Daddy Dearest (15 page)

‘Is it clear?’

‘It may have got trapped again. We’ll have to go down.’

We went back to Minus One and all the time I kept thinking that I should be back in the flat and if it looked odd that I was there. One of the problems I had was how exactly I should be acting. I mean, crying a lot was an obvious one, but after a while that can look forced, unless you were my ex-wife, who did it for a living, so anger and confusion seemed a better bet. But how much anger and how much confusion? One thing you get from watching people over the years is how quickly sympathy runs out and how it turns to bitterness and coldness, even resentment. People like to feel their own shit. I didn’t want people to think I was milking it.

When we got back to the bin room, the floor was full of it. We’d forgotten to put a bin underneath the chutes. Bags had split half-open across the floor, spilling their entrails. I recognised some of it from the bags Rashelle and my little girl had thrown away. That wasn’t the thing that really got my attention, though: it was the rug that came down with them. It was red and faded and large. The cleaner kicked it with his foot. Dust came flying up: and something else.

He looked at me. Now, I’m no expert, but I could tell he thought something was wrong. He cut through the string which was tied round both ends and unrolled it with his foot. I don’t know exactly what he was expecting - drugs, weapons, money - but I do know my excitement was mitigated by terrible fear. I imagined this was how Sherlock felt on one of his drug busts, about to arrest a real gangsta and dreading what he would find.

‘What is it?’

I tried to see past him.

‘It’s clothes, man.’

‘Clothes?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Is that all?’

‘Dat’s all.’

‘Let me look.’

‘I don’t tink ya want to.’

‘What do you mean?’

He put his arm out to stop me. He looked like he’d just read my last rites, or seen my fortune in the entrails.

I pushed past him and stared at the ground. He was right. On the carpet were a yellow dress and some sandals. They belonged to my daughter. My head spun and I felt myself falling. He caught me before I hit the floor. That time I wasn’t faking it. If Rashelle hadn’t thrown out the bags and I hadn’t checked, I would never have known. He may have gone straight to the police. So it was luck she did that. It was fate, it was whatever you want to call it. And it was bad luck for the Chinese couple. I’m sure that was the last thing on their mind when they met me in the basement. But that’s the way it goes. Karma balances itself out.

When you start to lie, you’ve no idea how many others you’re going to have to tell to make the first one stand up. The more you tell, the more you have to do. You have to be a very convincing liar to get away with it, and an even better one to keep getting away with it. Eventually, you make a mistake - everyone makes mistakes - and it’s then you’re going to have to think the quickest and be your most plausible. It’s tougher than acting, believe me. When the cleaner saw my reaction, I had to think very quickly.

‘Jesus, man.’

‘I think I’m going to be sick.’

I couldn’t take my eyes off them.

‘Are dey hers?’

I nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘How did dey get here?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You want me to call da police?’

I nodded slowly. The inevitable was happening.

‘When they come, they’ll find your stuff.’

‘I don’t tink dey’ll be interested, man.’

‘If some of it goes missing. I’ve heard nothing, I’ve seen nothing and I’ll say nothing.’

His eyes bored into the darkness, his nostrils dilating. ‘You tink I can’t say no?’

‘I don’t think anyone can.’

‘I got you wrong, man. You do give off a smell.’

I nodded. I don’t know whether something really had passed between us, but when I left him I felt I could trust him. I’d no idea what he was going to do with the stuff he found. For all I cared, he could keep the lot. What I did know, I wasn’t going to say anything, and neither was he.

I was looking at my daughter. I thought it could well be the last time I’d see her. I tried to work out what she was going to do without me and who would look after her. I supposed my wife would get over it and she’d end up being perfectly happy with Handshaker. He may even be a perfectly good stepfather to her. They’d be able to go to America and may even start another family and my little girl wouldn’t be as lonely as she says she is - although how she can say that with one hundred and fifty-six imaginary friends is quite beyond me. She was playing in the corner of the living room. I hadn’t let her go on the computer. I didn’t want her being traced. I didn’t want my computer being taken from me and having to explain why I was spending so much time with
Dora the Explorer
. I did it, I did it. Yeah, I did it. Those songs go round in your head. I am an expert on
Charlie and Lola
and
Pop Girl
and all the other things she watches. They’ve become part of me the way she is part of me. Rashelle was going to take her back to her flat, back to the playroom where she was going to stay until the police went; if the police went.

I looked at her face. She was looking a little bit more like me these days, I thought. She had my hair. I do have hair, although it’s receding somewhat, and I’m starting to fluff it up a bit on my crown so the bald patch doesn’t show. Soon there won’t be anything left to hide it. I’ll have to shave it off. It’s the same with my daughter; there’ll be no places left to hide her. I’ll have to show them where she is. I was very scared. Rashelle was playing with her in the corner and throwing me looks. I knew she was worried for herself but I think she was also worried for me.

My daughter was wearing a CUTIE t-shirt. I hate schlock like that. It came with her mother. I’d rather she be a cool kid and listen to cool music - whatever that is - and wear what she wants. The fact is, I don’t think that’s going to happen now. It’ll be down to others to bring her up. That killed me. The discovery of the clothes had changed everything.

You might think I was crazy trying to hide them, but I really had no choice. They were going to search the flat. If I thought about it clearly, maybe I’d have risked taking them outside and dumping them. But I guarantee you, they’d have come back: somebody would have found them. Everything comes back. The fact is I did it, and when you do something like that, you have to be prepared, like you have to be prepared for everything in life.

‘Come here, darling.’

She sat on my knee. I gave her a hug. It disappointed me she didn’t feel like giving me one back, that she was more interested in the game she was playing. But I suppose that’s part and parcel of being a parent. You become redundant very quickly.

‘Do you know how much Daddy loves you?’

‘Yes.’

‘How much?’

‘To the moon.’

I shook my head. ‘Today I love you more. I love you as far as the stars. You couldn’t travel the distance I love you. It’s that far.’

She looked at Rashelle and put a hand across her mouth.

‘You’re a very lucky girl,’ Rashelle told her.

She was looking at me when she said it.

I wish somebody loved me that much. I wish somebody would come out and say it. My ex-wife was fond of telling me she used to, but I know she didn’t. I had the run of the mill confection that blows through your life from time to time, the confetti of dreams and disappointments, promising much and delivering little. It wasn’t Romeo and Juliet or Troilus and Cressida or Palomon and Emily, or even Darby and Joan. Maybe because there was nothing at stake. Maybe you need something insurmountable to make sense of it all; maybe you have to face the ending of things to get the meaning? I suppose it’s like life: it’s nothing without death.

I was holding her head in my hands and trying to work out how I could possibly say the things I wanted to say to her. A million images entered my head: her splashing in the town fountains, her head appearing out of the womb, the first day she walked, the day she disappeared, the day my wife walked out of court with her, the day she first wrote daddy on a piece of card. How can you sum all that up?

Then a million images of her doing things without me took their place - going to secondary school, wearing braces, getting boyfriends, going to university, getting more boyfriends. I think I may have had the better deal, but the pain was overwhelming. I felt as though something terrible was going to happen and I couldn’t stop it.

‘I want you to remember that, sweetheart. I want you to remember that Daddy loves you and he always wants what’s best for you.’

She struggled to get off.

Rashelle held her arms out to her. ‘You better go.’

I nodded. ‘Lock up and take her to yours.’

‘Okay.’

I got up and reached for my phone.

When the cleaner rang the police I didn’t know what to expect; maybe some kind of invasion like we had the last time. They told us to stay where we were and not to touch anything, but then Sherlock rang and asked me if I could come to the station. I thought it must be some clever ploy to separate us so we couldn’t corroborate our stories.

I walked through the city centre gardens the way I normally do and tried to clear my head but I couldn’t shake the feeling of doom. I worried about what I was leaving behind and what lay ahead of me. I wondered what I should say to Sherlock. I tried to remember what I’d said already and if I was going to contradict myself. I had no doubt he had traps and snares waiting for me. But when I got there, the hunter looked like the hunted; he was pacing anxiously in front of the map. The hobbit was with him.

‘I’m afraid we have some bad news.’ I thought it was going to be about the rug. ‘It’s about your ex-wife.’

‘Is she okay?’

They looked at each other.

‘I’m afraid not.’

Nothing prepares you for being told your child has gone missing. That’s about the worst it gets. But when I heard what Sherlock had to say, I think it matched it.

‘She was found dead this morning.’

There’s only so much your body can take. Either it learns to cope with whatever you’re throwing at it, or it packs up. At that moment, it packed up. I couldn’t breathe. The hobbit rushed to get someone and Sherlock quickly got me a glass of water. I remember trying to count to ten and counting my heartbeats along the way. All I could hear was the rush of blood in my ears and the thud, thud in my chest. It wasn’t the kind of arrest Sherlock had planned, I’m sure. Or the kind of end I’d wanted. I’ve feigned heart attacks on stage plenty of times and they’ve been far more dramatic. I’ve died dozens of times and they’ve been far more tragic. The reality of death, like life, is rather mundane, only more painful and protracted.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I put the whole show on to distract them. If only that had been the case, it would have been one of my finest, but I was really in no fit state. I may have kept myself in trim all these years but it wasn’t through healthy living. Stress had been my personal trainer and unhappiness my mirror.

‘Are you okay?’

I opened my mouth wide. Sherlock and the hobbit looked anxiously over me while a doctor of some kind checked my blood pressure.

‘How did it happen?’

‘She was found on the bathroom floor. Early indications suggest it was an overdose.’

Overdose? The very word conjures up images of druggies and skinny women. How could she have done that? How could she have taken her own life? She was a fighter; she wasn’t cowed by adversity, or daunted by challenges. She faced up to things. It was I who was the weak one, who let things get to me. The thought of her on the bathroom floor, splayed out like a doll, her eyes rolling in their sockets, blood seeping out of her mouth, was something I couldn’t comprehend. Like catching a tear in my father’s eye, it was the vulnerability that got me.

‘Was it an accident?’

Sherlock paused. ‘We don’t know at this stage.’

‘Can I see her?’

There was a longer pause.

All morning I’d felt something bad was going to happen. It hung over me like a dark cumulonimbus, overshadowing everything. Naturally, I thought it was about me - I think everything is about me - but now I knew better. The connection between us hadn’t gone despite all I’d done to sever it; and that was the hardest thing of all to deal with. I’d nothing to react against any more. I’d nothing to fight with or get upset about. Doing what I’d done was all in vain.

I walked out of Sherlock’s office, back into the real world, and didn’t realise till I returned that I’d been crying. My face was saturated with more tears than any cloud could contain. I was crying for all of us: me, my little girl, and her: but mainly her, and all the things I’d done to her.

There was a mark on my daughter’s arm when I got back. I didn’t know how it got there. It was more a bruise than a bump and it was a brownish red colour. It showed up on her skin like a blurry, evening sun. For some reason I didn’t want to ask Rashelle about it. I wanted to ask
her
. I’d been crying all day and was on the point of collapse. My daughter looked at me and all I could see was the face of my dead wife. The d-word didn’t suit her too well. I preferred ex-wife, though that, too, had a ring of fatality about it. I wish she was just my wife.

They say that dead bodies look very peaceful but I’d rather be anxious and living than where she was. Handshaker was there when I got to the morgue. All his confidence, all his bonhomie, had gone. I’m not sure he blamed me for what happened but I wouldn’t have blamed him if he had. We stood there looking at her and didn’t exchange a word. He was a far more noble person than I. The sterile, white sheets had an anaesthetising effect on me; my petty jealousy of him, my sense of rivalry, was numbed. Did it really matter if he was the person she ended her life with? Did it really matter if I was forgotten? You can’t take every woman you’ve ever been with to the grave. It would have been nice to, to reflect on old times and ask them if it meant anything, but would you really want to know? Would Bunny or Albertine, or all the others, have anything good to say about me? Wouldn’t it better to be forgotten?

As I was about to go, he put a hand on my shoulder. It was the kind of gesture a man makes when he’s at the end of things. I offered him mine. I’m a passive handshaker by nature and grip like a tissue. He didn’t try to turn it like those wankers do in business, where people think they’re important. He offered it straight bat. I was surprised. I like to think we ended on good terms but I couldn’t be sure. I wanted him to confide in me like they do in movies, to tell me something just as I was going, something personal from her. You know: ‘She loved you, you know’ or ‘She only had good things to say about you.’ I would have turned and said: ‘Thanks, buddy.’ It would have made up for a lot of things.

‘What happened, darling?’

My daughter pulled a sad face. ‘Auntie was cross.’

My heart beat faster. ‘Why?’

‘She told me not to tell you.’

‘What did you do?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Did you do something you shouldn’t?’

‘No.’

Her face began to crease up. She was about to cry.

‘Just tell me what you did. Auntie wouldn’t do that without reason.’

‘She did.’ She put her arms round me. ‘I want you, Daddy. I want to be with you. I don’t want to stay here.’

‘We’re going to go, darling. Very soon.’

‘I want to go now.’

‘We can’t.’

The bubble burst. She couldn’t contain herself. She didn’t care who heard her. I tried to put my hand over her mouth, but she ducked and dived and kept her face averted. Children learn fast.

‘You said we were going on holiday. You promised.’

‘Darling, you have to keep quiet.’

It never ceased to amaze me how much strength she had; she was built like a pocket battleship. She shook me off. ‘Let me go.’

‘Not until you keep quiet.’

She punched me with her arms, kicked me with her legs.

‘Darling, I’m warning you.’

She opened her mouth to scream, but I got my hand in just in time.

‘Shut up!’

The force of it shocked her into silence. Her face creased up again. I’d betrayed her. There was nowhere else for her to turn.

‘I want my Mummy. Where is she?’

I couldn’t answer, I was shaking so much. Guilt engulfed me. ‘She’s gone, darling.’

I didn’t want her to hate me.

‘You said she’d be back soon.’

How do you tell a little girl her mother is dead? How do you tell her that you killed her?

‘Mummy has been very poorly, darling.’

My little girl looked at me and her almond eyes were opaque and glittery. ‘What’s wrong with her?’

I took a deep breath. ‘It’s difficult to say. She’s poorly in her head.’

My daughter didn’t understand that. ‘Is it sore?’

‘Kind of.’

‘She should see a doctor.’

‘That’s what she’s doing.’

‘When can I see her?’

‘When she’s ready.’

‘When will that be?’

‘When they say.’

I’m not a man given to sentiment. I despise it in others and I despise it in myself. But deep down I am. Though I’ve showed no remorse for the people I’ve hurt, I always meant to. I’m not irredeemable. Who is? Did Hitler ever get nostalgic about his childhood by the river in Braunau or Osama Bin Laden for the streets in Riyadh? I bet they did. Did they ever watch the formations of the clouds the way I did as a child, and wonder what was going to become of them? You have to allow for the way people become and what’s happened to them. Somewhere down the line, you’ll find a turning point where their life changed. Don’t tell me, high up in the eagle’s nest, or in the mountains of the Tora Bora, one mildew mooned summer night, they didn’t think of all that they’d become, and what life was and what death was, and all the things they’d done. Maybe a flicker of sentiment was all it was, but maybe it was more, and they thought about being children once again and playing on the streets and how life had dealt them a cruel hand. How far is St. Helena from each and every one of us? For me, right then, staring at my daughter, it felt very close. She brought it out of me. She made me sentimental. I could sense myself gushing when I was near her.

‘Do I have to stay here until she gets better?’

‘No, darling. We’re going to go soon.’

‘On holiday?’

‘Yes.’

Children like to repeat things. Whether it’s continuously asking for sweets, or whining about why they can’t go out, or asking when dinner will be, they take great stock from asking the same question over and over again. In most cases, it’s a successful policy. They do get the sweets, they do get to go out and dinner is made an hour earlier to accommodate their stomachs. My wife should have tried it more; it would have been better than giving me sullen, ineffectual looks all the time. Persistence pays off.

My daughter was worried. She was repeating things because she wanted reassurance, the way I touch things over and over again, because I believed it would give me peace. She wanted some control over her world, some stability. Only I could provide that for her.

‘How will Mummy know where to find us?’

‘She’ll find a way.’

‘Shall we leave her a note?’

‘What shall we say?’

She thought for a second, then scrambled off me. ‘I know.’

She went to the computer and took out some printing paper. A lot of it goes that way. She writes a word or draws a face on it, then throws it away. She knelt on the floor and began to write. As she did, I noticed the bruise on her arm again. It seemed to have gone darker.

When I looked up, Rashelle was standing in the doorway. I didn’t know how long she’d been listening. She must have let herself in.

‘Why don’t you tell her?’ she said.

When I came back, Rashelle knew something was wrong. The tears hadn’t yet dried on my face. She let me in quickly and sat me down.

‘What happened? Do they know?’

I shook my head.

‘What is it?’

‘Worse.’

‘What could be worse?’

‘It’s my wife.’

Rashelle went quiet. It seemed ridiculous but I didn’t know quite how to tell her. It’s as if I was the one delivering bad news to the relative.

‘She died this morning.’

Rashelle sat on the bed and the life just drained from her. She didn’t say a word. All she could do was stare at the wall in front of her.

After a few minutes, she seemed to catch her breath and she looked at me. There was scant recognition of my pain. All the feeling was for her. ‘How?’

‘They’re not sure. They think she took an overdose.’

She took a deep breath. I thought she was going to convulse. ‘I want you to go.’

It was so short and quick, it barely registered.

‘Where?’

‘I want you to leave. I can’t cope with any of this.’

There was a coldness, a clinical detachment, that I hadn’t felt from her. I didn’t think she was capable of it.

‘You’ll have to. You’re involved, too.’

Again, I thought she was going to hit me. All her frustration and pent-up fear wound its way through her. She gripped the bed covers so tightly, the blood drained from her hands.

‘I can walk out of here anytime I like. Even if I don’t tell the police, I’m free to go. It’s you that’s stuck.’ It was true. ‘You can’t keep secrets locked up forever. Eventually, it will all come out. Do you know what that does to someone?’ She was on the verge of the breakdown. Her chest heaved and shook and she covered her face with her hands. ‘You have to go to the police.’

‘You know I can’t.’

‘Then you’ll have to think of something else.’

‘I’m trying.’

‘If you don’t, I will. I need to be on my own.’

There was silence. My little girl had heard us from the playroom.

Rashelle beat her arms against the sheets. Part of me wanted to hold her but part of me wanted to kill her. I wanted to wrap her strawberry blonde hair round her neck and strangle her. It wasn’t that I hated her; it’s what she was doing to me. I left her where she was and took my daughter. It may only have been a matter of five metres to my flat but it was five metres too many.

If she left me, I would be stuck. It’d be as good as giving up. I couldn’t take my little girl with me and I couldn’t leave her. Could I?

‘You’ll have to tell her eventually.’

Her eyes were red and her cheeks streaked with mascara. My little girl looked up and brought her writing over.

‘I will.’

I gave my little girl a kiss and asked her to play in her room. She shook her head and said she was scared.

I looked at Rashelle.

‘It’s okay. It’s me that should go.’

I followed her to the door. ‘Will you give me a few days?’

She shrugged. ‘Will it change anything?’

‘We’ll be gone by then.’

She looked at me sceptically. I realised how pathetic it sounded. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘I don’t know. I’m going to think of something.’

‘You better do it quickly.’

I closed the door behind her. My little girl had put the TV on. I picked up the piece of paper she’d been writing on. It said: Dear mum we have gon to blakpol to see chestr. Come and see us. We lov you so so much. x

Underneath was a picture of the three of us. My daughter wasn’t the best drawer in the world - she couldn’t even colour in properly - but I could recognise her smiles any time. They were as broad and wide as melon slices. They made me think of seaside postcards and family holidays, and what could have been and how I’d taken it from her; and how in turn it had been taken from me. I wasn’t blaming anyone. I only had myself to blame but I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t think I’d been dealt a cruel hand, too.