What I did was ask for the file. The whole of it, every document, going back to the first year, and Mrs Boateng photocopied about forty pages for me at a machine in the corner while neither of us said anything.
Then I sat in my hire car in that car park and put the photocopies on the passenger seat and my bank statements on my knee, and I went through both of them at the same time for about two hours.
Somebody in that office had rung my mother by then. I found that out later and I do not hold it against them.
She came into that building at about half past two and found me still there, in the reception area, with the folder open in my hands.
And she crossed that room and got hold of my arm in front of about sixteen people and said it loud enough for every one of them:
You left. Don’t stand in a school and act like a father.
Nobody moved. A woman behind the desk put a phone down without hanging it up properly.
She did not let go. She leaned in and said:
Give me that and go home. Well?
I did not give it to her.
That is the entire extent of what I did in that building, and I have been called strong for it about nine times and it was not strength.
I could not have formed a sentence. I stood there holding forty photocopies and looked at a woman I have known my whole life and could not think of one single thing to say to her.
Mrs Boateng ended it.
She came out from behind the desk and said, to my mother, in an ordinary voice: Mrs Falk, you’re not on the collection list for Talise and I need you to wait outside.
That is all she said. One administrative sentence.
And my mother let go of my arm and went, immediately, without a word, and stood in the car park for about forty minutes.
I have thought about that a great deal since.
Because I had just watched that woman lie on a form, and lie to me for five years, and lie to a child every day for five years — and one member of staff said a boring true thing about a list and she folded in under two seconds.
That is what the whole arrangement was made of.
Not force. Nobody was frightened of her. It was five years of nobody ever saying a boring true thing out loud in front of her, and the moment one person did, in a reception area, it was over in about a second and a half.
PART 4
Now the phone number.
Three digits wrong is a typing error. That is what anybody would say and it is what I said.
It is a live number. I rang it from that car park at about four o’clock and it rang out and then a voicemail came on.
It is my brother’s.
Pike is four years older than me. He has a workshop out on Vane Road that he has had since 2011 and that has been going under since 2019.
And that is where five years went.
