“But he wasn’t very old,” said the man.
“Seventy-eight,” I said. “And two days.”
“That’s not old,” said the man, “not these days.”
“It was old enough for him,” I said.
The man looked at me quizzically.
“My grandfather decided that his time was up, so he lay down and died.”
“You’re kidding?” he said.
“Nope,” I said. “Absolutely serious.”
“Silly old bugger,” he said, almost under his breath.
“Exactly how well did you know my grandfather?” I asked him.
“I’m his son,” he said.
I stared at him with an open mouth.
“So you must be my uncle,” I said.
“No,” he said, staring back. “I’m your father.”
2
But you can’t be my father” I said, nonplussed.
“I can,” he said with certainty, “and I am.”
“My father’s dead,” I said.
“How do you know?” he asked. “Did you see him die?”
“No,” I said. “I just… know. My parents died in a car crash.”
“Is that what your grandfather told you?”
My legs felt detached from my body. I was thirty-seven years old, and I had believed for as long as I could remember that I was fatherless. And motherless too. An orphan. I had been raised by my grandparents, who had told me that both my parents had died when I was a baby. Why would they lie?
“But I’ve seen a photo,” I said.
“Of what?” he asked.
“Of my parents,” I said.
“So you recognize me, then?”
“No,” I said. But the photo was very small and at least thirty-seven years old, so would I actually recognize him now?
“Look,” he said. “Is there anywhere we could go and sit down?”
In the end I did have that beer.
We sat at a table near the bar overlooking the pre-parade ring while the man in the cream linen suit told me who I was.
I wasn’t sure what to believe. I couldn’t understand why my grandparents would have lied to me, but, equally, why would this stranger suddenly appear and lie to me now? It made no sense.