Don't You Remember (10 page)

School was different without Johnny. I went back to my old ways, studying in the library at lunchtime and my grades picked up from being a student that got mostly As to a student that now got straight As. This would help with getting a scholarship and a place at a top university. I took a few more shifts at Branner’s and pocketed some extra cash and my father started working as a bricklayer on a building site. It was a temporary job, but gave my father confidence and kept him going. My mother continued to drink herself into a stupor and my father looked at her with new eyes; a realization that he did not want to live like her any more. He tried to make her stop drinking by reasoning with her but she was not interested in what he had to say. Often they would scream at each other, my father often backing down first, realizing he was getting nowhere speaking to an inebriated person. My father and I began to develop a friendship, slowly. It took time for me to trust him again; he seemed to want to change; he wanted to do the right thing and was trying to show me that. I opened up my heart, still wary that he might go back to his old ways, and let him in.

My father and I would take long walks at night just before the sun went down, talking about our day. He would happily listen to my plans for the future, featuring Johnny and university. Then, one night my father and I returned to the house to find it on fire!  We looked at each other, panicked, wondering what was going on. My father ran to the front door, which was hot to touch and he couldn’t get the keys in because of the heat.

“Get away from the door! There’s a fire raging behind there, it will blow into you if you open it,” I yelled.

“But your mother’s inside. I have to help her,” he shouted back.

I ran to Johnny’s house. There was no one home so I opened the door using the key Johnny had given me. I ran clumsily to the living room, knocking over a plant pot in my frenzy, and found the phone on the corner table next the sofa. I pushed down on the hang up hook several times trying to get a dialling tone. I needed to get through to the fire department but there wasn’t even a signal to allow me to do that. The phone was not even working. I heard sirens, so I ran outside, slamming Johnny’s front door as I left. My father was in a state of shock pleading with the firemen: “My wife’s inside, please do something, my wife she’s inside.”

I ran to my father’s side and tried to calm him down to no avail. The look on his face showed how frightened he was.

I pulled him back out of harm’s way. “Dad, they are doing everything they can. Please stay back.” He listened and watched on desperately, eyes wide.

The firemen, realizing they couldn’t get in through the front door, went around the back of the house and smashed their way in. We watched in anticipation and hoped my mother would come out alive. As quick as they entered, they came back out to tell us they house was too far gone and they couldn’t get any further. They would have to use the fire hose to put the flames out.

The big fire hoses came out and the firemen rounded the house putting the flames out with heavy pressured water. Soon we developed an audience, the latest drama in town. I tried my best to settle my father’s nerves.

“Just take it easy, Dad. We don’t know the outcome yet. Mum might not be in there, she might be alive.”

“She’s gone, I tell you,” he said, shaking his head. “I should never have left her alone in the house. Dear Lord, what has she done?”

Soon the fire was put out, the house virtually burnt to the ground except for a few structural pieces that stood battered and burnt as if ready to surrender and become pure ash.

“I’m so sorry, it was too far gone when we got here. We couldn’t get in, but we put the fire out. I’m so sorry I couldn’t do more for you,” said one of the firemen.

“Thank you,” I voiced. “Thank you so much for everything.”

“Did you say there was someone inside?”

“We think my mother was inside. She was in her bedroom.”

“Where was the bedroom?” the fireman asked.

“Over there, in the far left hand corner,” I replied pointing.

“Ah, right. I don’t think anyone would have survived that fire. We will do a forensic fire investigation and find out what happened. Was this house insured?”

“No, and it’s not ours either. It belongs to the state.”

“Oh, right. I knew some did and some were owned. I didn’t know which was which. Right let’s get you both into a hotel until we can start this investigation.”

My father stood in silence, devastated.

“Dad, please don’t drink. Don’t drink your sorrows away,” I pleaded.

“I won’t petal,” he said quietly. “I promise I won’t.”

At the hotel I made my father a cup of tea and told him to contact his mother, my grandmother. He was reluctant as he had not spoken to her for several years but dialled her number and told her what had happened. They talked in great depth for what seemed like a very long time. When their conversation ended my father said my grandmother would be here, at this very hotel, tomorrow evening, with clothes for both of us and we were going back to her house to stay.

“But what about the investigation?”

“There will still be an investigation. We will find out what happened, don’t you worry about that. But we need a roof over our heads and Grandma has offered to put us up for as long as we need. She has a three bedroom house, so we will all have our own room.

“What about school?”

“We’ll enroll you into a new school.”

“What about my job?”

“You can find another job.”

“Johnny,” I said under my breath.

“Pardon.”

“Nothing.

I walked to the desk in our hotel room and opened the doors. There was a folder with a pen, a pad of paper and half a dozen envelopes. I wrote a letter to Johnny telling him what had happened and where I would be.

“Dad, what’s Gran’s address?”

“2529 Diamond Avenue, Pittsburgh.”

“What’s her phone number?”

“(412) 281 -6988.”

I wrote this information on the paper and placed it in an envelope that I would drop off to Johnny’s house before I left.

*****

In the morning we went to the police station and filled out some forms and organized to meet the fire investigation team at our burned down house in Rushton. My father and I went to the bank and he got out two hundred dollars and told me to buy some toiletries and clothes for both of us, while he went to the house to meet with the fire investigation team. I gave my father my letter to Johnny and made him promise to hand deliver it to Johnny’s mum, Pam. He promised to do what I said with his life.

I met Mr Branner in the afternoon and told him I was moving on and I was sorry about giving him such little notice. He accepted it well, telling me he was going to put the store on the market anyway. Next, I rang the school and spoke to Mrs Sheperton, she is due to retire in a couple of weeks. She knew me well and promised to send my school records to my grandmother’s address in Pittsburgh so that I could take them to my new school. I didn’t feel the need to say goodbye to anyone. After all, I didn’t have anyone I was particularly close to. I wondered if anyone would even notice I had gone.

That evening my grandmother arrived at our hotel room and knocked on the door.

I opened the door expecting her. “Hi, Gran,” I said putting my arms around her.

“My little Jen. My little sweet Jen.” Gran squeezed me tight. “Oh, how I have missed you. And look at you now,” she said eyeing me up and down. “You’re not so little now.”

“It’s good to see you. I’ve missed you too.”

“Are you all right honey? I know your mother has passed on. How’s your father? Where is he?”

I didn’t answer all her questions, just the last one. “Dad’s in the bathroom, he’ll be out in a minute.”

Gran told me about her journey to Rushton while she waited for dad, explaining how she had stopped off every four hours for a brief rest and coffee and, because she was pumped full of caffeine, she didn’t want to drive back tonight. My father, still sober for a more than six months now, offered to drive back instead, as he had received the results from the fire investigation. My mother had apparently fallen to sleep with a cigarette, which had dropped onto her cheap mattress and the whole place went up in flames. It’s a wonder this had not happened before. There were no remains, and nothing to save. Dad felt better knowing that she was in a better place, no longer fighting her demons, and therefore no long drinking to numb her pain.

“Dad, did you drop off my letter to Pam?”

“Yes, Jen, I hand delivered it. Pam assured me Johnny would get it.”

There was no use in waiting around, so we packed our few belongings and took them to Gran’s car, an ex-display but new Volkswagen Golf. “I’ve put some miles on that car today,” she said.

“Thanks for coming all this way to get Jen and me,” my father said appreciatively.

“Anytime, anytime. You’re my son and that’s what families do for each other.” Gran replied trying valiantly to rekindle their once very close relationship which had dwindled to virtually nothing over many years. Gran didn’t like talking to dad when he was intoxicated, so she stopped ringing and dad stopped noticing.

As we drove away, I looked out the back window and quietly said goodbye, realizing my time in Rushton had come to an end. I felt weirdly strange but not disappointed by the fast chain of events that had brought me here, to a new unchartered chapter in my life. Rushton wasn’t the same without Johnny and, sadly, my mother had not been in my life for such a long time, it was hard to miss her. I felt horrible about what happened but somewhat indifferent too, like it had happened to someone else.

*****

Pam woke up the morning after Jen left, still a little drunk from the night before. She made herself an Irish coffee and looked at the envelope addressed to Johnny. “What’s this?” she said to herself, picking the envelope up and looking at it front and back. Johnny doesn’t live here anymore, she reasoned and put the envelope in the bin, completely forgetting it had been hand-delivered the day before and the promise she had made to give it to Johnny. Pam’s drinking had become progressively worse and her memory was shot to pieces. She was a shadow of the bright and confident woman she had once been.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

It had been some weeks since Johnny last spoke to Jen. He felt bad about the way things had been left but became concerned when Jen no longer answered his calls. He sent two letters, and both had been ‘returned to sender’. Surely she couldn’t be that angry with him? It was only a little disagreement. This wasn’t like Jen at all.

Johnny didn’t want to read too much into things and reasoned to wait a couple more weeks. Perhaps the phone bill had not been paid, it wouldn’t be the first time. Perhaps the letters, well he couldn’t explain the letters, he didn’t want to think too much about it. He had better things to think about and thinking the worst would do him no favors. He often thought of when they were together and how happy they had been. He held on to that and knew the end result of being together was less than eighteen months away.

Johnny changed into black jeans and black fitted t-shirt. He looked good, a bit dark, a bit mysterious, even gothic but without the heavy make up. He took one last brief look at himself in the full length mirror, collected his guitar and walked out onto the small stage in the well filled bar where he would be performing for the fourth night in a row. This was a fun crowd. He was really enjoying himself, rocking the night away into the early hours of the morning.

After his set, he went to the bar and grabbed a quick coke and downed it in one. He turned around and found a man smiling and putting his hand out to shake his. He introduced himself as Michael Bowlings from Hunter Management Company. Michael took a card from his shirt pocket and handed it over. “We represent some big names, kid. We’d like to represent you.”