Once upon a life

Once upon a life: Anthony Horowitz

"When the doorbell rings at three in the morning, it's never good news."

Those are the words that quite literally changed my life. I vividly remember writing them. I had published about 15 children's books, but with only a limited amount of success, and was seriously thinking of giving them up altogether. My television career, working on shows such as Robin of Sherwood and Poirot, was in much better shape. Who needed children's books anyway? (This was before Harry Potter.) But there had always been this one idea about a teenage spy that had been nudging at my consciousness, and one afternoon I sat down and wrote the first sentence of what was to be Stormbreaker, the opening novel in the Alex Rider series. Since then the books have sold about 12m copies in more than 30 languages, and the truth is that as I looked at that sentence, sitting in my studio in Crouch End, I knew that I had somehow unlocked something and that this would finally be the breakthrough I had been looking for.But actually the sentence is based on a far earlier memory, and it wasn't a doorbell that rang at three o'clock, it was a telephone. I was 21 years old and living in the north London suburb of Stanmore. I knew at once what the phone call meant. It was the hospital ringing to tell us my father had died.
He had been ill a few years before with a virulent and disabling form of cancer that had necessitated his first serious operation. My father, a fastidious and private man, never really came to terms with the medication, the medical apparatus and the dietary rules that now confronted him. And when the cancer returned, he never acknowledged it. The rule in our family was that you ignored illness, or at least downplayed it, and I often wonder if he might not have survived if he had only recognised what was wrong with him and gone back to the doctor sooner.

Anyway, he'd had a second, major operation that had brought a spark of hope which had quickly faded and we all – which is to say my mother, brother, sister and I – knew that the end wasn't far away.

The phone rang. I woke up and as I lay there I felt… nothing. I was aware I should be crying or burying my head in the pillow or emoting in some way, but I was completely numb. I gazed out of the window at the moonlight (just as Alex crosses to the window to see the police car below) and tried to think about the father I had lost.

Mark Horowitz was a man of many contradictions. He was a solicitor and businessman whose business always remained a mystery to me but which may have been on the outer fringes of the law. Why else would he have once asked me to cross London pretending to be a dispatch rider, delivering £150,000 (half a million in today's currency) to an anonymous man in an office in Mayfair? He was enormously cultured, with a love of classical music and a huge library of 19th-century novels which I later inherited. He was kind and generous with his wealth. At the same time he was remote and could be quite cruel. He never believed for a minute I'd make a success out of writing.

He had gone bankrupt some years before – this was when many investment banks collapsed. At the time we had been living in a quite palatial house in extensive grounds which should have been in the countryside but was actually just off the main Uxbridge Road. We had downgraded to a smaller, very ordinary house called Tall Chys. A chy was supposed to be the poetic name for a chimney, but I've never been able to find it in any dictionary. We'd once had five servants. Now we just had a delightful and infuriating housekeeper called Fitzy – she was the model for Sam Stewart in Foyle's War. My father was still doing deals. He was still a rich man. Or so we thought.

At any event, my mother came into my room, as always keeping her emotions under strict control, and we set off for St Thomas's Hospital. An element of farce entered the proceedings, as my brother, who was driving, decided to take a short cut around Belsize Park and somehow we managed to get lost. It didn't matter very much anyway, as my father had died long before we arrived. A nurse came down the corridor with that look that says it all. And still, like Meursault in L'Etranger (a book I had just finished reading) I couldn't connect with what was going on.

The nurse asked us if we would like to see the body. We all went in. I wish I hadn't. I have written dozens of murders for shows such as Midsomer Murders and Poirot. I have seen plenty of actors with their eyes closed, stretched out on the floors of libraries and sitting rooms. But real death is nothing like that. I will never forget the waxy, utterly lifeless thing that was lying on the bed. It wasn't my father at all. Every cell, every pore of his skin, even his hair was dead. And now, 35 years later, it is hard to get past that memory to the man who lived behind it. I don't want anyone to see me when I'm dead.

Stormbreaker starts with a funeral, and much of Alex's bewilderment and displacement was my own. In the Jewish religion you have to bury the dead as quickly as possible, and that same day I set off with an uncle to buy my father's coffin. Uncle David was a large, bullish man and my other vivid memory is watching him argue vociferously about the price of the coffin with an increasingly irate Eastern European undertaker. "You vont mahogany, you pay for mahogany!"

It was a bitterly cold day for a funeral – this was January, I think. Most of my family is buried in a large cemetery near Bushey, but I don't intend to end up there. It's too bleak. Although he had never been religious, my father had decided to have an orthodox funeral. No women were allowed to attend. I can still see my mother, sister and various aunts, all in black, standing arm in arm as we drove away. I had to read out the Kaddish – the Jewish prayer of death – over the grave, but I had long since abandoned my religion and so I had to have the Hebrew words written out in English phonetics and hidden behind the prayer book.

The first letter came a few days later. It was from a bank. "Dear Mrs Horowitz," it began. "Please may we offer you our most sincere condolences." It then went on to raise the awkward matter that the late Mr Horowitz owed the bank £100,000. The next letter came the day after. By the end of the week we had about a dozen and realised all my father's money had disappeared, that he had even cashed in the life-assurance policies, that effectively my mother owed everything she owned.

In the months that followed, she made a few trips to Switzerland in an attempt to find out what had happened to the money – but she was unsuccessful. I remember a black notebook with strange figures and code names: Archduke and Oscar. They were clues that led nowhere. It seemed my father had taken all his money out of one Swiss bank and deposited it in another – and not being aware how ill he was, had failed to mention where it was. It's quite likely that one of his business connections nipped over to Geneva and stole the lot even while we were in Bushey cemetery. I looked them up on the internet, these names I recall from my childhood. One of them was expelled from the stock exchange for premium stripping (he died in 1998). The other is described by the Economist as "a fugitive financier" and is still hiding, now in a wheelchair, in Spain.
anthony horowitz Photograph: Getty Images

I don't think my father was a bad man, all in all. I still have his books, and when I read them I think of him. But it's his death I remember mainly. His life is much further away.

Once upon a life: Anthony Horowitz

Time travelling

One afternoon I was at my parents’ looking at a large framed photo on their bedroom wall. I knew the picture well. It showed a family group, sitting in the back yard of a house. It had the appearance of a Victorian formal photo: furniture and carpets had been dragged out into the yard to create a tableaux. On household chairs sat a family, the father a paterfamilias in suit, waistcoat and Lech Walesa moustache. They all wear formal clothes, but they don’t look uncomfortable. They are all dead now and I never met any of them, but I can recognise myself in their faces and I can see my children in their children. I know, of course, the many descendants of Jeanette and a grand-daughter of Miriam. For the rest, I have no idea. But one thing I do know is where this photo was taken.
Anticipating a day when my father would no longer be there to tell me who these familiar yet mysterious people are, I carefully made a schema on the back of the picture and marked out who they all were. Sitting proud amid their five children are Rachel and Herschel Pope. The year is about nineteen-fifteen and these two had both immigrated to South Africa from Lithuania as children in the previous century. This was not unusual. For some historical reason most Lithuanian Jews went not to America or England, but to South Africa, leading to a thriving community that eventually provided some of the leading lights of the independence movement. Rachel and Herschel’s five children are, from the left: Jeanette, Eli, Bella, Jack and Miriam. Jeanette is my grandmother.
My grandmother, Jeanette, married and had four boys by the early thirties. She also had a single daughter who died in infancy. My father was her oldest son. They’re all dead now, but he was the last to die. The first to be born, he arrived out in the bush where his parents were running a hospital, and he outlasted all his brothers. It was said this was because his mother fed him on mealy maize porridge for the first years of his life. I’ve read that what you eat in the first year of your life affects how long you will live, so maybe that’s true.
So I was looking at this photo and drawing a little plan on the back and writing in names of everyone and I asked, so where was this house. Because the yard was so easy to overlook, such an anonymous space. And he said, that was the back yard of my grandfather Herschel’s house. Herschel is the one who looks to me like Lech Walesa, the Polish leader of Solidarity back in the day. He’s sitting like a Victorian patriarch, but I think he was actually a bit of a softie. They lived right next to the rugby stadium. Straib Street. My grandfather owned and ran three shops on this street, he said.
I immediately wanted to look up the street on the internet, on Google Maps. I’ve never been to Johannesburg, I’ve never been to South Africa. When I was younger my family often went, but I always missed out, either because I was away travelling or because I was boycotting the regime and my family by association. I was a bit purist. Not only had I never been there, but Johannesburg, the South Africa of my father’s childhood, was to me a historic dream. I knew a lot about it, I’d seen a lot of photos of his family, but I didn’t consider it to still exist. I’d never actually wondered about where he lived as a child, where he grew up, where he’d gone to school.
To me, the world was sundered by the Nazi period, and although my father’s family were luckily safe and far away from the European horrors, I didn’t consider that anything from before the war could have remained just as it was, especially when it pertained to Jews. My father was born in nineteen-twenty. He had his barmitzvah in nineteen thirty-three, just as the Nuremberg laws were being passed. I saw a terrible symmetry in his life. He joined the army as a nineteen year old and served in Africa until late in the war when he was discharged. After the war he came to England just as the Nationalists came to power in South Africa and instituted apartheid. He had been a communist as a youth and I imagined that he was a target for both Nazis and the apartheid regime. I constructed an image of him as a holocaust survivor, not because he’d been there but because he’d been alive and a Jew. As I told myself, there are not many Lithuanian Jews born in nineteen-twenty who are still alive. Not many.
So that day, when he told me the address of his grandfather’s house, it was like a small crack opened in history and let me take a look in. I immediately went and put the address into Google Earth and in the satellite view that popped up in an instant there was the street, with no houses still standing, but right next to it the national rugby stadium. I took the laptop through to dad and showed it to him. Yes, he said, unfazed, we could see the rugby stadium, it loomed over the house and cast it into shadow. Then he looked at the map again for a while. ‘We lived up there,’ he said, jabbing at the screen with his finger to the north of the rugby stadium. I scrolled up and he guided me until we found his street. He pointed to houses, that one, no, that one. Yes. That’s our house.
I was astounded. I’d never considered that the house he grew up in might still be there. It wasn’t that I didn’t think it would be there, rather that it had never entered my head. I know nothing much about that part of his life, although there are quite a few pictures of him and his brothers in a large garden. The Google satellite image showed a typical urban city landscape: plenty of large houses with their own gardens. I was thinking about the house, but Dad was already off around the block. That’s where Ruby did his apprenticeship. Ruby was one of his brothers, a chemist with his own shops. Or was it a chain of shops. What did I know about this family? And that’s my school, over there. I scrolled sideways. And we used to walk up and down this road to visit my grandparents at weekends.
We were suddenly back in nineteen-thirties Johannesburg, a calm ordered world, privileged, but before apartheid. Before the holocaust. Before the war and his move to London and the part of his life that I was part of. We scanned the streets and he pointed out landmarks that he could remember. After a while he tired of taking me for a walk around his childhood town. I realised that Google maps is a time machine, that if they retained each change of satellite imagery we would be able to peel back the years, to travel back to earlier incarnations of towns and cities. Of course, the Johannesburg we looked at that day wasn’t the same Johannesburg he grew up in. The road he walked down to visit the grandparents had turned into as sunken multi-lane carriageway. But it was close enough. I’d done something I never anticipated. I’d seen where my dad grew up with him by my side and it’s something I’ll never forget. I wrote the address of his grandparents house carefully on the back of the picture. Now I can go back there any time.

Lighting a candle for Dad

It's the anniversary of Dad's death, three years to the day. I say 'to the day' but there's some uncertainty about which day is the actual anniversary. The death certificate says 24 December 2007 as that was the day that the police went into Dad's house and found him but it was the evening of the previous day that Dad wasn't answering the phone when my brother called him. In my mind it's always the 23rd.

At lunchtime on the 23rd I located via Google a catholic church near my work and printed a map. Seeing that it was on the way to Shepherd's Bush market, the home of Mr Falafel, I arrange lunch with my friend Karen who first took me to Mr Falafel. On the instant message I explain that we need to stop off at a Catholic church on the way. "You are kidding, right?"

10 minutes later we're outside the Our Lady of Fatima. It looks closed. Karen tries one of the three shut doors. The handle turns but the door doesn't open. I say "Let me try".

We both try all the doors and while I'm deciding what to do next a small shrunken lady with a moustache who I thought was just walking past asks me if I'd like to see the priest. I realise she's something to do with the church and I say no, I'd like to light some candles. She shakes her head and makes her way to the house behind the church. If I'm in need of spiritual guidance I can see a priest but I can't light candles.

The falafel is delicious. I had the falafel wrap with makdoos - a pickled aubergine - with extra hot chilli. It's sour and spicy but I'm talking too much about Dad and it gets cold and I can't finish it.It's just before Christmas and the place is filled with one group of smiling office workers. They all go to pay at the till at the same time while Karen is trying to get our Mr Falafel loyalty cards stamped.

After work that evening I'm due to meet my wife in Highbury for dinner so I find a Catholic church up that way. I look at the map and realise I would have walked past it without noticing on the way to the 277 bus stop from the old Arsenal ground with my friend Cathy, a gooner ticket season holder. This time I call the church and after a short while an Irish sounding man answers. This is more like it I think. I resist the urge to call him Father - he hasn't said he's a priest. He might be an actor or a comedian who's visiting.

I explain why I need to visit the church and he agrees to open the church at 5.45. It can't be any later as he has people coming over that evening. I  imagine him and his friends drinking sherry as they prepare for Our Saviour's birthday.

An hour later I'm outside the church. I'm early. The lights outside the church are on but before I go in I take a picture of the church. As Dad isn't here it feels like I'm doing it so I can show it to him later. Stupid and absurd. Death does strange things to you. I also take a picture of the priest's parking space for no reason except that I find it funny.

I've been watching old episodes of Father Ted on TV in the days leading up to the anniversary. I now realise that it's by way of preparing myself for this moment. I've also thought about what I'd say if the priest asks why I wanted to light candles two days before Christmas. Again the answer's absurd: if Dad we're alive he'd have appreciated it. I don't believe in life after death: people live on only in our memories.

Inside, the church is mostly dark and empty but there's a group of people in one of the side chapels on the other side of a glass door. There's a black man in a long white robe. I don't think he's the man I spoke to but I might be wrong. I find the candles in another chapel and although there's none lit on the stand there's a lit votive candle at the feet of Jesus. I guess that's there to light the others from.

I look in my purse. There's some change including a pound coin and a five pound note. I think I'd imagined putting a few quid in. Then I think don't be so mean and I fold the note to slip it into the slot of the metal tin.

I worry it won't fall down and the priest won't find it when he empties it and he'll think I didn't leave anything. I wrap the five pound note around one of the coins to weigh it down and push it into the slot. If I believed in god then it wouldn't have mattered about the money - he would have known how much I'd left.

I choose five candles: three with red surrounds and two blue. One for each of his children and one for his wife. Do you only light candles for people or can you light them from people? Maybe I'm lighting them for those left behind. For them from him - because  he can't anymore. The lit votive candle has burnt down making it hard to reach the burning wick. I grip the plastic case of my first candle tightly and push the unlit wick towards the flame thinking it'll just reach. Then the candle I'm holding falls out from its plastic sleeve onto the light one immediatly extinguishing the flame. It feels like the chapel has gone dark. I have the splashes of wax on my fingers. I look around the alter and the shelves where the candles sit. There aren't any matches anywhere.

The man in the white robe is walking by the alcove and I say hello. I ask him if he has a light. He doesn't say anything and in the gloom I'm not sure if he's looking at me. He's facing me but I don't know if he's looking at me as his eyes point is different directions - the opposite of cross-eyed but I don't know what it's called.

He says to wait a minute and walks way in the darkness. I wait and think about dad. He doesn't return so I walk up the aisle of the church towards the alter. The man in the robe is there looking behind the candles and shaking his head. He smiles resignedly and I say don't worry I'll ask at the house where I imagine the man who answered the phone, who may be the man who's car is parked in the space marked "PRIEST" is waiting for me as it's now 5.45pm.

There's a sign of the door telling people where to leave parcels if there's no answer. There's a sign that says Father Gerard something or other. I'd forgotten priests have surnames - I never knew the surname of the priest who instructed me for my First Holy Communion. I ring the bell and a man in black answers and we look at each other in recognition. I like him as he doesn't look at me in the way I would have if I was opening my church for someone to light candles two days before Christmas. Pityingly or sensitively. He's not interested in hearing about my troubles. I tell him I extinguished the light and he laughs and says there should be matches there. I tell him I couldn't find them, he says that they're by the light switch. It seems obvious now. We go in the chapel. He turns on the light and hands me the matches and asks me to turn the light off when I'm done. He turns to go and almost as an afterthought points at the metal container with a slot and says "Put your pennies in there." I look at where he's pointing and I want to tell him I put five pounds in there but all I say is that I already have.

I line up the candles, alternating the blue and red casings and light them all with the same match. I imagine them as the five of us and I take some more pictures. I find myself not wanting to leave. I don't believe in god but this is a nice place to think aboutdDad. And if he were alive I think he would have appreciated it even though he would never have admitted it.

Discharge papers

My dad was discharged from the South African Defence Force. He served in East Africa, Abyssinia and the Middle East. He was in Palestine - I've got a picture of him that he sent home on which he's written 'Guarding the Artesian Wells in Palestine'.
He joined the army when he was 19 and left in 1943 'medically unfit'. I've no idea what that meant, though he did have malaria in Africa.
He was already listing himself as a journalist.

Letters from Beaverbrook

My dad worked for Beaverbrook.

A life in ID cards

Passports