Daddy Dearest

by Paul Southern

  I bundled my little girl into the flat, on the verge of a panic attack. My head exploded with a thousand thoughts, all of them bad. I didn’t know whether to be angry, relieved, heartbroken, or just plain scared. Rashelle looked at me like she’d done nothing wrong, which I took to be a sign of insanity. My daughter had her arms round my neck so tight, I thought I’d die of asphyxiation.

  ‘Let go, sweetheart.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Darling, you’re strangling me.’

  I prised her arms off but they kept coming back. I forgot how strong she was.

  ‘Daddy.’

  She wouldn’t let go. I looked at Rashelle.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’

  If she was surprised by my tone, she didn’t show it. In fact, she showed nothing. She was lost in her own thoughts.

  ‘We put the rubbish out.’

  ‘You went to the chutes?’

  ‘Yes, the flat was smelling really badly.’

  ‘Yes, but none of us can go out. We can’t take her out.’

  ‘It was only down the corridor.’

  ‘Yes, but you had her.’

  She shrugged. ‘I checked first.’

  ‘You checked?’

  I felt like punching her.

  ‘I looked out.’

  ‘But someone could have seen you?’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘Did they?’

  ‘I don’t think so. The only person we heard was you.’

  I sat on the sofa. My little girl was still clinging to me. I kissed her forehead. ‘Why didn’t you leave her?’

  Rashelle sat on the sofa next to me and wrung her hands. It was then I realised why. ‘I didn’t want her to be on her own. Something might have happened.’

  A lot of people have shit going on in their lives and it’s all relative. You think you’ll die of a broken heart, or losing your home; it’s all real. You can’t measure someone else’s loss or pain. Some guy once said to me - though, admittedly, he was of Neolithic intelligence - if you want to know what shit is, join the army. Fighting and death was his ultimate shit. I said, try telling that to a woman who’s spent her entire life devoted to one man and is dumped for a younger model; or a middle-aged couple who are getting divorced and wondering how they’re ever going to get by. Try telling it to Rashelle. One thing most people agree on: she had it bad.

  She only had one child. She had problems with her ovaries and had it through IVF. It was her fourth attempt and she’d spent about sixteen grand on it when she got the good news. She was in her thirties and knew this was likely to be her only chance. Apparently, there were twins but one of them died during the pregnancy. I’m not sure how that happens, or what it’s like to be stuck to a dead person all that time (although my marriage came close), but I know it can’t be good. What I do know is her marriage started deteriorating after the child was born. She said she was difficult to live with and didn’t really blame her husband, but when he tried to take her child off her, it killed her. There was a big custody battle. He said she was an unfit mother and the pregnancy had badly affected her. He said she had terrible moods, which she never denied, and that the child was better off with him. I’m not sure why - maybe because judges always side with women - but she won the case. I don’t think it helped much he’d found someone else - the younger, more fertile model I was talking about.

  So Rashelle was left with the child, and as far as I’m aware, she found herself again, and was happy. The husband got to see the little girl at weekends, and she had her the rest of the time, though I think, after a while, maybe because he had other kids, he stopped seeing her. She doted on her, as you’d expect after waiting all those years. Then, when the little girl was five, something happened. People who hear about it think, how could it? - I mean, she was a responsible adult - but talking as one who has a child and lost her in a lift, I can understand it very well. Rashelle was downstairs in the kitchen - she had a house in those days; like my wife, a leftover from the marriage - and left her little girl alone in the bath. That’s something I’ve done many times. I mean, I check all the time and leave the door open, and occasionally I’ll shout out my daughter’s name just to check she’s okay, but I have done it. I’ve even seen my daughter lie in the bath and put her head under the water, doing what I do when I’m washing my hair, and not said much.

  Anyway, while Rashelle was down there, her daughter tried to get up and slipped. She knocked her head on the taps and was knocked out cold. I don’t know how long it takes to drown, but that’s what happened to her. Rashelle came up to see her and found her floating in the water. I can’t begin to tell you what that would have done to me. Her husband never forgave her. He couldn’t understand how she could leave her like that. Whatever he said, it was nothing compared to how she felt. She left the house - it had too many bad memories - and came to live here. She brought some of the memories with her - the clothes, the toys, the books, all the things you surround a child with - but not the child. Whenever I think of how stupid she was then, and felt I could have killed her, I try to think of where she came from, and how she kept it together, and I think of myself and how I’ve no real cause to complain.

  I looked at my daughter and said nothing.

  ‘The flat doesn’t smell any more, Daddy.’

  ‘No, well that’s good.’

  ‘Can we go out now?’

  ‘I’m sorry, darling. The police are still there.’

  ‘But the monster isn’t.’

  ‘No, he’s gone, but they’re still checking.’

  ‘So why can’t we go?’

  ‘There might be another monster.’

  She didn’t believe me. Children adapt to lying very quickly. They may be naïve enough to think you can’t see through theirs, but they can see through yours.

  ‘No, there’s not.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Auntie told me.’

  ‘Auntie doesn’t know everything.’

  When I was young, I could always sense an atmosphere between my parents. I’d no idea what it was about - perhaps an argument over what was for dinner, or how little money they had, or just generally feeling fed up with each other - but I knew it was time to keep quiet and out of the way. My natural inclination was to sympathise with my mother - every child’s inclination is that - but, every so often, I would catch a tear in my father’s eye, and I would go up to him and hold his hand. I’ve no idea what he made of this - he wasn’t the kind of father to let on - or whether it had any effect, but, of all the few memories I have of him, they stick out the most. He was a man who tried his whole life to get his voice heard, even to those closest to him. I would hate my daughter to think of me like that. I don’t want her to hold my hand and think I’m a failure, even if I am.

  That night we stayed in the flat. It was a stupid thing to do. If anyone had called, there wasn’t a hiding place like there was at Rashelle’s. I figured that, since the fat Greek had been arrested, there was no chance of being heard next door. I let my daughter choose a DVD to watch and she picked Matilda, as usual. She loves that film. She fell asleep on the sofa beside me. At midnight, I picked her up and took her into her room. It’s nothing like the playroom at Rashelle’s; I have no collection of bears or books or clothes or toys to rival that. I have no zoetrope night-light or rocking horse. I had no need of them: I have her.

  ‘I’m sorry about today.’ Rashelle was lying on the sofa, staring up at the ceiling. ‘How is your wife?’

  ‘She’s bearing up.’

  ‘You never showed me a picture of her before.’

  ‘I don’t have many.’

  ‘Is she pretty?’

  That’s a question I’ve long learned to avoid. ‘I used to think so.’

  She turned to me. ‘I think she is.’

  I’d been admiring her body from the other side of the room. I wanted to smooth the folds of her dress down where it had ridden up slightly over her calves. Now, my eye
s were fixed on her face. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I saw her just now.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Did you find a photograph?’

  I was already paranoid about them going to the chutes. Now she was throwing this at me.

  ‘No, she was on the TV. They showed a clip of her.’

  I stopped still. ‘You’re kidding me?’

  She shook her head. ‘No.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me? What did they show?’

  ‘You and her. She said she couldn’t live without her.’ Her voice trailed off. ‘You were holding her hand.’

  I didn’t know if it was jealousy or frustration or anger talking. Part of me didn’t believe her - I didn’t want to believe her - but her eyes never left me. I felt like I was in front of my mother again.

  ‘She didn’t look like she was bearing up.’

  ‘No, neither of us was.’

  ‘When you said you were going to take her on a holiday and the person who had her was confused, I nearly died.’

  My head spun. ‘So did I.’

  ‘I think there’s something wrong with you.’ It was official, then. ‘Tomorrow, I’m going to the police.’

  Far from wanting to run my hands over her body, they became ragged claws that wanted to scratch her. It’s strange how faces you have known for years can suddenly appear alien and unfriendly. You start to see different things in them; they are no longer beautiful or kind, but frail, hostile, ugly and drawn. My mother’s got that way before she died. She got preoccupied with herself and the things that were going wrong with her; she lost all interest in me. The face I remembered growing up was no longer there. It was the same with my ex-wife’s. She was beautiful when I met her, then she became a harpy, a dragon, a harlot, occasionally a friend, not the woman I married. When I saw her at the church the other day, she was a shade of the woman I used to know; at the conference, not even that.

  Maybe the reason they lost interest in me was because I’d lost interest in them. Everything they did grated on me: the way they ate, the way they spoke, the things they said. I started to see deformities and bumps and moles and hair I’d never seen before; I heard snorts and sniffs that were never there when we first went out and each one tripped razor wire in my head. It was the noise thing again.

  ‘You can’t.’

  ‘Why can’t I?’

  ‘Because you’re involved.’

  ‘You said I wasn’t.’

  I paused.

  ‘So what’s to stop me?’

  I tried to play it cool. I didn’t know if she’d actually do it; it was more the threat; but I wasn’t about to encourage her. ‘You’ll kill us both.’

  My wife was only half right about me. Occasionally, I would say something right. It happened just then with Rashelle. Her face seemed suddenly less unfriendly, more sympathetic. I know she was sick of me - or, rather, sick of things - but would going to the police have made it any better?

  ‘Maybe you’re right.’

  She stretched out languorously like an octopus. Again, I felt her magnetism and sat next to her. I wanted to touch her thighs, feel her sides, squeeze her. It’s amazing the power of a woman’s body. It draws you onto it like Charybdis. Her mouth widened wide, and I felt myself falling. Our lips stuck like limpets and obscene tentacle tongues writhed around, seeking to ensnare the other. I imagined fish scales and the rolling of the waves and sea anemones all around us.

  Then I heard a dim knocking in my skull. It came and went, then got louder. Rashelle broke the kiss and stared at me.

  ‘It’s the door,’ she said. It came again, heavier this time. ‘What shall we do?’

  I was about to say ignore it when we heard the door to my daughter’s room open, and the shuffle of her feet in the corridor.

  ‘Daddy?’

  I shot off the sofa. She was in the corridor in her nightie, half asleep. I clamped my hand over her mouth and carried her into the living room.

  ‘Shh.’

  There was another knock. She put her head down on my shoulder and tried to get back to sleep. I gave her to Rashelle.

  ‘Take her to the bedroom. I’m going to see who it is.’

  She looked more frightened than me. I waited for her to go, then went to the front door. I didn’t want people thinking I had something to hide. I dragged the chain back slowly. Who the hell was it? For a second, I thought it was my wife, but she would have buzzed to get into the building. It must be someone from inside.

  I was right. But I’d never have guessed who.

  ‘You remember me?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Of course.’

  It was Stilettos.

  ‘I’m not disturbing you, am I?’

  ‘No,’ I lied.

  ‘I thought I heard voices.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry. The TV was loud.’

  I know enough about people to know when they’ve got something on their mind.

  ‘Can I come in for a second?’

  ‘I’m sorry. My wife’s here. It’s a difficult time.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure.’

  She paused a moment. ‘I don’t know if this is the right place.’

  ‘For?’

  ‘I need to tell you something.’

  I looked at the bedroom door. ‘Will it take long?’

  I don’t know why I let her in. I mean, it was madness. I watched her hips sway down the corridor and followed her six inch heels and all I could think of was how beautiful she was. I’ve always taken stupid chances. It’s been the ruin of me.

  She looked round my living room the way everyone did. Books, shelves, paintings: the huntsman and his dong. I enjoyed her consternation quite as much as the WPC’s. I wondered what she made of it: I mean, it wasn’t Monet or Manet or Degas. I didn’t want her to think I thought there was something unsavoury about staring at it; if I wasn’t so stressed, I’d have wanted her to stare at mine; so I let her sit opposite me so she could have a good view. If she looked up, there was no avoiding it.

  She really was very pretty. She was mid to late twenties, brunette and olive skinned. Women like that are on top of their game; when they’re too young, they don’t know how to use their looks; they think they have to sleep with everyone. Stilettos here would only have to look at you. Her partner was a lucky guy. Or unlucky.

  It was odd having her in my flat. I mean, I’d seen everything in hers - her paintings, her camisole knickers; I wondered if she was wearing them now.

  ‘I don’t know if you know, but I live directly above you.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Lately, because of the warm weather, I’ve left my windows open at night. I can’t sleep otherwise. Sometimes, you can pick up conversations on the street.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘And sometimes from other flats.’

  I paused. ‘If it’s music you can hear, it isn’t me. I’ve complained about it, too.’

  ‘No, it’s not that. It’s other things. Ever since I saw you in the lift, I’ve thought about it.’

  For a mad moment I thought she was going to say she loved me.

  ‘I don’t want to make things worse for you. Or your wife.’

  ‘You could hardly do that. What is it?’

  She put a red fingernail in her mouth. ‘Well, every now and then, I’ve been able to hear what sounded like a child singing.’

  Things went very quiet. I thought of Rashelle and my little girl in the next room.

  ‘It seemed to be coming from below me but I couldn’t be sure, so I went outside and checked the street. There was no one about. Your windows were closed but your neighbour’s were open.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘A few days ago, I thought I heard shouting from there, too, like it was coming through the floor. My boyfriend said it was probably the pipes and to leave it, but I heard it again earlier this evening and thought I had to tell you.’

  I looked at her. She was so earnest looking; telling me had taken its toll.
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  ‘I appreciate you telling me, but I’m a bit puzzled. What has this got to do with me? Or my daughter?’

  ‘Well, I know the lady who lives next door to you.’

  Something about the way she said know alerted me.

  ‘She has no children.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘So I couldn’t quite work out why I was hearing this singing from her flat.’

  I looked at my hands. ‘Have you told the police?’

  ‘My boyfriend didn’t think it worth it. He said they’d searched everywhere and talked to all the people they needed to.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But I couldn’t keep it to myself.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad you told me.’

  I think I had her full attention. She certainly had mine. In the half-light, she looked like a painting. If it wasn’t for Rashelle and my little girl and the flimsy walls that divided us, I would have wanted the moment to go on, and I couldn’t say that about many moments in my life.

  ‘I’ve heard the singing, too. And the conversations. I shouldn’t really say anything because it’s not my story to tell.’ I paused. ‘Her little girl died when she was about my daughter’s age. She’s never really got over it. All this stuff with me, I think, has brought it back. It’s very difficult to know what to say to her. I think she feels partly responsible. She was with me when it happened, you know. That’s a hard thing to take. She plays children’s songs and talks to herself and goodness knows what. It’s a real tragedy. I guess it’s only now I realise how much.’

  She looked at me like I was missing something and that worried me. I hate being left in the dark. ‘I’m ever so sorry.’