The To-Do List (19 page)

       
‘How does a couple of days sound?’ I trimmed a few days off the total in the hope of softening the blow.

       
‘And who’s going to look after
your
children while you’re away in the sunshine?’

       
Claire referring to
our
children as
my
children was a bad sign. I was in big trouble. For a second I contemplated suggesting that she recruited both mums to help out but then it occurred to me that Claire may well have meant the question rhetorically. Given that since Maisie was born I’d had sole responsibility for the girls for approximately three hours while Claire had her hair cut and had been so traumatised that I had had to take the day off from all To-Do-list-related activities to recover, I understood her fury.

       
‘Look, I’ll start the research and we can deal with whatever happens when it happens, can’t we?’

       
‘Don’t you mean that
I
can deal with whatever happens when it happens?’

       
‘No,’ I replied. ‘Whatever happens we’ll deal with it together.’ I presented her with my best sad face (capturing the very essence of contrition) quickly followed by a kiss and big cuddle, I added as some extra neck-nuzzling time for luck. Slowly but surely I felt my wife’s body go from rigid and unyielding to ‘slightly melty’. Only when it had concluded its transition to ‘warm putty’, did I allow myself to relax.

       
‘I love you, you know,’ I whispered in her ear. ‘A lot of women would make a big deal about their husbands clearing off around the world at the drop of a hat so it’s really cool that you’re being so understanding.’

       
‘Fine,’ said Claire rolling her eyes (a clear indicator that I had laid it on a little too thick.) ‘We’ll deal with it when we deal with it but I’m making no promises that it will be okay.’

       
‘That’s all I’m asking for. Anyway, chances are I won’t need to go so this will all just be a storm over nothing.’

       
The following afternoon, in an effort to be more green and lose some weight I jumped on my bike (no takers on eBay yet!) and rode to Mum and Dad’s house. A journey that would have taken less than seven minutes by car actually took three quarters of an hour and I arrived looking like I was seconds away from cardiac arrest.

       
When my mum opened the door she looked me up and down and asked if I’d been swimming. ‘I’ve heard it’s good for getting rid of all that belly fat,’ she said patting my stomach. ‘Still, it’ll take a few more laps before you start to see the difference.’

       
There was little point in informing my mum that I was just sweating profusely, so I followed her into the kitchen for a drink of water.

       
‘Where’s Dad?’

       
‘He’s gone into town. Why, did you want to speak to him?’

       
‘I actually wanted to speak to both of you.’

       
‘Why?’ There was hopeful inflection in her voice and a glint in her eye. ‘Have you got some news? Claire’s not pregnant again, is she?’

       
I couldn’t believe it. It had only been a couple of months since I’d made her a grandmother for the second time and she was already holding out for more? Was no number of grandchildren enough to sate this woman?

       
‘Of course not.’

       
Mum looked disappointed. ‘I’ve got a couple of balls of wool upstairs that could do with using up and I found a lovely pattern for a hat and booties.’

       
‘So you were hoping Claire and I would have another baby just so that they didn’t go to waste?’

       
Mum laughed. ‘The more the merrier – that’s what I always say. So what do you want me for anyway?’

       
‘I need you to tell me everything you know about the Gayles because I’ve decided that I’m going to trace our family tree.’

       
The main reason why Item 190: ‘Trace family tree’ was on the To-Do List was because I didn’t know a great deal about either side of my family beyond my grandparents whereas Claire knew pretty much everything there was to know about hers. Prompted by the birth of Lydia, Claire had done some in-depth investigations and traced a distant branch of the family to Hereford, a census entry featuring her great-great-grandmother and, through conversations with her grandmother, discovered that in addition to being part Irish, as she had always known, she was also part Jewish and ‘so rumour had it’ had a bit of gypsy in her too. The Richards side of her family sounded like a game lot and I didn’t want our children to think of the Gayles as being the boring bunch in the gene pool. This was pretty much the explanation that I gave to my mum.

       
‘Michael,’ she sighed, ‘there’s nothing much to tell.’

       
‘Let me be the judge of that.’

       
‘Well, I’m the eldest, and then there’s your three uncles and your auntie. Then there was my father Edward and my mother Gwendolyn and her mother . . . a lovely woman we used to call Juju and that’s pretty much it.’

       
‘What do you mean that’s pretty much it? What about your other grandparents?’

       
‘My father’s father had died long before I remember and so had my mother’s father.’

       
‘What about their names or when they were born or where they got married?’

       
‘Michael, it was a long time ago.’

       
My mum had a point. She was seventy-one and having left her native country all those years ago had packed more into her time on this earth than most people would have if they lived twice as long. It was no wonder that a few key names had been forgotten along the way.

       
Over the next hour or so I got a few more details, like where she was born and the district that my grandmother had originated from in Jamaica (along with some great anecdotes that I’d never heard before about her childhood) but I still only had enough for a family twig. The success or failure of this particular tick now rested squarely on the shoulders of my dad. When I finally sat him down and grilled him too, he knew no more than my mum.

       
‘What were you hoping for?’

       
‘I dunno,’ I sighed. ‘A few more names and a bit more detail would have been useful.’

       
‘People didn’t really pay much attention to that kind of thing back in those days,’ explained Dad. ‘I bet you didn’t know that my birthday isn’t the one on my birth certificate.’

       
I was flabbergasted. ‘How come?’

       
‘It was the law that a birth had to be registered within four months of it happening. People were too busy farming to find the time so when they did they’d always change the date to within four months so they didn’t get fined.’

       
That explained a lot about the Gayle trait for ignoring or bending any rules that they didn’t see the point of (a trait that I possessed in abundance), but it didn’t get me any closer to a more extensive family tree. The only way I was going to get more information was by taking myself off to Jamaica – a trip that would cost me a fortune, reduce my daily tick count and seriously annoy my wife.

       
Just then my mobile rang. It was Claire.

       
‘You’ve drawn a blank with your parents and you’re thinking about going to Jamaica, aren’t you?’

       
‘How do you know?’ I looked around the room for a hidden camera. ‘You’re not watching me are you?’

       
Claire laughed. ‘No, I just guessed. I’ve talked family trees with your mum before now and never got very far myself, so I took matters into my own hands.’

       
‘What have you done?’

       
‘I’ve been on the internet and found a lovely lady called Mrs Bleether who is the answer to all your problems.’

       
‘And Mrs Bleether is what exactly?’

       
‘A Kingston-based genealogist who, charging by the hour, will get you your family tree thereby saving you having to fly off to the West Indies and saving me having to explain to our kids why I had to strangle you, their father, with my bare hands. How does that sound?’

       
A Jamaican-based genealogist who spent all day tracing family trees versus me, a three week stay in a country I hadn’t been to for over twenty years attempting to achieve something that I’d never done before. It was, to quote my agent, ‘a no brainer’. Such a no brainer that I felt like a bit of an idiot for not coming up with it myself. I emailed an enquiry to Mrs Bleether and she wrote back that although it would take a number of months given her current workload she would be more than happy to take on my case.

       
Turning on my computer a few weeks later to send an email to my accountant in a bid to fulfil To-Do List Item 98: ‘Sit down with your accountant and don’t stand up again until you understand the basics of how he works out your tax bill’) I discovered an email from Mrs Bleether.

       
I felt sure that she had succeeded in tracking down all the various branches of my family tree and that her email would contain names and dates of my long-dead ancestors whom I would be in a sense ‘meeting’ for the first time.
How far back had she managed to get?
I wondered. Would there be any surprises? Did my dad’s side of the family, as my mother always said, really originate from the ‘runaway slaves’ known as the Maroon people? And would this explain why we Gayles were all born with a stroppy rule-breaking streak a mile wide? And what about the rumour (possibly started by my middle brother) that we were related to Abraham Lincoln?

       
I was seconds away from finding out the truth.

Dear Mr Gayle,

Unfortunately it has not been possible to trace your family tree with the limited amount of information that you were able to provide. Should you find yourself able to provide a greater wealth of information at some future date please do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours sincerely

Mrs C. Bleether

‘Are you disappointed?’ asked Claire after she read the email.

       
‘I suppose so. Not because of the missed tick. I was actually interested in finding out a bit more about the Gayles of the past.’

       
‘Well, you still can.’ Claire reached across to type ‘Genealogy DNA testing’ into Google. ‘I saw an article in
The Times
a while back about various companies who have set up businesses to analyse people’s DNA and work out their genetic heritage. It’s not as good as a big sheet of paper with a bunch of names on it but it has to be better than nothing. What do you think? Shall we order you a test?’

       
I thought for a moment. Did I really want to have my DNA tested to determine my genetic heritage? Of course I did! It was so wonderfully
CSI
that it was all I could do to stop myself swabbing the inside of my mouth with a couple of cotton buds that very moment. We decided on a DNA testing company and ordered its ‘Gold Heritage package’ for £299 which would be delivered in five to ten working days and would tell me loads more about my genetic make-up than the £199 silver package and the £150 bronze package which, as far as I could gather, would only determine whether or not you were human.

       
‘How do you feel now?’ asked Claire as I closed down the computer.

       
‘Pretty good, actually. Okay, so after all this work I’ve put in I still haven’t ended up with a full tick but do you know what? That’s okay. The important thing is to keep going no matter what.’

Excerpt from Mike’s To-Do-List Diary (Part 5)

Monday 21 May

3.44 p.m.
I am on the internet looking at a report which states that since the introduction of decimal currency in 1971 over 6 billion one-penny coins (that’s a staggering £60,000,000) have been lost, never to be seen again. I’m guessing some of them are currently in my house annoying my wife which is why Item 857: ‘Collect together all the loose change in the house and do something useful with it’ made it on to the List. On this particular task I have to hold my hands up and admit that the only person who leaves loose change around the house is me. I lose money all the time. I get sick of change loading down my pockets so I take it out and put it somewhere handy, like the mantelpiece. Then Claire comes along and says, ‘That doesn’t live there,’ and puts it somewhere else and before you know it money is everywhere.

3.51 p.m.
I have just checked the sofa and found £3.63 and two cashew nuts.

4.03 p.m.
I have just checked the kitchen drawer by the back door and found £5.22.

4.20 p.m.
I have just checked under our bed and found £1.89, a missing library book, three hairgrips and a year-old copy of
Mother and Baby Monthly
.

4.37 p.m.
I have just checked both cars and found £8.44, a mouldy tangerine, sixteen sweet wrappers and Lydia’s toy baby’s knitted underpants.

4.48 p.m.
I have just emptied the two pint glasses of change that have been sitting on the shelf in my office, the mug of change from our bedroom and the jug of change from the counter by the sink in the bathroom into a very large plastic carrier bag.

5.01 p.m.
I’m at Sainsbury’s and with Lydia’s help am pouring all the money that I’ve found into the change-sorting machine that stands in the lobby. It’s actually quite exciting. The loose change makes a terrific sound and I feel as though I’ve just won big on a Las Vegas slot machine only in reverse. As the machine sorts out the cascade of coins the numbers on the front of the machine quickly rack up: £1.21 . . . £3.44 . . . £6.21 . . . £8.95 . . . £12.31 . . . £16.87 . . . £19.51 . . . £23.40 . . . and then finally, following a series of deep clanks and screeches that make me worry that I have broken the machine (and after spitting out €3.30, a one-peseta coin, sixteen Greek drachmas, five German Deutschmarks, two parking tokens and eleven screws) it stops at a staggering £31.02. ‘What shall we do with all that money, Daddy?’ asks Lydia. I deliberate, my finger hovering above the ‘cash now’ button, and then having pictured all of the useless tat I might buy with £31.02, I press the ‘donate to charity’ button and head home.