A House Without Windows (17 page)

“Here we go!”  Liam glanced back and gave a thumbs up to Beth.  “Come here darling, I’ve saved you a place!”

Reluctantly she came and stood in front of him.  He placed his arms around her waist and kissed the top of her head:

“You’ll love this.  Feel the power of the water.  A young boy was washed over the waterfall years ago and survived.  Did you know that?”

“Good God.  His poor parents.  Amy, hold on to the rail!”

“I’m ok Mummy!  When I was in the house with no windows I thought about going on a boat ride, and now I am!”  Beth saw her child’s face shining with joy.

The boat rocked and swayed as it approached the waterfall.  Cameras clicked, seagulls cried, and Beth realised that her fears were quite unfounded; in fact the ride was exhilarating and she didn’t want it to end.  She turned around to Liam and kissed him.  His face was wet in the misty air:

“I love it!”

“And I love you, baby.”  He reached down, kissed her lips, and saw the love of life
was back in her eyes.  She felt his lips touch hers, and thought to herself that he probably had been right; now there was nothing left in the world that she could not accomplish if she just set her mind to it.

PART 9 - JOSS

CHAPTER 45 – MARCH 2012

The bell sounded for the end of lessons, and Joss Darrah heaved a sigh of relief. Double science on a Friday afternoon sucked; especially when he knew Tara Lambert had given up the subject in favour of music, and would now be waiting outside the school for her lift home.  Mrs Lambert was always late, and if only Mr Bruton would shut the fuck up then it might be possible to leg it around the sixth form block, run along past the tennis courts, and then reach the entrance gates just in time to speak two words to Tara before her mother arrived.  At this rate though he would have to wait until Monday to convince the most beautiful girl in his class that he actually did exist; not that she seemed to care a jot if he did or if he didn’t.

But first there was the weekend’s homework task to copy down ready for Monday.  Joss likened Mr Bruton’s frizzy ginger hair to an explosion.  The teacher began to write on the whiteboard in his irritatingly slow way: ‘To research the laws of genetic inheritance and apply it to your own family’.

Joss
tutted
with annoyance, scribbled down the work to be done, packed his rucksack, and quickly elbowed his way out of the classroom:

“You’re wasting your time, dickhead. She’s got the hots for Daniel Summerlee.”  Joss turned around as he heard the voice of his best friend Benny Cashman behind him.

“Up yours, Cashman!”  Joss swung his rucksack to make contact with Benny’s head.

“I’ll knock for you tomorrow, that is if you’re not too busy giving her one!”  Benny laughed as he watched his friend disappear.

By the time he had made it to the front gates the most beautiful girl in his class and her mother were driving off in a cloud of exhaust fumes.  He gazed at the back of Tara’s head, unsuccessfully willing her to turn around and look at him.

Bollocks!  He kicked stones along the street as he walked home.  One flew up and left a small dent in a Mini Cooper parked by the side of the road.  Joss ran the few streets home as fast as his legs could carry him.

“You’re a bit later today, darling.”  Beth, his mother, appeared in the hallway.

“I was talking to Benny.”

“You’re always talking to Benny.” 

“He’s coming round tomorrow.”

“As long as you do your homework first.”

“It’s boring though.  I’ve got to read about the laws of inheritance and then write about it.”

“Is that for sociology?” 

Joss noticed that his mother suddenly had one of those inscrutable looks on her face:

“No, for science.”

“Well, it’s up to you of course, but Benny doesn’t come in until after you’ve done it.”

“Cheers, Mum.”

Flinging the hated rucksack onto his
bed, Joss picked up his iPad, typed the password ‘taralambert’, and smiled at Benny’s message:

‘What did she say?’

The possibilities were endless.  Finally he decided on the best one:

‘She says she’ll go out with me and that you’re a wanker.’

While he waited for the inevitable pithy response he decided to take his mother’s advice and please Bombhead Bruton at the same time.  He typed ‘laws of inheritance’ into the Internet browser and sighed with boredom as he read about Gregor Mendel’s experiments with pea plants in the 1850’s:

‘Each inherited trait is defined by a gene pair. Parental genes are randomly separated to the sex cells so that sex cells contain only one gene of the pair.  Offspring therefore inherit one genetic allele from each parent when sex cells unite in fertilization.’

He yawned and imagined his and Tara’s sex cells uniting in fertilisation. 
Fat chance!

‘An organism with alternate forms of a gene will express the form that is dominant.  Mendel’s laws still apply today, for example in the form of dominant and recessive genes for a person’s eye colour and hair colour.’

His iPad pinged with an incoming message:

‘You’re a twat. See ya tomoz.’ 

Joss laughed and made another Internet search on dominant eye colour:

‘The iris of the eye has pigmentation that determines a person’s eye colour.  A person with blue or light grey eyes does not have as much pigmentation as a person with brown or black eyes.  The amount of pigmentation in the iris is determined genetically. The gene for brown eyes is dominant over the recessive gene for blue, grey, or hazel eyes.  Thus it is likely that two blue eyed parents will produce a blue eyed child, but if one parent has brown eyes then it is likely the child will have brown eyes, as the gene for brown eyes is dominant.’

Something about the last sentence did not feel right.  He’d never really thought about it before, but now a tiny doubt had begun to nag. He read it a second time, and then realised what was wrong:

His mother’s eyes were light grey.  His father’s eyes were blue.  His sister Amy had blue eyes.  They were all fair-haired.

He stood up, walked over to the mirror on the wall and looked at himself.  The eyes that stared back at him were dark brown, almost black; the same colour as his hair.

CHAPTER 46

“You’re quiet tonight Joss.  Bad day at school?”  Liam Darrah sprinkled some parmesan cheese onto his lasagne and poured himself a glass of wine.

“Amy will be home soon for the Easter break.  I’m sure you two will have lots to catch up on.”  Beth smiled at her son as he toyed unenthusiastically with his dinner.

“I’m having a bit of trouble with my homework.” 

“You need some help, eh?”  Liam’s fork stopped halfway to his mouth.

“I think so.  I don’t understand how Mendel’s law of inheritance relates to our family.”

Joss was aware of a small, almost imperceptible glance passing between his parents.

“What’s your question, darling?”  Beth put down her knife and fork.

“How have you and Dad produced someone like me?  According to what I’ve read you both have the recessive gene for blue or grey eyes.  Amy has straight fair hair and the same colour eyes as Dad, but look at me; I’ve got brown wavy hair and black eyes.  It just doesn’t make sense.”   Joss sighed and idly put some pasta onto his fork.

“Well, sometimes a baby inherits traits from his grandparents or great-grandparents.” Beth was relieved her son couldn’t tell how fast her heart was racing.

“None of my grandparents are as dark as I am.”

The rest of the meal passed in silence.  Joss felt somehow on edge.  He heard his parents start talking in a low voice to each other as soon as he went back upstairs to his room.  As he went over his research to try and find something that perhaps he’d failed to understand, he heard a knock:

“Yo!”

He looked up to find his parents standing in the doorway:

“Joss, Dad and I have been talking, and there’s something we need to tell you.”

“What?”  He was taken aback by his mother’s tone of voice.

“Well, it’s something we should have told you a long time ago, but now you’re growing up and asking questions, it’s not fair to keep you in the dark.”

Joss felt his stomach churning, and he suddenly felt queasy.  He definitely did not want to hear what his mother had to say.

“You don’t have to tell me.  It’s cool.”  He felt sick.

“Dad loves you very much, as much as I do.  He’s brought you up to be the fine boy that you are today. We’re both very proud of you.”

Something nasty was coming right at him:

“What’s wrong with Dad?  Is he sick?” 

His dad had cancer!  He was going to die!
  Joss felt tears forming at the back of his eyes.

“No, he’s fine.  It’s just that Dad is your father in every sense of the word, but he is not your biological father.  As you say it’s very true that both of us could not produce a child as dark as yourself.  You have your biological father’s colouring.” 

The sudden relief that his father was not close to death gave Joss a feeling of wild euphoria.  He lay back on the bed and closed his eyes. 
His dad was ok!

“So what happened then? Where’s my real dad now?”  He sat back up, curious. 
Had his mother had an affair? 

“I think things might best be left as they are.” Liam placed an arm protectively across Beth’s shoulders.

“No, he has a right to know.  Joss, I’m just so sorry. As your mother I should have told you sooner.”  Beth walked towards the bed, sat down, and put an arm around her son.

“Told me that you’ve had an affair? Is that it?”  Joss flinched from her embrace.

“I never had an affair darling.  I was engaged to be married to Dad and was newly pregnant with Amy, but was then abducted by your biological father and held prisoner for nearly ten years.  Amy never mentioned it to you because she hates the sight of him and also we told her not to.  We thought it best that you didn’t find out.  Your father’s name is Edwin Evans, but you were registered with my surname. When Dad an
d I married we changed both you and Amy’s surnames to Darrah.”

Joss jumped up and began pacing about the room.

“How could you not tell me?  I had a right to know!” 

“We’re sorry.  We wanted to forget the heartache and start anew.”  Liam was stung by the hurt in the boy’s eyes. “We’ve brought you and Amy up the same.  We love you both, but we didn’t want to be reminded of what had gone on before.”

“Where’s my father now then?”  Joss stood tall and threatening in front of his mother.

“Your father is here in the room with us, darling.”  Beth stood up to face her son. “But your biological father has been a resident of Holmleas Psychiatric Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Croydon, for the past 11 years.

The lasagne tasted vile at the back of his throat.  Joss just managed to get to the bathroom in time.  He dropped to his knees and emptied his stomach contents into the toilet bowl. He was aware of his father’s warm hand rubbing his back and of his soft Canadian accent in his ears.

“You’ll feel better now.  Don’t worry.  Mom and I are here for you.  We’ll always be here for you.” 

He rinsed his mouth at the sink and went back to lie on his bed:

“Leave me alone, please.” He put his face in his pillow and tried to shut out the world.

CHAPTER 47

“I’m not going to Bombhead’s class.”

“Bunking off again?”  Benny looked at his friend and laughed.

“I haven’t done any homework.  I’ll wait for you at the front gate. Tell him I went home sick.”

“Ok. See you later.” 

Joss passed the entire science period sitting in his favourite cubicle in the boys’ toilets, still trying to get his head around his mother’s recent revelations. When he heard the bell ring for the end of the final lesson he joined the mass exodus of teenagers making their way to the front gate.  To his surprise Tara Lambert was already waiting there for her mother.