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The Bitter End

  Copyright 2015 Les Rolt

 

  The Bitter End

  When the phone rings at four in the morning you know it's not going to be good news. Blurry eyed I reach across and lift the handset from the receiver.

  “Hello.” I mutter, stifling a yawn.

  “Mr. Turner?” Enquires a deep voice, crackling down the line.

  “Speaking.” I reply.

  “This is Alex Evans, I'm the Eastbourne District Commander of the Sussex Police Department. I'm afraid I have some bad news for you. A body was discovered at the bottom of Beachy Head late last night and we believe it to be that of your father.”

  I feel nothing. Neither shock nor sadness.

  “If possible we would like you to come down and identify the body at your earliest convenience.”

  He continues to talk, but his words are lost on me. I stare at the bright red display of my alarm clock, wondering whether this could have waited until morning.

  “Mr. Turner? Mr. Turner are you still there?”

  My mind clicks back into gear, and on the police Commander's request I scramble around inside my bedside cabinet for pen and paper to jot down the address of the hospital.

  “I'll be there as soon as possible,” I tell him.

  The phone goes dead. I climb out of bed. The heating won't come on until 6am, but my body is numb to the cold. I put my feet inside my slippers, walk across the room and pull back the curtains. As I push open the window the whispering wind amplifies to a howl. In my underpants and slippers I stand motionless for what feels like an eternity, breathing in the crisp early morning air and listening to the rain beat down upon the conservatory roof below. Beneath the moonless sky the wind and rain hide an eerie silence, no distant traffic or birdsong, no planes overhead. I gaze out towards the desolate roads beyond the distant hedgerows; it'll be at least a two hour drive from my cottage in Whitstable to the Eastbourne District General Hospital, two hours until I find out for myself whether my father is definitely alive or definitely dead. Right now he could be either. You've heard of Schrödinger's cat right?

  In 1935 an Austrian physicist named Erwin Schrödinger proposed a thought experiment, it was quite simple really. You place a cat in a sealed, opaque box along with a device, secured against direct interference by the cat, which may, or may not, lead to the release of extremely poisonous hydrogen cyanide from a small flask. Are you still with me? The cat is left for one hour. Now here's the tricky part, the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Mechanics assumes that during that hour the cat is both dead and alive until the box is opened. But in reality it has to be definitely dead or definitely alive. It can't be both, right? Confused? Have you ever seen that show Deal or No Deal? I used to watch it with my wife Helen. You could end up with some poor soul sitting with a box in front of them, and in that box is either a quarter of a million pounds or a single penny. The same principle applies. The box cannot possibly contain both, it has to be one or the other – but, just like Schrodingers cat, until you open the box you cannot know for sure. Right now there is a body laying beneath a sheet in a hospital mortuary, and until that sheet is pulled back my father is both alive and dead, and yet definitely one or the other. It's quite terrifying when you think about it.

  Gravel crunches beneath my feet as I walk to the car, for a moment the driveway is illuminated with a bright orange glow as I click the unlock button on the keyfob. In that moment I contemplate turning around. Returning to my warm cosy bed, to the blissful ignorance of the unknown. As my mind considers this, my muscle memory continues the walk around to the drivers door and before I can allow these thoughts to percolate in my mind I find myself sat behind the steering wheel, lights on, engine revving.

  I was four years old when I first met my father. Being introduced to him is one of my earliest childhood memories. I'm sure few people can say they remember meeting one of their own parents. I remember how much he scared me as a child. Four years old, and my mother summoned me to the lounge, and there he was; long black hair, greying at the roots, a bushy moustache and piercing blue eyes hidden behind thick-rimmed glasses.

  “Thomas, I'd like you to meet your father.”

  “Hello son, come give your old man a hug.”

  His voice was deep, and intimidating. Slowly I inched back towards my mother, clutching on to her dress.

  “Oh, he's just shy,” I remember her saying.

  Throughout my entire childhood he was never abusive, at least not physically, he gave me a smack or two when I stepped out of line, but never beat me. Yet his mere presence still terrified me. I remember that first weekend I met him; Sunday afternoon we played swingball out in the garden after dinner, my mother watching us from the kitchen window as she washed the dishes. I couldn't really strike a ball with any great power back then, but I must have hit a looping shot that struck him on the temple, knocking his glasses to the floor.

  “You break these glasses, and I'll break your arm.” He warned through gritted teeth as he stooped to pick them up, inspecting them with great care. It took all the courage I could muster to hold back the tears which welled in my eyes.

  As the years passed we saw him sporadically, and I did my best to avoid being left alone with him.

  He was an alcoholic, very rarely drunk, but always with the smell of whiskey on his breath, whiskey and cigarettes – that's how I remember it anyway. He was one of those people who would get uncomfortably close to your face when he spoke to you, his nose almost touching yours. I think he enjoyed intimidating people, maybe it gave him a sense of power.

 

  One Christmas, when I was eight years old, he came to visit and ended up staying for a few weeks. On New Year's Eve he must have taken my mother out somewhere nice, as I vividly remember my Grandma coming to the house to sit with me. We read Andy Pandy stories by the fire whilst my parents got themselves ready. My father came downstairs first, he looked quite handsome in a black tuxedo, the smell of Old Spice lingering long after he departed. That night he simply sat down in an old leather armchair, clutching a glass of whiskey in one hand and a cigar in the other. I wouldn't say I have a photographic memory, but the image of my mother walking through the living room door has always remained with me. She wore a green velvet dress, her shoulder length brunette hair glistening like the shell of a polished conker. I remember the sweet smell of her perfume and the way the light reflected off her ear-rings. And as I grew older I came to recognise the awkward smile on her face, not as that of the woman who cooked the dinner and washed the clothes, but as that of a girl who was nervous about going out with a boy. In my heart I know that she always loved him. The vows they'd made at the altar were more than just words to her. Whilst he played away, and shrugged off rumours of affairs and lovers strewn across the south, she remained faithful, and in his own way I like to believe that he loved her too.

 

  It's about 4.45am when I pull into a service station just off the M2. There's a hive of nocturnal activity, proof that the world does not stop when we all go to sleep at night. I watch truckers scraping frost from their vehicles, and smokers huddled like penguins trying to keep warm. I remain in my car, sitting motionless watching the lorries pulling on to the motorway. I wonder where they're going, where they've been, if they find ways to distract themselves from their own thoughts on those long journeys. I switch off the engine and climb out of the car. The smell of petrol lingers and always takes me back to the one holiday we took as a family when I was thirteen. We were living in Bermondsey at the time, just off Jamaica Road, my Grandma had recently passed away and my father had come to stay with us once again. He decided that he'd try to put a smile back on my mother's face by driving us all down to Margate in his brand new Ford Cortina
. We didn't own a car back then, so everywhere we went we were either walking or taking public transport. I remember sitting in the back of that car and feeling like part of a proper family. I was an awkward teenager, and for my father the car was his go-to topic of conversation, with it's 'silver fox metallic paint', and 'wood panel interior'. It's strange to think that at the time I expressed no interest whatsoever in the car, but somehow over forty years later I can remember the smallest of details. In fact I vividly remember so much about the day we drove to Margate; stopping to get petrol, my mother pouring tea from a thermos flask, and my father showing me the engine whilst the attendant filled up the tank. It's both peculiar and comforting the way in which a smell can evoke such vivid memories. I stop the pump dead on £40.00, slowing down very gradually to ensure I don't go a penny over. I offer pleasantries as I pay at the kiosk, pour myself a cup of black coffee and climb back into my car. It's still dark out, but in the distance the sun begins to rise. I click