Boyfriend Material(23)

“What?” To give Judy her due, she had managed to distract me from the imminent mysterious disaster.

“Sorry. Probably not PC anymore. Probably now you have to say: Be like dad, keep in touch with your feelings, or something.” She thought for a moment. “Or I suppose for you homosexuals it’s Be like dad, keep dad. Which is just bally confusing for everybody.”

“Yeah, that’s what they put on our T-shirts. Some people are just bally confusing for everybody. Get over it.”

“Anyway. I know it’s all a bit wobble-inducing, but stiff upper lip, I’ll have you there in no time.”

“Honestly, it’s fine. Take your—”

The sudden jolt of acceleration ripped away the remains of my protestation. And I spent the next ten minutes trying not to die, juggling spaniels, and clinging to the sides of the vehicle as we careened up hill and down dale, through twisty country lanes and villages that, prior to our passing through them, I’d have characterised as sleepy.

We screeched to a halt outside Mum’s, which had once been the village post office, and was now a pretty little detached house called “The Old Post Office” that sat at the end of a road called “Old Post Office Road.” That seemed to be how names worked around here. Old Post Office Road was off Main Road, which turned variously into Mill Road, Rectory Road, and Three Fields Road.

“I’ll just shove off,” announced Judy. “Got to see a chap about his bullocks. Rather fancy them, to be honest.”

And, with that, she roared away into the distance, spaniels barking.

Unlatching the gate, I made my way through the slightly overgrown front garden and let myself into the house. I’m not entirely sure what I’d been expecting.

But it definitely wasn’t Jon Fleming.

At first, I thought I was having some kind of hallucination. He’d been around when I was very young, but I had no memory of him. So this was effectively the first time I’d seen my, you know, father in person. And I had no way of processing it—just a vague sense of a man wearing a scarf indoors and getting away with it. He and Mum were sitting at the opposite ends of the living room, looking like two people who ran out of things to say a very long time ago.

“What the fuck,” I said.

“Luc…” Mum stood, actually wringing her hands. “I know you won’t remember him very well, but this is your father.”

“I know who he is. What I don’t know is why he’s here.”

“Well, that’s why I called. He has something to tell you.”

I folded my arms. “If it’s ‘sorry,’ or ‘I’ve always loved you,’ or some bullshit like that, he’s about twenty-five years too late.”

At this, Jon Fleming also got to his feet. As the saying goes, nothing says family like everyone standing around, staring awkwardly at each other. “Lucien,” he said. “Or, you prefer Luc, is that right?”

I would have been happy to live my entire life without having to look my dad in the face. Unfortunately—as with so much else—he wasn’t giving me the choice. And I will tell you now, it was the weirdest fucking thing. Because the way someone seems in a photograph and the way they really are is this horrible uncanny valley of recognition and strangeness. And it’s even worse when you can see bits of yourself in them. My eyes looking back at me. That strange not-quite-blue, not-quite-green.

There was an opportunity here to take the high road. I chose not to. “I’d prefer you didn’t talk to me at all.”

He sighed, sad and noble in a way he had no right being. That was the problem with being old and having good bone structure. You got this giant whack of unearned dignity. “Luc,” he tried again. “I’ve got cancer.”

Of course he did. “So?”

“So it’s made me realise some things. Made me think about what’s important.”

“What, you mean the people you abandoned?”

Mum put a hand on my arm. “Mon cher, I would be the first to agree that your father is a shady caca boudin, but he could die.”

“Sorry to repeat myself but so?” On some level, I was aware that there was a difference between “not taking the high road” and “taking a road so low that it involved tunnelling straight to hell,” but right then, nothing felt even 2 percent real.

“I’m your father,” said Jon Fleming. Which his gravelly rock-legend voice somehow transformed from a meaningless platitude into a profound statement of mutual connectedness. “This is my last chance to know you.”

There was a buzzing in my head like I’d snorted bees. A lifetime of manipulative movie bullshit had taught me exactly how I was supposed to behave here. I was allowed a brief flash of unconvincing anger, then I’d cry, then he’d cry, then we’d hug, then the camera would pan out and all would be forgiven. I looked him straight in those wise, sorrowful, too-familiar eyes. “Oh, fuck off and die. I mean, fuck off and literally die. You could have done this at any time in the last two decades. You don’t get to do it now.”

“I know I’ve let you down.” He was nodding sincerely, as though he was trying to tell me he understood what I was saying better than I understood it myself. “But it’s taken me a long time to get to where I always should have been.”