‘Can’t it sort out those buggers too?’ Billy said. ‘Like your dad sorted out Nobby Stokes.’
Charlie looked at Hathaway with interest. Dan looked away. Hathaway bridled.
‘What do you mean, Bill?’
Bill caught his tone.
‘I didn’t mean anything by it, Johnny.’
‘Yes, but what did you mean?’
‘C’mon, Johnny,’ Charlie said. ‘Even I heard the story about your dad and your headmaster, and I wasn’t even at your school.’
‘It gets exaggerated in the telling,’ Hathaway said.
‘I was only joking,’ Bill said.
Hathaway nodded.
‘I know.’
They sat listening to The Beatles in awkward silence, then the phone rang. Hathaway walked over to answer it.
‘Get those dancing girls out of there now, Johnny!’
It was his father.
‘Max Miller’s dead,’ his father said. ‘Died back in May and I’ve only just heard.’
‘Where are you, Dad?’
‘Never mind that. Your mother sends her love. Your granddad knew him, you know, when he was starting out. He was Thomas Sargent back then. Lived in the same house on Burlington Street for fifteen years. Damn shame.’
‘How old was he?’
‘About seventy, so he’d lived a good life.’
‘When are you coming back, Dad?’
There was a pause, then:
‘Son, do me a favour and take a walk down the street.’
‘Now?’
‘No, son, next week. Of course, now.’
‘But, Dad-’
‘Humour me, son.’
Hathaway put the phone down and called to the others: ‘I’ll be back in five minutes.’
He walked down to the phone box on the corner. Somebody was in it. Hathaway hesitated for a moment then tapped on the window. The man looked round, irritated, saw Hathaway and pushed open the door a few inches.
‘My father – sorry…’
‘I’ll call you back in half an hour,’ the man said, putting the phone back on its cradle.
‘Sorry,’ Hathaway said again. The man waved Hathaway’s apology away as he walked down the street, shoulders hunched.
Hathaway stood in the booth waiting for the telephone to ring. His parents probably had the only telephone on the estate, but his father never made or took calls from there, preferring to use this phone box. Everybody on the street knew it was ‘his’ phone box and respected that fact.
Hathaway knew the respect came out of fear of his father. It wasn’t something he liked to think about. The telephone rang.
‘Johnny?’
‘I’m here, Dad.’
‘Johnny, your mum and I are staying out here a bit longer than we thought. Another month probably. We wondered if you’d like to join us?’
‘Where are you exactly?’
‘Spain.’
‘Spain’s a big country, Dad.’
‘Showing off your geography lessons again? Humour me, son. You know I’ve got my funny ways.’
‘I think it’s called paranoia, Dad.’
‘No – it’s called caution, son. So what do you think?’
‘The group’s doing well, Dad. I need to be here, really.’
‘As you wish. Your mum wants to know whether you’re eating properly.’
‘Of course. Is she there?’
‘She’s out by the pool but she sends her love.’
His mother was growing increasingly eccentric. Menopause, his father said, but Hathaway didn’t really know what that meant.
His dad hung up.
Barbara came to see the group that evening. Unwillingly, but Hathaway had insisted. She sat right at the back, looking uneasy. Hathaway introduced her to the others during the break, but nobody could think of anything to say so the rest of the group left the two of them sitting together.
Afterwards, in her car, she wasn’t in a talking mood. She gave him French instead.
‘Did you enjoy the gig?’ he said later.
‘Look. They’ve seen me now – OK? You’ve proved you can pull an older woman. Congratulations.’
‘I don’t get what you’re so cross about.’
‘You wouldn’t.’
‘You’re not being logical.’
She laughed and reached to wipe the steamed-up side window.
‘One word of advice, John. Don’t ever tell a woman that she’s not logical if you want to keep everything that belongs to you.’
‘But you’re not.’ He could feel spots of red burning on his cheeks. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way-’ She snorted. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way,’ he continued, ‘but I did pull you.’
She gave him a savage look and turned away.
‘I have to go,’ she said, staring out the side window. ‘Early start tomorrow.’
He glared at the side of her face. He was indignant.
‘Sure,’ he said, climbing out of the car and slamming the door behind him.
They got over it. And so it went. Two or three gigs a week, cash in hand. Seeing Barbara for sex a couple of times a week. Long days messing about.
By October his parents still hadn’t come home.
‘When’s Dad coming back?’ Hathaway said to Reilly one Saturday. He’d come to the office on the pier, to see Barbara really. He liked to see her all demure behind her desk, knowing what she got up to with him in the hotel and the car. She didn’t work Saturdays.
Hathaway had seen this old film, one of the two that had made Marlon Brando a star. On The Waterfront, made in black and white. And this corrupt union boss had an office in a wooden shack at the docks on a tiny pier. He often thought of that film when he visited his father at the end of the West Pier. His father’s office wasn’t in a shack but through the floorboards you could see the grey waters flopping between the iron stanchions below. Through the windows you just saw the sea. There was another room beyond that one, but Hathaway had never been in there.
‘Soon, John, soon,’ Reilly said. ‘He needs to. In his absence, people are starting to take the piss. You OK for money?’
Hathaway nodded.
‘I’m flush because of the money from the gigs as well. Though they’ve tailed off a bit. The landlord at our Sunday gig says he doesn’t want us anymore and we’ve lost a couple of others.’
‘Which pub is that?’ Reilly said.
‘The Gypsy, up on the Dyke Road. We’ve never got much of an audience so you can understand it.’
Reilly nodded.
‘Write down the names of the others for me but I think I know which they are.’
