Not My Father's Son. Alan Cumming

father arrived with another woman in tow. At school, I would hear little comments and jokes about his affairs. One of them was actually a teacher of mine. Now, decades later, it was all beginning to make sense. Was his brazen disregard for my mother’s (and anyone else’s) feelings about his affairs due to the fact that he felt justified because my mother had committed the original sin? And was this the reason for her stoic acceptance of his behaviour too?

      It certainly explained the way he treated me. Hundreds of flashbacks of acts of violence and humiliation were being replayed in my mind. Now I saw them through a filter of knowing that my very existence was a reminder to my father of betrayal, even of his failure. But as Tom pointed out, our father was an equal opportunity abuser, and I was not alone in my place as his target. Our father was just as harsh, irrational and violent to Tom.

      I felt a bit calmer, even though there were still mental fireworks going off inside my head. I needed to make a plan. I knew that the shock waves of this news would not be confined to this evening. The repercussions of this bombshell would reverberate in my life for a long time to come.

      “And there’s another thing,” Tom said. I looked up at him with dread. “Dad’s considering talking to the Mail.”

      “What?!” I couldn’t believe this could get any more awful.

      “Not about you not being his son,” Tom clarified.

      “Well, what then?”

      “He’s angry that they know about him having cancer and they are telling him he should have his say about you before he dies,” Tom’s voice trailed off.

      “Oh perfect. Well, good luck to him,” I said. “If he wants to go down that road, that’s his decision, but he’ll regret it for the rest of his life. He has no idea what shit they’ll make up.”

      I couldn’t believe it. Any of it.

      But at least, I was not my father’s son.

      It felt like someone had died. And I suppose in a way someone had. My father was dead, or at least the father I assumed to be mine, both literally and physically. I felt like I had created a narrative about my father over the last forty-five years, and now I was mourning its death.

      I needed to give myself some time. I needed to recover. I knew I would eventually have to speak to both my parents, but I couldn’t fathom that yet. The idea of contacting my new father was too daunting to even think about.

      I also wanted to get off the roof! It was getting dark now, and cold. I was shivering, whether from the cold or pure shock, I didn’t know. I knew that Sue and Dom would be worried sick. I wanted to put them out of their misery. Tom and I had been up there for ages. And I wanted to actually speak the words to another human being to make them real.

      We went down and told Sue and Dom, and spent the rest of the night talking and drinking and marvelling at the insanity that can descend in an instant. Mostly we talked about memories from our childhood, horrible moments we had shared, somehow trying to tie them to what we now knew, reassessing and realigning.

      Tom stayed over that night. We both bunked down in the sleeping loft at the very top of the flat. We were spent, dazed, cried and talked out. We said good-night and I switched the light off, but after a while I could feel him still awake across from me.

      “You know, Alan, you’re lucky,” he whispered. “You’re lucky you’re not his son.”

      “I know,” I said.

      THEN

      For a few days every June in Arbroath, a town about ten miles from our house, something magical called the Angus Show happened.

      It was a traditional agricultural show, with sheep shearing and dog trials and Highland cows and tractors and tugs-of-war, but also vans full of household wares and trinkets being flogged by men who lured you to spend by shouting ever-decreasing prices through their tinny microphones. There were stalls selling all sorts of food that seemed to a country boy like me incredibly exotic. Things like corn on the cob and doughnuts. But the thing I liked most of all about the Angus Show was the humanity, the seething crowds of people that flooded the Victoria Park. I loved the feeling of being part of a crowd, of being one amongst many. It made me feel safe.

      Every year as June drew near I’d see the posters for the show appearing on trees and telegraph poles all over the county. They were colourful and full of promise, and I yearned to be able to go. That was the thing, though. I never knew if I would be permitted to go. It would mean getting a lift from my dad, and as it was so difficult to predict his mood and his willingness to keep his promises, I came never to rely on him at all and eventually just stopped asking him for a lift anywhere. Occasionally a friend’s parent would offer to pick me up, but we lived in such a remote place I rarely engineered it. Plus, I knew my father would see such an arrangement as a betrayal or an act of cowardice on my part. If I did, I would make sure to be dropped at the estate gates and not risk the friends coming anywhere near our house. This was a form of protection for my family, but as I got older it was more about protecting my self-esteem than shielding my father’s potential behaviour. The older I became, the less concerned I became about people knowing what a monster he was. I was waiting for the day I could leave home and escape him.