cared.
Yes, he’d inherited that at least. His father’s anger which
had shaken his world with all the power of any monster or
demon that he could have imagined. And now it was inside
him, this anger, breathing through him, as if in some tangible
way his father’s soul had migrated into his, corrupting it with
its bile and hatred. He would flare up like a struck match
sometimes and say things, things that no longer came out in
his voice, but that of his father’s. He hated how he could
trace his most hidden prejudices and gripes directly to him.
It scared him how strong the influence was, how biological,
how inescapable.
‘My father gave up on me when the magazine folded. I
think in some way he thought I’d failed him.’ He felt the
need to say it, to make at least this clear. ‘He thought I was
being too sensitive. Didn’t see any place for that.’
‘Sounds very much like my father,’ Jake replied and they
both laughed, releasing the tension in the room, feeling
closer, at least in Jon’s mind, than since the wet handshake
on that first day.
‘What was your father like?‘Jon asked after a few minutes
of silence had elapsed punctuated only by the hiss of slowly
burning tobacco. Now that Jake had begun, he didn’t want
him to stop. And he wanted to know who this person
was. Sleeping in his flat. Making strange sounds at night.
Accepting everything with a weary shrug.
‘One monster father is pretty much the same as another.
Your comments were very familiar.‘Jake smiled and it was a
smile of revelation and conspiracy. Jon found it vaguely
threatening.
“You see,’ Jake continued, ‘the interesting story about my
father takes place only after he’s dead.’
Jon poured the last of the scotch into Jake’s glass and
went to the kitchen to fetch some more. It felt good to be
making drinks for someone else, good to have to ask them,
how many sugars do you take, how strong do you want it?
All the little inanities that he’d thought he could live without.
Stupidly thought that until, in an empty flat, one night, he .
realized that it was those very things that made life worth
living.
In the next room, Jake put on a CD and Jon heard the
first notes of Coltrane’s ‘Ascension’ squawk their way out of
his speakers. The room filled with a dense, tight-knit caterwaul,
seven or eight instruments screaming and wailing simultaneously,
circling around an empty chord, a missing centre,
like a flock of lost birds, frenzied and furious, smashing into
each other in the massive sky.
‘My father had a lot of money. He’d worked in food
importation, made his fortune, floated the company and
retired to the country.’ Jake’s voice settled, the terse clip of
his phrasing evened out. Jon leaned forward on the sofa,
wanting to show his attention, even in this most obvious and
empty of gestures, but he also felt the need to at least try to
close the physical space between them, the gulf of carpet
and air.
‘He died of stomach cancer last spring. I can’t say I was
sad. I’d lost my mother many years before. I hadn’t seen him
in years. We were not close nor had we ever been. I got a call
from the family solicitor. I was the director of a consultancy
company. What sum my father might have left me was of
no concern but the lawyer said that the main part of my
father’s testament consisted of a letter. That intrigued me. It
wasn’t like him to put things in writing. He always believed
the spoken word superior, more trustworthy than that which
was written.
‘I went to see the lawyer. This was about six months ago.
He handed me an undistinguished brown envelope, said it
was my father’s last wish that I should have it. I thanked him
and left, not knowing that what I carried under my arm that
day would turn my life upside down. I didn’t even read it
until the next morning.’
‘What was in it?’ Jon asked, caught up in the old man’s
tale, the
Yes, he’d inherited that at least. His father’s anger which
had shaken his world with all the power of any monster or
demon that he could have imagined. And now it was inside
him, this anger, breathing through him, as if in some tangible
way his father’s soul had migrated into his, corrupting it with
its bile and hatred. He would flare up like a struck match
sometimes and say things, things that no longer came out in
his voice, but that of his father’s. He hated how he could
trace his most hidden prejudices and gripes directly to him.
It scared him how strong the influence was, how biological,
how inescapable.
‘My father gave up on me when the magazine folded. I
think in some way he thought I’d failed him.’ He felt the
need to say it, to make at least this clear. ‘He thought I was
being too sensitive. Didn’t see any place for that.’
‘Sounds very much like my father,’ Jake replied and they
both laughed, releasing the tension in the room, feeling
closer, at least in Jon’s mind, than since the wet handshake
on that first day.
‘What was your father like?‘Jon asked after a few minutes
of silence had elapsed punctuated only by the hiss of slowly
burning tobacco. Now that Jake had begun, he didn’t want
him to stop. And he wanted to know who this person
was. Sleeping in his flat. Making strange sounds at night.
Accepting everything with a weary shrug.
‘One monster father is pretty much the same as another.
Your comments were very familiar.‘Jake smiled and it was a
smile of revelation and conspiracy. Jon found it vaguely
threatening.
“You see,’ Jake continued, ‘the interesting story about my
father takes place only after he’s dead.’
Jon poured the last of the scotch into Jake’s glass and
went to the kitchen to fetch some more. It felt good to be
making drinks for someone else, good to have to ask them,
how many sugars do you take, how strong do you want it?
All the little inanities that he’d thought he could live without.
Stupidly thought that until, in an empty flat, one night, he .
realized that it was those very things that made life worth
living.
In the next room, Jake put on a CD and Jon heard the
first notes of Coltrane’s ‘Ascension’ squawk their way out of
his speakers. The room filled with a dense, tight-knit caterwaul,
seven or eight instruments screaming and wailing simultaneously,
circling around an empty chord, a missing centre,
like a flock of lost birds, frenzied and furious, smashing into
each other in the massive sky.
‘My father had a lot of money. He’d worked in food
importation, made his fortune, floated the company and
retired to the country.’ Jake’s voice settled, the terse clip of
his phrasing evened out. Jon leaned forward on the sofa,
wanting to show his attention, even in this most obvious and
empty of gestures, but he also felt the need to at least try to
close the physical space between them, the gulf of carpet
and air.
‘He died of stomach cancer last spring. I can’t say I was
sad. I’d lost my mother many years before. I hadn’t seen him
in years. We were not close nor had we ever been. I got a call
from the family solicitor. I was the director of a consultancy
company. What sum my father might have left me was of
no concern but the lawyer said that the main part of my
father’s testament consisted of a letter. That intrigued me. It
wasn’t like him to put things in writing. He always believed
the spoken word superior, more trustworthy than that which
was written.
‘I went to see the lawyer. This was about six months ago.
He handed me an undistinguished brown envelope, said it
was my father’s last wish that I should have it. I thanked him
and left, not knowing that what I carried under my arm that
day would turn my life upside down. I didn’t even read it
until the next morning.’
‘What was in it?’ Jon asked, caught up in the old man’s
tale, the
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