Not My Father's Son (12 page)

“Get upstairs, boys,” he slurred.

“What makes you think you can come in about here and shout at me like that, asking for whisky like I’m your servant,” I heard my mum say, strong and indignant, as the kitchen door closed on us.

“I’ll come in here whatever way I want to,” began my father. “This is my house.”

Tom raced me up the stairs, and won as usual. The “Big Room” where we went to do our homework and to play games was freezing. We tried to occupy our time, reading and messing about, but we were both silently agitated about what was going on downstairs.

It was unusual for Mum to be so feisty. It signaled something changing in her, and her attitude towards our father, and although it made me nervous, I liked it. She had recently started working in the office of a grain mill in the local village. She was finding herself again.

Initially my father was very against her taking the job. For several years previously she had been taking night classes at Tom’s high school to gain qualifications that would enable her to return to the workforce. This had not sat well with my father either, who constantly made attempts to sabotage or undermine her progress.

The most glaring and brutal example of this was one spring evening when my father had ordered Tom and me to accompany him out to the field below our house and help him catch one of our sheep that was about to lamb. As was usual on these sorts of occasions, our father would tell us to stand behind a hedgerow and then chase the stressed ewe towards us, screaming obscenities if we failed to grab its horns and wrestle it to the ground as it ran past us in fear of its life. He treated us basically as sheepdogs, often even whistling commands and expecting us to understand what he meant. That particular night we eventually caught the poor sheep and were just about to close the pen to give it some peace when our mother appeared at the top of the field, dressed for her night class.

“That’s me away!” she called out, and swiftly turned on her heels to go back through the garden gates and into her car. I could sense my father’s mood shifting, seeing her like this, and it came as no surprise when I heard him yell out to my mother’s back, “Get down here! We need a hand!”

“I have my classes, Ali,” she half stated, half pleaded.

“This animal is in distress. Get down here!”

It struck me that any stress was probably due to the fact that the sheep was heavily pregnant and we had just been making it run madly around the field for the past half an hour. I could tell that all it needed was to relax, lie down, and continue its labor.

Our mother arrived at the pen, navigating the mud and mounds of sheep feces.

“I’ll be late, Ali,” she implored.

My father ignored her and turned towards us and the poor sheep.

“Get in here and help us hold down this beast,” he said calmly and scarily. Tom and I looked at Mum and wondered what she’d do. What could she do? She put down her folders and notebooks and climbed over the gate to join us.

Our father made us hold down the sheep and commanded my mother to help it give birth. This meant she had to put her arm up its uterus and pull out the baby lamb. This is not an uncommon practice in the country. Often it came to me to do this because I had the smallest hands. But this time we all knew it wasn’t necessary at all.

“You’d better get going, then,” my father taunted her when she eventually stood up, her face speckled, her good blouse drenched in blood.

But Mum persevered, and when the job came up in the granary’s office she somehow managed to persuade my father that it would not interfere with his household “requirements.” Indeed, I offered to help even more with getting the tea ready each night, helping ensure that my father’s regulated existence would not be disrupted. I could feel that this job was the start of something new and good.

“Boys! Tea’s ready.”

Tom and I looked at each other. We both wondered what was waiting for us downstairs. Mum sounded fine, in control even. But where was our father? We had heard no door slamming to signal he had gone out, so he must still be in the kitchen, and after the shouting match we had heard earlier, what dark mood would radiate from him now?

We entered the kitchen and both stopped in our tracks. My father was seated at his usual place, next to me, at the kitchen table, but he was leaning forward, head and arms sprawled across the tabletop. He was
out cold
. And my mother had set the table for our evening meal
around him
.

“Come on, it’s all right, he won’t wake up,” said Mum, sensing my anxiety. It felt like I was going into the sleeping ogre’s den. Tom laughed.

“Are we going to eat our tea with him just lying there?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Mum calmly. “Your father doesn’t seem to be hungry, but we all need to eat.”

So we sat down, and awkwardly passed the butter and condiments over my father as we ate our food. Once, I looked up and saw that his eyes had opened and were staring right at me. Immediately panic seized me, but he merely swallowed, smacked his lips, and closed his eyes again.

After a while, I began to enjoy this Alice-in-Wonderland–like experience. We all did. In his drunkenness our father was no threat to us, and more than that, he was no impediment to the continuation of our daily routine. Sitting at that table night after night was terrifying. It would be again tomorrow, no doubt, but tonight, with my father snoring, and us passing the biscuit plate over his head, we could breathe easy.

Later, when we had washed the dishes and removed the table things from around him, my mother suggested we drive to Dundee to see the new film everyone had been talking about,
Jaws
. I couldn’t believe my ears. I could count the number of times we had gone to the cinema as a family, or at least a part family, on the fingers of one hand. I ran upstairs to get changed in a state of ecstasy. Everything was changing this night. The idea that we would be going off to do something as luxurious and rare as driving all the way to Dundee in the snow to see a movie was exciting enough, but to do so as our father lay snoring in the darkness of the kitchen unaware was simply beautiful. And that my mother was so calm and sure in her actions made it all the more sweet.

Tom asked if he could cycle to Monikie to see his girlfriend instead of coming with us. Mum agreed. It seemed anything was possible tonight!

We set off in the car, and after we’d wound along the crispy moonlit country roads for a few minutes, Mum spoke up.

“Alan, what would you think about you and me and Tommy living on our own?”

I felt as if the heavens had opened and there was light and warmth and goodness pouring into the car. I felt God. It was almost too much. This afternoon everything had been normal. The snow had allowed some brief respite, but now it was as if the whole world had changed. I wanted to cry, I wanted to laugh, I wanted to leap across the seat and shower my mother with kisses. But I was paralyzed. My mouth was dry and I could barely hear myself say . . .

“Away from Dad, you mean?”

I just wanted to be sure.

“Yes, away from Dad. Just you and me and Tommy living together. Would you like that?”

“Yes,” I said, a tear plopping down my cheek. “I would like that.”

Suddenly, the car hit a patch of ice and we were spinning madly out of control, forever it seemed. I thought we were both going to die. The God I had glimpsed moments ago turned out to be not so benevolent. He was the same old God, the one that quashed your dreams and kept you in line. He was the angry, vengeful
man
of a God and my Mum had dared to cross him.

By the time the car had stopped we were facing the way we had come, and my side of the car was leaning into a ditch. The engine was off and I could only hear our panicked breathing and my heart beating wildly in my little bony chest. After a few moments, Mum asked if I was okay and I whispered that I was. She started the engine, and we went on our way again, but quietly and meekly now, all triumph and elation gone.

The matter was never spoken of again.

Years later at drama school I learned of the Moirae, the goddesses who controlled everyone’s fate, and the dangers of crossing them by trying to step away from the destined path we are given.

We called them Moira instead of Moirae, and our History of Drama teacher indulged us, hoping I suppose that humor would better aid our memories come exam time.

“Cumming,” he said, one rainy Glasgow afternoon, “do you understand this concept? Do you know what it feels like to overstep your Moira?”

At once I was back in that car on that icy road, spinning to potential death just seconds from having heard the offer of freedom.

“Oh yes,” I replied. “I understand.”

B
y 6
A.M.
I was staring out my hotel room window at the old Dundee docks. I was so tired, but my mind wouldn’t let me sleep. In a few short hours I would see my mother.

I was worried she’d sense something was wrong. I felt as though there was a sign above my head declaring “M
AN IN
T
ROUBLE
.” I had so many questions that I wanted to, yet couldn’t, ask, and certainly not in front of a TV crew. And after all, today’s discoveries and revelations were not going to be about me, or my real father. I had to try and put everything about that to one side and appear my normal self. I had to act.

No matter what is going on in my real life, I know how to block it out when I am working. Whether I have had good news, bad news, am feeling hungover, joyful, sick, it’s all part of the job description of an actor to know how to neutralize it all and become whatever the character needs to feel. Today was no different: I would become what the audience would expect—cheeky chappie Alan Cumming having tea with his mum and looking through old family photos and mementoes. It shouldn’t require much of me. Yet looking out at the water as the sun began to slowly slide along its surface, I didn’t know if I was up to it.

I went to the gym and hoped the endorphins would cancel out the buzzing in my head for a while. I met the crew for breakfast and pretty soon we were off, filming in the car as I drove along the coast road towards my mum’s.

I talked of my mum as I drove, captured by the camera being pointed at me from the passenger seat. I spoke of how much I admire her, how she has rolled with the punches through the changes in my life, and how much she has grown as a person over the years. I also spoke of how she still has the ability to surprise me. Considering the events of the past few days, that was an understatement.

When we arrived at Mary Darling’s house, Elizabeth, the director, and the soundman hurried over to put a microphone on her, and also shield her from seeing me so that our reunion on camera would be utterly spontaneous.

I could see my mum trying to peep over their shoulders to see me. She was brimming with excitement, I could tell. I bet she hadn’t slept much the night before either, albeit for different reasons.

Soon, after we had hugged on her doorstep, we went into her living room and began to set up what would be the major part of the discussion: just what my mum knew about her father.

As the crew set up some lights, and Mum and Elizabeth conferred about what she was going to say and show me, I began to scour the walls and shelves of her lounge for all the pictures of my family. There we were, Tom and me as kids, in our swimming trunks in the garden at Panmure, on a jetty after a boat trip. Then later, college, weddings, holidays. My father was nowhere to be seen of course. My mother left him when I was twenty and away at drama school in Glasgow. She had worked hard to be financially independent of him, and then, just when I thought they had reached an amiable situation of leading entirely separate lives under the same roof, she called me up and announced she would be living at a different address from then on. For so many years I had longed for my parents to separate, but when I heard the news I was sideswiped, stunned and strangely upset. It was as though all the pent-up sadness of watching two people in such an unhappy union came flooding out of me. I hadn’t realized just how much I wanted their relationship to work, I guess. I longed for a proper Mum and Dad with a normal relationship. And now it was clear that this would never happen.

Looking around at these images spanning my entire life, it was not difficult to believe that I had a different father. A weird calm descended upon me and I just knew.

“So, Mum, what do you remember of your father?” I asked her.

She was a little nervous and very cautious as she spoke. It made me love her even more. She spoke of how little she knew of the man, just that he had been in the military, a Cameron Highlander. He was stationed in Inverness where he met my granny.

Tommy Darling was twenty in 1937 when he married. Mary Darling was born a year later, and her three brothers followed in quick succession. But despite having a growing family, Tommy Darling’s visits home grew less and less frequent. In the talks we’d had about him in the months preceding, I had asked my mother why she thought he had come back home so little and she said that it was common during the war for a soldier’s leave to be canceled or postponed. That made sense, I suppose, but surely a gap of five years was a little extreme?

I asked Mum where her father had gone after the war. “Well he went to several places. He was in France and Burma,” she replied.

“What did he do?” I asked. I didn’t even know this most basic piece of information about him.

He was a biker, a courier who carried information amongst battalions on the battlefield. Mum then showed me a pewter mug that he had. It was one of the few things she owned that had belonged to Tommy Darling. According to the inscription, he’d won the cup at a services motorbike trial, in 1939.

“So he’s a biker?” I joked. A picture of Tommy Darling was beginning to form in my mind, and he was certainly challenging my preconceptions.

She also had his Certificate of Service and I read it aloud.

“
An excellent type. Honest, sober . . .”
I looked up at Mum. “That’s unusual for our family!”