I won’t tell you my name. One day I may let you know what I’d like to have been called, but even that would be saying too much. I’ve spent a lifetime talking and it has got me nowhere. When I was saying other people’s lines, and was known by other names, it was the only time I was ever comfortable with myself. On the stage, life was scripted for me. I knew where I was going and who I was. Some might even have called it happiness. If only I’d known.
I looked down at the streaks of chocolate on my fingers. ‘Er, I don’t think…’
She smiled again. ‘It’s okay.’
Yes, it was. I’d made contact.
I’ve often wondered what life would be like if we always said what was on our minds; if there were no secret agendas, no silent longing, no waiting around, no awkward moments, that kind of thing; if we just said what we meant. I would have told Bunny about her teeth and Albertine that I was bored with her; I may even have told my ex-wife the truth. Or maybe not. I wonder if they’d have respected me more? It would have been hard for them to respect me less. I wanted to tell Rashelle that I was in love with her right then. She knew I was attracted to her. Women see it coming.
‘Would you like to pop in?’
‘I’d love to but I have to go. Maybe later?’
Or maybe not. My daughter was rifling through the bags on the floor and had found a balloon. She tried blowing it up but the only things that inflated were her cheeks. She kept making farting noises and laughing at herself.
I looked at Rashelle and caught the same expression in her eyes, that of unfathomable longing.
‘Here, let me help you.’
The operatic, white dress parted to reveal an isosceles triangle of thigh. She took the balloon, put it to her lips, and teased the end open. I watched her fill the red bosom till it was swollen and ready to burst. If you’d touched the end, it would have done. My daughter held her arms out. Rashelle pulled the rubber back and knotted it.
‘There, you can go and play.’
She could have stopped it all then and told me the truth, but my daughter had come between us. She changed her mind about going and came in. She sat on the sofa and knocked the balloon about with my daughter while I got some drinks and cake. I remember thinking how wonderful life would have been if I’d kept it simple. Playing happy families was far easier than being one. We all make mistakes - big ones, little ones - and life is about negotiating them.
I went through my usual inventory of questions, the ones that mask the real ones, and she was stock full of answers that kept up the pretence: How long have you been here? (Do you live alone?) What do you do? (Would you like to know what I do?) Would you like tea or coffee? (Would you like to sit beside me?) Can I get you anything else? (Do you think there’s any chance we might have sex tonight?) I saw her thigh out there and I can tell you, I was aroused by it. The same with her dress; I wanted to take it off.
My daughter got on very well with her and that’s something she desperately needed - a good, maternal influence. When you’re single and you have a kid, life gets pretty difficult. You have to make allowances. People don’t always want responsibility again. You can’t just say my ex-wife wasn’t what I thought she was, can you take over? - although I’d sometimes thought of asking. But what would they be getting? I’m not the best looking of men and I haven’t been the best partner - I don’t recall ever beating up any of my previous girlfriends, or my ex-wife, but I’ve called them plenty of names, which I’ve sometimes regretted. I’ve fucked up big time in my life but I’m not beyond redemption. That’s about the best I could offer. Looking back, I would have taken even that.
We got on well that day. If I never managed to ask the questions I wanted to ask, neither did I get the answers that stopped me thinking them. She’d been there a year and worked from home (is that why I thought she was a tart?) and would love coffee, but without milk or sugar - she was watching her weight (which she didn’t really need to say, the way my little girl didn’t need to say she’d been shopping); and it was quite okay, she didn’t need anything else, but she thanked me for offering.
I got Rashelle all wrong, you know. She was just like me. Though I continued to call her a middle-aged tart (not to her face, obviously) she was nothing of the kind. She was just lonely, and that does strange things to a person.
I stood outside the door again, listening. This time I could hear the sounds of a television and the pad of feet on the wooden floors. I gave the knock and waited. She must have been waiting for the volume went down and I heard the living room door open. She was hurrying down the hall.
‘Who is it?’
‘Me.’
The lock turned and her head appeared round the door. Her face was hidden by her strawberry blonde hair. The look said it all: she hadn’t slept. Neither had I.
‘Well?’
‘Well, we’re okay. For now.’
She ushered me in. The grey of the hallway hid her but I knew what must be going on inside. An actress she wasn’t, although some of the performances with her gentleman callers had been theatrical, to say the least. You’d think a camel had come up her backside.
She took me into the living room. Her flat was twice the size of mine and on the corner so she had two aspects to look over. I was always kind of envious of that: I’m envious about most things. A warm breeze rippled the blinds and sunlight sliced through so that a chessboard of light and shadow appeared on the floor. She made a queen’s diagonal away from me and turned.
‘I can’t go on.’
‘We have to. We have to keep calm.’
‘I can’t.’
I’ve never been a pastor in my life, although my mother used to say to me I’d have made a good one. I have the hair-shirt mentality of the self-sacrificing. The rigid discipline of it appeals to me. I am humble, deferential and cowardly - the hallmarks of the truly religious - and would love to have been canonised. I am, unfortunately, too in love with four of the seven deadly sins to have made it a vocation: lust, anger, envy and pride have undone me in equal measure. I’ve never got sloth, greed and gluttony; they seem too much like letting go and hating yourself quite as much as others do; and I don’t need to hate myself that much.
The other thing I lack is empathy. It just isn’t there. At least, not enough when I need it. I can imagine taking tea with dear old ladies at village fetes and delivering sermons from the pulpit; I can even imagine conducting wedding ceremonies and funerals, sending people on their way in a fanfare of overstatement and solemnity. What I can’t imagine is dealing with other people’s problems and ministering to the flock. That’s the job description I don’t fill. I’d rather have been the martyr than the foot soldier. The martyr gets the glory, the worship and the honour; he doesn’t need to struggle with what’s left behind, to tend the ministry. Though I am disciplined, I am no disciple, Lord.
I sat on the L-shaped sofa in the corner and put my head in my hands. I wanted to attract sympathy, not give it. In times of need, I’ve employed this technique to great effect. I’ve turned calamitous situations on their bald heads and seen moments of great awkwardness become moments of triumph. I’ve made people forget their own grief for mine. Kids do it all the time. They point to their grazed knee or bruised arm and hope you’ll be distracted from interrogating them about the paint on the window sill or the smashed glass on the floor. It’s called damage limitation. My daughter is an expert at it. You can see the rapier thrust of her mind as she seeks to deflect my anger, turning defence into attack. Yes, you may have been hurt, but I have been hurt, too, and I can’t cope at the moment. I need you.
I’m far more emotional than I used to be. I think my daughter has brought that out of me. I don’t resent it. I’m just thankful it’s reserved for her.
She sat next to me quietly, her knees shaking her hands. I wanted to reach out and stop them.
‘The camera at the back of the building was vandalised two days before she was taken. He thinks it’s suspicious.’
‘I
think it’s suspicious.’
‘Well, there’s nothing we can do now.’
‘There is.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘There isn’t.’
She was desperate.
‘It’ll be okay, I promise.’
She put her head in her hands. As she did, there was a quiet thud in the room next door, as if something had been thrown. My stomach tightened. Now it was me who was shaking. I put my head to the wall. A voice came through the plaster like a voice from a lift shaft, singing: Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream, merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.
She looked tearfully at me. There was another bang in the room. I put my hands on the wall and rubbed it gently. I felt her hands on my shoulders and her breath in my ear. The comfort a woman brings you is the greatest deception of all. No conjuror’s sleight of hand could hide the pain.
‘You have to see her.’
‘If I do, she’ll want to come out.’
‘She wants to come out, anyway.’
‘She can’t. Not now.’
The singing had stopped. The voice became a whisper descending into silence.
‘It’s not fair.’
‘Neither is life.’
The hands left my neck, the warm air retreated, and a cold unforgiving front took its place. Rashelle was never angry. I’ve never seen so much as a frown on her face, never mind hear a cross word or a reprimand. She was one of mankind’s success stories, a paragon of decency and virtue. I never thought such people existed save in places like Camelot and nunneries. It’s hard to understand goodness: where it comes from, what its use is. I’ve heard many things in my life, from people of learning and from people without it, who have told me that altruism doesn’t exist: it’s selfishness by another name, a means of getting what you want. If that was the case, Rashelle was the poorest altruist there was. She got nothing for it. Her goodness was taken for granted and she got taken for granted. By me, most of all. I’d like to have been good, but every time I thought I was, I realised how poor an actor I was. I couldn’t even convince myself.
I left the living room and turned down the hallway. Rashelle’s story was very tragic for those who wanted to hear. She didn’t burden you with it, the way I would have done - she was far too private - but every now and again, bits came out, and because I have a good memory and because we were close, in ways which most lovers even aren’t, I learned the whole thing.
I was glad of the shadows in the hallway. They helped me focus. I heard Rashelle come out after me but I didn’t look back. The hallway turned ninety degrees to the left. On the right was a door. Behind it, I could hear footsteps: miniature ones walking about. I turned the handle slowly till I felt the paint, sticky in the heat, give from the frame. Light rushed through the narrow aperture, piercing my eyes. There were no blinds but thin curtains with fairies and flowers on. They were drawn wide apart to reveal an unobstructed view of the sky. Bright blue opened like the Aral Sea into an infinity of space. No clouds flecked the stratosphere, no jet planes scored the high windows; it was barren and beautiful and fathomless.
The room looked like a giant Wendy house. There was a small bed in the corner with teddies and dolls playing on it. There were toys and games strewn across the floor and a Victorian rocking horse riding across it. Two Beefeater soldiers lay beside it, fallen on hard times. Their teddy bear arms were folded about each other. There were pictures on the walls of fairy princesses and handsome princes, and a library of books that bent this way and that on wooden shelves. Some had fallen down and opened their spineless leaves while others had been heaped up on a child’s sofa chair. Most impressive of all, was a small dressing table next to the bed which was littered with pots and potions and brushes. I could see myself in the miniature mirror as the narrow cleft of the door edged open.
When my daughter first saw this room, she fell immediately in love with it. This was a scene from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, a child’s playground come to life, and a Truly Scrumptious surprise. Rashelle showed her how everything worked, winding up the clockwork dolls and opening every Jack in the Box till there were no surprises left. Then she opened the wardrobe doors and my daughter saw the clothes. They were neatly arranged on hangers at a child’s height. There were princess costumes, bear costumes, elf costumes, tiger costumes, and normal clothes, too: dresses and tops and skirts and hats. They were about the right size for my daughter. Her face lit up like a torch. She could not contain her enthusiasm. When Rashelle saw it, she smiled. Even then there was no bitterness. I never knew how much that took out of someone. She invited my daughter round all the time. She liked to talk to her and play with her. Or rather, she liked to hear her play. Given what happened, I’m not sure I’d have liked to have been reminded.
My heart was beating so loudly it seemed impossible she couldn’t hear. Maybe the singing drowned it out? It had started up again, softer this time. I looked above the dressing table to the window ledge. There she was, holding a doll, her face furrowed in concentration. She was completely unaware of me, but I was overwhelmed by her. I wanted to say something. I wanted to sweep her in my arms. I felt the warm air at my neck, urging me on.
‘Darling?’
There are moments in your life when your whole existence is validated. I won’t say it’s happened very often. I can think of occasions in cinemas, when a girl has given me a blowjob and something has been said on screen that made me think about my life, that I thought it got no better; or when I saw my daughter’s head emerge from between my wife’s legs and I thought I would never see anything so amazing, but they have been illusory and fleeting. They haven’t given me the sense of purpose that I craved, the justification for being here. My daughter alone has given me that. She didn’t say very much then. She didn’t need to.
‘Daddy!’
All the love in the world couldn’t fill the love I had for her, or her love for me. Her heart filled with it, so much so that I was worried she’d fall back through the window. She held her arms out, on the verge of tears. I watched her clamber on to the dressing table and run to me and I couldn’t hold my own back. No brave daddy. I felt her heart next to mine and her little head in the pillow of my neck and I wept all over her. Here was the reason I was alive.
Rashelle stood in the doorway, her face flecked with tears.
‘I’ve missed you, Daddy.’
‘I’ve missed you, too, darling.’
‘Where have you been?’
‘I had to go away, darling. To do work.’
‘To get a new job?’
I looked at Rashelle. ‘Yes, darling. A bigger one with lots of money.’
‘So we can go on holiday?’
‘Yes. A long, forever holiday.’
A smile broke through the clouds. I pushed the fringe out of her eyes and kissed her face.
‘Where to?’
My daughter doesn’t bear grudges; she forgives and forgets. It’s one of her greatest assets. I wished her mother was as forbearing. I wished I was. I suppose being shouted at is not the same as having your life fucked up, but still, it’s the same principle. You learn to hate the older you get; you learn to build up resentment and think of elaborate plans of vengeance, to take it all out on somebody else. I’m sure kids do this to a degree but it’s not the same degree, and the reason for that is they have other things to live for. If a road is closed up ahead, they take another one. There are a million roads to choose from and a million things to do. When you’re an adult, you feel you don’t have that choice. There are just two roads: dealing with shit or avoiding it. If I was her, I’d have wanted to know why the hell I’d been locked away for a week, and where the hell my dad was, but she took it all for the way of the world.
I picked her up and took her to the window and we looked out over the city. ‘Where would you like to go? Over the sea? On a plane?’
‘Blackpool.’
‘Blackpool?’
‘So we can see Chester the donkey.’
>
‘Wouldn’t you like to go further?’
‘No, I’d like to see Chester again.’
I smiled. ‘What if he isn’t there?’
‘He will be. The lady said.’
Now, I could have said, ‘Well, adults say all kinds of things’, or some such thing, but I was feeling a bit guilty about the lies I was having to tell her. I didn’t want her not believing me. ‘Well, I’m sure he will, but you don’t go to Blackpool for forever holidays. You go there for a bit. You can still see Chester but not now. Not today.’
Normally, she’d have insisted - she can be a right Rottweiler when she wants to be - but right then she just looked at me. She didn’t even pull a face or give out a half-hearted argh. I think she was still coming to terms with the fact that I was back. We looked out of the window and she held on to me very tightly. That choked me up, too.
‘Has Auntie been looking after you?’
‘Yes. She let me stay in this room.’
‘In here? With all these toys and all these clothes?’
She nodded. ‘And I’ve been reading, too.’
I looked at the spineless books.
‘Every night like I told you to?’
‘Yes, every one.’
She got down and fetched a giant pop-up book from the sofa chair. She opened it up and a giant caterpillar came out. She laughed like it was the most amazing thing in the world, which in truth it was. A caterpillar that size would have spawned Mothra. It wasn’t the kind of reading I had in mind; I was hoping for lines and lines of text and the odd black and white sketch every other page, the way my reading books were set out, not ‘Go, said Henry’. My mother had me on Look and Learn when I was young, not The Beano or The Dandy like the other kids. Education was a solemn undertaking. I understand her now; I understand the desperation to get me further than she’d been. I don’t expect my daughter to get that and, to be honest, I think she’s too young. We’ve all slackened off, all us sixties’ baby boomers. We regret it, of course - we’re all desperate to get standards back to how they used to be, or how we thought they used to be - and wracked with remorse about the state of things: the economy, schools, the rates of divorce, kids (ours and others’), the environment - but we haven’t the will to give up what we won. We won freedom, or freedom was won for us, and that’s the toughest thing in the world to give back. Even Look and Learn had its freedom; every fortnight I’d look forward to ‘Trigan Empire’ and co-pilot the stars with Janno. Of course you won’t get all that - you won’t unless you’ve been there - but you will understand this. I wanted my little girl to know that freedom comes at a price.
Daddy Dearest Page 9