‘Occupational hazard. You’re meant to have a permit, but it’s a bureaucratic
‘I was scared they were going to take you away.’
‘Very noble of you, I’m sure.’
‘I was thinking of myself, really.’
‘You mustn’t take this the wrong way, Mr P., but you don’t smell too good.’
‘No. No, I’m aware of that. I’d keep your distance if I were you.’
She smiled and moved one chair closer. ‘I still can’t tell you where he is.’
‘But can you at least tell me he’s okay?’
‘Define “okay”. He’s a very troubled boy, your Albie.’
‘Yes, clearly.’
‘He’s quite … dark.’
‘I know that—’
‘Very angry. Very, very angry. He has a lot of issues. A lot. With you, I mean. He talks about you a lot.’
‘Does he?’
‘And not in a good way.’
‘Well, that’s why I’m here. I wanted to make amends, Kat, for the scene … well, you were there.’
‘That was cold, Mr P., really cold.’
‘I’m aware of that. Which is why I need to see him.’
‘It’s not as easy as that; it goes a lot further back.’
‘I’m sure it does.’
She narrowed her eyes at me. ‘Did you really glue all his Lego bricks together?’
‘
‘Did you tell him he was stupid?’
‘Good God, no! Is that what he told you? That’s not true.’
‘He says he disappoints you.’
‘And that’s not true either—’
‘That he feels like you’re disappointed in him—’
‘Absolutely not true!’
‘He says you and Mrs P. might be splitting up.’
I was not able to deny this.
‘Well, that … might be true, it’s … up in the air. Did his mother tell him that?’
‘He said there wasn’t any need, you haven’t got on for years. But yeah. Yeah, Mrs P. did tell him that.’
I felt a contraction in my chest. ‘That we
‘That you might be.’
‘Good, good—’
‘But Albie thinks you will.’
‘Oh.’
After a while, I managed: ‘Well, relationships are never easy.’
My observation was a platitude at best, yet it seemed to strike Kat as a remarkable insight. ‘You can say that again!’ she said and started to cry and I found myself placing an arm around her shoulder while the officer at the desk looked on sympathetically. ‘I really loved him, Mr P.’
‘I’m sorry, Kat—’
‘But we were arguing all the time.’ She sniffed, laughed. ‘He’s a moody little bugger, isn’t he?’
‘He can be at times. What did you argue about?’
‘Everything! Politics, sex—’
‘O-kay—’
‘Astrology! We even argued about astrology!’
‘What exactly did he say?’
‘He really went off on one — he said that it was bullshit to think planets could influence human characteristics and anyone who believed it was just dumb …’
‘I’m so sorry to hear that,’ I said and proudly thought
‘He said I was too old for him. I’m only twenty-six, for God’s sake! He said I was smothering him, he wanted some time by himself.’
Her head was on my shoulder now, my arm around her, and I consoled her for some time before making my move. ‘Maybe, Kat, if I talked to him, I could put a word in?’
‘What’s the point, Mr P.? What’s the bloody point?’
‘Nevertheless, if you could just give me the name of the hotel?’
‘He’s not in a hotel.’
‘A hostel, then.’
‘He’s not in a hostel, either.’
‘So where is he, Kat?’
Kat sniffed and cleared her throat. Her nose was running and, rather unusually I thought, she wiped it on my bare arm, leaving a trail of tears and mucus that I could see glinting in the overhead light.
‘Spain.’
‘Spain?’
‘Madrid.’
‘Albie’s in Madrid?’
‘He said he’d had enough of churches, he wanted to see
‘Where is he in Madrid, Kat?’
‘I have absolutely no idea.’
Albie was gone. This was neither right nor just, I thought. Because surely, surely you have to succeed, if you give everything you have?
But it seemed that this was not the case and I realised in that moment that I’d lost not just my son, but probably my wife too, and then it was Kat’s turn to console me as I fell entirely to pieces.
I spent the night in a jail cell, though not in a bad way.
