Chapter 9: Jen Gets Gen

Tommy’s visitors had all departed, his mother the most reluctant of all to have to go, before he had another returnee. This time it was Helen Bister.

“Hey, Tommy, how did today go with meeting your Mum?”

“Hi, Helen, I really missed you and your Mum today.” Tommy’s face was flushed bright as he looked up from the photo album.

“Yes, I popped in this afternoon, after putting my paper in at college. You know, the staff here seem to think Mum ‘n’ Me are part of the consulting staff!” she laughed, “But you still had a roomful of family with you, so I, you know, thought I’d leave you to it.”

“Well, you are very welcome to come in and see me any time, you and Sharon are among my favourite people right now. Your Mum was at work over the weekend, wasn’t she?”

“Yes, dawn to dusk Saturdays and Sundays, well almost, at the moment,” Helen answered, “Nothing’s shifting in this economic climate, with Christmas coming up, so they can’t afford to miss a single potential client. Plays havoc with Sunday lunch each week though, I have to leave everything on a low gas and kept my fingers crossed it’s still edible when she gets home. Mum spends today getting the washing and housework done and she will take her turn to cook tonight’s dinner. Although I rather suspected she might play truant today and come up here anyway, but I didn’t see her.”

“No, I didn’t either,” Tommy said.

“When you are up and about, Tommy, you’ll have to come over to our place for a meal,” Helen invited, “Mum’s a marvel in the kitchen. She often cooks in the show kitchens, too; she says filling the house with baking sells houses like hot cakes! We could invite your Mum over, too.”

Tommy laughed, holding onto his ribs, “Yeah, that sounds like fun, but what makes me think that you three girls’ll gang up on me?”

“Of course we will?” laughed Helen.

“So, you always lived at home?”

“Lord no, I left at 18, off to college, then set up house with a boyfriend. We rented a flat for a while...” Helen paused, collecting her thoughts.

“Didn’t work out?” Tommy asked gently.

“No it didn’t,” Helen smiled at him, she could tell Tommy anything, he was so nice. “Big time mistake on my part. He was lazy and abusive, not violent, but continually sniping away at my self-esteem, nothing I did was ever good enough.”

“So you left him?”

“No,” she suddenly laughed, “No, he left me! All the while he was sneaking around on me and I didn’t have a clue. I got home from work and he’d cleared out the flat, emptied the bank account and disappeared.”

“What a rat!”

“Absolutely,” Helen agreed. “Mum was going through the divorce then. Dad had started a new family, baby on the way and so the house was sold and split between them. I took up half the mortgage, so Mum could get a place to live, then I moved in with her.”

“And now you’re back at college?”

“Yes, doing a masters degree in marketing. If I can’t get a good man I reckon I better get a career.”

“Oh, you’ll get a good man all right, don’t give up yet. You are beautiful, smart, and, if these last few days are anything to go by, you are a catch. If only I was thirty years younger!”

Helen grinned back at him and winked, then noticed the albums, “Are these your family snaps?”

“Yeah, come have a look. This is me when I was a kid-”

“Aww, you looked so cute with all that blond hair!”

“Yeah, where did it all go in the last 30 years?” he grinned ruefully, running his hand through his grey stubble and wincing when his hand reached his stitches.

“That your Mum and Dad?” Helen pointed to a faded snap of a couple with a blond toddler on a seafront promenade.

Tommy nodded, “Yeah he died three years ago, of a stroke.”

“Oh, I’m sorry Tommy,” Helen squeezed his hand gently, “I assumed the man I saw with your Mum was your Dad.”

“No, he’s one of the detectives, who is retired. He was involved in my original missing person case years ago, I think,” Tommy replied thoughtfully, “Actually, I’m not sure, he may have looked into it later. Anyway, after I’d disappeared he had become a family friend, Mum used to babysit for his son - that was the other detective; I think he’s a Chief something or other now. High up in the Nottingham police force anyway. I think Rachel was pretty impressed by him.”

“Really?” Helen raised her eyebrows, “The ‘Ice Maiden’ melting at last was she?”

“She’s not so bad you know,” Tommy laughed, “And Mike, the other detective, was really relaxed and friendly all round, which set a nice tone for their visit.”

“Well, she really likes you,” Helen commented with a knowing smile, “You know.”

“What? Rachel? No,” shaking his head, “I’m old and ugly, well past my prime. I look like a panda that even the World Wildlife Fund wouldn’t look at twice in a hurry. That Rachel’s a young bundle of energy.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Tommy, you should know that you’re hot to trot!” Helen laughed, “And my Mum thinks so too!”

“Hot to trot?” Tommy queried, “What’s that mean?”

“Hot stuff!” she giggled, “Why not? You are very fit, most guys your age have let themselves go completely. You’re funny, charming, polite and a real live hero to boot. What’s not to like?”

“Well, when you put it like that,” Tommy breathed on his fingernails and rubbed them on his chest, “I suppose I must be!”

They both laughed.

Tommy’s final visitor of the afternoon was Rachel, returning from Buxton, where she had interviewed his wife. Tommy wasn’t really sure he wanted to hear what she had to say. Also, Rachel didn’t look that cheerful.

“Hello, Rachel, nice to see you again. Well, what’s the verdict? Am I a happily married man or not?”

“Do you want the honest truth, Tommy?”

“Oh, I’m still Tommy, then, am I?”

“You having doubts, any memories coming back?”

“Only in my dreams, Rach, only my dreams, most of which I can’t make head nor tail of. More like nightmares really, flashing lights, me rolling about, hitting trees, hurting my head and body, oh, and a graveyard with gravestones in a grey dawn. Where did that come from? Nothing concrete that I can get a firm grip on. Maybe they are clips from old movies? Who knows what’s going on in this head of mine?”

“It’ll come, perhaps you’re trying too hard, Tommy.”

“Yeah, maybe. We was talking about it this afternoon, trying to sort out what I can remember. Mike and Ralph were very interested in the details of Helen finding me. Oh, by the way, I’m seeing Marcia Knight tonight. Hopefully I can find out from her what her daughter had to say about what happened when I turned up.”

“You must have turned up like the Seventh Cavalry,” Rachel laughed, “Marcia probably thinks you are the second coming, while Hannah probably hasn’t really taken on board exactly what the consequences could have been if you hadn’t turned up at exactly the time when you did. It hasn’t seemed to have affected her much,” Rachel shook her head, “The confidence of youth. Hannah told me she still goes out running as if nothing serious had ever happened. If it was me I wouldn’t go out again unless I had an army with me.”

“Or me,” Tommy looked up smiling.

“Or you,” Rachel laughed, “Once your ribs mend properly, anyway. When did the Doc say you could start running again?”

“In a couple of weeks’ time. Assuming I get my jogging clothes back from your lot, Ben told me the uniform police who were here that first night took them away for evidence.”

“We took them for forensic testing, for any fibres which could have come off your attackers’ togs. At the time, Tommy, we were thinking the worst; that it might end up a murder enquiry and we needed every clue to the identity of whoever it was beat you up that we could find,” Rachel had lowered her voice at this point, “Fortunately, you were made of stronger stuff, and Hannah filled in the rest of the evidence for us. We’ve got one matey locked up bang to rights, while the other one thinks he’s got away with it for the moment, but we’ll get him sooner or later.”

“Anyway, Rach, I notice you have skilfully changed the subject away from the state of my marriage.”

“I did, didn’t I?” Rachel replied, quietly, sitting herself down on the edge of the bed. “OK, as a copper, I have got used to assessing what people are telling me, and your wife gives every indication that she is lying to me.”

“Damn, the Doc says I can go ‘home’ in a couple of days. That sounds like it is not going to be much fun living with my brand-new ever loving. If she’s lying to you, what will she be saying to me? I can’t go to Mum’s, she’s in a sort of old peoples’ home, one with their own little flats. Also a trick cyclist who came around with the Doc spoke to me this morning and suggested that me going home would do me a world of good. Being at home, surrounded by once-familiar things and people, should help me get my memories back.”

“That sounds promising, Tommy.”

“It does, but now I’m not sure that I actually want them memories back. I’m happy with what I have, to be honest. Did my wife explain why I was missing for nearly a week before she bothered to get around to reporting me missing?”