The Doomed Oasis by Hammond; Innes Read Free Book Online Page A

blood-stained handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. “When I got back this afternoon the old man was giving her hell. I could hear it out in the street. He was calling her all sorts of names. I suppose he was drunker than usual. He had that book of press-cuttings in his hand, and when I told him to shut his mouth, he taunted me with being a bastard, said he’d had all he could stand of another man’s whelps. And then he turned on my mother and added: ‘And all I can stand of another man’s whore. After all I’ve done to cover up for you,’ he said, ‘you creep off as soon as I’m out of the house to mope over your lover’s pictures.’ And he flung the book at her. That’s when I went for him.” He paused, staring at me, his eyes overbright. “That book was full of press-cuttings of him—pictures, some of them. I’ve grown up with that book, grown up with the man himself. I know him, know his way of life, everything about him. It’s like I told you—he was a sort of god to me. I wanted to be like him, tough, independent, an adventurer in far places. I tried to get a job as a seaman on ships going out that way from Cardiff docks, but at first I was too young, and then there was the union. I even tried to stow away once. And now I find he’s no more than a rotten, dirty little sham who’d leave a woman to bear her twins alone. I told Ma I’d kill him if I ever laid hands on him. Remember? You were there when I said it.”
    I nodded.
    â€œWell, she believed me. She’s convinced I really will kill him if I ever catch up with him.”
    â€œAnd you didn’t mean what you said—is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
    He walked back to the fire and stood staring at it for a moment. Then he slumped down in the chair again, his body limp. “I don’t know,” he murmured. “Honest, I don’t know. All I do know is that I have to find him.”
    â€œAnd that’s why you came here, to search my office for his address?”
    He nodded. “I knew you’d have it somewhere in your files.”
    â€œWell, I haven’t.” I hesitated. But, after all, the boy had a right to know where his father was. “Will you promise me something? Will you promise me that if you find him, you’ll remember that he’s your father and that blood is something you just can’t rub out with violence?”
    He looked at me and was silent a long time. At length he said: “I can’t promise anything. I don’t know how I’d act.” He was being honest at least. “But I’ll try to remember what you’ve just said.” And then on a sudden, urgent note: “I’ve got to find him. I’ve just got to find him. Please, please try to understand.”
    The need of that kid … It was the thing that had been lacking for him all his life. It was his mother’s need reflected and enlarged. The sins of the fathers … Why in God’s name should a sense of insecurity lead to violence, in people and in races? “All right,” I said. “I accept that.” And I passed on to him what Griffiths had told me. “But then you know the sort of man your father is. Anyway, there it is, he’s still out there. And if you want to contact him, I imagine a letter to the Gulfoman Oilfields Development Company—”
    â€œA letter’s no good. I wrote him already—twice. He never answered.” He looked up at me. “This Captain Griffiths, is his ship the Emerald Isle? She sails regularly to the Persian Gulf.” And when I nodded, he said: “That was the ship I tried to stow away on. I was fourteen then, and a year later I tried to sign on. She’s in port now, is she?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWhen is she sailing?”
    â€œTonight.”
    â€œTonight?” He looked up at me, suddenly eager, like a dog being