Chapter 16
Arthur
‘Really?’ My interest piques instantaneously and Bruce swings into action. This must be what Beatrice was talking about.
‘Yup. That place had all kinds of stars playing there back in the day. The Who, Stevie Wonder, Otis Redding, Elton John. Now there were a few rumours flying around that “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting” was written about a rather raucous night in there.
Turns out it was about a pub a few towns over, but your dad and his old pal James took it upon themselves to keep a tradition going.
’ Bruce chuckles at his own story, as he slides the clippers through the back of my hair and they snag at the nape of my neck.
‘They stormed the bingo hall, then started a fight in the dance hall. Banned for life after that. I don’t reckon he’ll still be losing sleep about that now though. ’
My mind swims with questions. The more I hear of this version of my father, the more I wonder if they all have me confused with someone else. My dad has never so much as refused to pay his TV licence or got a speeding ticket, let alone started bar fights.
‘Thick as thieves those two.’ Bruce takes another chunk from my hair but this time I can’t bring myself to be bothered. ‘They must have been about eighteen when that happened. Jimmy left not long after that too, joined the army. A bit of a different path to your dad.’
‘Wait, James, as in Jimmy? From the Big Apple?’ I look to Beatrice in the mirror, and she nods her head with a sad smile.
‘You’ve met him?’ Bruce asks with a grin. ‘How’s he doing? Poor bloke. Terrible what happened.’
‘Yeah, we met in the pub a few nights back.’ I think back to that evening with a sad guilt settling over my stomach. ‘I knew he knew Dad. Didn’t know quite how close they were though.’
‘Oh yeah,’ Bruce continues, energised by the interest in his story.
‘They were inseparable in the Eighties. The Thelma and Louise of the borough. Always riding around looking for trouble. There wasn’t much going on for young ’uns back then, so they made their own entertainment.
Only harmless stuff like. Just nicking milk bottles from doorsteps or smoking behind the cinema.
That kind of stuff. Yeah, they were the best of friends, those two. ’
I try and picture my father and Jimmy going about together but I can’t. The Edward in my mind is too stuffy, too high-brow. And the Jimmy I know is too frail, too sick.
‘You’re sure we’re talking about the same man?’ I have to ask. ‘My dad is Edward Cavendish.’
‘The very same.’ Bruce chuckles. ‘I take it the fame has changed him a bit?’
‘Just a tad.’ An understatement and a half.
‘Jim would always talk about your dad. It’s a shame they lost touch.’ Bruce looks at me through the mirror with slanted brows and sad eyes. ‘He’s famous in his own world, you know.’
‘Jimmy?’
‘Aye, he was a bit of a war hero. Won a bunch of medals; I’m pretty sure he got an MBE or something like that as well.
’ Bruce grins. ‘Some of his old lads come in here and tell me all of the stories of what he got up to. Incredible soldier. He’d’ve been an even better leader if his health hadn’t got the better of him. ’
‘Dad never told me any of this.’ Bruce sees my empty look in the mirror and pauses his butchering for a moment to place a wide, bloated hand on my shoulder.
‘Aye, I’m not surprised, lad.’ He has a kind face, comforting.
He’d make a good grandad if he isn’t one already.
‘How could he be telling you what’s what when you know all of the carnage he caused here back in the day, eh?
My girl is in her thirties now and she still hasn’t a clue that I spent a night down the police station because I had a waz on old Herbert Ingram in Boston after a night out I can’t remember. ’
‘It’s a statue, next to the church.’ Beatrice fills in the gaps for me. She must have been watching my expression in the mirror. ‘Some journalist fella who was a politician back in the nineteenth century.’ Bruce only shrugs and folds down one of my ears to take another jagged strip from my hair.
‘Either way, don’t go telling my daughter.’ I think that’s more aimed at Beatrice, but I nod my head anyway and the clippers roll up to my crown, taking my hair with it. Bruce doesn’t seem fazed.
‘So, he wasn’t some highly strung theatre nerd back in the day?’ I ask, trying to ignore the severed strands of hair sitting on my shoulder. That’s always the story I knew, or at least assumed. Thinking back, I don’t think he ever spoke to me about his past, and I never stopped to ask.
‘Oh God, no.’ Bruce laughs a little too heartily.
‘I’m pretty sure that night down the Glider was what pushed your old nan over the edge.
No one really saw him after that. She kicked him out and off he went to London.
I assume he must’ve been scouted or something down there and, well, the rest is history, as you know. ’
‘So let me get this straight.’ The sight of all of my hair on the floor and the paleness of my scalp in the mirror becomes a second thought as this story consumes me. ‘My dad and Jimmy got in such trouble that night that they both got kicked out by their parents?’
‘Yep, your nan had had enough of having the Old Bill at her door, or neighbours complaining. She told him to get his arse out of New York before he got himself locked up. I reckon a similar conversation happened at Jim’s place.
Your dad went to London and got himself on the telly, and old Jim joined up. ’
‘I wonder who he’d have been if she hadn’t kicked him out,’ I muse, mostly to myself though Bruce hums in agreement.
‘All I know is that he turned back up for a while when your mum got pregnant with your sister, then he never came home again. I think your nan only knew you’d been born because it was on the front of the paper she gets delivered.
’ He places both hands on my shoulders this time.
‘I have no idea what happened for him to leave for good. He never struck me as the type of lad that would forget his roots. I never thought he’d forget about Jimmy either. ’
Bruce’s face shifts from a look of melancholy to a sudden grin as he whips his barber’s cape from around my neck and the curled lengths of my hair decorate the tiled floor.
‘All done, son.’ He grabs his hand mirror from the table beside him and holds it up behind me.
My hair forms a carpet around my feet and for the first time since infancy I have no fringe to hide behind.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen my face so bare, so complete.
It’s hard to recognise. I could play the role of young conscript, wide-eyed and worried, feeling ashamed for grieving the loss of something so vain like my hair when I know what else there is out there in the world.
Perhaps Jimmy saw himself like this in this very mirror once upon a time.
Raw, unhidden, placed on show for all to see.
For some reason, my father’s guilt sits in me at the thought of him, as though it was me who left him behind, me who forgot about him.
Perhaps that’s why I’ve been sent here, to make sure at least one Cavendish holds Jimmy in their memory.
At least that version of these events feels better than the reality: that Mum and Dad just want me out of the way.
‘Suits you.’ Beatrice walks up beside me and her nudge against my shoulder makes me jump. I had almost forgotten she was here. ‘You might actually be able to see the sheep when you’re catching them now.’
‘I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.’ I look up at her with an exaggerated look of confusion.
‘Don’t get used to it.’ She begins to smile and heads for the door before she allows me to see her grin in its fully fledged state.
Slipping a note from my pocket, I try and hand it to Bruce but he steps back and refuses it. ‘First one is free.’ He smiles. ‘On one condition …’
‘Are you sure?’ I frown and nudge the cash closer again.
‘You haven’t heard my condition yet.’ Bruce smirks, and Beatrice lingers, clinging to the door handle as though what comes next is also a surprise to her.
‘You owe me one story. And I don’t mean one like “I stole a traffic cone on a night out”, I mean something exciting.
’ Flustered, I look to Beatrice, but she already returns my gaze as though I’ve agreed and she’s hanging on each one of my words.
‘Erm … well …’ Everyone looks at me expectantly and I perch myself back in the chair. ‘Um … I think everyone assumes I’ve had a crazy life because of my parents, or things they’ve seen online.’ I laugh breathily. ‘Honestly, I can’t say I’ve ever done anything crazy or out there.’
‘Well, your dad got sent away from New York for fighting. You must have been sent to New York for something equally exciting, no?’ Bruce sits in the chair beside me and throws his legs over the arm.
‘Drugs,’ Beatrice pipes up from behind, and when she sees my narrowed eyes shooting in her direction she adds, ‘At least that’s what I’ve heard.’
‘I’ve never touched the stuff,’ I say sharply.
‘Someone—’ the words are staccato through my gritted teeth ‘—said something about my sister that I didn’t take too kindly to at the BAFTAs.
I was about to punch him and then I had some sort of medical episode.
I thought it was a heart attack at the time but now I don’t know what happened.
’ Beatrice’s face softens in the overcast stream of light through the window.
‘Nothing exciting, nothing more than my dad thinks I have nothing going for me, and thought New York would give me a bit of purpose. Show me the “real world” I guess.’
‘Is it working?’ Beatrice can’t help herself from asking.
‘I suppose so. It’s shown me that my calling in life is probably not farming.’
‘I could have told you that before you even came,’ she quips before turning serious again. ‘So, what is your calling?’
I’ve never thought about it, not properly at least. I’ve never been asked that question in the curious sort of way that Beatrice asks it now.
Where the farm girl and the barber watch me so intensely, like children patiently awaiting the end of a story that has yet to be written.
That question has only ever been put to me out of anger, or frustration, so it’s only now that I truly and honestly sit to deliberate it.
Looking at myself, seeing that vulnerable young boy staring back, I see the child that Lizzie cared for like a mother all those years ago, when she should have been enjoying her youth, not realising how little time she had left.
I see Jimmy, his pleading embarrassed gaze in the Big Apple toilets, not sure whether he can ask for help, or if he wants to admit he needs it.
I see my father in my own face, in my widow’s peak, and my dimpled cheek.
I see that man who left Jimmy behind, left my grandmother behind, and I know that my calling here is to right his wrongs.
To be a better man than him, to all of the people he forgot about.
And to prove to my sister that her sacrifice wasn’t a waste.
It has never been to follow in the footsteps of his fame, but to retrace all of the steps that he left covered in the snow nearly thirty years ago.
‘I’ve always wished I could do something for my sister.
You know, give something back to her, for all of the years she gave to me.
Remind the world that she’s still here, still brilliant and remind her, and everyone else, that she doesn’t have to be ashamed about her condition.
Or maybe spread awareness, or help find some better treatments.
I’m not sure. I suppose meeting Jimmy has solidified that.
I just don’t know what sort of skills I’d have to do any of that.
’ I meet my own eyes in the mirror. I see my pale face on full display and I feel weak, helpless.
I can’t admit my thoughts in full, at least not yet.
But now I’ve put my mind to them, they swim through my head so fiercely that it’s all I can think about.
The sound of the chair legs grinding against the tile startles me as Bruce clambers to his feet and outstretches his hand for me to shake. Taking it hesitantly, he shakes it with vigour. ‘No charge. Good to meet you, lad. You come and see me anytime you need a trim, eh?’
I run a hand across my freshly buzzed hair.
The sharp strands scratch at my palm and I nod with an uncertain smile.
‘Thank you.’ And just like that Beatrice and I are walking back to her truck in silence, my head bursting with the events and news of the last hour, and I’m sure Bea isn’t much different.
The drive home is just as silent, and though her eyes remain fixed on the road, it’s clear that Beatrice’s mind is running a hundred miles a second.
Watching her from her side, I wish I could see right into her brain, have all of her thoughts projected to me like an old film.
Running my hand back and forth across my hair, the prickling sensation soon turns numb and finally Beatrice speaks again.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll tidy it up for you when we get home. ’
Her smile is soft, genuine. Home. I’m sure it’s just muscle memory, just force of habit, but there’s comfort in her words. Home hasn’t been a place that I could recognise for so many years, but I feel I know exactly what Beatrice is talking about.
‘Have you got any experience cutting hair?’
‘Does shearing sheep count?’
‘Probably not. But you’d still be more qualified than Bruce.’
She shakes her head with a breathy chuckle. ‘I’m sorry about your hair. I thought meeting Bruce could give you a few answers to the things you’re searching for. Better than me, at least.’
‘But I’m not searching for anything,’ I say, brows slanted, tracking each motion of her face as she speaks.
‘Perhaps the most important answers are those to questions that we never knew to ask.’ She shrugs as though it’s simply a casual comment but I sink back into my seat and watch the flat lands of Lincolnshire slide past the window.
Why would my father never tell me about New York? Why would he just leave Jimmy behind? There must be something else. There must be something I’m missing.
‘My shift starts in the pub in half an hour. Do you want me to drop you back off at the farm first, or … ?’ Beatrice’s voice cuts through my spiralling thoughts.
‘I thought you were going to help tidy up this mess.’ I slide my hand over my tufty hair again and she stifles a laugh.
‘Pub it is then.’