"Please could I speak to Mr Waterson, Mr A.J. Waterson?"
Neville was ringing from the offices of the Eastbridge Gazette. It was Monday morning after returning from Barnshead on Saturday afternoon. He had hoped to see Marie again but she was working at the library on Saturday and they parted on Friday evening after he drove her from the hotel back to the family restaurant. He promised to call her if he made any progress trying to find Albert's past, but he knew this was only an excuse to keep in contact, as he really wanted to see her again, sooner rather than later.
He was speaking to a receptionist whose role in life was obviously to stop all calls for Mr Waterson.
"No, it cannot be dealt by anyone else in the company; it is a personal matter for Mr Waterson. My name is Conrad, Neville Conrad; I am ringing from the Eastbridge Gazette."
Mentioning he was ringing from a newspaper could work in his favour and his call be transferred to at least someone more senior, alternatively it could result in the call being terminated rather rapidly. It was a risk, but one he thought worth taking as the receptionist was putting up a strong defense of her employer.
"Just a moment, I'll see if Mr Waterson is available."
The risk seemed to have paid off.
"Hello, I'm A.J. Waterson, and you are?"
The voice was strong and assured, someone who had confidence in himself and his abilities to handle any situation.
"Hello, my name is Neville Conrad, I'm ringing about someone you might recall from some years ago, Albert Hughes; he was a friend of your brother George. They were in the army together during the war."
The phone went silent and Neville wondered if the line had been disconnected then the assured voice said,
"Con-rad," A.J. repeated, obviously taking notes, "You told my receptionist that you work for a newspaper, so you think you've found yourself a story."
Neville replied, not quite able to match the calmness in A.J.'s voice.
"No, well yes I do work for a newspaper, but I'm not a journalist, I work in advertising. My question about Albert was a personal one."
There was another long pause before A.J. continued,
"How do you know Albert?"
"He's a friend of mine." Neville was not sure if he could call Albert a friend but it sounded better than someone he met in a pub.
"And does Albert know you are calling?"
"No, I'm helping him find his brother, someone he hasn't seen since the war, but he doesn't know I have your name or that I'm calling you. Perhaps you recall his brother, his name is James."
"Yes, I know all about James, but I will not discuss it with you and certainly with no one over the phone. If Albert wishes to see me, he can call my secretary and arrange a meeting. She has my diary and she will be able to find a suitable date and time. Good day Mr Conrad."
Neville replaced the telephone receiver and slumped back in his office chair.
"I'd not like to meet him on a dark night."
He had not intended to say it aloud and looked around to see if anyone was looking at him but they were all too preoccupied to overhear his vocalised thoughts.
He tried to recall every word A.J. had said. He knew "all about James". So Albert does, or did, have a brother called James. However, it was the way he said; "all about" suggested there was more to learn. Does James have a history that Albert will be disappointed to hear? Moreover, A.J. said, "So you think you've found yourself a story". He had assumed Neville was a reporter and that something was newsworthy, but when he said this, he had only mentioned Albert's name, so it was something about Albert that might warrant a newspaper story. Neville's mind began to race and imagine all sorts of scenarios of one or both brothers committing heinous crimes in their past and he was about to find the skeletons in the cupboard - perhaps literally.
Neville sat up with a start, he had just realised that A.J. had shown no reaction to the fact that Albert was alive. Did he know that Albert was not killed in the war as everyone assumed? As far as he was aware, the only other person that now knew Albert had survived was his sister Ann. Had she been in contact with A.J. Waterson?
He decided it was time to arrange another meeting with Albert and John at the Station Inn.
The meeting took place on a Wednesday evening in John Turner's apartment above the Station Inn. Albert was standing looking out of the window when Neville entered the living room. Albert nodded acknowledging he had seen him and then turned to continue looking out of the window. There was no sign of John.
The window gave Albert a view of the front of the station. A train had just arrived and tides of people were pouring out of the station entrance like ants escaping from a disturbed nest. He could not see their faces to determine if they were happy to be home, but he suspected their faces showed no emotion as they headed like human robots to their final destinations. In a few hours time alarms would be sounding at their bedsides and they would be pouring into the station again.
"How's your course going, business studies wasn't it?" Albert asked only to break the silence rather than any great desire to know the answer.
"Yes, it's going good, well OK really." Neville replied without too much conviction. He had become more and more disenchanted with the course and motivation was becoming difficult. He suspected someone who only knew the subject from reading books had produced the material. Where are the people who really ran successful businesses? People who could pass on more knowledge and experience in one afternoon than months of reading this mind numbing text. "Probably getting on with more important things - their businesses," thought Neville.
During his working day, he visited many businesses that were blindingly following a straight downhill road to oblivion. They had thrown some seeds on barren ground and even the strongest of young shoots withered at the first sign of adverse conditions. His job was to persuade them that more advertising would cure all their ills whilst knowing that they would be throwing away good money after bad. He looked at Albert and visualised him working in the gardens, selecting the correct location and conditions, preparing the ground before planting his seeds, thinning out the weakest of shoots, cutting away the dead wood, applying the right quantity of feed at the right time, digging up and relocating the whole plant if the conditions changed. Without knowing it Albert was executing the fundamentals of running a successful business.
The door of the lounge burst open and in the doorway stood John holding a tray of drinks.
"Come on let's get this party started," he slurred having obviously been drinking already. He carelessly put the tray on the coffee table and spilt some of the beer from the three glasses that added to the beer already in the bottom of the tray. Albert didn't normally drink beer but he lifted one of the glasses and took a sip.
"Oh shit," John cursed as he spilt some of the beer down his trousers. He made no attempt to wipe it off. "Well lad, what did your mates at the newspaper find out?"
John calling him lad brought back unhappy school memories for Neville. He saw his English teacher Mr Donaldson standing in front of the class with both arms in the air waving a tatty exercise book. "Is this your homework lad?"
"Yes sir."
"Well where's the rest of it lad, there's barely a page and a half."
"That all of it sir."
"Well it's just not good enough, is it Conrad lad?"
"No sir."
The rest of the class sniggered hearing the phrase "Conrad lad".
"Well lad, have you got nothing to say?" It was John's slurring voice, bringing Neville thoughts back to the present.
"My mates at the newspaper were not able to help me," Neville replied rather sarcastically.
John grunted and took another mouthful of beer.
"But I did find someone who works at a newspaper near where Albert family lived and he managed to find some details of Albert, his sister Ann, and his parents, Mary and Frank. Your father's name was Frank, not James as you thought," Neville said glancing over at Albert. "He couldn't find any details of your brother. There is the possibility he might have been adopted but we didn't take that any further."
"So was he adopted or not?" John was practically shouting and clearly getting more agitated.
"As I said we didn't have a chance to find that out, but I did find some more information from an article in a local paper about Albert's friends getting killed in the war."
"What did it have to say?" asked Albert.
"Well it was more about a wedding than what was going on over in France. You were supposed to have been best man at that wedding, do you remember?"
"Of course he doesn't bloody remember," John was now standing and pacing around the room. "If he could remember we wouldn't be sat here would we?"
"But you're not sat here," thought Neville, "you're stalking around the room like a caged animal."
"So after all these weeks you come back and all you can tell us is that Albert missed a bloody wedding. Well that's great, thanks a lot, that's been really helpful."
Neville stood up; he had not touched his beer. He reached inside his jacket pocket and produced a piece of paper that he placed on the table in front of Albert.
"That's the name of a man that knows your brother. He won't discuss it over the phone, but if you call the number that's on there, you can make an appointment to meet him. Here's my card as well if you want to call me sometime."
Neville walked to the door and turned saying, "good luck Albert, all the best to you." He did not look at or say anything to John. The sound of his steps grew fainter as he descending the stairs to the bar.
"Well what's got into him," John slurred as he placed his empty glass on the table.
"What's got into him? What the hell's the matter with you?" Albert was practically shouting, colour rising in his cheeks and veins standing proud on his forehead.
John had never heard Albert raise his voice, even when being intimidated by drunks in the bar he was always able to stay calm. John slumped into one of the chairs; his two hands cradled his face. Albert's unexpected reaction had taken the steam out of him.
"Well he was the one that walked out," John said in little more than a whisper.
"Is it any wonder the way you went on at him? What's been going on to get you in this state?"
"Two of the staff did not turn up at lunchtime, no warning, no call to let me know, just didn't appear. We had some sort of a do on, from one of the businesses down the road. The place was packed. Some of them left without buying anything, they had waited so long to be served, and who can blame them. I must have lost a load of money. Not just today, but the word gets around about our bad service, we won't see them or their friends again. I'm going to get myself another drink".
The room was unusually quiet after John left. Albert sat there alone, turning over the folded paper in his hand. "This man knows your brother," Neville had said. Would it be a name he recognised or simply another faceless, nameless character from his past? For some reason, which he did not fully understand, he was reluctant to unfold the paper. He had not slept well over recent weeks but this did not concern him. His apprehension was the dreams he sometimes had during these fitful nights. He saw people and places he did not recognise. However, if dreams were born out of his own experiences, who were these people? Were they people from his past who were still trapped in his subconscious; people he really once knew but his memories of them remained locked behind that closed door in his mind; a door that would only open during his dreams and then slam shut again as he awoke. On the other hand, were his dreams just that, dreams, no magical portal to the memories of that man so cruelly changed by an enemy artillery shell.
He slowly unfolded the paper in some way hoping it would be blank. There was a telephone number and the name A.J. Waterson. He stared at it for a while wondering why the name somehow appeared familiar. The name George Waterson suddenly came to mind, he was one of his friends who had died in France. The doctors in the hospital had told him that he had two friends with him when they were attacked, George Waterson and James Richards. The staff at Deerson House had told him they were his friends, but other than their names he had no recollection of their appearance or any of their times together. Were these the faces he saw in his dreams?
Neville's card was embossed with the name of the newspaper, under that was the address and a telephone number of the newspaper office together with Neville's name and title; Sales Executive. Albert turned over the card; on the back were a handwritten telephone number and the word - home.
Albert sat back in his chair staring at the wall, thinking but not really thinking; he might have even fallen asleep for a few moments. He became aware of someone to his left and turned around to see John standing at the door.
"Sorry I should have come down stairs to give you a hand," Albert said looking at his watch realising he had been daydreaming for about an hour and a half.
"No that's alright; it's me that should say sorry to you. I was totally out of order earlier on. I can't imagine what that kid thinks about me, we'll probably never see him again."
"You said you'd had a bad day with the staff and that business at lunchtime."
"Well it wasn't only the staff. In the afternoon I had a call from my ex-wife's solicitor, she wants some more money out of me. She can see how successful this place is and she wants a piece of it. She never lifted a finger to help me get it up and running but now she thinks she's owed something. She'll not get another penny out of me if I can help it."
Albert picked up the piece of paper and business card sliding them into his wallet.
"What did he give you?" enquired John.
"Some telephone numbers. I've got some calls to make."
Neville was ringing from the offices of the Eastbridge Gazette. It was Monday morning after returning from Barnshead on Saturday afternoon. He had hoped to see Marie again but she was working at the library on Saturday and they parted on Friday evening after he drove her from the hotel back to the family restaurant. He promised to call her if he made any progress trying to find Albert's past, but he knew this was only an excuse to keep in contact, as he really wanted to see her again, sooner rather than later.
He was speaking to a receptionist whose role in life was obviously to stop all calls for Mr Waterson.
"No, it cannot be dealt by anyone else in the company; it is a personal matter for Mr Waterson. My name is Conrad, Neville Conrad; I am ringing from the Eastbridge Gazette."
Mentioning he was ringing from a newspaper could work in his favour and his call be transferred to at least someone more senior, alternatively it could result in the call being terminated rather rapidly. It was a risk, but one he thought worth taking as the receptionist was putting up a strong defense of her employer.
"Just a moment, I'll see if Mr Waterson is available."
The risk seemed to have paid off.
"Hello, I'm A.J. Waterson, and you are?"
The voice was strong and assured, someone who had confidence in himself and his abilities to handle any situation.
"Hello, my name is Neville Conrad, I'm ringing about someone you might recall from some years ago, Albert Hughes; he was a friend of your brother George. They were in the army together during the war."
The phone went silent and Neville wondered if the line had been disconnected then the assured voice said,
"Con-rad," A.J. repeated, obviously taking notes, "You told my receptionist that you work for a newspaper, so you think you've found yourself a story."
Neville replied, not quite able to match the calmness in A.J.'s voice.
"No, well yes I do work for a newspaper, but I'm not a journalist, I work in advertising. My question about Albert was a personal one."
There was another long pause before A.J. continued,
"How do you know Albert?"
"He's a friend of mine." Neville was not sure if he could call Albert a friend but it sounded better than someone he met in a pub.
"And does Albert know you are calling?"
"No, I'm helping him find his brother, someone he hasn't seen since the war, but he doesn't know I have your name or that I'm calling you. Perhaps you recall his brother, his name is James."
"Yes, I know all about James, but I will not discuss it with you and certainly with no one over the phone. If Albert wishes to see me, he can call my secretary and arrange a meeting. She has my diary and she will be able to find a suitable date and time. Good day Mr Conrad."
Neville replaced the telephone receiver and slumped back in his office chair.
"I'd not like to meet him on a dark night."
He had not intended to say it aloud and looked around to see if anyone was looking at him but they were all too preoccupied to overhear his vocalised thoughts.
He tried to recall every word A.J. had said. He knew "all about James". So Albert does, or did, have a brother called James. However, it was the way he said; "all about" suggested there was more to learn. Does James have a history that Albert will be disappointed to hear? Moreover, A.J. said, "So you think you've found yourself a story". He had assumed Neville was a reporter and that something was newsworthy, but when he said this, he had only mentioned Albert's name, so it was something about Albert that might warrant a newspaper story. Neville's mind began to race and imagine all sorts of scenarios of one or both brothers committing heinous crimes in their past and he was about to find the skeletons in the cupboard - perhaps literally.
Neville sat up with a start, he had just realised that A.J. had shown no reaction to the fact that Albert was alive. Did he know that Albert was not killed in the war as everyone assumed? As far as he was aware, the only other person that now knew Albert had survived was his sister Ann. Had she been in contact with A.J. Waterson?
He decided it was time to arrange another meeting with Albert and John at the Station Inn.
The meeting took place on a Wednesday evening in John Turner's apartment above the Station Inn. Albert was standing looking out of the window when Neville entered the living room. Albert nodded acknowledging he had seen him and then turned to continue looking out of the window. There was no sign of John.
The window gave Albert a view of the front of the station. A train had just arrived and tides of people were pouring out of the station entrance like ants escaping from a disturbed nest. He could not see their faces to determine if they were happy to be home, but he suspected their faces showed no emotion as they headed like human robots to their final destinations. In a few hours time alarms would be sounding at their bedsides and they would be pouring into the station again.
"How's your course going, business studies wasn't it?" Albert asked only to break the silence rather than any great desire to know the answer.
"Yes, it's going good, well OK really." Neville replied without too much conviction. He had become more and more disenchanted with the course and motivation was becoming difficult. He suspected someone who only knew the subject from reading books had produced the material. Where are the people who really ran successful businesses? People who could pass on more knowledge and experience in one afternoon than months of reading this mind numbing text. "Probably getting on with more important things - their businesses," thought Neville.
During his working day, he visited many businesses that were blindingly following a straight downhill road to oblivion. They had thrown some seeds on barren ground and even the strongest of young shoots withered at the first sign of adverse conditions. His job was to persuade them that more advertising would cure all their ills whilst knowing that they would be throwing away good money after bad. He looked at Albert and visualised him working in the gardens, selecting the correct location and conditions, preparing the ground before planting his seeds, thinning out the weakest of shoots, cutting away the dead wood, applying the right quantity of feed at the right time, digging up and relocating the whole plant if the conditions changed. Without knowing it Albert was executing the fundamentals of running a successful business.
The door of the lounge burst open and in the doorway stood John holding a tray of drinks.
"Come on let's get this party started," he slurred having obviously been drinking already. He carelessly put the tray on the coffee table and spilt some of the beer from the three glasses that added to the beer already in the bottom of the tray. Albert didn't normally drink beer but he lifted one of the glasses and took a sip.
"Oh shit," John cursed as he spilt some of the beer down his trousers. He made no attempt to wipe it off. "Well lad, what did your mates at the newspaper find out?"
John calling him lad brought back unhappy school memories for Neville. He saw his English teacher Mr Donaldson standing in front of the class with both arms in the air waving a tatty exercise book. "Is this your homework lad?"
"Yes sir."
"Well where's the rest of it lad, there's barely a page and a half."
"That all of it sir."
"Well it's just not good enough, is it Conrad lad?"
"No sir."
The rest of the class sniggered hearing the phrase "Conrad lad".
"Well lad, have you got nothing to say?" It was John's slurring voice, bringing Neville thoughts back to the present.
"My mates at the newspaper were not able to help me," Neville replied rather sarcastically.
John grunted and took another mouthful of beer.
"But I did find someone who works at a newspaper near where Albert family lived and he managed to find some details of Albert, his sister Ann, and his parents, Mary and Frank. Your father's name was Frank, not James as you thought," Neville said glancing over at Albert. "He couldn't find any details of your brother. There is the possibility he might have been adopted but we didn't take that any further."
"So was he adopted or not?" John was practically shouting and clearly getting more agitated.
"As I said we didn't have a chance to find that out, but I did find some more information from an article in a local paper about Albert's friends getting killed in the war."
"What did it have to say?" asked Albert.
"Well it was more about a wedding than what was going on over in France. You were supposed to have been best man at that wedding, do you remember?"
"Of course he doesn't bloody remember," John was now standing and pacing around the room. "If he could remember we wouldn't be sat here would we?"
"But you're not sat here," thought Neville, "you're stalking around the room like a caged animal."
"So after all these weeks you come back and all you can tell us is that Albert missed a bloody wedding. Well that's great, thanks a lot, that's been really helpful."
Neville stood up; he had not touched his beer. He reached inside his jacket pocket and produced a piece of paper that he placed on the table in front of Albert.
"That's the name of a man that knows your brother. He won't discuss it over the phone, but if you call the number that's on there, you can make an appointment to meet him. Here's my card as well if you want to call me sometime."
Neville walked to the door and turned saying, "good luck Albert, all the best to you." He did not look at or say anything to John. The sound of his steps grew fainter as he descending the stairs to the bar.
"Well what's got into him," John slurred as he placed his empty glass on the table.
"What's got into him? What the hell's the matter with you?" Albert was practically shouting, colour rising in his cheeks and veins standing proud on his forehead.
John had never heard Albert raise his voice, even when being intimidated by drunks in the bar he was always able to stay calm. John slumped into one of the chairs; his two hands cradled his face. Albert's unexpected reaction had taken the steam out of him.
"Well he was the one that walked out," John said in little more than a whisper.
"Is it any wonder the way you went on at him? What's been going on to get you in this state?"
"Two of the staff did not turn up at lunchtime, no warning, no call to let me know, just didn't appear. We had some sort of a do on, from one of the businesses down the road. The place was packed. Some of them left without buying anything, they had waited so long to be served, and who can blame them. I must have lost a load of money. Not just today, but the word gets around about our bad service, we won't see them or their friends again. I'm going to get myself another drink".
The room was unusually quiet after John left. Albert sat there alone, turning over the folded paper in his hand. "This man knows your brother," Neville had said. Would it be a name he recognised or simply another faceless, nameless character from his past? For some reason, which he did not fully understand, he was reluctant to unfold the paper. He had not slept well over recent weeks but this did not concern him. His apprehension was the dreams he sometimes had during these fitful nights. He saw people and places he did not recognise. However, if dreams were born out of his own experiences, who were these people? Were they people from his past who were still trapped in his subconscious; people he really once knew but his memories of them remained locked behind that closed door in his mind; a door that would only open during his dreams and then slam shut again as he awoke. On the other hand, were his dreams just that, dreams, no magical portal to the memories of that man so cruelly changed by an enemy artillery shell.
He slowly unfolded the paper in some way hoping it would be blank. There was a telephone number and the name A.J. Waterson. He stared at it for a while wondering why the name somehow appeared familiar. The name George Waterson suddenly came to mind, he was one of his friends who had died in France. The doctors in the hospital had told him that he had two friends with him when they were attacked, George Waterson and James Richards. The staff at Deerson House had told him they were his friends, but other than their names he had no recollection of their appearance or any of their times together. Were these the faces he saw in his dreams?
Neville's card was embossed with the name of the newspaper, under that was the address and a telephone number of the newspaper office together with Neville's name and title; Sales Executive. Albert turned over the card; on the back were a handwritten telephone number and the word - home.
Albert sat back in his chair staring at the wall, thinking but not really thinking; he might have even fallen asleep for a few moments. He became aware of someone to his left and turned around to see John standing at the door.
"Sorry I should have come down stairs to give you a hand," Albert said looking at his watch realising he had been daydreaming for about an hour and a half.
"No that's alright; it's me that should say sorry to you. I was totally out of order earlier on. I can't imagine what that kid thinks about me, we'll probably never see him again."
"You said you'd had a bad day with the staff and that business at lunchtime."
"Well it wasn't only the staff. In the afternoon I had a call from my ex-wife's solicitor, she wants some more money out of me. She can see how successful this place is and she wants a piece of it. She never lifted a finger to help me get it up and running but now she thinks she's owed something. She'll not get another penny out of me if I can help it."
Albert picked up the piece of paper and business card sliding them into his wallet.
"What did he give you?" enquired John.
"Some telephone numbers. I've got some calls to make."