Chapter 3: Just Who Is This Friend of Yours?
Jamie's mother looked at him and shook her head, 'How many times have I told you not to talk to people you don't know? I bet this old man was a stranger.'
'Stranger than you think mum,' Jamie replied helping himself to a biscuit from the jar.
'The shock I got when you were brought home in a police car. What will the neighbours think?' she busied herself with some washing up, foam up to her elbows. 'I wish your father would get the dishwasher fixed. Go and call him in from the garden, Jamie. I have no doubt he will want to talk to you about "stranger danger".'
Jamie went towards the back door, but his father was already coming into the kitchen. Close on the man's heel followed a black whippet. So close was the dog that it was by luck rather than skill that it avoided tripping the man up. Jamie's father picked up a can of odour neutraliser and sprayed it in the air above himself, hoping that, as the mist fell, it would remove the evidence of his forbidden cigarette. His wife looked across at him, he gave a wan smile, 'Dammed fly,' he glanced at a non-existent creature on the ceiling. 'It must have come in with me from the garden.'
'Well,' his exasperated wife proclaimed, 'you won't kill it with that stuff, that was the smell neutraliser; it was not the fly spray. You used the wrong can!'
'Did I?' he smiled again with more hope than conviction. 'Silly me.' He turned to his son to try and get his wife's attention away from himself, 'So Jamie. What was all that about with the police? Who is the old man? What was he up to? Stealing?'
'Answer your father, Jamie,' his wife chipped in, wiping her forehead with an arm and leaving a smear of bubbles above her right eyebrow in the process.
'I don't know who he is.' Jamie replaced the lid of the biscuit jar. Dhoo, the family whippet, licked the biscuit crumbs off of Jamie's hands. 'He started talking to me in Burger King.' Jamie went red as he remembered that he had been in there spending the money he had been given for his bus ride home. His mother didn't pick up on it, so he continued. 'He got thrown out, well, we both did.'
'Thrown out of a burger bar?' asked his father, his eyes bulging. 'Well I never!'
'Didn't you dad? Maybe that is because they didn't have burger bars when you were young.'
'Yes they did, they were called Wimpy Bars and the Mods used to hang out at them. Me and the other Rockers used to ….'
'Alfred,' Jamie's mother chipped in, 'he is distracting you and avoiding answering your questions.' She wiped her hands on a tea towel and turned to give Jamie her full attention. 'Now, Mr Clever Clogs, you are dealing with me, not your silly old dad who thinks he can smoke cigarettes and get away with it.' Jamie's father went the same red colour as his son had earlier and looked away. Jamie's mother gave her husband a smug glance before turning her attention to her son. 'Why were you thrown out of Burger King?'
'Well, I wasn't really. The old man was, he had been picking food out of the rubbish bin, "collecting tribute" as he calls it. Then he spat some fizzy drink into the rubbish bin and asked for ale instead.' Dad smirked; mum furrowed her brows. 'Funnily enough, although I have never seen him before, he said I was related to him, or something.'
Jamie's mum turned to his dad and whispered worriedly into his ear. 'Surely your Uncle Albert hasn't been let out has he? I know that with the closing of those "special" hospitals a lot of "those people" were released into the community, but not Albert, surely, not Uncle Albert.'
'Err, this old man,' Jamie's dad began, 'he didn't have a long white beard did he? And long lank hair? Tallish? Grimy skin? Dribbled a bit and had rank breath?'
Jamie's eyes brightened, 'Yes! You know him then!'
Jamie's dad looked worriedly at his wife. 'The eyes. Ask him about the eyes,' she prompted her husband, but he was staring with horror at the tiled floor. 'Jamie,' she asked her son. 'This old man, did he have green eyes?'
'A green eye, yes,' Jamie replied.
'A green eye?' interjected his father. 'As in: one eye?'
'He could have plucked the other out,' his wife reminded him. 'He is quite capable of that you know.'
'Yes one eye. Just the one.' Jamie looked at his parent's faces as they went through many emotions.
Finally Jamie's father sat down on a kitchen chair. 'It could be my Uncle Albert. I hope it isn't, but it could be,' he said to himself. He looked up at his son. 'Did he say where he was from?'
'No, just that he travelled around a lot.'
'He didn't mention 'Springfield Hospital' at all, did he?' Jamie's dad asked, dreading the answer, but craving it. 'Or maybe,' dad swallowed hard before continuing, 'Broadmoor?'
'No.'
'He wouldn't, would he,' Jamie's mother exclaimed. 'Jamie, we think it just might, just might, be your dad's Uncle Albert.'
'Albert?' Jamie looked at his parents and then at the biscuit jar for, despite the time he had spent with the police and the ride home, he had got back 15 minutes early and dinner was not due for an hour or so. Dhoo's black head with its coal black eyes followed the boy's movements. 'The old man said his name was Grimm, though he did say that he had other names as well.'
'Other names,' dad whispered to mum. 'Your Grandfather had a tendency to use other names, especially when arranging credit.'
'He's been dead years,' Jamie's mum rejoined hastily. 'Grimm did you say?' she asked her son.
'Yes, Grimm. He insisted that he gave me another name as well because he said that, "Jamie", was strange.'
'So did I,' dad confided to Jamie. 'I wanted to call you Godfrey.'
'And what would it have been shortened to I ask you?' mum interrupted, prodding her husband in the arm. '"God?"'
Dad got up and went to put the kettle on for a cup of tea. Dhoo followed him in the hopes that there might be some food involved. 'Don't forget to warm the pot,' his wife reminded him. 'Now, Jamie, what name did the old man call you?'
'Leofwine.' Jamie edged toward the biscuits. 'Leof means dear and ….'
'Dear wine?' asked his mother.
'Dear wine?' repeated his father, catching only part of what was being said as his back had been towards the others. 'We got guests coming? I am not buying quality New Zealand reds for any of your lot. The way they put it down, cheap Bulgarian will do and they won't notice the difference. I doubt the stuff touches the side of their throats.'
'No dad,' Jamie interrupted before his mother had a chance to react to his father's slur on her family. 'Leof means dear, and wine means friend. Anyway, you are pronouncing it wrong. Leofwine should be said as "Lay Off Winnah".'
'Lay off a winner? Are you sure that this new friend of yours isn't a "bookies runner"? He isn't, is he? You know a betting tout?' his father asked him.
'No. A runner, yes for the policemen couldn't catch him. A tribute collector, yes. A bookies runner? No. He is just an old man who tells stories and is helping me with my homework.' Jamie's fingers touched the biscuit jar, only to get them rapped by a wooden spoon his mother was wielding. 'When's dinner mum?' he asked, before putting his throbbing fingers into his mouth for comfort.
'Soon,' she replied as she returned to the sink.
Jamie took his fingers out and looked at the red weals appearing on them. He shook them to spread the discomfort and headed toward the garden, satisfied that he had successfully dodged his parents banning him from talking to Grimm next time he saw him. Dhoo trotted behind him, eyes agleam and nose shining wet.