"Charlie!" the shrill voice floated up the stairs. He hastily thrust the cardboard box under the bed, rearranged the covers to disguise it and shouted back "Coming Gran!" He'd spent the best part of an hour plucking up the courage to look in it and within minutes he'd had to hide it away again, like a guilty pleasure because she was demanding his attention yet again. He came downstairs and began collecting the glasses under the old crone's eye; Dad was slumped in his usual spot by the window, snoring drunkenly. He averted his eyes quickly trying to pretend he was somewhere else. "Hurry up with those!" Steph was standing by the glass wash, indicating with a motion of her hand that he should speed up. He dumped a pile in front of her and grinned. She hadn't aged well, he'd seen the pictures of her from when he was little and over the years the pounds had piled on, the hair had faded. With each rejection she'd retreated from the outgoing confident young woman Gran described to this blousy shell, flirting with the punters, a kind of standing joke among the students who frequented the place. He carried on retrieving glasses from around the room but his mind was elsewhere, where had it come from and who had sent it? They'd all been overly curious when the package had been delivered at breakfast, asking a million questions, Steph grabbing it from him and giving it a squeeze after shaking it violently. He managed to retrieve it from her and gave some farrago about asking Craig for finance magazines from the City office for a school project. They rapidly lost interest and carried on bickering over whose turn it was to open up and who's to clear the table. In fact without the parcel it was the same breakfast routine he could remember as far back as he could remember, although he did remember a time when Dad wasn't the last one to the table and wasn't accompanied by a hangover.
"You needn't think you're sloping off upstairs again, young man, get yourself down to the cellar and bring me these up" She handed him a list and ignored the angry glance he threw in her direction but no-one in the family stood up to Gran, she was a legend in the area. Even the McQueen matriarch, Jacquie Hutchinson, gave way when Gran was on the warpath. Jacquie ran the restaurant that was Gran's main competition in the village and their run-ins were also legend. He wondered when he'd be able to disappear and investigate the unknown box; the accompanying letter had been brief and cryptic.
"Dear Charlie,
You don't know me but I was privileged to know your mother. You'll find in this box some clues to who you really are, who your mother really was and who you should ask for the truth.
Foz"
He fingered the paper again, the box sitting on his bed while he savoured the anticipation. He looked again at the bedside photo, the only one with him and Mum, taken in a grey prison visiting room. According to Dad she was an angel seduced and betrayed by a vindictive pupil whose name was not allowed to be mentioned. The last time he'd tried Dad had suddenly lost it and swung for him, he'd been drunk of course but what Charlie had never been able to figure was why Dad had shouted "You murdering bastard!" at him. Gran had hurried him away upstairs and he'd heard raised voices long into the night. It had frightened him and he'd never referred to the incident again, the rest of family behaving as if it had never happened. It did coincide with Dad going off on one of his longest ever benders, not reappearing till a few days later, muttering an apology and thrusting a new pair of boots into his hands. Never one to look a gift horse, especially from Dad, he'd taken them gratefully and skipped out to footie practice. What was curious about the gift was Dad's previous determination he wasn't going to be a footballer but his natural talent had stood out at school and he'd soon been recruited to the squad.
He sat on the bed next to the box and prevaricated by looking at the wrapping. It had been posted in London but the markings on the box were in a foreign script and it was redolent with the smell of spices. He emptied out the contents, they consisted of a small packet wrapped in soft paper and tied in a faded ribbon, a bracelet that twinkled on the dull covered bedcover, some opened letters again bound together with the same faded ribbon, and a photograph.