I don’t know what I think I’m going to get from this. It’s quite likely that I’ll find a photo of my parents in one of those books. But what good will that do me? I’d just torture myself looking for similarities, then have to remind myself that I’m not one step further on in my pointless quest. But what can I say? My gut instinct is telling me that I have to do this, so I’ve got no choice.
When I make out the big double doors at the end of the hallway, I sigh with relief. They open with a quiet squeak.
I don’t know what it is about rooms full of books, but somehow, you feel safe inside them. My footsteps aren’t echoing anymore. The sound is swallowed. There’s a different smell too, of wood and paper, dust and promises.
The candlestick is in the same place as last time, but I don’t dare light the candles. Instead, I pull my phone out of the kangaroo pocket on my hoodie. The cold light of the torch doesn’t fit the vibe, but I can’t risk accidentally knocking into a candle and setting the whole school on fire. That’s totally the kind of thing that would happen to me. So I’d better not.
I walk along the shelves until I reach the yearbooks. My eyes hurriedly flick over the dates.
1994. My heart thumps when I find the right spine.
I reach out my hand, but hesitate as my fingertips touch the smooth binding. It’s not like I’m expecting much from these yearbook photos. I’ve seen pictures of Mum and Dad at my age before. But somehow, looking at them in our cellar is different from doing so here in the library of the boarding school whose walls could tell me the stories that no one else will.
I pull down the book. It’s heavier than I expected. I put my phone on the shelf so that I can hold the yearbook with both hands and blow the thin sheet of dust off the top edge.
Class of 1994.I run my thumbs over the inscription, then open the book.
There are lots of pages. So many that at some point I sit down on the old wooden floorboards and use my phone torch to light them.
I go through the list of names and hold my breath when I finally find the ones I’m looking for.
Laura Beck.
Jacob Wiley.
Laura and Jacob. Mum and the man who could’ve been a father to me, if he’d felt like it.
And then I read the name two lines above my father’s.
Alaric Ward.
Is that him? Mr.Ward? Were they in the same year?
I flick on. There are group photos from the junior school. Ten or fifteen children at most per photo, and I have to analyze them all. Not to find Mum, no. She didn’t start here until the second form, but my father must have been here from the start. And maybe Mr.Ward was too.
I’ve gone through almost all the photos, and I’m just wondering whether to start again at the beginning, when I stop.
It’s the eyes that make me think I’m looking at myself as a child. The pale-blond hair that eventually darkened on him. But not on me.
It’s my dad, and he must be eleven, twelve at most. The tip of my nose is almost touching the paper, I’m leaning in so close to the book, but I can’t tell whether or not Mr.Ward is among the other pupils. It’s not until I get to the second senior form that I’m sure. He’s standing next to my dad and not looking anywhere near as bitter as he does these days. More like mischievous. Rather like that Valentine when he happens to be looking less arrogant than normal.
Then I spot Mum. Of course. Second form, her first year atDunbridge Academy. She’s standing in the back row, looking kind of uptight and shy. Not at all the way I know her. My dad’s hair is a bit longer than everyone else’s, and he looks sort of rebellious, even though he’s wearing the uniform. But the school uniform doesn’t suit him. He’s staring into the camera and not smiling.
I turn the pages. Look at the photos from the third, fourth, and fifth forms. In the lower sixth, they’re standing together, and my father’s hand is somewhere behind Mum’s back. She’s not looking at the camera, she’s gazing at him. He’s acting like he hasn’t noticed, but his smile tells a different story. He knows exactly what he’s doing. It’s the first photo where he and Mr.Ward aren’t side by side. Mr.Ward is a row back, behind them, and glancing in their direction. He looks kind of jealous. My parents belong together in a strange way. My mum looks like a model pupil. My dad looks like an adventurer, bold, like someone who wants more from life than scoring points and playing by rules dreamed up by other people. He looks like the kind of person you can’t pin down. The kind you can’t really predict, who’ll promise you the world one day and be off over the hills the next, because he comes and goes like the tide. He was like that then, and Mum still fell for him.
My throat feels tight as I flick further on. More pictures from the lower sixth and no Dad. No Mr.Ward either. He doesn’t reappear until photos from the upper sixth. Where did he get to in between? And why does he look so different now? As if all the light had gone out from his eyes. I stare at those photos as if they could give me answers, but I can’t find them. I just peer at pictures from the start of the academic year, and then from theLeavers’ Ball. Fancy gowns, beaming faces, hats thrown into the air. Group photos. Mum holding her results and beaming. No trace of my dad. Maybe he was up on some tiny stage at that moment, thinking he’d made it. He’d struck lucky: He was living his dream; he’d beaten the system.
It was the first time he left her. I know that he did it again lots of times after that. That he went back to Mum when she was at uni and he hadn’t got a record deal in London. That they lived together for a few years, and he left again when she was pregnant. That he came back, just before I was born. That he moved to Germany with her, that there’d be times when things were good for a while, until they weren’t again. That it seemed like everything suffocated him. Their flat, their relationship, his daughter. Me. I suffocated him, and now he hasn’t the faintest idea that I’m sitting here and that I want to find out who he was, who he is. I’m not a step further on. What did I expect?
A noise makes me jump.
I slam the book shut, jump up, stand motionless, my ears pricked in the silence.
My heart is racing.
But it was just the wind.
Henry
