Paternity suit

I’m writing this at the airport, waiting to board my flight to the US. It’s running late so I have some time to document everything that’s happened, while it’s fresh. Be warned: this might get a bit heavy for some readers.

I should have smelled a rat when mum offered to give me a lift to Heathrow. Halfway there, she turned off the motorway and then I twigged what was going on. (This is why I’m a technician, not a detective.) We had a blazing row for all of ten minutes before we were at the gate of the prison and she was holding the car door open for me to get out, and I sat there refusing.

I felt like such a child. That’s what did it. For as long as I sat there and refused to get out – which is how I fully intended to stay – I felt like I was four years old and folding my arms and pouting. The only way I could stop feeling so childish was to get out of the car and stand up like an adult, though when I eventually did, I found myself involuntarily stamping my foot in a strop.

The last time I’d been there was a decade ago, just after the conviction. He pleaded not guilty to murder, still claiming it was self-defence, and even when I pushed it, asking him the same questions again and again (I am my mother’s daughter), he kept saying it was him or Sol, he had no choice. He was lying right to my face, even after all the evidence, and that was it – I couldn’t trust him anymore. He’d killed a member of his own family and he wouldn’t tell me the truth. How was I supposed to be his daughter after that?

This time round, I was in a fog of anger all the way through the security checks and before I knew it we were sitting in the visitors’ room, waiting for our man to come and see us.

There was a sickening grin on his face when he saw us through the glass and I couldn’t help but think “How dare he be so happy!” But of course it was me he was smiling at. He’d got what he wanted (or he thought so at that point).

He’s aged pretty badly. That’s what a guilty conscience does for you.

I need to get all this down before I forget – the important parts, not all the details.

There was some small talk at the start about America and the flight and my haircut and Yorkshire puddings. Then he went, “Your mother told me what you’d said about everything. It meant so much to hear that, you’ve no idea.”

And mum shuffled in her chair and I asked him what exactly he thought I’d said.

“The... forgiveness.”

That’s what set me off.

I think you know me fairly well by now. I’m quite a calm, rational person. I value thought before action and I have a positively charming nature.

Not today.

To give you the pre-watershed version: I assured him that I hadn’t forgiven him yet. I assured him of that several times. Mum tried to jump in and say we should move on, that we should let the past rest and look at the future instead, but I wouldn’t let it go. I asked him why? I asked him why he killed his brother? Why he lied to me? Why he kept bullshitting in the face of so much evidence? Why he didn’t change his plea? Why he tried to make my uncle look like a mad man when he was the monster? Why wouldn’t he admit, even now, that he killed his brother because he thought he was a waste of space, a user, a leech that sucked one drop of blood too much and his life was worth less than what he still owed?

Two of the prison guards told me to sit down, no physical contact, which is when I realised I was standing over him and hitting him on his arms as he tried to protect himself.

That intervention made me cool off. And I saw that he was crying.

There’s something horribly ugly about seeing a man sob. I sometimes see them around the Forensics building, if they’ve come in to identify a body. The mothers weep and the fathers comfort, but if the man breaks down as well,  his heart implodes.

I can only think that my mum felt the same watching him cry there, across the table. She started reaching over to hold his hand, then remembered she couldn’t and held mine instead.

“Sol pushed me,” she said.

And she let that sink in. It didn’t really. I must have still looked confused because she kept talking. “I was at home that afternoon. Sol came to me first, to borrow some money. He didn’t want to talk to your father – he was ashamed. So I was the one who said no to him.”

“So were you the one who – ?”

“No,” my father said, wiping his nose on his sleeve. “I came home and found them still arguing. When I walked in, it made things worse. He was... very hostile. Especially to your mother. He pushed her against a wall and she banged her head. I could see it was going to get worse.

The tears had stopped now. He was staring over my shoulder, projecting the scene on the white plaster ceiling.

“That’s when I decided what to do. He’d started to become dangerous – like a dog when it’s bitten a child in a park. Once they’ve tasted blood, there’s only one course of action. And he was spending a lot of time with you in those days. I had to protect my own.

“I said we should sit down and have a cup of tea in the kitchen, just me and him. I put the kettle on and let him talk. And when the kettle reached the boil, I asked him if he minded skimmed milk and stabbed him in the chest before he could hurt anyone else.”

He was absolutely calm as he said it. I could imagine the same level tone in his voice as he walked across the kitchen with a knife in his hand. I looked at my mum for some kind of confirmation: was this really true or just a different pack of lies? She nodded.

“Your father told me to go to the shops for a couple of hours so he could call the police while I was away. He didn’t want me to be tied up in it too – I could have been arrested as an accessory. If we both went to jail, who would have looked after you?”

My head was throbbing at this point and I didn’t know what to say. She knew? And she never let on?

My dad spoke up again.

“You see, it was self-defence, defence of all of us. And defence of your mother’s good name. Maybe now you’ll understand, but back then, when you were a teenager, you never would have forgiven us. At least you only hated me. You got to keep your mum.”

The prison guards were hovering again. Visiting hours were over. It was time to leave.

I was glad of the non-contact rule because it meant I didn’t have to think about whether to hug him or not. My gut was a growling knot of mixed feelings. So we said goodbye and I zombie-shuffled to the car, my mum steering me by the elbow.

I wanted to talk to someone about it all because talking about it might make my feelings clearer, but my first thought was that my mum could go to prison for what she did.  But my second thought was: what could they prove? The only evidence for this so-called confession is what I’ve written here, and who’s to say that it’s not a work of fiction? If the three of us deny everything, there’s no case to answer.

The plane’s boarding now. Let’s leave it at that.