Escape from Shangri-La (5 page)

He loved the garden too. When it was warm we'd often find him out there, picking weeds off the rockery or raking the lawn. He liked to be up and doing, he said.

But I did notice that he was a little wrapped up in himself these days, as if he were lost in his thoughts and didn't know the way out. I'd often find him sitting in his armchair just staring ahead into space. Sometimes he wouldn't even know I was there till I spoke to him.

If he was brooding, I thought, then perhaps he had good reason. My father hardly ever seemed to speak to him, not unless he had to. Whenever they were in the same room together, it was always uncomfortable. All too often, my father would find it suddenly very important to be elsewhere. As he left the room, the hurt on Popsicle's face was plain to see.

It wasn't until some time later that I was to discover what all this was about. My father was home late again after work. They must have thought I was already asleep, but I wasn't. Popsicle had turned off his radio in his room so I could hear quite plainly every word they were saying downstairs in the kitchen.

‘But have you asked him again?' My father's voice.

‘I can't keep asking him, Arthur. It upsets him. And,
anyway, asking him isn't going to help. It isn't going to make it come back, is it? You just have to accept it. You know what Dr Wickens said. It wasn't the stroke that's caused it. He told us. He explained it all. The brain's nothing more than a jelly, a blancmange, and the skull's there to protect it. You jolt the skull violently enough, you bash the brain up against the inside of the skull, and it can cause serious damage, bruising, bleeding, whatever. The result can be some loss of memory, temporary or otherwise. So it's hardly surprising that Popsicle can't seem to remember much, is it? If he says he can't remember where he lives, where he's from or anything else, then I believe him. And I simply can't understand why you don't.'

‘All right, then tell me this, how come he still remembers Bradwell? Answer me that. He goes on and on about the old days when I was a kid in Bradwell. As far as I can see he remembers anyone and everyone from those days. And that was forty, fifty years ago. Yet he can't seem to remember where he lived before he walked in here four weeks ago. Now doesn't that strike you as a little strange?'

‘Not really. My memory's fairly patchy already, and I'm only thirty-six years old, and I haven't just fractured my skull in two places. But you don't mean
“strange” do you, Arthur? You mean convenient. Why don't you come right out with it. You just don't want him here, do you?'

‘What do you expect? He's a complete stranger to me. I don't know the man.' He was almost shouting now. I could hear my mother shushing him to lower his voice. ‘Listen,' he went on, just as loudly. ‘Let's say you're right, let's say he
has
lost his memory – which I doubt – who says it'll ever come back again? Who says he'll ever remember where he comes from? He can't go on living here for ever, can he?'

‘I don't know why not. He's not much trouble. And, besides, you're never here these days, are you? What's it matter to you?' He seemed temporarily silenced by that. My mother hadn't finished with him yet. ‘For God's sake, Arthur. He's an old man. He's got no one else, so far as we can tell, and nowhere else to go. After all those years he's found his son and you've found your father. Doesn't that mean anything to you?'

My father was speaking much more calmly now, so that I had to get out of bed and put my ear to the floorboards to be able to hear him at all. ‘Of course it means something,' he was saying, ‘but I'm not sure what, that's all.' He didn't go on for some moments. ‘Listen, there's things you don't know, things I haven't told you.'

‘What things?'

‘It's what my mother told me about him. She said he'd get mad in the head sometimes. “Mad with sadness”, she called it. One moment high as a kite, the next down in the dumps. And he was a bit of a layabout, couldn't hold down a job, always in trouble, drank too much, that sort of thing. My mother didn't want to leave him. She had to. That's what she told me, and I believe her. I didn't ask him to come here, did I? He just landed on us, and now he comes up with this fantastical tale that he can't remember where he's from, nor where he lives. And you believe him, just like that! Well, I'm afraid I don't. And now maybe you understand why I don't. I've had enough. I'm going to bed.'

I heard the kitchen door open and my father's footsteps on the stairs. I was tempted to jump out of bed and confront him there and then, and tell him just what I thought of him. But I didn't dare. I heard my mother crying down below in the kitchen. Whenever she cried, I cried. I couldn't help myself. I cried into my pillow, not only in sympathy but in anger too. I hated my father that night for making her cry and I hated him too for saying what he had about Popsicle. I hardly slept at all. I lay there full of doubts and forebodings.

By morning I had determined to find out how much
of what I'd overheard was true. I would talk to Popsicle and find out for myself exactly how much he could remember, and how much he couldn't. I would try to do it in such a way that I wouldn't upset him. I would try to be casual.

The next morning we were both in Popsicle's room. I was tightening my violin bow. ‘But before you came here, Popsicle,' I began as nonchalantly as I could, ‘where did you live?'

‘Ah,' he said. ‘You too.' And I wished at once I hadn't asked. ‘So they told you. I asked them not to. Didn't want you worrying.' He sighed. ‘How I wish I knew, Cessie, but I don't. And that's the honest truth of it. I don't remember. I remember ringing the bell on your front door. I can remember you coming down the stairs, and I can remember Patsy too in the bath. But that's all. I remember bits and pieces from long ago: Bradwell, and Cecilia, and little Arthur – all that. We had some good times, Cessie, good times, believe me. And songs. Don't know why, but I seem to remember songs. “Yellow Submarine”, “Nowhere Man”, lots of them. Clear as a bell, I remember them. And my poems too, I haven't lost them, thank God. Keep me sane, they do. But as for the rest, Cessie, it's gone, all gone. It's like living in a fog. I'm not lying to you, Cessie. Honestly.'

I thought of asking more, of probing more deeply, but I couldn't. I knew enough anyway, enough to know that I believed him, believed him absolutely.

I waited until my father came home that evening, late again. Popsicle had gone up to bed. I'd been waiting all day for just the moment and now the moment was right. I went storming into the sitting-room.

‘It's not fair.' I was in tears already. ‘It's not fair. I heard you. Last night, I heard you. Popsicle can't help it. He fell and hit his head. He had a stroke. That's not his fault, is it?' I had the advantage of surprise. They were both gaping at me. ‘He'd never have had a stroke in the first place if you hadn't . . .'

‘Cessie!' My mother was trying to stop me, but I was steaming with fury. Nothing would stop me now.

‘He's not making it up, Dad. I know he isn't. But even if he was, I wouldn't mind. I like having him here and I want him to stay. I want him to stay forever if he wants to. I hate all this . . . feeling in the air. Do you know what I wish? I wish . . . I wish you weren't my father.' I ran out and upstairs to my room where I slammed my door as hard as I could.

They left me for a few minutes, and then my father came up to my room and sat on my bed. I kept my back to him.

‘It's not easy for you to understand what's going on here, Cessie,' he began. ‘Not easy for me either. I never had a real father, you see, not till now. I had a stepfather for a while, of course, but it's not the same; and anyway, Bill and me, we never got on. I don't know what you do with a father, how you talk to a father. You've got to trust me. I'll do right by him, I promise you that. But you don't love a father just because he's your father. You can't love someone you don't know, and I don't know him. You've got to give me time, Cessie.'

I was still seething, still too angry to turn over. I wanted to, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I'd said things I shouldn't have said, and I knew it. He leant over and kissed the back of my head. ‘I'm not an ogre, Cessie,' he whispered. ‘Honestly.' When he said ‘honestly', he sounded just like Popsicle.

The next morning I was up late. There was no sound of the radio from Popsicle's room, so I thought he must be downstairs, having his breakfast already. But I found my mother alone in the kitchen. She was pouring herself a cup of coffee as I came in. ‘Well,' she said, ‘that was some performance last night.'

‘Sorry,' I said.

‘No, you're not.' She was not angry with me, but she was not pleased either. ‘Popsicle up yet?' she went on.
‘He can do almost everything for himself now, you know, except for cutting his food up. Marvellous how that arm of his has come on. Let's just hope his memory does the same. Go and see if he's all right, Cessie, will you?'

The bathroom door was ajar. He was not in there. There was no reply when I knocked on his bedroom door. I went in. His bed was made. The wardrobe door was open. His clothes were gone, his coat too, and there were no shoes by the bed. He'd gone. Popsicle had gone.

MY MOTHER SAT DOWN ON THE BED, THE POINTS of her fingers pressed against her temples, her eyes closed for a moment in concentration. ‘Think,' she said. ‘We've got to think.'

It came to me at once. ‘Ducks,' I said. ‘Maybe he's feeding the ducks.' We dashed downstairs. We found what we'd hoped to find, that the bag of accumulated bread-crusts we kept for the ducks was no longer hanging on the back of the kitchen door. A further search revealed that his stick was gone too.

‘I'll take the car,' said my mother. ‘You stay here, in case he comes home. He'll be in the park, bound to be. Shan't be long. And don't worry.'

She
was
long and I
was
worried. It seemed like an age before she came back, but when she did she was alone.
I met her at the front door. She had Popsicle's stick in her hand. ‘He's been there, but he's not there any more. I've looked everywhere. He left it on the bench. And this too.' She held out the breadcrust bag. It was empty. ‘I asked around. No one's seen him. It's like he's just disappeared.'

‘He can't have,' I cried. ‘You can't just disappear. No one can.'

She reached out and smoothed my hair tenderly. ‘You're right, Cessie. We'll find him, I promise we will. I've tried ringing your dad at work, but he's off somewhere, doing an interview or something. I tried his mobile too. Nothing. Only one thing to do. I'm going down to the police station. You'd better stay here. He'll probably walk in just as soon as I've gone. Worrying won't help, Cessie. Go and practise your violin or something – it'll keep your mind off it.' And she was gone.

I tried practising. I tried reading. I tried the television. Nothing worked. It was impossible not to think of all the dreadful things that might have happened to Popsicle. He'd had another stroke. He'd been run over. He'd fallen into the canal. Or maybe he'd just gone off as suddenly as he'd arrived, and would never be coming back again.

As the minutes passed by like hours, I was more and more certain that this was in fact what had happened. Perhaps he'd suddenly remembered where he lived and had just gone home. Miserable though this made me, I consoled myself with the thought that at least he wasn't hurt, at least he wasn't dead.

My mother did come back eventually, and when she did she was beside herself with indignation. ‘If it was a child, they'd be out there looking for him right now – dogs, helicopters, the lot. “How long has he been gone?” he says. “Maybe he's just wandered off, madam. They do, y'know. We can't go looking for every OAP who decides to take a longer walk than usual, can we now, madam?” God, did I give him an earful! So finally he says, “All right, madam, all right. We'll give it an hour or two and if he's still not back then we'll go looking, how's that? Meanwhile, I'll ask the lads to keep an eye out, madam.” I'll give him madam! Well if they won't look, I will. I'm going to drive around town till I find him. He can't have gone far. I want you to stay here, Cessie, and I want you to try your dad, and keep trying. Understand?' And despite all my protestations, she went running off up the path, leaving me alone in the house again.

I rang my father every few minutes, both at work
and on his mobile. When at long last he answered, it took me a bit by surprise. ‘Popsicle's gone,' I said. ‘He's gone, and we can't find him.' He didn't say anything, so I told him the rest. Even after I'd finished the whole story, he still said nothing.

‘Dad?' I said. ‘You there?'

‘I'm here.'

‘Mum's gone off looking for him,' I repeated. ‘And the police won't do anything.'

I have no idea what he said, nor to whom he said it, but within five minutes there was a police car outside the house and two policemen at the front door. ‘So you've lost your grandaddy, have you?' said the taller of the two, taking off his cap. The other one had a mermaid tattooed on his arm. ‘Your mum and dad in, are they?' said the tattooed one. And they walked right past me into the house as if they owned the place. They never asked. They just wandered about the house, peering into this room and that. They even went out into the garden and searched the garden shed. Did they really imagine they'd find Popsicle hiding away in the garden shed?

My father came home, and then my mother shortly after. There followed a prolonged question-and-answer session around the kitchen table over endless cups of
tea, all about Popsicle, where he went, what he did.