Little Black Notebook

I held it tightly in my hands, my mouth suddenly as dry as a desert. So the rumours had been true. My father DID have a little black book. But what was I going to do with it? Various possibilities raced through my mind. I could just throw it away. But what if someone found it? Should I burn it? Would that be better?

Thinking back to that phone call, it was quite a bizarre experience. I had been on the way out that evening, but in the end I didn’t go. My father, who I hadn’t spoken to for years, had suddenly died of a heart attack and I had to deal with his estate. Memories came flooding back and I just wanted to be alone with them. The one memory I didn’t want to focus on was the one that kept intruding. The very last time we ever spoke. He was so angry and determined that I had to be wrong and he was right. I had left university for a job that didn’t require a degree and was going into masses of debt before I even started my life. I had a great salary, a boss I loved working with, and it was what I wanted to do! I was going ahead and doing it!

Throughout my life, I had heard references to “his little black book”, but I’d got to the stage of believing it was a myth that he used to control other people, not me. I wasn’t scared of it, but he did threaten other people with letting the police know the things they had done, because of all the details he had. Would the police even be interested? Was the stuff written in it even true? I didn’t know. But what I did know was that I was holding it in my hands for the very first time in my life. So much emotion. My hands trembled and I tried to determine if I should open the front cover and have a look at what was written inside it or not. I mean, for all I knew, it could be completely empty.

I kept picking the book up and putting it down. My eyes were irresistibly drawn to it no matter what I was trying to do. Oh goodness, a mix of curiosity and fear consumed me. Being in this place gave me the creeps. I hadn’t been here for 30 years! But, typical of my father, he hadn’t bothered changing his will since my mother died so I was left with all the mess. Maybe I should order a garbage truck to pile everything up in. I didn’t want any of his furniture. It was all too reminiscent of him and the ghastly arguments we used to have. So I either had to get rid of it, or give it to someone and none of my friends would have wanted the horrible dark furniture either.

Maybe I should have listened to my cousin, Moira, and had someone with me while I went through things. But would I have wanted anyone else to find his “little black book?” Not at all. So once I had gone through everything else and checked he didn’t have anything else weird and wonderful, I would get some friends to come and help me get rid of it all. I knew John would come and help me, even if nobody else would. He was always there when I asked him. He never failed to keep an eye on me and was a little bit like a big brother to me. Well, actually he was my best friend, par excellence, as I constantly told Moira.

In fact, John hadn’t wanted me to come alone. He had begged me to let him come with me today but I refused. This was my first visit for 30 years and I wanted it to be on my own. He knew the memories had been bad because he had seen how I responded when something was mentioned that took me all the way back to my horrid youth. My thanks had been profuse, but my decision had been final. This first time was real and I had to accomplish it on my own. He wasn’t happy about it but he understood my reasoning. “Ring me when you get there and let me know when you’re leaving,” he cautioned me “and make sure you lock the door when you get into the house. It’s alone and in a remote area. I really would feel better about it if I were there with you, but if you need it to destroy that hold on your life, then I’m happy.” He didn’t sound or look happy, but at least he understood (well as much as anyone could, anyway).

I sat down and pulled the little black book to sit on the desk in front of me. It looked so innocent. A small black notebook. How could anything be wrong with that? I started to think of the contrast between black and white, good and evil, false or true, clean or dirty. And now someone, namely my father, had turned an innocent book into something entirely different. Or had he?

Was he as evil as my mother had told me? Had he done those things in his youth? Now they were both gone and I would never know the truth. Or did this black book hold the key to his life? Was it the key to the evil things he knew other people did? I had no idea but I was going to find out. I switched the light on over the desk and opened the cover. There it was, his name and address in his small, jerky writing. I recognised it instantly and could hear the memory of his voice as I read it.

No going back now, I thought. Got to keep pressing on and find the answers. For my own sanity, I needed to know. Had he written about me? Or was it about himself? Other people? As I turned the pages, they were shaking in my hand as I looked at what he had written. Hang on! Who on earth was this man? This didn’t sound like the man I had lived with for the first eighteen years of my life. This was a fantasy world he was living in! Since when had he had tea with the Queen and Prime Minister? And all these references to being the force behind Parliament decisions! This was the delusions of a crazy man. His mansion? Actually a small one bedroom flat, for goodness sakes! Going to Balmoral? Really? You had to be kidding me! And going to Ascot! Well! My father hated horses, horse racing and gambling and dressing up. Come on! There was no way he would have worn a morning suit and top hat to fit in with the crowd! And as for going to the Queen’s Box via a private invite! No way!

As I read through the notebook and saw him having breakfast with the President of the United States of America at the White House when he was terrified of flying and never went on an aeroplane in his life, my astonishment turned to wonder and then to amazement. What on earth had been the thing that turned his head? He hated the Pope and all Catholics and had been to Rome and thrown a penny in the fountain. Yeah, no...his writing started getting shakier and shakier and more difficult to make out as I read on and on to the end. Who on earth would he have thought of next?

Although I hadn’t had a great life with him, this was actually the ravings of a sad old man. Scattered among these “memories” were things that he believed other people had done and he had written down in his book. Well, with all the other stories made up in it, I wasn’t going to accept them and I didn’t think the police would either. I decided then and there to burn the book.

Keeping my promise to John, I rang him and apologised for being so late, “I got held up reading my father’s little black book. I’ll tell you all about it later. I’m leaving now and am tired.”

John told me to come straight to his house for dinner and not to be silly and say I was going home. He wanted me to talk to him about what I had been through. All the emotions I had experienced that day had wiped me out. I drove to his house and turned the engine of my car off and sighed with relief.

He opened the door and light from the house streamed out, welcoming me in. I ran wordlessly into his arms and he guided me through to the dining room where a hot meal was waiting for me on the table with a lovely glass of sparkling white wine. John knew what I wanted and needed. “You’re not going home tonight after the day you’ve had” he said. “I’ve made up the spare room bed and that’s where you’ll be after a lovely long soak in the bath. You finish up your meal and come upstairs when you’re ready. I think you need this.”

Sinking into the bath a while later, I began to relive the day and realised that really, my father was just a sad old man, delusional and living in a fantasy world that honestly didn’t exist. He had no power in Parliament, not had done anything else in the book, so would he be accurate with these other people. I didn’t know and I didn’t want to know.

After the bath I asked John to light the fire in the living room. Thankfully he had a wood burning fireplace. I didn’t want the little black book and I never wanted anyone else to read it. So I sat in front of the fire wrapped in John’s dressing gown with my hair in a towel and pulled the pages out one by one, putting them on the fire.

As I came to the end of the book, I realized the back cover had a pocket on it. Sticking my hand into the pocket I came away with a cheque for $20,000, written to me. Oh my! What in the world had this delusional old man done? This turned my life on it's head. Did I even know him? Dear ole Dad?

I sat down on the sofa when I had finished and showed John the cheque. "Is this real John?" I asked? "Is this another sick prank?" “Of course it's real.” John said. "Amazing, the things we never know about relatives until they are gone."

I certainly couldn't keep the money, knowing all the awful things the old man had done. I couldn't keep money whose origins were suspicious. I looked at John, as I extended the cheque towards the fire. John nodded, as the flames caught it. It felt symbolic. An ending to the past.