The Whisper Man

“She never spoke badly about you.” I shook my head. “You know that, right? Even after everything.”

He smiled sadly. It was clear that, yes, he could believe that, and that it had reminded him of how much he’d lost.

“Then I don’t know,” he said. “But I wanted to tell you something else too, for whatever it’s worth now. Not much, but still. You said it was the last time I ever saw you. That’s not true either.”

I gestured around. “Obviously.”

“I mean back then. Your mother threw me out, and that was for the best. I respected that. I was almost relieved by it, to be honest, or at least it felt like what I deserved. But there were times afterward, before the two of you moved away, when if I was sober Sally would let me back in. She didn’t want to disrupt you or cause any confusion, and I didn’t either. So it was always after you’d gone to bed. I’d come into your room when you were asleep and give you a cuddle. You never woke up. You never knew. But I did do that.”

I stood there silently.

Because, once again, I didn’t believe that my father was lying, and his words had shaken me. I remembered Mister Night, my imaginary friend from childhood. The invisible man who would come into my bedroom at night and hug me while I was sleeping. Even worse, I remembered how comforting it had been. How it wasn’t something I had been frightened of. And how, when Mister Night had disappeared from my life, I’d been bereft for a time, as though I’d lost an important part of myself.

“I’m not making excuses,” my father said. “I just wanted you to know that things were complicated. That I was. I’m sorry.”

“Okay.”

And then there really was nothing else to say. He started off down the stairs, and I was still too shaken to do anything but let him go.

Forty-one

The next morning, I made sure Jake was ready earlier than usual, so that we had time to check back home before I took him to school. My father was already outside on the street below, waiting for us in his car. He rolled down the window as we walked over to him.

“Hello,” my father said.

“Good morning, Pete,” Jake said gravely. “How are you today?”

My father’s face lit up slightly at that, amused by the overly formal tone my son could sometimes adopt. He matched it in return.

“Very well, thank you. How are you, Jake?”

“I’m fine. It was interesting staying here, but I’m looking forward to going home now.”

“I can imagine.”

“But not to going to school afterward.”

“I can imagine that too. But school is very important.”

“Yes,” Jake said. “Apparently so.”

My father started to laugh at that, but then glanced at me and stopped. Perhaps he thought interacting with Jake like this might annoy me. The strange thing was that, while it had annoyed me on that first afternoon in the police station, it didn’t so much now. I liked it when people were impressed with my son; it made me feel proud of him. Stupid to think that way, of course—he was a person in his own right, not some accomplishment of mine—but the feeling was always there, and, if anything, with my father it was stronger than usual. I wasn’t sure why. Did I want to rub his face in fatherhood, or was it some subconscious desire to impress him? I didn’t like what either option said about me.

“We’ll see you there.” I turned away. “Come on, Jake.”

The journey wasn’t a long one, but it took time in the morning traffic. Jake spent most of it in the back of the car, kicking the passenger seat aimlessly and whistling a tune to himself. Every now and then I’d glance in the rearview mirror and see him, head turned to one side, squinting through the window the way he often did, as though confused to see a world out there but only mildly interested in it.

“Daddy, why don’t you like Pete?”

“You mean DI Willis.” I took the turn onto our street. “And it’s not a case of not liking him. I don’t know him. He’s a policeman, not a friend.”

“He is friendly, though. I like him.”

“You don’t know him either.”

“But if you don’t know him and don’t like him, then I can not know him and like him instead.”

I was too tired for such contortions.

“It’s not that I don’t like him.”

Jake didn’t reply, and I had no desire to argue the point any further. Children pick up on atmosphere very well, and my son was even more sensitive than most. It was probably obvious to him that I was lying.

And yet, was it really a lie? Our conversation last night had stayed with me, and perhaps because of that, it was easier to identify with him now—to see him as a man, like me, who had found fatherhood difficult. Regardless, he was no more the man I remembered than I was still that child. How long does it take, and how much does a person have to change, before the person you hated is gone, replaced by someone new? Pete was someone else now. I didn’t not like him. The truth was that I didn’t know him at all.

We reached our house. There was no sign of police activity anymore—even the tape had been removed—and there wasn’t the media presence I’d been concerned might greet us: just a small group of people talking among themselves. They didn’t seem that interested as I parked in the driveway. Jake was, though.

“Are we going to be on television?” he said excitedly.

“Absolutely not.”

“Oh.”

Pete had been following our car the whole journey, and he parked sideways behind us now, then got out quickly. The reporters approached him, and I peered around to watch as he spoke to them.

“What’s going on, Daddy?”

“Hang on.”

Jake was straining to see as well.

“Is that—?” he said.

“Oh, fuck.”

There was a moment of silence in the car after that. I stared at the small group that had gathered around my father, dimly aware that he was smiling politely at them, explaining things with a conciliatory shrug, and that a few of the reporters were nodding. But my attention was focused on one of them in particular.

“You said the f-word, Daddy.”

Jake sounded awed.

“Yes, I did.” I turned away from the sight of Karen, standing among the reporters, a notepad in her hand. “And yes. That’s Adam’s mother back there.”

* * *

“Are we going to be on television, Pete?” Jake said.

I closed the front door behind us and put the chain on.

“I’ve already told you that, Jake. No, we are not.”

“I’m just asking Pete as well.”

“No,” Pete said. “You aren’t. Just like your daddy told you. That’s what I was talking to the people outside about. They’re reporters, and so they’re interested in what happened here, but I was reminding them that it has nothing to do with you two.”

“It sort of does,” Jake said.

“Well, sort of. But not really. If you’d known more, or were more involved, then it would be different.”

I shot Jake a look at that, hoping he’d understand from my expression that this was not the time to say anything else about the boy in the floor. He glanced at me and nodded, but wasn’t about to let the matter drop quite so easily.