Daddy Dearest (8 page)

I can remember clearly the day the middle-aged tart first met my daughter. We were coming back from town laden with the debris of Saturday afternoon shopping: the bags of half eaten sandwiches, pencils and rubbers, a few books she’d liked the front covers of and would never read, sweet wrappers, leaflets and flyers that had taken her fancy: the usual potpourri a kid gathers when they take you out.

The middle-aged tart was just coming out of her flat, operatic in a white, summer dress with Italian sunglasses perched on her strawberry blonde hair. Ciao, I thought.

My little girl was already working her magic. She flashed her a winning smile. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I’ve been shopping.’

‘So I see. Did you have fun?’

‘Yes. I had an ice cream.’

There was a large pink stain round her lips which wasn’t yet makeup.

‘Yum, yum. I think I’ll go and get one, too.’

The middle-aged tart glanced at me. I half imagined something passing between us. It doesn’t take long for me to fall in love; I fall in love with every woman I see.

‘We’ve just moved in,’ I said.

‘Yes, I heard your little girl this morning. I’m pleased to meet you. I’m Rashelle.’

She thrust her hand out.
Rashelle
? It sounded altogether too foreign. She looked more like a Jane or Susan, although they’d have made her far too young, I think. She was more my age.

I find names weird. I say mine over again and again, trying to work out who I am, and it makes me uncomfortable. I don’t like using it. If you knew it, you’d feel the same: you’d judge me. Hollywood stars change their names to make themselves more glamorous. Now everyone thinks they’re something, they’re all doing it. Names let people know who you are, but they don’t always match. When the Hollywood star makes it, the stardust of their name becomes the year’s new nom de plume. Who would have thought George or Leo would become popular again? John Smith is now Johnny Smith, or George Smith, or Leo Smith. It gives the kids something to aspire to. But more often than not, John or Peter would have suited them better. Rashelle didn’t suit her at all; she would have made a better Rose; but then you would have judged her, and we don’t want that at all.

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.