The Family Remains(100)

The guy barrels himself against Phin, down the hallway and into the living room and on to the sofa, where he pins him down by his shoulders, flicks his hair out of his eyes, breathes his rancid breath into Phin’s face and says, ‘Hello, old boy.’

Phin stares at the man who has come here to kill him, and then recognition dawns.

‘Henry,’ he says. ‘Fucking hell. What the fuck.’

‘Fuck me, Phin. You look so different.’

‘Henry. You look—’

‘Yes. I know. I look like you. Crazy, eh? Can you believe it? What sort of sad loser spends his whole adult life pretending to be someone he was in love with when he was a child? You know, I even call myself Phin sometimes. Isn’t that pathetic?’

Phin nods, then shakes his head, then says, ‘Yes. That is pretty fucked up. What are you doing here? What do you want?’

‘Oh, Phin. That is an excellent question. Truly. And you know, I’m not sure I can answer it. I just – I just had to come. I mean. You disappeared. You left me. And ever since you left me I’ve been – lonely.’

‘Lonely?’

‘Yes. Lonely. Pretending to be you has just made me feel closer to you. Less alone.’

Henry finally unpins Phin’s shoulders and flops heavily on to the sofa next to him. He breathes out loudly and then turns to Phin and says, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Sorry for what?’

‘Sorry for being me.’

‘Why are you sorry for being you?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Because I made everything twice as bad as it already was for you in that house. Because I’m just heavy, aren’t I? I’m a deadweight. I know I am.’

‘Well, Henry, I haven’t seen you for twenty-odd years so I can’t say you’ve been dragging me down.’

‘Oh, get me a drink, will you? I really need a drink.’

‘I don’t have any.’

‘Ah. No. Of course you don’t. You never needed crutches, did you? You were always enough for you.’

‘Well, that’s total and utter bollocks.’

Henry stares at Phin questioningly.

‘Do you really think that?’ says Phin.

‘I don’t think it. I know it.’

‘Well, you’re wrong. My whole life has been a search for meaning. My whole life has been about trying to work out what the fuck I’m for.’

‘Yeah. Right.’

‘Yes. Right. You know, Henry, did you ever stop and think about what it does to a person growing up with a father like mine? You only had him in your life for a few years. I had him in my life for eighteen. I was already fighting for my own identity, for my own survival long before I ever met you.’

‘But you made me feel so …’

‘What? What did I make you feel, Henry?’

‘Lesser.’

‘That’s such bullshit. Come on. You were the one with the big house and the posh school and the bedroom full of nice things. I arrived in your house with nothing. Literally just a bag of clothes. And there you were, Little Lord Fauntleroy, with everything. Everything a child could want. How do you think that made me feel?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know how it made you feel.’

‘It made me defensive, Henry. It made me turn inwards. It made me want to lose myself in books and dreams and thoughts of worlds that existed outside my own tragic existence. And there you were. Wanting, wanting, wanting. Looking at me like I had the answers to everything. And I had nothing, Henry. Could you not see that? I had nothing. And the more you expected me to give you something, the more it reminded me how little I had to give. You were the one, Henry. You were the leader. You were the one who got us out of there in the end.’

‘But I nearly killed you. Did you know that? I nearly killed you. It was me giving you the drugs that made you ill. They were meant to make you love me. It was a ridiculous fucking love potion, Phin. And it nearly killed you.’

‘I wasn’t ill from your love potion, Henry. I was ill from malnutrition. From dehydration. It was their fault I was ill. Not yours.’ Phin sighs and turns to look at Henry, properly. ‘Henry, look, mate. We’re cool. Do you see? You and me. We’re cool.’

Henry looks thoughtful for a moment and nods. But then he becomes agitated again. ‘But if we’re cool then why did you run away from Botswana when you heard I was coming?’

Phin looks at Henry in bemusement. ‘I wasn’t running away from you, Henry,’ he says. ‘What on earth made you think I was running away from you? It was the others I was running away from. From Lucy. And … well, Lucy’s daughter. I just wasn’t—’ Phin holds himself together for a moment. ‘I wasn’t ready for the whole father-daughter reunion thing. I just wasn’t. I got scared. I pussied out.’

Phin shrugs and Henry sighs loudly and says, ‘Fuck’s sake, Phin. Fuck’s sake.’ Then he pulls his phone out of his pocket and he opens up his camera roll and he scrolls backwards to photos of what looks like a family dinner in a restaurant and he opens up a photo of a young woman with blonde hair and says, ‘Phin. Look at her. That’s your daughter. That’s Libby.’

Phin stares at the photo in a hushed silence. A sweet-faced girl, with a huge smile, a dimple. She looks like him. She looks just like him.