STALKER

The Arrival Board said Dad’s flight landed on schedule. I tossed up whether I had time to go outside and find a spot where I could sneak a cigarette. Several flights had landed around the same time, so it would take a while for the luggage to get to the carousels. Then, there was going through customs, another long process. In the end, rather than risk missing Dad, I headed for the Arrivals gate.

Luckily, there was an empty bench where I could settle in for a long wait. I kept an eye on the gates as I got on my phone to catch up on my emails.

It wasn’t too long before a trickle of weary-looking travellers made their way out of the sliding doors. A large crowd of people waiting for returning family or friends had formed in front of me. My head swivelled from one door to the other every few minutes.

The crowd was more entertaining than my emails, so I sat and watched as the different groups got more excited and impatient. Some had signs, others bunches of flowers. It was all very sweet, Hallmark sweet. What is it about airports and grand gestures? I don’t get it, but then again, I don’t get that sort of stuff at all.

The appearance of the first large group of passengers was accompanied by screams. Then, mini stampedes of people in one direction or another. As more passengers came out, the screaming, hugging, and kissing waxed and waned. The novelty quickly wore off. I get bored easily. I admit I am not a romantic or sentimental person. I love my family, and that’s about it. I have loads of friends, but do I love them? No.

Slouching on the bench, I wondered if Dad had decided to have a nice chat with a customs officer and was having a lovely time bonding. Dad does that sort of thing. The guy can’t help being friendly and oversharing. Mum is the same. They are both far too nice.

I’m practically drooling for a cigarette. I hate not being able to smoke whenever I please. It’s even more frustrating when I’m bored and need to do something with my hands. I pulled out my pink chew necklace from my T and popped it in my mouth. I don’t care if I look like I’m teething, it provides a little satisfaction when I can’t have a proper fag. I’m supposed to be cutting down, again.

To keep myself occupied, I pulled out my journal. I carry a small one around with me these days. Lately, I’ve discovered that recording the smallest details sometimes comes in handy.

Closing my eyes, I tried to backtrack my movements and recall the correct order of things. Depending on my mood, I either skim over life because I don’t give a shit, or I’m hyper-focused. At that moment, I was the latter and had no trouble tuning out my surroundings and methodically summarising my day in point form. There’s nothing poetic or meaningful in my entries. I like things to be orderly. Then again, I drift happily through life without plans for the future. I like being surprised.

Actually, I take that back. That was how I would have described myself, until recently. Of late, the surprises have come a little too thick and fast for my liking, or sanity. To the point where they have taken over my life.

“Hey, YOU!!” My Dad’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts.

I look up to see him pulling his suitcase behind him. It is too small for a big, burly man, and he makes it look like a toy. Dad is a big man, 6/4 and built like a brick shithouse. Even though he is getting on, 67, he is still an imposing man. I came along after my parents thought their breeding days were over. Most people think he’s my grandfather, and it totally pisses him off. Call him old, and you will never hear the end of it.

A smile stretches from ear to ear, and he comes barrelling towards me. He goes straight in for a bear hug. My family is like that, no filters, lots of hugging, bro punches that leave bruises, and no past humiliation is safe from being brought up at our weekly dinners.

We get a few looks from people around us, and I get it. It’s the strong family resemblance. I’m the spitting image of my father, very much a Morrison, big, blonde, blue-eyed. My brothers are slightly different versions of my Dad. Put us all together in public, and we stop traffic.

Halfway home, Dad finally stopped complaining about the flight, and jet lag started slowing him down. The entire time we’ve been driving, he’s been telling me how big men and small aeroplane seats don’t make for a happy traveller.

“Where do you put your elbows when you and the guy next to you want to eat? Don’t talk to me about going to the loo and your knees bang up against the door.” He moaned.

When he eventually stopped for a breath, I finally got a chance to ask about my grandma.

I didn’t really want to ask, but it was the whole point of the trip. It’s a hard subject for my Dad. I popped my chew necklace into my mouth. God, I wanted a smoke. I was getting twitchy.

“How did it go?” I’d offered to go with him, but he was adamant he wanted to go alone.

“It was awful, like I thought it would be.” Suddenly, all the energy seeped out of him.

My grandmother died about 7 months ago. She had been a strong-willed, independent woman all her life. If it’s possible to say someone’s death suited them, then hers did. Claudia Morrison, at the ripe old age of 89, was still living on her own and as quick-witted as ever when she had a major stroke. She survived for two days, unconscious, before passing quietly in her sleep. Being a woman who didn’t leave anything to chance or unfinished, she had organised her affairs carefully. Dad was her Power of Attorney. He had very specific instructions about her funeral arrangements and estate. Dad wasn’t happy with some of her requests, but he followed them to the letter anyway.

She wanted to be cremated and her ashes taken back to London. They were to be scattered on the site where she first met my grandfather in December 1952. The spot is one of the garden huts in Grosvenor Gardens, near Victoria Station. Can you imagine the logistical nightmare of taking ashes overseas and then sprinkling them respectfully in a public place? At least the place still existed, which was something.

Their meeting made for a rather romantic story, which she re-told many times. I can see why it meant so much to her to return to that place.

So dad had gone off on his own, with his mum tucked away in an urn, inside a sealed box, in a backpack. This was a guy who had never travelled overseas in his life. The round trip took 10 days. Looking at his face, as he sat in the car whinging about crappy English weather, it was clear it had taken a toll on him, emotionally and physically. I knew Dad hated the idea that his mum was scattered around a flower bed on the other side of the world. I was sad he didn’t have something as solid as a grave to visit for a chat when he missed her. But she had other ideas.

“How much headway have you made at Mum’s place?” Dad asked. I sighed, and he looked at me as if I’d been goofing off while he’d been away.

“I’ve been there almost every day. So don’t give me that look.” If he knew what a Pandora’s box emptying Grandma’s house had become, he wouldn’t be rushing me to finish.

“I’ve emptied the kitchen and spare bedrooms. Anything useful I’ve put in boxes.” Old ladies kept everything, just in case.

“There’s no rush with selling the house, is there?” I asked as casually as I could. I needed more time to go through all the boxes of papers properly. For a change, I was happy to be more or less unemployed. Two shifts at one of the local clubs didn’t count as a job, according to Mum.

I was grateful for all the free time. I felt I was on a mission. If I wanted to be melodramatic about it, I’d describe it as a quest, and it was only the beginning.

“Take your time. Now I’m back, I can help.” Dad didn’t seem in any rush to sell his mum’s place. Letting it go would mean admitting she was gone.

I dropped Dad off at home and stayed long enough to listen to him complain all over again about aeroplane seats and plastic food. This time, it was Mum and my oldest brother Alex who had to patiently sit through it. They listened a lot more sympathetically than I did. I excused myself as soon as I could. I was eager to start playing at being a detective.

My next stop was Grandma’s house. It’s the only place I wanted to be since I made my discovery. It was quite a haul, several large boxes full of journals, letters, photo albums, books, a couple of old suits, even a battered old trilby and a couple of wool caps à la Peak Blinders, and loads of interesting bits and pieces. I was intrigued. It appeared the boxes had been tucked away in the cupboard area under the stairs for decades. My curiosity was piqued when I started pulling things out of the boxes. Everything appeared to belong to John Morrison, my grandfather. She had kept it all for 6 years.

Since then, I’d slept quite a few nights at Grandma’s house. Mum thinks I was sleeping at my girlfriend’s place. I didn’t bother to correct her. I’d fallen down a rabbit hole and didn’t want to be bothered while I examined what I’d found.

AND then there was my new FRIEND. Since arriving, he has never left my side. Already, I’ve learned the hard way that he has no respect for boundaries or personal space.

Originally, Dad and I were meant to slowly empty the house together. But with spare time on my hands, I went there more often than Dad. I had my own set of keys so I could come and go as I pleased. In the end, the job of packing up the house fell solely on me. I catalogued anything of value and chucked the rest in a skip. My brothers avoided the job like the plague, but I found it interesting. What people hoard and hide away in boxes with cryptic labels says a lot about the person. What the boxes left behind by Grandma said about her was that she had no secrets or a great passion for anything, except for Granddad. I don’t understand why she never passed on her little treasure to Dad.

I found the boxes the day after Dad left for England. Since then, I’ve moved all of them into the large dining room. I’d cleared all the furniture out, brought in a single bed, which I’d pushed up against the french doors that lead to the garden at the side of the house. I hauled in an old filing cabinet from the garage and an ancient dresser; they sit at right angles to the bed. Grandma’s old scratched wooden kitchen table and a couple of chairs sit in the middle of the room. The remaining unopened boxes are squashed under it. In one corner, I put a rickety old coat rack and a large corkboard. I’m slowly turning the dining room into my lair, where I can carry out my secret missions. OMG, I crack myself up. My dramatic nature rather liked calling it a lair, but in reality, the door doesn’t even have a lock. Dad can walk in any time.

I haven’t told him about any of this, but I’m not worried. He will be totally blown away by the fact that all this stuff actually exists. Grandma rarely spoke about her husband, but it was clear he remained in her heart and mind long after his death. Dad was three when he died, and I know very little about him. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t even know what he looks like. I was planning to change that.

What I didn’t plan on telling him was the other things that happened while he was away. I know, for a fact, that he will freak out. He’ll be dragging me off to the doctors and psychologist again, like when I was a kid.

In the short time he was away, I changed, or should I say, I changed back. Unlike when I was a child, it doesn’t appear that my true nature is planning to hide.

.....

Once I got to Grandma’s house, I opened all the windows on the bottom floor and left the front and back doors open to let in some fresh air. The house is quiet and smells a little musty. I made a coffee and walked into what had become my favourite place.

As I stood looking down at the contents of the first box I opened, laid out on the table in neat piles, I was once again hit by a wave of sadness. I needed a cigarette and pulled out the first for the day. After the first two long puffs, I felt the pleasant little nicotine buzz run through me, and I think it’s been too long, old friend. I’m the only one who smokes in my family, and they all glare at me if I light up around them....pffft. The cigarette dangles from my lips as I run my eyes over my little treasures.

Laid out on the table are two old suits. One is a heavy black woollen one with a matching vest, the other a lighter summer one in a horrible poo brown colour. There are two flat caps: one cream and one grey. A fob watch that doesn’t work and an old Omega wristwatch I traced back to the 1940s. There is also a set of plain cufflinks and a signet ring with a single J engraved on it, a battered wallet, and a cardboard box containing handkerchiefs embraided with the initials JM. Two piles sit in the corner, one a small stack of 6 small black and white photographs in cheap plastic frames. The other is a pile of well-worn hardcover books, a couple of them on the verge of disintegrating. But the most interesting things are the two bundles of letters and the journals.

I’ve opened three other boxes, but I haven’t examined anything properly yet. Everything is stored away neatly in the filing cabinet and dresser. There are only two more small boxes still sitting under the table.

I couldn’t help but think that the bits and pieces of granddad’s life on display in front of me were only a glimpse of the man. The feeling of sadness washed over me again.

Behind me, I heard what sounded like the wind blowing through the house. A few loose papers on the table fluttered briefly. I ran my fingers over the stained and scored cover of a book I’ve left to one side of the table to examine properly. I can’t help but stare at it, and as I said, it’s the little things people hide away that tell you a lot about them.