The Andalusian Hemipode

Chapter 1

I read the email on my screen for a third time and still felt the same sense of shock. But now there was something else ... something even worse ... fury.

I was furious that my father had the nerve to contact me after all these years to let me know he was dying. Did he expect me to come rushing to his bedside? If he did, he was going to be very disappointed. I hadn't seen him for almost 30 years and had no desire to see him now. I'd walked out of his house as soon as I'd turned 16 and never returned. I still remember our parting words as if it were yesterday.

"I never want to speak to you again. I hope you rot in hell!"

"Michael, you still don't understand, please let me try and explain," he'd begged, in the calm, condescending tone I found so intensely irritating.

"The only thing I don't understand is why you're not serving a life sentence!"

I'd shouldered my rucksack and marched straight to the local railway station and a new life in the Royal Navy, glad to leave all the bad memories behind. The memories that had given me nightmares every night for nine years. 

The memories of the day I'd watched my father murder my mother.

#

The email hadn't come directly from my father. I doubted he knew where I was, or even if I was still alive. It had come from someone called Rebecca at an heir tracing agency. It was short and to the point. My father was terminally ill. Rebecca explained that she'd found my email address through the British ex-service personnel association. I still kept in touch with a few of my old colleagues through the Navy blog on the association's website. She was asking me to telephone her without delay as I was my father's only living relative. Reading between the lines I understood that to mean I would be due to receive any pathetic legacy he left behind. Not something I felt inclined to accept.

I hovered my mouse over the delete icon, tempted to trash the email and forget all about it, but then I had second thoughts. The fact was ... I was the quintessential starving artist. Since leaving the service I'd been trying to make it as a writer. I'd had big ideas that a novel based on my adventures in the Navy would be a bestseller. I spent my life savings on an old, rundown finca near Valencia in Spain where I would create my Magnum Opus. Two years later my blockbuster was finished. Unfortunately, no publisher had shown an iota of interest. 'All been done before' was the stock answer to my query letters. 'Try and come up with something new' they advised. I'd been trying to do that for the last five years.

With no savings left and only a small military pension to live on, I was on the breadline, and my finca was still as rundown as the day I'd bought it. If it hadn't been for the orange trees on my land I would have probably succumbed to malnutrition years ago. As it was, I was so full of vitamin C that flu bugs were no match for my immune system. I could hardly afford to look a gift horse in the mouth and, anyway, didn't I deserve anything I could screw out of the bastard after what he'd put me through?

Avarice took precedence over my scruples. I called Rebecca.

"Your father has a type of aggressive lung cancer," Rebecca said. "He's only got weeks to live. A couple of months at most. He wants to see you. It seems very important to him. He's offered to pay all your expenses."

"He'd have to ... I'm broke," I told her truthfully. "Is he in a hospital?"

"He was, but he discharged himself. Said he wanted to die at home. I'll email the address."

Five minutes later my inbox pinged and I saw with relief that the address wasn't the house of horrors where I grew up. He'd moved. I googled it, found the nearest airport and, in less than an hour, had a flight booked for the following Tuesday morning, business class of course. Then I started browsing 4-star hotels within taxi distance of his house. I was determined to make the most of my expense account.

It wasn't until I got to Valencia airport that I began to get apprehensive about meeting my father after so many years. Two large gin and tonics in the VIP lounge while waiting for my flight to be called helped to settle my nerves.  I got a few disapproving looks. It was only nine o'clock and all the other travellers were helping themselves to coffee and croissants. By the time I settled into my seat for the three-hour flight, I was feeling nicely mellowed. I closed my eyes and allowed my thoughts to drift back to my childhood.

My earliest memories were of birds. My father was an obsessive bird watcher and I had inherited his passion. I recalled walking through leafy woodlands with him as a small child, excitedly trying to name the various birds he pointed out. I remembered the bird table in our back garden and sitting for hours at the kitchen window watching the sparrows shuttle to and fro. And I remembered poring over a book filled with tiny color pictures, watching him carefully tick off and date each species that we spotted. That book was imprinted on my mind; Birds of Britain and Europe, and my own copy always went with me when I hiked the hills around my home in Spain.

In those early years, we were inseparable. My mother was beautiful but delicate. She was often tired and feeling unwell, so my dad would take me out to allow her some quiet time to rest. I suppose I must have been a typical noisy kid. We were as close as any father and son could ever be. But that all changed on my seventh birthday ... and I hadn't celebrated any of my birthdays since that awful day.