Their behaviour was not quite as it should be. I mean in the conventional sense. They weren’t criminals their actions did not bring visits from the police. They did from time to time bring visits from the local midwife. You might ask was that so unusual, they were of the age that such services might be needed.
What was unacceptable and brought the tut-tutting and the gossip were the commencing actions, the initiating and eventually the midwife.
“They would not even know who was the Father.” Became a standard line of gossip.
In this there was some truth, but did this matter. Most children grow up to be the same as everyone around them. Where are the many, those who stand out and are separated from the crowd?
These caveats applied to the gossips and tut-tutters but their cleverness and wisdom raised a challenge.
They had children, but they were replications of themselves. Hard working, god fearing, responsible and totally unnoticeable.
But the local swingers surpassed anything they could manage. This is an understatement that could be multiplied and squared ad infinitum.
One produced a crop of triplets. They were to become well known and eminent Rocket Scientists and this was all three. But this barely raised a ripple. It was Anna that shook the righteous. The infant was a prodigy she created a sound with voice and musical instruments that brought instant acclaim.
There was envy amongst the righteous. Rocket Scientists and a prodigy and their best efforts were dentists.
Had the local swingers found the silver bullet? This was a question that could not be ignored and had they the good, the pure and noble thrown away their youth? It was unsettling, there were persistent doubts. Would they have done better and been a swinger?
But enough of my preamble. This tome is not an attempt to explain a random outcome most of us have evolutionary desires.
What is of interest is to find the father of Anna.
From now on I will call the swingers the group, but no - that attaches a stigma and so I will call them The Friends. They were people who knew each other, were drawn by a common interest and are certainly not deserving of contempt. And let’s face it without them there’d been no Anna and without Anna there would have been much pleasure missed.
The Friends were of the age when the next generation arrives, I e progeny, but because of how they’d lived it was not always known who was the Father.
But this hardly mattered. At school and at the kindergarten no child stood out or was so different and how serious is it if a son is an electrician and not a plumber would this be a worrying disappointment?
And then came Anna and a disturbance of the calm. Anna was the final progeny produced by The Friends. Whether this was coincidence or the result of what followed we will never know and it is certainly a question I will not attempt to answer.
I will suggest there was a collective wisdom. The analogy is the commonsense of a successful lottery winner, there is the treatment of the winnings and equally important the belief that there will never be another win and so no further purchases of lottery tickets and thus it was with The Friends, the conviction there could not possibly be another Anna and so no further children were produced.
But there remained the question who was the Father. Digging and probing revealed it was not the Husband of the Mother. That was unequivocal.
I do not wish to use the F word. A farmer fecks the fields, I.e: scatters seeds for planting. He may not feel like doing it, so it is F the B fields, then there is feckless, but that needs no comment. So instead of the F word I will use ‘Did it’
Anna’s mother and her husband rarely if ever ‘Did it’. I do not mean they abstained, there just did not ‘Do It’ together, there was no shortage of volunteers to oblige, The Friends were always willing participants. But what they did enjoy was watching each other ‘Doing It.’. There was a peephole in their bedroom and very subdued lighting, no opportunity to observe was ever missed.
And so one person is eliminated from the search.
It is possible at this point that the reader may be wondering about the paternity of the Rocket Scientists. That question will be taken out of the equation. There was a strong physical resemblance, I e they looked like the putative Father and tests were further confirmation. The reader can now focus on Anna and the search for Dad.
At first it did not matter. There were no physical resemblances, I e there was nothing to connect Anna to any of The Friends. There was no rush of volunteers to take a paternity test. One of The Friends had produced a brood that became well known to the police. No one wished to claim their paternity and so the matter rested.
Anna’s success changed the status of the family. They thought of moving, but The Friends begged them to stay. They were the ones, unequivocally. They acceded. Deep down they knew life somewhere else would not be the same, an immeasurable something would be gone, the atmosphere could not be transported and so they stayed.
There were rumours of indulgent living, but one in particular rankled and made the Good and the Righteous squirm. Anna’s Father had built a small crate I should correctly say it was built professionally. The service then packed all his tools in it, wrote on the outside R I P to D I Y. hired a helicopter took the crate far out to sea and consigned it to the deep.
This tale I believe was the most damaging. It intensified the envy.
“What did He do to deserve it? He’s not the real Father he had to get someone else to ‘Do It’ with his wife.” Was one sour comment
Many of the Good couldn’t cope. Some had to move away, it was most unsettling. There had been frequent visits to the local library, books on parenting a perpetual request, but there were no explanations to the phenomenon of the Rockets Scientists or Anna.
But the Good had one consolation. The Rocket Scientist’s putative Father was the real Dad.
Unfortunately this did not make the Good the Better. Some of the Good were not good at all but plain downright nasty. But this is not surprising for in the population there are those who are unpleasant and mischievous and they unsurprisingly made it their business to tell Anna that her Father was not in fact her real Father. They wanted to pay her parents back, for what you might ask, what was their sin? The sin was the envy in the bearers of the tale, the malicious gossips.
But they need not have bothered. Anna loved her parents and this is not surprising, no more loveable people could be found.
And this was more agony for the gossips. Their boomerang of poison had come back.
But years later Anna wished to meet her actual Father, the man who’d parked the ‘you know what and where.’
There were intense efforts to track whoever he was down. But who was he? And this was the problem, how can you find someone when you do not know who he is? It would be very difficult most would say it would be impossible. Many years had passed since conception. To remember who’d done who and when so long thereafter is impossible, at least for most, few have a memory for details that remote. One Friend had kept a diary, it was very accurate, but it could not be located.
I believe it was thrown away when the brood that brought the police arrived and this I believe was reasonable. Who after all wants it to be known he’d Fathered crooks? It might not have been the diarist, but I am convinced it was the discreet thing to do, the priority was to keep the peace, we are Friends let it remain so.
Then came the breakthrough.
“It’s Norman.” It was an excited voice on the phone. It was one of The Friends.
Norman repeated Anna’s mother to herself. Who was Norman? It was a mystery she knew no Norman and she wondered what it meant.
There was an instant explanation. The Friend had had a spring clean or more precisely a clean for many seasons. An old photo had been turned up. It was of The Friends. They were all completely undressed, starkers, totally in the bollock, they were all smiling obviously they’d just had a session.
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br /> They were all much younger, the efforts in bed were then more enjoyable, the sensations more intense.
Anna’s mother was holding Norman’s hand. Anna was the image of Norman. It was game set and match, they’d nailed it, they had the Father.
There was no need for scientific tests all they’d do is confirm the equipment worked.
But who was this Norman? He was not one of The Friends, but he was in the photo.
Gradually the memory came back the pieces of the jigsaw were put together.
Norman had made up the numbers for The Friends. One man was missing and Norman had stood in, a drink or two might have helped with the persuading, but was persuasion necessary, we will never know. What we do know is that Norman was there. His wife was a stern woman and certainly would have had nothing to do with The Friends.
Then Norman vanished. There was no explanation. One day he was not there. There was no note, no goodbye, nothing.
Norman had been lucky, he’d bought the right ticket in the lottery he had Meade the Maid in bundles or in more up to date English Lots of Lovely Loot.
This was an opportunity. He told no one and certainly not his wife.
Now was his chance to change his lifestyle. It would become life at a more leisurely pace. If he stayed there’d be no change. His wife would see to that. A bigger house perhaps, a newer car, but more leisure never.
And so he left. He didn’t take much. A few clothes, his tools, he could keep machinery running there was a possibility he might occasionally work. He glanced at the alarm clock that was certainly not going with him.
Gradually he was forgotten. His wife found someone else to take up the slack and eventually it was as if he’d never been there.
And as far as Norman was concerned this was fine.
He became a man of leisure but also peripatetic. How he lived brought questions, he had money but he was supported only by sporadic work and so he would move.
But it was not always so. Sometimes he’d be overrun with requests to keep machinery running, his talent with the tools was soon apparent and he’d vanish to escape the burden.
He did stay in one place for some time. It was the people, they had something, they were very likeable, he led a conventional life, thus no questions and so he stayed. Then came an untimely and unexpected death.
Nothing else changed and yet everything changed, it was never the same, something had gone, an invisible indescribable something. It was hard to say goodbye, but he had to go and thus again he became a man of movement.
Then one day coincidental with the breakthrough someone he knew showed him a cutting from a paper. This person was not a friend or a cobber, but no matter where Norman went he’d turn up. There’d always chat briefly, there were never any questions and there was nothing sinister, but somehow he’d always appear.
The cutting contained a photo of two faces Normans of many years ago and Anna’s. The resemblance was unmistakable.
“Your daughter.” Said the acquaintance.
Norman did not know. He did not know what to say.
The cutting was quite rumpled, it had been cut out some time ago the acquaintance had obviously seen it, cut it out and waited till he saw Norman again.
The acquaintance could see it was a tricky moment for Norman.
“Keep it.” He said.
There was a short farewell and he went.
It was of course the search for Anna’s father. There was a request if seen make contact.
The resemblance could not be denied, but who had he ‘Done It’ with and when.
It haunted Norman. His life had been exemplary, no love affairs, no extra marital relationships, life had enough problems without finding more.
Then after much time he remembered. The Friends, the wild ones he called them, and that one night. But how did they have his photo. He was of course much younger. It was definitely him. And the acquaintance, the man who would always turn up?
Norman would make contact, he would confront the past. It was his daughter, she wished to meet him, he did not wish to disappoint.
And so they met and Anna loved Norman and she still loved her Father.
Norman’s tools were freighted up and consigned to the deep and he lived the leisurely life that was his dream.
And there was a beautiful silence, words cannot describe it, the tongues of the gossips had been hobbled.
But the quest was not quite finished. There remained yet one more turn, was there any music in Anna’s background was there an ancestor with an eponymous talent? This question was easily answered Norman had an old and very battered poster it was of a Grandfather, the lead singer in a rock and roll band. There were now new posters for Norman I e of Anna, but he was still very proud of his Grandfather.
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