Ian Browne's Bayeux Adventure

CHAPTER ONE

I’m Ian Browne, thirteen years of age. I look younger because I’m still quite short and haven’t had a growth spurt in a while. I live on a housing estate in West London. Well actually, Brentford, just across from the football ground. My dad Steve is a huge fan. I support Arsenal, which annoys him immensely. He says they are and always will be boring Arsenal, he also uses the other word for bum (arse) quite a bit to describe them which my mum Linda doesn’t like because her father was a swearer, and she doesn’t want me ending up the same. Mum is depressed for many reasons, but more of that later. I also have a brother called Marty who’s seventeen or rather was the last time I saw him. All I know is that he left home on the 1st of November 2016 to meet his friend and never came back, which annoyed me at the time because he’d promised to get me some football cards (I nearly have the 2015-16 season book complete).

Things quickly spiralled out of control when Marty didn’t return that evening.

‘I’ll call Billy’s Dad,’ Mum had insisted scrolling through her contacts and then manically pacing up and down as she waited for someone to answer.

She’d turned deathly white. Marty hadn’t turned up at all.

‘He’s in trouble; I know it! I think he may be gone forever!’ (Mum can be quite dramatic at times).

‘I’ll find him, Linda, I promise; he’s probably down by the river; it’s where they all hang out now.’

My dad always the optimist already had his jacket on and was heading out the door.

‘By the Waterman’s Art Centre,’ I called after him desperately wanting to get in on the act as my dad repeated again that he’d find him.

For the next few days Dad said pretty much the same thing.

Leaving countless text messages on Marty’s phone which were never answered only made matters worse. Mum kept saying the police will never find her little boy and that she just knew it. The Missing Persons Liaison Officer Ms Simpson said that the circumstances of his disappearance weren’t suspicious and that he’ll probably turn up. A day later there was a message on the answering machine from Marty saying that he was safe and not to worry; that he was just finding himself and he’d be home soon. Although brief it did allay their fears a little.

The crying happened mainly at night after I had gone to bed when I’d hear them discussing Marty’s disappearance. My mother would become hysterical, then Dad would shout in desperation at Marty being gone, as Mum kept saying he would end up dead, which upset my father even more - eventually slamming the door behind him and going to his shed at the end of the garden where he’d blast out his Rolling Stone records and drink beer.

‘Your brother will be back,’ Dad kept reassuring me, although I wasn’t that concerned because I knew that Marty could always look after himself. I’d seen him so many times taking on the bullies at school. He always came out on top. It was why nobody ever touched his little brother which was handy because I was a natural victim.

Dad always used to joke in a nice way that I had the ‘full package.’ He did this to make me feel like someone he referred to as The Six Million Dollar Man - meaning the hearing aid and the glasses, saying that I had a bionic sensory system. Try telling that to Kyle Mason, the biggest, meanest, most ignorant boy in my class, Dad. I wanted to tell him that I didn’t possess super-human powers and that without superhero strength I had little chance. Kyle was naturally delighted that Marty was off the radar. For now, he only said horrible things and made loud claps behind me. Perhaps my nan was right when she said that I should have gone to a school for people with disabilities? Dad was very annoyed that she’d mentioned it in front of me. Mum had called her an ‘insensitive old cow’ (so much for the swearing). We rarely see her now.

‘Come on Ian, on your head, that’s it, son, nutmeg him.’

That’s why I love my dad. Even though I was on the C team at school for football, the one referred to by everyone as The Specials: the ones who like me find it hard to even get into their football boots without falling over, it was always like he was cheering on Olivier Giroud (my favourite Arsenal player). He’s good like that, even when Marty played for the Brentford under sixteens, he gave equal support to my brother, me, and The Specials.

‘Your dad’s a good one,’ Mum would say, followed by a gloomy ‘unlike me.’

She hadn’t always been depressed. In fact, she’d been a keen dancer, taking Marty and me to local discos with her. ‘Mum discos,’ she would say, swinging us around the dance floor. I didn’t really like going because of my ears, but I used to take my hearing aid out and hide it in my pocket.

Whether Mum hid her feelings from us back then, I don’t know, only that things just seemed to crash one Christmas, long before Marty went AWOL. It was like one day she was there and the next another mum had appeared. Of course, there were lengthy night-time discussions, raised and hushed voices - something was amiss. They were clearly being secretive.

‘Parents are odd,’ Marty had once said, ‘we’ll probably be the same when we grow up,’ he’d laughed. I guess it was his way of making excuses for her.

‘Things aren’t always straightforward as you get older, lads,’ my dad had explained when suddenly he’d started doing more than his usual share of cooking, washing, and clearing up.

Weeks later, the missing posters in town were torn and ripped. They were never replaced. The only good thing was that there were no more stories in the local newspaper. ‘Maybe as Marty says: he’s just finding himself,’ my dad would say. This seemed to be his new line of reasoning, one with which he could at least live.

Mum on the other hand had just clammed up completely. No one knew for sure what she was thinking. She never mentioned Marty’s disappearance again. I guess that was her way of dealing with loss.

As for me: well, I’m only thirteen; the days are still long, and I have things to do. I know teenagers can be a little selfish (it’s almost expected of them). As my dad says: ‘I have my life to be getting on with.’ He’s right of course. As for Marty, I guess in my own childish way I know this is not the end and I will see my brother again.