Daddy Dearest

by Paul Southern

  If I’d gone with her to the bar, maybe I’d have brought it up. Maybe the conversation would have strayed and he would have wandered off for a drink or to the gentleman’s, and I would have looked at her red choker and said how beautiful she looked, and how I hoped she and her husband / boyfriend were very happy because they seemed like such a nice couple. I know she wouldn’t have said anything to me because she knew I was upset about my daughter and wasn’t feeling too good. I would have told her that you can tell a lot about a person from the things they wear and the things they like. I would have mentioned Monet and Manet and Derriere and made her laugh; maybe she would have looked over her wine glass and seen something in me, something I hadn’t even seen. It’s lucky I didn’t go over with them. I would have got carried away. Instead, I went back inside. I took the lift down to Minus One to face the music.

  13

  There was still police ribbon everywhere when I arrived. A giant spider web of it was stuck to the walls with severed threads hanging uselessly from the door frames. But there were no signs of struggle and definitely no music, unless you counted the steady drip of water from the ceiling or the sudden roar down the metal pipes. The electric strip lights flickered in the gloom. It seemed darker than I remembered. I pushed open the double doors and peered inside. The bins were strung together like railway carriages on the far side. I don’t know what made me do it but I called out her name.

  ‘Are you there, darling?’

  There was no reply. I made my way over and knocked on one of the carriage sides. What if she was inside and they’d missed her? What if her decaying body was being devoured by rats, her hands resting against the metal where she’d tried to claw her way out? What if her eyes were still open the way I’ve read they can be when you die? How would I cope with that?

  ‘Are you in there, darling?’

  All I heard were the drips from the ceiling. Then, when I got to the last carriage, I thought I heard an echo. I looked round quickly. It was the sound of metal on metal, somewhere in the deep. I put my ear to the bin and listened again. Tip, tap. I hadn’t imagined it. My hands gripped the sides. They had missed her. She was calling to me. I banged on the metal. The lid was jumping up and down; she was trying to get out. Then, with a terrifying crash, it clattered to the floor. I looked into the black void it had left and thought it the very mouth of hell. I’ve been an avid reader in my time and, before my bookshelves were weighed down with things that were good for me, they were thick with horror and science fiction novels. I’ve had books on my shelf with covers of naked women being carted off to strange planets by giant reptile men, and gruesome pictures of girls being strangled by sadistic serial killers, and thought every one of them the height of literature. I’ve read every horror writer from H.P. Lovecraft to Stephen King, so I know what comes out of storm drains and bins and dark places. Sometimes, when I look at my shelves, at the classy water colours of the Victorian section or the turbid designs of my modern literature shelf (and how bland does that sound?), I long for the unapologetic sexism and escapism of my old books. I want there to be reptile men with hawk eyes and scaly skin, kidnapping nubile, young women and doing terrible things to them. I want them to do that so I can rescue them. I want to prove my manhood and touch my primitive side. I’m sick of being a goodie-goodie.

  When the lid came crashing off, my mind was already on page 73 of that book. The giant reptile men were leaping over the side and I was about to do battle; an exotic princess (tied hand and foot, naturally) was slung over the shoulders of the largest, begging for my help. Some nameless horror (why were they always nameless?) had slipped out of the underworld and I had to send it back. I think I must have screamed louder than the hero in the book.

  When the echoes died away and I realised I was still alone, reality returned. It was no less frightening. I peered slowly over the rim of the wheelie bin. The tip tap came again, this time behind me. I whirled around. It was like someone digging, trying to get out. Darling?

  I ran from the room into the corridor. The sound faded almost immediately. Where was it coming from? I looked around, reaching out like a blind man. I wished my little girl was with me. When she was around I was invincible.

  ‘Darling?’

  It came again and this time, it seemed to come from under me. I put my ear to the concrete and listened. Tip, tap. I thought I knew every place in this warren, every nook and cranny. As I looked about, the lift doors closed. I was shut in, just as my little girl had been. I tried the generator room, the comms room (where all the phone and TV wires lead), even the bike room. There was no exit and certainly no hidden cellar. The only room I hadn’t been in was the cleaner’s at the end of the corridor. I’ve seen him in there putting boxes away and eating his sandwiches. I’ve let on to him from time to time but he’s always been very guarded. I tried his door, fully expecting it to be locked. Tonight, it wasn’t. The latch was a fingertip touching my own. Darkness and cold shook my hand. I reached for the wall. There were three light switches. Phosphorescent tubes lit up like light sabres. Beneath the electric hum I could still make it out. Tip, tap. It was louder this time, and nearer.

  I’ve never been brave. Some people are born that way; they can face things, keep their cool, fight. They’re not afraid of things in cupboards, or bullies, or horror films, or flying, or spiders - how can they not be afraid of spiders? Even the serious things they’re not afraid of, like owning up to things. That has always been my problem. I remember playing in my cot when I was little and biting my teddy bear’s eye off. I swallowed it whole. I was obviously pretty devastated, and teddy wasn’t best pleased, so I started crying. My mum came in, as mums do, and asked me what was wrong. I pointed to the vacant socket where Teddy’s eye had been and she asked me where it had gone. Now, my grasp of English was somewhat remedial at that age - more gestures than language, as it is with football fans - but my grasp of psychology was profound. I pointed to the toy jumbo at the end of my cot and mumbled, ‘Jumbo eat.’ My mother looked at him, picked him up, and asked him where the eye was. The silence was damning. My mother looked at me and asked me if I was telling the truth and I nodded quickly. She pursed her lips and gave me a kiss goodnight. I felt really pleased with myself. The next day she said she was going to sew another eye on teddy so he could see properly. It was the kind of thing she did. I told teddy and he was pretty ecstatic, too. Being able to see is a great thing.

  All was going well until the evening when I went to the toilet. My mother came to check on me and wipe my bottom when she noticed something strange in the water. She motioned to me to look. I had no knowledge of the human digestive system at that age - even now I’m pretty sketchy - so I had no idea what awaited me. I looked in the bowl and there were two small shits swimming around. Nothing strange in that, you might say, but one of them had an eye at the end. It looked like a fish.

  ‘Is that teddy’s eye, do you think?’ my mum asked.

  I shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘How do you think it got there?’

  I had no idea. I mean I really had no idea; but I suspected I was in trouble.

  ‘I think Jumbo threw it in.’

  Poor Jumbo. He was one of nature’s victims. My mum looked at me sadly and it made me want to cry all over again.

  ‘Are you telling me the truth?’

  How many times have I heard those words?

  No, I’m not telling you the truth. I’m lying. I’m lying because I’m scared. I’m scared of the consequences. I don’t even know what the consequences are. Everyone tells you telling the truth is the best thing, but no one does. Lying is easy and it’s second nature. It’s my second nature. I was born that way.

  ‘Yes, Mummy.’

  The shit always comes back at you. That’s what that episode taught me. It didn’t make me any braver, it didn’t stop me doing the things I did, but it made me conscious of that.

  A day later, I went to bed and my teddy was waiting for me. My mum said he’d been to
hospital but was okay now. He looked like he always had done. The new eye they’d given him was indistinguishable from the old. I gave him a big hug and thought I’d got away with it. It wasn’t till I was older I realised what lengths my mum had gone to. She’d sorted the shit out for me, had got her hands dirty. I’m not sure I’d have done the same thing, even if my little girl had begged. Talking shit was one thing, talking shits quite another. Actually, I’m lying again. I would have done anything for her. I was here, wasn’t I? Wasn’t that proof enough?

  The cleaner’s room was bigger than I expected. There were boxes of stuff piled up: cleaning materials, light bulbs, general junk, even a small TV. He watched that eating his sandwiches. It must have been nice down there, left to his own devices, with nothing to disturb him. I wondered what he got up to when no one was around. I remember once when I was about sixteen or seventeen working in a builder’s merchants. They had a huge basement there with rows and rows of shelves full of plumbing and electrical materials: copper pipe, taps, female couplings, male couplings, more nuts and bolts than you could count. It scared the hell out of me; I was just getting a handle on my own male and female couplings. There was a calendar on the wall in the back office of girls in construction hats and bikinis, and some without bikinis, but holding spanners and wrenches over themselves. It drove me nuts. I was always flipping to Miss October. She was Hawaiian or Mauritian, or something. She had long, black hair and dark skin and was, frankly, beautiful. She’d never have known the pleasure she gave me, or that I ever thought about her. She was probably married to some stud and was out at parties all the time, mixing with the other beautiful, successful people I was never going to be or meet.

  For a period of about a month, I think I wanked over her every night. Because I was a virgin, thoughts of what I would do to her were really quite vague. I knew what fucking was but not how to go about it. I’m not sure how I ever learned. It’s not like today where you can see people fisting, fucking, giving blow jobs on your computer. We had biology text books and dirty magazines and, if you were really unlucky, some parental input. Anyway, the Mauritian and I were always doing it that month: on a beach, in a hotel room, over a fence. She loved every minute of it and so did I. I hoped her stud boyfriend wouldn’t mind. I was only borrowing her. To be honest, I could have done with her in the basement. It would have taken my mind off things.

  One day, I went into the basement office and there was a porn mag on the desk in front of the calendar. It wasn’t one of the upmarket ones like Mayfair or Playboy; it was something like Razzle or Reader’s Wives. I skimmed through it, completely ignoring Miss October. I was meant to be finding some two by four for a builder in the front, but I had a wood of my own. None of the girls in the magazine were anywhere near as pretty as Miss October but that didn’t seem to matter.

  All morning I was thinking about the magazine and couldn’t wait till lunch when I could look through it some more. But when one o’clock came, it had gone. The only other person who had lunch the same time as me was this middle-aged guy called Chris. He was a devout Christian and wore sandals. I’m not sure he wore them for religious reasons; they looked pretty stupid. But he was nice enough and helped me out plenty of times when I couldn’t find what I was looking for, which was always. Sometimes I saw him at the back of the basement, sitting on a stool, talking to himself, or reading. I made my way there quietly and glimpsed him through the aisles of shelving. He wasn’t talking today. The magazine was open on a stool on front of him and his trousers were down by his knees. I’m not sure if the Holy Spirit was in him but he was getting pretty fired up. I’d never seen another guy come before. It was strange. He kept looking round before he came to make sure no one was coming (if you see what I mean). His forehead was clammy. He came in a couple of spurts all over the floor. Some of it caught the magazine. I saw him wipe it with his sleeve. I was curious which girl he’d chosen but couldn’t really see properly. Did it matter? A girl was a girl. I’ve seen lots of guys come since then (in porn videos - I don’t habitually watch them in the flesh) but none had quite the effect on me as Chris. Maybe I related to it because I knew his guilt and his hurried fumblings like the back of my hand (my wanking one). I wish sex wasn’t like that. I wish it had been good, clean fun. But that was never going to happen. There was too much at stake.

  If I was the cleaner, wanking’s exactly the kind of thing I would have done. I would have ejaculated over everything. Who the hell was looking? I picked through the boxes of rubbish and imagined I’d find something incriminating. But there was nothing. Just the electric hum and the… God, it had stopped: the tip tapping. I stood there, unable to move. Where before the sound of it had brought butterflies, now the silence brought the nameless horror back to life. It had stopped for a reason. Someone had heard me and was watching me. The hunter had become the hunted. I had to get away. Suddenly, there was a whirr of machinery. The side of the basement shuddered as if something had fallen. I looked about, tried to work out what had happened. Then I heard the familiar ring. The lift doors were opening. I’d left the lights on. If someone looked in here, they’d find me. What if it was the police? What if they’d forgotten something? What if I had?

  I made my way to the door. There was a narrow window in it which looked out over the corridor. I could hear shuffling. I peered out, unable to stop myself. There was a loud kick and more shuffling and a large cardboard box came flying out of the lift, followed by a diminutive figure. She was bigger than the hobbit I had seen, but not much more. She was Japanese, I was pretty sure - I’m quite an expert on Orientals and can recognise indigenous races the way I recognise white and black. She reminded me of an ant tugging at a leaf the way she dragged the box across the floor. I didn’t know what was in it, but it was heavy. When she got it near the door to the bin room, she disappeared back into the lift and the kicking and shuffling started again. Soon enough, another large cardboard box came out. I thought about offering my services: to ladies in distress I have always been a gentleman, though it was always about sex, and whether I could get it. My whole life’s been about that. Seeing her struggle and grunt the way she did brought it all back.

  When she’d finished dragging, she put her hands on her hips and stretched. Her nipples stuck out of her tight t-shirt. She was wearing hotpants and her slim body looked like a child’s. She sat on one of the boxes and waited. Now I was stuck. I looked at the light switches and mentally tried to throw them. There was something about her which made me feel uncomfortable. I was sure I’d met her before. Then things got worse. The tip tapping started again, louder this time. So loud, even she noticed. She looked up and around the way I’d done, trying to work out where it came from. She looked directly through the window. I backed away as quickly as I could, knocked a few things over on my haste. Fuck, how stupid could I have been? There were a few boxes to hide behind, but nothing you could get away with for long. I slunk behind the tallest and hoped. Tip, tap. Tip, tap. The door opened. Tip, tap. It was getting even louder. I looked behind me and felt cool air on my face. Air?

  ‘Hurro?’

  Time to come clean? Are you kidding? Behind me was a narrow passage that led down into darkness. After three or four steps everything vanished.

  ‘Anyone there?’

  I took the plunge. If I asked you to think of all the scariest moments of every horror film you’ve ever seen, you’d have some idea of where I was going. It was The Blair Witch Project meets Alien meets The Descent. I’ve had arguments that lasted years over which were the scariest films of all time and no one could ever agree. Before I was married, it was one of those conversations that always came up, like which was your favourite guitar solo. I used to have a lot of time, then, but then I used to have a lot of friends, too.

  The steps turned half way down. I could hear the tip tapping so clearly now like the manacles of some chained demon. I could feel water close by and glimpse darker shadows of things in front of me. I put my hand in my pocket and prepared for
the worst. The light from my phone hit the walls. I blinked. I was in some kind of pump room. Huge, round, metallic tanks rose like oil rigs from the ground. There was a light film of water on the ground and walls that jutted out into the main room. It was much bigger than the basement above. I guessed it covered about twice the area and was twice the height. The steady drip of water was everywhere. I looked back up the stairs to see if the Japanese girl had followed me but I couldn’t see her. I made my way across the floor towards the far side. There were three concrete windows there and the tip tapping was coming from inside them. I’m far more scared of people than I am of ghouls and goblins and things in the dark. I’ve had my fill of them. I looked through one of the windows and the smell of brackish water rankled my nose. Inside, it looked like a medieval torture chamber. The rooms weren’t big but they were high and knee deep in water. The tip tapping came from the middle one.