Dear Fatty

by Dawn French

  Dear Dad,

  I KNEW YOU were ill. I knew that. I didn’t know how ill. It turns out you and Mum were very clever at concealing any trouble from Gary and me. We have spoken about it, he and I, trying to think back and work out if we’d ever noticed anything amiss while we were growing up. Here’s what I know: I know you suffered dreadfully with migraines and often had to lie in a quiet dark room until you could see properly again, or until the punishing headaches and sickness had abated. I know that leaving the RAF and rejoining civvy street was extremely stressful for you. You’d been in the air force since you were a teenager, and forces life is so singularly regimented and controlled. You knew exactly what was expected of you there. You knew your projected career path and all its opportunities for promotion. Civilian life was full of uncertainties and responsibilities you weren’t used to. I think, as well, that you missed the camaraderie of the air force.

  As the eldest son, you were expected to take over from Grandad at the newsagent in Ernesettle. I don’t know if you ever really wanted to; it didn’t occur to me to ask you. I know you adopted some more forward-thinking procedures in your running of the business, possibly changes that didn’t pan out quite the way you might have hoped. I know the constant barracking from customers about late papers (not your fault – there were endless train strikes back then) was difficult for you. You were used to being in charge in the air force, where your men didn’t answer back, where the only barracking came from higher ranks whose job it was to command you. Here you were, being taken to task over situations you could not affect or control. It seems that you spent a great deal of time and effort trying to implement standards of fairness and motivation among your staff and the paper boys, which of course in the RAF had been routine, taken care of and expected. But when you work for yourself the buck always stops with you, and only you. On top of this, you had the shadow of Grandad at your shoulder with whom this business had been so clearly identified, for so long. Everyone in Ernesettle knew him, they called him ‘Father’, and his stamp on that shop was indisputable. You were the new blood. Gentler and quieter. Traits that are often mistaken for weakness in business. I think it was difficult for you to pick up the baton and very difficult for him to relinquish it.

  The grinding erosion of your energy, working those slavishly long hours, was evident. You aged a lot in a relatively short time. I remember you regularly leaving the house at around four in the morning and not returning until nine or ten at night. It didn’t help that, for a large chunk of your time at the shop, we lived 40 miles away in Cornwall and the long drive back and forth was wearing. On days when the whole family made the journey, say a Monday morning, the rest of us would sleep through the trip in sleeping bags on the floor in the back of the van, while you fought your exhaustion to stay awake and get us all there safely. That part of the stress was lessened when we moved to Old Ferry Road, in Saltash, closer to Plymouth, but the work hours were still ludicrously long.

  There were issues with debt too. When you left the RAF you assumed the entire costs of the school fees and mortgage, which I know were beyond our means. I also know that, despite the money problems inside our own family, you were supporting other people, specifically your brother-in-law who needed help with his own newsagent’s in Devonport. I know that after a lot of agonising you eventually sold the Ernesettle shop, which must have been difficult for lots of reasons, and I know you started a business breeding rabbits! Why or how I don’t know, because I was in the States when most of this change took place. As always, I knew very little of the difficulties for two reasons: you were skilled at hiding them, and I was far too wrapped up in my own exciting world, utterly ignorant of any signs of your depression, which, I’m sure, is just as you would have wished.

  Mum knew the financial situation was bad and had taken steps to avert a crisis. Mum is a problem solver, and made of strong stuff. You know that, you married her. Much as she would hate to admit it, I do think that when it comes to survival she is a chip off the old Grandma Lil block. Unlike Lil though, she would do anything to protect her nest and everything in it. When money was tight, Mum knew she had to find something other than the shop to sustain us. So, ever-resourceful, she did a bit of research and took herself off on a course to train to become a ‘canine beautician’. For a woman whose skill-base was in bookkeeping, this might have seemed a surprising choice. Not really. She loved and understood dogs, she was a hard worker, she was prepared to learn and she knew there was a gap in the market. While Mum was on her course to learn this bizarre trade, I remember you, Dad, locating and procuring a shop on Market Street in Plymouth – I think it was an ‘adult’ shop when you leased it – and turned it into ‘Felicity’s Pet Parlour’. Porn to poodles in one fell swoop! I remember how bloody furious Mum was when she found out what name you had registered it under. Felicity is her proper, Christian name but she absolutely hates it. She hates how pretentiously posh she thinks it sounds and how much it doesn’t suit her. She says it was an act of sadism by Lil. She hates it. So, of course we have always teased her by using it and for you to put the parlour in that name was a great gag, though perhaps a step too far. Phenomenal courage on your part there.

  Once she recovered from the Felicity horror, she set about making the shop a success. Downstairs was a pet shop, selling all kinds of pet supplies; from the necessary, like food, to the novelty, like jewel-studded collars and leads for the more barking of the pooches and their owners. There was cat-wormer and budgie seed and flea powder and pigs’ ears and, of course, there was the livestock. We had parrots, some fish, occasional kittens, but mostly small rodents like gerbils and hamsters. I remember working in the shop in the holidays with Nicky or Nikki and having to sex the hamsters. Not have sex with them, that would just be silly and complicated, but rather, decide which gender they were when they were chosen by customers. Some little kids would spend all day choosing, with their noses pressed up against the cages, then rejecting, then rechoosing the perfect rodent chum. Of course, even though Mum had shown us how to do it (it seemed like it was the difference of one small flap of skin. Just like humans, really), we often did it wrong and sold Hattie Hamster to a little boy who called her Thor or Steve Austin or Hercules or Stan.

  Upstairs, Mum had her parlour. ‘Parlour’ conjures up images of poofy striped pink chairs and beehive hairdos, ruched curtains and fluffy handbag dogs. It wasn’t like that at all, was it? There was a row of kennels, some big sinks and a central table where the drying and snipping took place. It was hot and smelly, and dangerous. Dogs generally don’t enjoy this process, so they try to kill you lest you dare to apply shampoo. I think they find it vaguely humiliating to stand in a sink, looking drenched and bedraggled. When they’re not wet, they are convinced their coats make them look big and tough, especially the chippy little ones, but when the water reveals their ratty scraggyness, all bravado and self-esteem swirl down the plug’ole along with the dirty doggy water. They become shivering wrecks trembling in fear of the imminent torture that is the dreaded hairdryer, and the worse torture that is the mockery they must endure when their doggy homies rib them about their visit to Felicity’s.

  Mum had so many dodgy moments in that place. On the whole, she loved the dogs and would give them all a chance not to bite her, but if they persisted in objecting she would have to muzzle them to get the job done. Only loose muzzles of course, the kind greyhounds wear before the race that make them look like famished Hannibal Lecters. She had little poodles who needed new pompoms to show off, and big English sheepdogs who hadn’t been brushed in years and had maggots growing in their matted hair. She had airhead Afghan hounds who were so snooty they couldn’t look her in the eye, and feisty little Westies who looked like skirted clouds as they trotted out giving her a beady sideways glance and a snuffle with the triangle of black dots that was their eyes and nose. She dealt with droolers and farters and nibblers and panic wee-ers. And that was just the staff! Once, a big black poodle got his head stuck in between the
bars of the kennel and the fire brigade had to come and saw him out while the owner waited, unaware, downstairs. Not only was he a poodle, he was called Bunty and he’d got his head stuck at Felicity’s. Quite a dollop of cringing canine shame to deal with, poor mutt. I remember some old dogs simply found the whole experience too overwhelming and would faint. Or, even worse, die! Mum was known to have administered mouth-to-mouth on more than one occasion to resuscitate a pooch that had passed. After all, there’s no tinkle in the till if the dog is delivered back in a carrier bag stiff and cold. She would proudly hand the panting, resurrected creature back to its grateful owner, having kissed it back from the brink of death five minutes before.

  Mum took all comers, from cheeky Heinz 57 variety mongrels to aloof pedigrees, and endeavoured to send them out perky and clean. Our own dogs, a couple of dirty-grey West Highlands, looked on with great amusement. As is so often the case in any trade, they were the last to be plonked in the sink, too much of a busman’s holiday. Sometimes Christmas would warrant a spruce-up, if they were unlucky.

  I remember how tired Mum was after a day of such labour-intensive work. I remember how hot and dirty she used to get, how the dog hairs would stick into her pores – she said they felt like a thousand tiny jabbing needles – and how they would sometimes get infected, just like the endless bites she sustained. She was constantly boosting her tetanus levels, in order to give the dogs another chance. And in order to give us another chance. This second income was crucial at this time, so she had to make her business pay.

  I expect it didn’t help your self-respect to realise that, conversely, things were sinking your end. Nobody in our family would have echoed that feeling but you were an old-fashioned man, believing that the head of the household, the man, ought to be the one bringing home the bacon. I see now that must have been hard for you but I also see that everyone was just trying to do what they could to get by.

  I have written fondly in my diary about a time, before I went away to the States, when I was off school for a couple of weeks and so I could be at home with you. Mum had to keep working, Gary was away at uni, and it was obviously deemed necessary for someone to be with you, watching you, watching over you. Did people fear then that you might take drastic action? I write that you’d had a nervous breakdown and were feeling ‘poorly’. You were in bed for a few days but then I write that you are up and about, laying a floor in our bathroom and we are laughing a lot together, drinking coffee in the garden. I like to think that I was unknowingly part of your recovery on that occasion, maybe serving to remind you how much your family loved you.

  Then I went away for the year in America, where we all kept in touch by letters and phone calls. I came back to find you bearded and gaunt. There’s no doubt that you had a haunted look about you. You told me things were a bit rough with work but that it would all be OK and not to worry. Despite my concern for you, it was difficult to be anything other than euphoric on my return home. I’d had an amazing year in the States but I was ready to be back with you, with my family, and you made it clear you were so happy to have me home. On the long drive back to the West Country from Heathrow, we babbled on, hardly stopping to draw breath, catching up on all the stories, all the gossip. Yes, we had spoken on the phone while I was away, but only in that ‘well, I won’t keep you, it must be costing a fortune’ sort of way that we all did then, ever-fearful of the costs – and of the phone itself for some reason! Of course, I was now a ‘fiancée’. You hadn’t laid eyes on me since I had become a ‘fiancée’. I fancied that I looked entirely different, more mature and desired and mysteriously unattainable. No, you assured me, I just looked more American. Back in Saltash, I made contact with all my pals and family, rushing about recounting details of my exchange-year experience, boring them all with tons of photos. David was due back from a long trip on his ship and I was beside myself with excitement to see him. You liked him, I think, yes? Obviously it took a bit of time to get used to the idea that I was dating someone in the NAVY, but you knew he was decent and that he looked after me. I imagine the handover from dads to son-in-laws is always a bit fraught, but overall I think you approved.

  I can’t remember much about this period except that I was so happy to be home. I knew that you had a horrible bout of piles, which had been a regular ailment, and that, to avoid waking Mum in the night, you were sleeping on the sofa or in the spare room. You’d long suffered with this affliction, but I could see that this time, more than before, it was difficult for you to move about easily, and that you were tired from lack of sleep. I didn’t know that this discomfort was just the tip of the iceberg, that underneath, inside, you were in hell.

  On 10 September 1977, I waltzed off with a casual farewell to you and Mum. I was going to stay with David at the home of a friend of his and the friend’s wife who lived in navy quarters in Devonport. It was one of those nights where I was playing at being a grown-up. Let’s have dinner with our grown-up married friends and stay in their grown-up married house and sleep in the same bed as if we were grown-up and married, for soon, my love, we shall be grown-up and married. Well, I grew up fast the next day.

  How did it start? Was there a phone call? I can’t remember, but suddenly, early in the morning, David and I were dressing hurriedly and racing back to Saltash in his car. When I arrived home, Mum was sitting, ashen-faced. Gary looked like it was raining inside him, grim and beaten. Oh God. What? Where’s Dad? What’s happened? Who told me? Mum, I think. Yes. It was Mum, because she said you had been suffering badly all day, and that last thing you went upstairs together, with quite a struggle due to your discomfort. You kissed her goodnight. You told her you loved her. You shuffled out to the other room. So as not to disturb her sleep.

  When she woke the next morning, she said she had a strong sense of disconnection immediately. Something felt wrong. She called out to you and there was no answer. Then there was a panicky frantic bit where she and Gary searched for you, shouted for you in the garden. The car was missing. I don’t know how or why he looked there, but Gary drove, on his motorbike I think, up to the field where you kept some of the rabbits near Pillaton. He found you. God. That must have been dire, sickening. You had planned it. A hose on the exhaust, fitted carefully, fed through the window of the car. A bottle of sherry, so that a teetotal man might drink himself into the oblivion necessary to start the engine and lie back. And sleep. For ever. No more hell. Did it feel lovely? Like the grasp of anaesthetic? Did you feel giddy from the sherry? Was your head swimming? Or were you howling in agony, raging in your depression? Did you go out still fighting? Or did you surrender to the stillness, willing it to take you? Did you weep? Did we cross your mind? Did flashes of our life together show inside your head like a splendid movie? Or did you have to extinguish any thought of us so that you could do it? Did you say goodbye? To what? To whom? To the night sky, or the inside of the car, or the life lived? Did you sputter and drown? Did you choke? Struggle? Did you just float away? Did you see a light? Did you hear a voice? Did dead beloveds hold their arms out and welcome you to their dead place? Is that where you are? I’ve lost you. Where are you? Can you see me? I’m in fucking agony, you selfish bastard, don’t you care? How could you do this to us? How dare you steal our happiness? Why didn’t you say? Why didn’t you give us a chance to stop you? Was it our fault for not noticing? Did you want us to stop you? Did you pray that someone would knock on the car window at the very last moment and drag you out? Did you consider that we couldn’t – can’t – live properly without you? So, you lied when you told me you would always be there for me? Were you so very alone with your hopelessness? Did you think we would be better off without you? Did you think you didn’t matter? Did you think you had failed? Failed us? Did you feel ashamed? Did you suppress your sadness so much that it started to eat you from inside? Did you decide not to drag any of us into your black pit with you? Did you think this was the most selfless thing you could do? Did you think it was the only thing you could do? Did you think ab
out it many times before and battle against yourself to stay alive? Did you just need to go? To find any sort of quiet? Away from the clanging racket of your mistakes, reminding you constantly that you have spoilt everything? Were you racked with wretchedness and unable to see light, anywhere? Was it dark and terrifying in your head? Did you want to be in a light place, to be hushed and tranquil? What did you hope it would be like? Like a lazy hot sunny day on the moors, or like a walk on the beach in Rock, or like bobbing about on the ocean? Like going home, maybe? Or did you just want it to be anywhere but here? The unbearable place where you felt savaged. The misery was too much. Maybe our happiness was too strong a contrast to bear? You wanted us to be happy but it tore you apart to not be able to include yourself in it any more. Your torment was a monster, and to kill it, you felt you had to kill you. That was the only way it would die. The only way for you, and us, to be free of it. You were slaying the monster so that life could continue for those who deserved to live it. You were being the dad. Protecting your family. From you. I understand. At least, I understand that I don’t fully understand. But if I love you, I have to try to understand. And I do love you. So much. And I miss you. Profoundly miss you. And I do forgive you. Because what do I have to stay angry about? That you have found your peace? That you did what you needed to do, however heartbreaking that is? I feel no regrets for you, no shame. Just awfully, awfully sad. For myself. For a 19-yearold with your skin, your eyes, who felt strangely responsible until I worked out your illness wasn’t my fault. And even that I worked out by tapping into a synergy I always had with you. By thinking, ‘What would you wish for me now, in this pitiful grief?’ and, of course, you would wish me to live my life to the full, and not waste a single second or a single chance at happiness. You would want me to relish those chances, and I do, Dad. I live my life fully, as a tribute to you and in the full knowledge that you couldn’t so I will, for both of us. I carry you with me, not as a heavy weight or some kind of sorrowful burden, but as my energy and my engine. You are around me and part of me, my father, my dad. My darling dad. Denys Vernon French.