wasn’t interested. He was right - I wasn’t. At all. I checked through Dad’s filing system at his records and letters, and there was surprisingly little of it. I mean, largely there was nothing, except for commission receipts from clients. No correspondence with banks, and no correspondence with clients. It quickly became obvious that Quaycrest was a hollow entity, all backed up by receipts but with absolutely no substance if you were to dig below the surface...’
‘Money laundering,’ I hear myself say, not realizing I had said it out loud, my mind already purring at the story.
‘Right. But what for? So I challenge him on it. And it catches him cold. He ignores my question and goes straight out of the house, speeding off into the night. I sit there, in the wreckage of this lie, as I realize that my life also been a lie. And I try to process it. I have - had - a great relationship with my Dad, and didn’t want to believe that he had either lied to me or was anything different than I thought he was.’
I don’t say anything, but I secretly rather hope Jack would stick to the facts and avoid a Freudian segue.
‘Later that day, Dad comes back. And he sits me down in the kitchen, and pulls the fridge from the wall - literally just pulls it out. And behind it is a safe. I have no idea what is going on at this point. He opens this safe and inside is a collection of items. Four or five mobile phones, about ten 5 by 5 inch perspex cubes containing these little fish in water, a small stack of passports and ID cards, a picture of mum and a pistol. A genuine, like-on-TV pistol. Underneath that, on a bigger shelf, is a load of stacked cash. And then he looks me straight in the eye and tells me about my birth.’
I’m hooked again.
‘Now you’ve noticed that I’ve never mentioned my mum, haven’t you? I mean if her husband just get’s killed, she should be with her son, right? Well, I’m afraid she’s dead too. I had always been told she died giving birth to me - which is still true but only half of the story. Remember Zoe’s Grandad? His name is Felix Davison. My mum gave birth to me in his bath, with three bullets in her. One in the shoulder, two in the chest.’
Jack’s eyelashes quiver, but his speech remains strong.
‘I was born, delivered by Felix himself, while Dad was trying to get some alcohol to treat the wounds. Mum died straight after, right there in the bath.’
Jack drinks, and I let the image he has just given me sit in my head while he does so.
‘Now, I guess the big question here is, why did Mum have bullets in her?
I try to work out where this is going but I wasn’t expecting such a mundane start.
‘I reached down to pick it up, but I noticed the embossed hologram had flaked right off. It was a fake. A forged certificate. Out of its frame, the smart certificate looked like just a printed piece of A4, nothing special about it at all.’
Better, I think.
‘So I do a little digging into Quaycrest, like on Dad’s website and stuff and everything looks fine, like there’s a bunch of testimonials and the like, and a commission pricing structure set out but... everything didn’t ring quite true to me. I’d never looked at Dad’s business before, in any detail. When I finished school he had not offered me a job with him on the assumption I wasn’t interested. He was right - I wasn’t. At all. I checked through Dad’s filing system at his records and letters, and there was surprisingly little of it. I mean, largely there was nothing, except for commission receipts from clients. No correspondence with banks, and no correspondence with clients. It quickly became obvious that Quaycrest was a hollow entity, all backed up by receipts but with absolutely no substance if you were to dig below the surface...’
‘Money laundering,’ I hear myself say, not realizing I had said it out loud, my mind already purring at the story.
‘Right. But what for? So I challenge him on it. And it catches him cold. He ignores my question and goes straight out of the house, speeding off into the night. I sit there, in the wreckage of this lie, as I realize that my life also been a lie. And I try to process it. I have - had - a great relationship with my Dad, and didn’t want to believe that he had either lied to me or was anything different than I thought he was.’
I don’t say anything, but I secretly rather hope Jack would stick to the facts and avoid a Freudian segue.
‘Later that day, Dad comes back. And he sits me down in the kitchen, and pulls the fridge from the wall - literally just pulls it out. And behind it is a safe. I have no idea what is going on at this point. He opens this safe and inside is a collection of items. Four or five mobile phones, about ten 5 by 5 inch perspex cubes containing these little fish in water, a small stack of passports and ID cards, a picture of mum and a pistol. A genuine, like-on-TV pistol. Underneath that, on a bigger shelf, is a load of stacked cash. And then he looks me straight in the eye and tells me about my birth.’
I’m hooked again.
‘Now you’ve noticed that I’ve never mentioned my mum, haven’t you? I mean if her husband just get’s killed, she should be with her son, right? Well, I’m afraid she’s dead too. I had always been told she died giving birth to me - which is still true but only half of the story. Remember Zoe’s Grandad? His name is Felix Davison. My mum gave birth to me in his bath, with three bullets in her. One in the shoulder, two in the chest.’
Jack’s eyelashes quiver, but his speech remains strong.
‘I was born, delivered by Felix himself, while Dad was trying to get some alcohol to treat the wounds. Mum died straight after, right there in the bath.’
Jack drinks, and I let the image he has just given me sit in my head while he does so.
‘Now, I guess the big question here is, why did Mum have bullets in her?
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