After Brock (10 page)

‘If you hate the whole memory of the programme, why did you name your shop after it?'

Considering the tone in which he had just been speaking, all disturbed and pent-up, I half-expected him to explode at my forwardness. But the opposite happened. He physically relaxed himself in his seat, and, from this point on, his handling of the vehicle was gentler, and certainly far better for a passenger with head-pain and nausea.

‘Because I thought that was the best, the only way, of exorcising the memory,' he said. ‘I thought – from its launch onwards the name
High Flyers
will refer to my business and nothing else. It was a good idea. I still think so.'

But it hadn't completely worked, had it?

‘Which reminds me, if that Darren What's-it doesn't turn up this afternoon for his power-kite, and with the full payment, I shall hunt him down and fucking
murder
him.'

   

Once back at Dad's I took two Anadin Extras, which worked within half an hour, and inspected the shop's most recent stock. The Barrolettas were yet to arrive, but Dad said they surely would soon. But there was a new Maori bird-kite, with a sail made out of raupu-vine leaf, and crowned by an eerie big-eyed head; there was a Conyne or French Military kite, tailless, with a two-leg bridle, suited to flying in the most seriously heavy weather (in other words, not the best kind for these hot midsum-mer doldrums, but it looked appealing enough the way my dad had strung it above the window), and an extremely colourful Chinese butterfly-kite. Because I know these are the kites Dad likes best, would really devote himself to completely in his ideal world, I thought I'd postpone examining the other (more popular) items (‘our cash cows') until later.

Dad had also put round the walls of the shop numbered posters – of his own design and printing, I could tell, drawing on the skills of his Sunbeam Press years presenting a ‘World History of Kites and Kiting'. The first of the posters taught me something I didn't know (or hadn't retained from all the many factual goodies Dad had casually showered on me throughout my life).

We were, it said, in the twenty-sixth century of these ‘gentle attempts on the heavens' by humankind. In 500 BCE the Chinese were not only flying kites but having kite festivals on the ninth day of every ninth month. A little illustrated story followed. A Chinese farmer had dreamed a dreadful calamity would befall his household the very next day. So what would be the best way for himself and his family to spend their last hours on earth? Why, flying kites, of course! So out into the fields he took them, to do just that. Meanwhile an accident destroyed their entire house. Kiting had not just relieved anxiety and passed time for them enjoyably, it had saved their lives. And that had all happened on the ninth day of the ninth month…

I was about to move onto the second poster, dealing with kites in Ancient Egypt, when I heard knocking on the door and saw on the other side of its glass, a man in his mid-twenties in motor-cycle gear: the miscreant Darren Courtney. Not a bad guy at all, not the ‘macho retard' Dad had decided on. The reason he'd been so hard to contact, Darren told us – not replying to
four
emails, for example – was that he and his partner had just had a baby (a splendid little fellow called Belshazzar). Oh, well, said Dad, this is
my
splendid little fellow here: Nathaniel or Nat as we call him. You're still interested in the job I got for you, I hope?

Well, he was, but would, I think, have liked to suggest he didn't pay the full amount outright, but came to some instalment arrangement instead. I think that Dad sensed this and, far from wanting to murder him, would have assented, relieved to get the expensive thing off his hands and to find its buyer was at least halfway honest. But here I stepped in. ‘I'm taking over from my father now for some weeks,' I said, ‘and, as I've only just arrived, this'll be my first bit of business. I take it you've got your debit card with you, Darren. Just let me set our machine in motion, and then you can key in your PIN.'

And less than two minutes later Dad had the welcome £600 in his system.

Despite this little triumph (well, not so very ‘little' really) I noticed that Dad was uneasy with me all day. I shouldn't have tackled him so soon in my stay (within ten minutes of arriving) about his links with this once-famous quiz. Though why dissociate himself from something on which he'd been, as he did not deny, a ‘star performer'?

That night I dreamed that I was back on top of those walls that stretched beyond my mate Josh's house in Tulse Hill. It was night-time, as it had been in reality, but my surroundings were lit up by the yellow fiery eyes of the fox pursuing me. Each pad forward this animal made corresponded to a possible answer to questions I hadn't yet precisely formed, even to myself.

A violin tune moaned enchantingly through my sleep, but it wasn't that Bach Chaconne, nor some plangent Cajun tune. ‘It follows the Kodály method,' said Julian Pringle's voice, ‘and you can hear it in the hills and mountains of the Marches.'

  

* * *

   

Reading through the Paperchase notebook now, It's clear that, already exhausted by exams, Nat had used up any energies left by writing so full an account of my life immediately after them. So he abandoned journal-writing proper in favour of largely random-seeming jottings, in deteriorating handwriting (laptops are so much easier) not always dated and probably making no sense to anyone else.

A great many entries concern the shop, its customers, its visitors who might, or should, or in some cases should not, become customers, its calling reps, its new stock, its actual sales. He also put these on a special computer file of his own, although he had Dad's password and inspected his files rather more often than he realised – though Nat
did
tell him! The names of supplier firms – T.K.C. Sales of Steeple Aston, Wind Designs of Ely, Cambridgeshire, Spirit of Air of Newport, Gwent – occur many times. But his private thoughts still went in the journal.

   

‘Dad handled the rep this morning in a laid-back but pretty lazy way, I thought. Must have struck the guy as a pushover for anything he had to flog, and he didn't complain as strongly as we agreed he should do about those two Sky Lanterns that never arrived (‘Romantic Chinese Flying Lanterns', which are ace to let float off at the tail-end of a barbecue party – and it's the barbecue season right now.) Why can't Dad see all this for himself? Why does he need me to tell him? And then sulk when I do?'

   

The same querulous mood prevails in the following regularly repeated, and heavily underlined, sentences. (Handwriting becomes neat again for these):

   

Kids' kites: single line. Average price £15-£30

Power-kites (adults and teenagers) Average price £150-£300

   

Wouldn't the obvious deduction from this be to concentrate on the latter?

Pete Kempsey needs a really good shake up!

   

On the other hand…

   

‘Dad said he was really chuffed by my hard sell today of the swept-wing sports-kite in general and the Sandpiper model in particular. So I said to Dad, “I'll take over the kitchen tonight, and I'll make a Quorn shepherd's pie.” I burned the Brussels sprouts I served with it, and I apologised, but Dad said he hadn't really noticed, and anyway what did burnt veg matter. “It's a real treat for me you cooking dinner, and I appreciate it.” 

   

‘July 18. Managed to Google a fantastically interesting programme –
Sixty Minutes
– from Australia (ABC) shown yesterday (July 17). Watched it four times! Its subject's becoming a hero, and I'm rather in need of one stuck up here a lot on my own, and worrying about cash flow. What an ordeal this new hero had, but what a reward! There's a dad round a son's neck there too…

   

‘July 23: ‘Dad surprised me today by suddenly asking me, as I was helping him clear out the yard, “Do you think Izzie is serious about this Doug guy?” “Yeah, too serious!” I said, “and the guy bores the pants off me!” Dad put down the white sack the county has given us for garden rubbish, and said quietly, “That's not fair, Nat, and I do wish you wouldn't say things like that! I didn't meet the man for very long, but he struck me as a thoroughly – as a thoroughly decent bloke.” Isn't that what's called damning with faint praise, I thought, but I had the wit not to say this aloud. What I did say was, “Would you mind, Dad, if you heard he and she had started living together?” (
I
certainly would!) Dad said, “I haven't the right to mind anything in that department, have I?” Which sounded unusually hopeful as far as my own wishes went, I thought, though he immediately spoiled it by saying, “And anyway I
wouldn't
mind! Not that I'd say if I did. Haven't you taken it in by now, Nat, that I do my damnedest never to pronounce on what anybody should or shouldn't be doing?”

‘“Well, I suppose that has sort of struck me!” I replied.'

  

* * *

   

As Luke Fleming's investigations later uncovered, Nat made
two
long stays in Lydcastle between June and September 2009. The first ended on August 10 when he returned to London, to his mother's flat. Then on Thursday August 20 he got his A Level results. His journal would have you believe that on the morning of that great day he didn't feel nervous but weirdly calm, as if, whatever the results, good or disappointing, he had moved far beyond responding to them as an individual with a future dependant on them, but had, over the summer, turned into a different kind of person, with just enough curiosity about his own past to want to know how he'd fared.

He'd fared well, he found out, two As and a B. His place at Uni, the University of Lincoln, to study journalism, was now assured.

Both Dad and Doug were full of congratulations. No words from the first about the iniquity of exams and the ranking of people (‘often for life!'), though it was unlikely his views had undergone any change, no words from the second about ‘soft' subjects. Instead Doug told him that he'd heard nothing but excellent reports about the university of Nat's choice. Mum was moved to tears, but (according to Nat's journal) disconcerted him by saying, with eyes still moist, ‘It's a tremendous relief for me, Nat, how you've done so well, and I really think some of the calming exercises we've done together helped you. I must be honest, and say I didn't think you'd make those grades.' She put a hand on top of his head – she was not a very demonstrative mother – and smoothed his straight, grey-brown hair making the feathered fringe in front tidier. ‘You've been so difficult to know, Nat. Do you realise that? Perhaps if Pete hadn't left us, you'd have been a bit more forthcoming.'

   

‘August 2. Decided I should let Dr Julian Pringle know my good news. But that strange letter he sent me hasn't exactly encouraged calling round again, even though it's full of good wishes and suggests we have a friendly future to look forward to. So I decided to ring. Dr Pringle sounded surprised to hear from me, as if I wasn't at all in his thoughts. But when he heard what I had to tell him, he was genuinely pleased (that was clear enough!). He really needed to hear things were going well for somebody, he said, as his wife Ilona had been extremely ill again. What was wrong with her? I asked; felt I had to. A pause. Then – “Leukaemia!” Impossible to know how best to reply, especially as I'm pretty ignorant about such things. But say something I surely should, so I managed: “That's when white blood cells take over, isn't it?” Stupid really telling the man something he knows only too well but far more fully. He didn't answer directly but said that the two of them still hoped to be going to Hungary in ten days' time, but obviously it was far from certain. But on their return… well, things might have improved a little, and of course it'd be good for us to meet up. I really don't know why, after this, I asked my next question: “What did you mean by saying in your letter that you preferred my dad – Peter – to stay up on his Heights?” It was a mistake, saying that. There was an even longer pause than before, then, in a cold, firm, low voice: “I thought I made it clear I didn't want to go over all that past history. Let bygones be bygones.” But I'm wondering if they are bygones either for him or for my dad.'

   

Using some of the money he'd earned, Nat joined three friends of his, including Josh (who'd only managed one A in his exams, though in the ‘hard' subject of Economics) down in a rented cottage in Cornwall, near St Ives. They swam, they climbed the cliffs, they tried surfing. Nat wrote in his cloth-bound book: ‘Hasn't riding the waves taught me that mastery of self is the key to life? And if an idea comes to you, but seems (at times) too hard to execute, then use that mastery to ride on the crest of it, as you would on an Atlantic roller… Never forget the hero of
Sixty Minutes
!'

   

Back to South Shropshire on Monday September 7. Jottings are far more numerous than during the London and Cornwall weeks, but, as before, they deal overwhelmingly with High Flyers matters. Still the same complaints that Pete Kempsey wasn't pro-active or efficient enough, but the tone, after the interval away, was more accepting, mellower. Not that Nat's mind had left its earlier preoccupations altogether. One page towards the end of those containing writing is, with hindsight, of particular importance to the Missing Berwyn Boy Case.

‘At last my constant snooping has been rewarded. Dad has kept no papers or letters from before his marriage, and precious few from after it. I won't go down in history as a son whose smallest doings were of such vital interest to his proud parents that they hoarded away every memento of him they could. But I had hopes, remembering that yellowed little receipt from Gregory Pringle, of coming across something from my dad's past secreted (or just kept, preserved) in a book, and so went through every single old one in the house. And, just as I was thinking this far worse than the needle in the old haystack I found a volume of Wilfred Owen's poems, with a photograph, a newspaper cutting, and a letter inside, all between the two pages of the poem “The Show”. The first four lines of this had been highlighted in yellow: