in the corner. All had soft drinks on their table. Tubb knew better than to serve the underage youth with alcohol. Apart from the threat to his licence, their parents, aunts and uncles could well be knocking back a merlot somewhere in the pub.
On the bar, tiny white lights sparkled on a small Christmas tree – Tubb wouldn’t waste space he could fill with customers by putting up a larger, floor-standing tree – and a colourful range of notices about Christmas raffles and hampers was tacked to the wooden posts around the bar.
Georgine combed her hair with her fingers before flicking it back over her shoulders.
When she looked up, Joe was watching her. Then Janice the barmaid arrived to serve him. ‘Yes, duck, what can I get you?’ she said, and he turned to give his order.
When he rejoined Georgine, he placed the drinks on the table as he took his seat. She became uncomfortably aware of her heartbeat. The time had come to hear what he had to say, and there was a part of her that didn’t want to. It was unsettling that he’d had the opportunity to observe her and absorb the memories of twenty years ago, while she hadn’t recognised him at all.
She took a sip of wine, unwilling to be the one to start the conversation.
Joe’s own drink was fruit juice and he took a long draught of it, then rubbed his palms down his jeans. ‘I’ve been obsessing over where to start. Or even how much you want to know. I’m sorry I wasn’t transparent with you.’
Georgine nodded.
He glanced around. ‘I’m not sure this is the right venue for this conversation. I suppose I thought a village pub on a weeknight would have a quiet corner.’
She said nothing. The only quieter venue within easy reach was her home, and she was not going to invite him there. Blair might be in by now, and anyway, home was her safe place.
Joe cleared his throat as her silence continued. ‘OK. I’ll approach this as chronologically as I can. There are still things I don’t know and probably never will.’ He took another gulp from his drink. ‘I was born John Joseph Blackthorn.’
Georgine felt her eyebrows flip up. She’d presumed the name she’d known him under to be his birth name and that Joe Blackthorn was an identity he’d assumed, the reasons behind which had been at the heart of her unease today.
He gave a small, wry smile. ‘Yes, it’s my real name. My mother called me Johnjoe and sometimes it got shortened to Joe. I don’t remember my father, Tim Blackthorn. He died when I was two. They’d taken me to a beach on the east coast and he’d had a few beers. He went for a swim, got caught in a current and drowned.’
Georgine felt a shiver run through her, not just of compassion for such a tiny tot losing his dad but because he’d never told her such significant things about his life. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’
He gave a low laugh. ‘I didn’t know about my dad myself for ages. For the few years before he died, he didn’t speak to his upper middle-class parents. They’d made their feelings known when Dad, a student at Cambridge, took up with Mum, an under-educated local girl with the wrong accent, who, in their opinion, encouraged him to drink too much and work too little.’
‘Were they harsh?’ Despite her earlier reservations, Georgine was beginning to get caught up in the story.
Joe sipped his fruit juice and shrugged. ‘I think my parents were as bad as each other. They moved in together and Dad flunked out of uni in his second year. I came along – by accident, I expect – and he never told my grandparents about me. Not long before he died, he did ring his brother, Shaun, and ask if they could meet. Said he had someone to introduce to him. At the time Shaun thought he’d maybe got a new girlfriend and was hoping Shaun’s approval might pave the way to him talking to their parents again. Now, of course, he thinks the “someone” was me. But Dad died before he could set up the meeting.’
Georgine found it hard to even imagine the situation. She’d had such a golden childhood, brought up by loving parents whose marriage gave at least the illusion of security. ‘But when your dad died, didn’t your mum contact his family? Tell them about you?’
His eyes grew shadowed. ‘She took it into her head that if they knew about me they’d try and get me off her. Do you remember Garrit?’
Georgine nodded. She had known the man Rich had lived with was not his natural father. He’d always referred to him as Garrit, like everyone else, as if Garrit hadn’t been worthy of a first name, let alone a title like ‘dad’.
‘Mum hooked up with him. He was a shit but a kindred spirit so far as booze was concerned.’ Joe paused to give a little shake of his head as if finding the workings of his mother’s mind hard to comprehend. ‘When I began infant school she registered me as John Joseph Garrit. She told the school she didn’t want my real father knowing where I was, but she meant Dad’s family, if they ever discovered I existed.’
‘Do you think the Blackthorns would have wanted to take you off her if they had?’ Georgine took a gulp of her wine to free the lump that had risen to her throat at the way the child Joe had been helpless to influence his own fate.
‘They would have been heartless bastards if they didn’t, considering the life I was living.’ Joe smiled bitterly. ‘The years went on. Mum and Garrit sank lower, neither of them holding down a job, Garrit doing bits and pieces on the side and claiming every benefit he could think of. Once I reached my teens he used me as a runner for whatever he was mixed up in – obviously dodgy. He used to send me off with packages or envelopes with promises of dire retribution if I peeked at the contents or didn’t bring the payment straight back to him. We ended up in the worst house on the worst council estate in Bettsbrough, filthy curtains at the windows and a garden that was a rubbish heap. I used to have actual nightmares that you’d somehow find out where I lived and turn up.’
Georgine took another glug of wine. Of all the horrible aspects of the life Joe had lived as Rich Garrit, that was what had given him bad dreams?
He carried on, the evenness of his voice making the bite of his words all the deeper. ‘I hated Garrit. He knocked us all around and was verbally abusive. When I was about nine I found my birth certificate in a case on top of a wardrobe. It took me a few minutes to realise from the date of birth that John Joseph Blackthorn was me and that I’d once had a dad called Tim. I asked my mum about him. She was economical with the truth and said he hadn’t stuck around. I used to fantasise he’d come back for me, that he’d be a good man I could live with. In my head, I tried my real name on for size. “I am John Joseph Blackthorn”. I used to write it on bits of paper and then rip them up so nobody found them.’
Tears pricking in the backs of her eyes, Georgine murmured, ‘I had no idea.’
His smile was bleak. ‘I probably should have been an actor, I covered up so well.’ He glanced up as if checking no one was listening in. ‘It got worse when I went to senior school. My primary school had been in the crappy area we lived in, but Bettsbrough Comp was fed by several other primaries and I finally saw how shit my life was when I met kids from comfortable homes.’ He took a slow breath. ‘Apart from you, they either laughed at me or ignored me. I think that’s why the kids from the Shetland estate formed their rat pack. Stuck with their own. We called the Shetland estate “Shitland”, do you remember? I was unwillingly absorbed by the definitely dodgy Shitland gang. They all had nicknames and with stupid teenage humour they called me “Rich” because I wasn’t.’
Georgine swore under her breath. His smile flashed at hearing
