Second Fiddle (7 page)

“Brendan.”

“I will need his
surname,
you eejit.”

“Regan.”

“OK, Brend
an
Reg
an,
” I said, and wrote the name down neatly on the top line of one of the sheets of paper. “That's funny, it sort of rhymes, doesn't it?”

“How d'you mean?”

“Brendan Regan. What's he like? Is he tall and handsome and manly?” Like Tim, I was thinking. Also, since his name was practically a poem, I thought he'd have to be something special.

“Well … tall, yes, tall.”

I wrote
tall
under the name
Brendan Regan
on my sheet of paper.

“And does he tell you wonderful stories? About the war?”

“The
war
?”

“Oh, sorry, no, that's grandfathers. Well then, about hippies.”

“Hippies?”

Gillian didn't seem to know about anything that happened before about ten years ago.

“About rock 'n' roll,” I explained, “and how he went to Woodstock and sat-in in the library at college and played Leonard Cohen songs on his guitar and went to Marrakesh in the summers and campaigned to free Nelson Mandela?”

“Leonard who?”

“Gillian, what sort of a
life
did your father have? Didn't he
do
any of that cool stuff?”

“He was … he
is
a Web site designer,” Gillian said. “He has, you know, clients? And he goes to meetings with a briefcase, and he writes down what they want and then he sends them stuff by e-mail.”

“Oh. That makes him younger, I suppose.”

“Than what? Younger than what?”

“Well, younger than other people's fathers. Mine, for example.”

“I don't know how old he is.” Really, she's hopeless, Gillian. “I never asked. It didn't seem important.”

“It's not, except for the description,” I explained. “When we ask the guards to help us find him, you'll need to be able to say ‘midthirties' or ‘late forties' or whatever, so they'll know what they're looking for.”

I wrote
youngish for a dad
under
tall.

“The
guards!
” squeaked Gillian. “We don't need to go to the police, do we?”

“Well, it depends whether we find him or not by ourselves. When did you last see him?”

“On Thursday.”

“On
Thursday!
” I was taken aback, but I wrote it down dutifully all the same.

“What's wrong with that?” asked Gillian huffishly.

“I thought he was
missing.
I thought we had to
look
for him.”

“He
is
missing,” insisted Gillian. “I don't know where he lives. I haven't got his phone number. He's not in the phone book, by the way. I did think of that. So, I don't know how to find him.
I
call that missing.”

“But he's not really missing,” I said. “Not if you saw him on Thursday. I mean, he hasn't disappeared off the face of the earth or been taken hostage by terrorists or anything like that, has he?” I looked at the pile of phone books and railway timetables. Maybe I'd overdone it. “Unless he was abducted by aliens on Friday, maybe?” I added, though I didn't hold out much hope.

“There's no need to sound so disappointed,” said Gillian sulkily. “I think he's living in Ballymore now. He said something about moving to be nearer to us, but I think it's because the rents are cheaper than in Dublin—that's where he was before.”

“When did you have this conversation?”

Gillian thought for a moment. “About six weeks ago. Maybe two months.”

“That explains why he's not in the phone book,” I said. “He hasn't been there long enough. Why don't you just ask your mother how to contact him? If you saw him on Thursday, she must be in touch with him. She probably has his phone number.”

“My
mother
…,” said Gillian. She turned her hands out, palms up and gave an exaggerated shrug. At the time, I thought she just meant,
You know how hopeless my mother is,
but now I think she meant,
Back off, don't ask too many questions.

“OK,” I said. “You don't want to involve her, right? We could just look in her address book, though, if we could find it. She has an address book, I presume?”

Gillian shrugged, so I wrote down
Zelda's address book
under the words
youngish for a dad
and then put a large black question mark after it.

Brendan Regan

tall

youngish for a dad

last seen on Thurs

Zelda's address book?

“Do you see your dad every Thursday?” I asked.

“No,” said Gillian grumpily. “If I did, he wouldn't be missing, would he?”

She sounded as if she was beginning to get tired of this inquiry already. I was only getting into it.

“So, how often do you see him?”

“Every second Thursday,” said Gillian.
“Not!”
she added, when she saw the thunderous look on my face. “Not every second Thursday meaning, you know, this week and then skip a week and then next Thursday.”

“I don't see what else every second Thursday could possibly mean,” I said.

“I mean, the second Thursday of every month. It's sort of a standing date. We go out for a meal, usually to a steakhouse. I don't like steak. I only eat the chips. I'm thinking about becoming a vegetarian.”

“Look,” I said in exasperation, “can you stick to the point? We'll discuss your dietary preferences some other time. Why didn't you ask him about the money on Thursday, when you saw him?”

“I tried,” Gillian said. “He didn't get it. I mean, I told him about the audition, but not about needing the money. I thought he'd see that. I didn't think I needed to spell it out. But he never offered, and then I got—well, I got too embarrassed to ask.”

“You really are a complete eejit, you know that?”

Gillian suddenly thought of something. “I've got his e-mail address, if that's any use,” she said. “Only I haven't got a computer.”

“
I
have a computer,” I said. “It was my dad's. He sort of … left it to me, I suppose you could say.”

“You mean, I could use your computer to contact him?”

I nodded.

“Great,” Gillian said. “Thanks. What'll I say?”

“How about, ‘Dear Dad, I forgot to mention the other day that I need…' How much do you need? A hundred euro; let's say a hundred to be on the safe side. ‘Dear Dad, Could you see your way to letting me have a hundred euro for my airfare to England so I can go to that audition I mentioned? Mum seems to be a bit short this week.…'”

“‘Because you are such a mean pig,'” Gillian chimed in, “‘and you always leave us short and then you come and pick me up in that stupid black car of yours and take me to that horrible restaurant where I don't even like the food, and you never want to know anything about me except what it says on my report and if I got any detentions this term, and you sigh when I mention my violin and you keep asking these questions about Zelda and whether she's
seeing
anyone, and anyway, everyone knows you love Tim more so you probably won't let me have the money and you can stuff it, I don't want it if that's your attitude.'”

Gillian banged her pink little fist down on my mother's dining table and made me jump.

“Hmm,” I said, chewing on my pencil. “I don't think you should say that bit. You do want the money. What about Tim?”

“Oh, Tim hasn't got any. By the time he pays Mum for his keep and.…”

“No, no, I mean, does he see your dad on every second Thursday too?”

“No,” said Gillian. “He won't have anything to do with him. He hates him for leaving us. For being so mean. For only seeing me once a month. For being Dad. But mostly for objecting to Tim being a forester. He wants him to be an engineer. He says being a forester is a job for a peasant.”

“Oh, my!”

“Yeah. You see what we're up against. Not that Tim is a proper forester anyway, he's only doing it for the summer to see if he likes it. I don't think I can bring myself to e-mail him, the miserable swine.”

“If you want the money, you'll have to.”

“Don't
want
to,” said Gillian, chewing her fingernails. You'd think a person who bothers with nail polish wouldn't do that.

I sighed.

“I know what,” I said after a while.

“What?”

“
I'll
do it. It's my computer after all. I'll e-mail him. ‘Dear Mr. Regan, You don't know me, but I am a friend of your daughter's. She desperately needs a hundred euro. If you phone her, she will explain. Her life depends on it.' No, that's too scary. ‘Her future depends on it. Please get in touch. A well-wisher.'”

Gillian laughed. Her too-small face broadened and looked as if it were going to crack right across. She looked like an amused frog. She definitely didn't look like someone who'd changed her mind about looking for her father.

“I always wanted to sign something ‘A well-wisher,'” I said happily. “It's so menacing.”

In the end, this was the e-mail we sent:

Dear Mr. Regan,

I am a friend of Gillian's. Gillian urgently needs a cash advance for an honorable purpose. If you phone her, she will explain. I think you should get in touch. You should be very proud of your talented daughter.

Yours faithfully,

Margaret Rose Clarke (A well-wisher)

P.S.: Gillian is a vegetarian and would like you to stop making her eat steak, as it is against her principles. She is too shy to tell you this herself. I am not shy, however, which is lucky for her. She also needs some proper clothes and a larger face.

I added the P.S. later, after Gillian had gone home, though it's not true about her being shy, or not that I'm aware of. (Have you noticed that nearly everyone in the world claims to be shy, “really”? You could try it out: ask a random group of people if they are shy “really” or “deep down inside,” and you'll see what I mean. It's the same with having a sense of humor. Ask a random group of people if they have a sense of humor, and every single one of them will say that they have a great sense of humor. It's astonishing that there aren't more shy comedians in the world, to my mind.)

I took out the larger face bit before I sent the e-mail. That was only a joke between me and myself. But I left in about needing new clothes, because I thought it was true. She couldn't do something as serious as an audition in those frippy things she normally wears. The day I called at her house, she was wearing a coloredy top with a drawstring around the neck, like a laundry bag. You can't do an audition in a laundry bag.

My mother wanted to know what was going on. What were we doing, spending hours on the computer when we could be out in the sunshine?

“Oh, we go in adult chat rooms and pretend to be over eighteen,” I said airily. “We thought we might find boyfriends that way. American ones.”

“Mags!”

“Of course we don't,” I said. “You're such a
wet,
Mum. Do you think we have no sense?”

“No,” said my mother. “That is to say, yes.”

“You are absolutely convinced I am going to be kidnapped and murdered and chopped up into little pieces and made into soup, aren't you?”

“Mags, don't talk like that.”

“But you're wrong. I don't talk to strangers. I don't take stupid risks. I say no to drugs, though I have to admit I tried beer once at a wedding, but fortunately I didn't like it. I don't go into chat rooms. I'm all right, Mum, I'm all
right!
”

“What wedding?” said my mother. “Who gave you beer?”

“Mum, it was only a sip, but that's not the point. The point is, I'm OK.”

“I suppose you are,” said my mother with a small sigh.

Sometimes I wonder if she wants me to be not-OK, so she can rescue me.

“Well then,” I said.

She ran her fingers absentmindedly through my hair. It was a nice feeling.

“I'm more likely to be run over by a drunk when I'm crossing at a pedestrian light,” I said reassuringly, “than to be lured to my death by some weirdo with an ice-cream cone in a raincoat, I mean, in a raincoat with an ice-cream cone.”

“Oh, Mags! Stoppit!” But she was grinning in spite of herself.

“Only teasing,” I said.

“Emm,” said my mother then, twisting a strand of my hair around her finger without realizing she was doing it. “Mags?”

“What? Leggo my hair!”

“Sorry. I … er, I have invited someone to lunch on Wednesday.”

“Well then,” I said. I wasn't terribly interested in this piece of information.

“I'd like you to be there.”

“Why?” I asked suspiciously. “Why can't I just have my sandwich as usual and take it to the woods? I don't want to sit around with boring grown-ups. I'm busy next week. I'm on a manhunt.”

“A
man
hunt? You're only twelve.”

“It's not
that
sort of manhunt. I'm just helping someone to find someone they've … mislaid.”

“Is that what all the e-mailing is about?”

“
One
little e-mail is all. And I didn't go online till after six, like you said, when it's cheaper.”

“Hmm. Well, I'll make my famous minestrone. How does that tempt you?”

“Yum,” I said. “When?”

“On Wednesday, I told you. For lunch.”

“Oh! Well, all right then. I'll be there.”

I may have my reservations about my mum, but I know good minestrone when I get it. I believe in being fair about things and I cannot say fairer than this: if you haven't tasted my mother's famous minestrone, you really haven't tasted minestrone at all. (Except possibly in Sicily.)