The Good Father (2 page)

Chapter 2

Hope watched her father comb his hair in front of the hall mirror, watched him smile experimentally at his reflection, the self-conscious smile that hid his slightly crooked teeth so that it seemed like no smile at all – not one he used on them, at least.

‘So,' he said, ‘you'll make sure the boys are in bed by eight o'clock?' He glanced into the mirror again, then turned away to lift his coat from the hallstand. Shrugging it on he said, ‘I told you that we're going to the Grand for dinner, didn't I? It's a dinner dance.' He smiled his ordinary smile. ‘I thought I might bring her back here, afterwards . . . How would you feel about that?'

The girl shrugged.

‘Hope . . .' He sighed. ‘You like Val?'

‘Yes.'

‘Yes? So it's all right if we come back here for a night-cap? If you want to stay up, that's fine. If not, well – that's fine too.'

‘I'll see.'

Frowning at her he said again, ‘You do like Val, don't you? She's nice, isn't she? And the boys like her . . .' He trailed off. Distractedly he said, ‘Anyway. I should dash.'

His coat buttoned, his gloves pulled on, he said, ‘I've left you a bar of chocolate in the cupboard beside the tea caddy. Save it until the boys are in bed. It's your treat, for being my best girl.'

She went to the door with him, watching as he walked to the end of their road and turned the corner on to 
Oxhill Avenue
, before closing the front door and locking it, just as he had told her she must.

Martin and Stephen were already in their pyjamas, their father insisting that they be bathed and bed-ready, as he called it, before he left. He had warned them that they must be good for Hope; he always said this, every time he left them in her care. Always she thought that he might just as well save his breath. Climbing the stairs to their room, Hope heard the boys shouting and she opened their bedroom door to see them bouncing on Martin's bed, competing to see who could jump the highest.

Between bounces, Martin said, ‘Has Daddy gone?'

‘Yes.'

‘You can't make us go to bed, you know.'

‘Stay up, then,' she said. ‘See if I care.'

The two of them fell on to the bed together. Breathlessly, Stephen said, ‘We think he's going to kiss her.'

‘Do you now?'

‘Do
you
?' The boys looked at her, an odd mix of hope and anxiety on their faces. Martin said, ‘If he kisses her he'll have to marry her.'

‘Only if she likes it,' Stephen said. Still looking at her, he added, ‘And she probably won't.'

Martin rolled his pyjama leg up and began picking at a scab on his knee. ‘She'll like it if she's after his money.'

Stephen was outraged. ‘He hasn't got any money!' He shoved his brother. ‘Bloody idiot.'

‘Stephen!'

‘He
is
an idiot! Daddy won't marry anyone!'

They began to fight, two identical little boys grasping and pulling at one another as they rolled about the bed and bumped onto the floor. Hope watched them, thinking that she could leave them to it, that eventually they would tire themselves out and fall asleep, probably on the rug, curled up together like puppies. She thought about the chocolate her father had told her about and the novel she was reading,
The Masked Ball
by a woman called Avril D'Vere. The book was rubbish, terrible, slushy rubbish, but the hero was handsome; she had built him up in her head and made him more interesting, hoping to fall in love with him. So far, that magic hadn't happened. She couldn't concentrate on stories; her mind wandered.

This afternoon, her mind had wandered constantly to Peter. She thought of him in the church porch, in his dark coat, white collar and black tie; she thought of the way he had smiled at her, as though he was terribly pleased that she was there. She'd had to look away, and the horrible creeping feeling she had so often lately, that she had somehow encouraged him to look at her so longingly, had sent a hot rush of blood to her face.

The last time they were alone in his house, as he took out the paper and pencils she was to sketch with, she had asked how he was. For a moment he had stood quite still, frowning as though trying to make sense of what she'd said. What had been only a polite question all at once began to seem inappropriate, insensitive even. Then she realised that no one ever asked him how he was, and that her asking had touched him too deeply. Appalled, she'd seen that he looked as if he might cry, gazing at her with this desperate expression until the atmosphere between them became so charged she had to turn away. At once he began to fuss with the sharpened pencils, lining them up just so; she noticed that his hands shook a little.

She'd wanted to go home. Ashamed of this lack of pity, she had touched his arm, smiling at him as sympathetically as she could. He had laughed painfully, his embarrassment compounding hers. ‘I'm sorry,' he said, and she had said no, no, it was fine, wanting only to reassure him so he wouldn't look at her like that again.

Peter was her father's oldest friend, and she had loved him for as long as she could remember. But lately she was embarrassed by this love, its childishness and its over-demonstrative enthusiasm; she squirmed whenever she remembered her silly exclamations of just how much she loved her Uncle Peter. But she had been a little girl then, had known nothing. She knew more now, she had been made to understand what some men hid away in their hearts.

As well as being her father's friend, Peter had been her mother's, too. She remembered her mother and Peter together in the kitchen a few years ago, her mother hugely pregnant with the twins. They had been talking – serious, intent on each other – until Peter had seen her watching them from the kitchen doorway and had immediately held out his hand to her. ‘Hope,' he'd said softly, and her name had sounded like a gentle warning.

This morning, her father had said, ‘Damn and blast and damn!' Standing by the phone in the hallway, he turned to her. ‘That was Mr Davies. He's insisting I come to the office – some problem with the accounts that must be sorted today.' He exhaled sharply. ‘Blast the man!'

He had been wearing his best suit, a black armband around its left sleeve, his black tie draped around his up-turned collar, the phone call from his boss catching him out in the process of tying it. He looked down at the tie and suddenly gave it a sharp, hard tug so that it rasped against his shirt.

‘Aren't you going to the funeral?' she asked.

He tossed the black tie down so that it fell against the phone, only to slither to the floor. ‘No, I can't, not unless I want to lose my job. I'll have to call Peter.' He turned back to the telephone as though he couldn't think of a worse call to make. ‘Damn,' he said again, but quietly now. She'd had an idea that he was deciding whether to make the call or not, whether he could simply not go and explain later. Reluctantly he picked up the phone.

Their conversation had been very short. When it was over and her father had hung up, he turned to her. ‘I suppose I'm relieved, in a way.'

She had nodded; of course he was relieved. Her father was bad at sympathy; he liked it best when those around him were happy enough to be ignored. All the same, he had looked bleak for a moment, only to quickly pull himself together. ‘Listen – why don't you go instead? I think one of us should, after all.'

‘No!' Appalled, she'd shaken her head.

‘I know it's horrible.' Smiling suddenly he went on, ‘Look, it's an Anglican funeral. They have you in and out of the church as if they were renting the place out by the half-hour – nothing too over-wrought. And it will be good for Pete to see a friendly face. Go on, Hope, do it for him, if not for me.'

Desperately she said, ‘I can't – the school won't allow it.'

‘Oh, for goodness sake!' Her father sighed, exasperated. ‘I'll write you a note – give it to the teacher. Does it matter anyway? You'll be leaving there in a few weeks.' He touched her arm as he stepped towards the stairs on his way to change out of his funeral suit. ‘Are the boys ready for school?'

‘Dad, please don't make me go.'

He turned, frowning at her. ‘Hope, don't be silly. I know funerals are a bit daunting, but just think of it as a more sombre church service.'

Then he went upstairs and she heard him shouting at the boys to stop fighting and get ready for school or he'd box their ears – another empty threat: her father had a hundred of them. It had occurred to her that if she didn't go to the funeral he would only bluster for a few minutes and then forget he had cared. She had thought about Peter and guessed that if her father didn't attend the funeral – if
she
didn't – he would be alone in that church with his father's coffin. She'd shuddered, resolving not to go, only to remember how much she had loved Peter until so recently, only to think how much she pitied the sudden image she had of him alone at his father's graveside.

After assembly this morning, she had gone to Miss Vine's office and handed in her father's hurriedly scrawled note. A few weeks earlier, in the same room with its photographs of hockey and netball teams and its display cabinet full of trophies, Miss Vine had told her that she didn't think she should stay on for her second year at sixth form. ‘I know your heart's not in your work, Hope.' Her voice had been stern but then her face had softened and she had taken off her glasses so that Hope had known she was about to fake concern. ‘I think you should learn some shorthand and typing, some office skills. Not everyone is cut out for higher academic achievement – becoming a good wife and mother are vitally important roles.'

This morning, sitting at her desk, Miss Vine had peered at her over the rim of her tortoiseshell spectacles, the spectacles chain around her neck catching the morning sun streaming through the high windows. ‘I heard that Mr Wright had died. And if your father insists you attend his funeral . . .' The woman had sighed, as though she knew how unthinking her father could be. ‘All right. Go, of course you should go.'

And that is how she had found herself at the funeral in her father's place.

Martin said, ‘Are you going to make us go to bed?'

Hope looked at her little brother. ‘No. I'll tell you a story, if you like.'

‘One of Uncle Peter's stories?'

‘Yes, all right.'

The boys whooped and began bouncing again as Hope lay down on the other bed. ‘Hush now,' she said. ‘Lie down and listen quietly.'

Halfway through the story, she remembered it was one Peter used to tell her years ago in the months after her mother's death, when she would sit beside him on the sofa downstairs, his arm light around her shoulders. She would place her head very deliberately so that she could hear the beat of his heart and feel the resonance of his soft voice vibrating through his chest. He would smell of carbolic soap, a clean, harsh scent that comforted her in its adult right and properness; at that time her father had begun to smell of unchanged beds and unwashed hair; his face had become blue-black and rough with bristles and his eyes looked as though someone had just said something horrid to him. Sometimes her father would grab her and hold her too tightly, and sometimes he would lock himself in his bedroom for hours. Peter would come then, as if he sensed she was alone with just her baby brothers. Peter would feed them and put the boys to bed; he would tap gently on her father's door.

Hope came to believe that this gentle tap-tap-tap was a sign to her father that all was well; Peter never opened the door, never went inside the room, just tapped out this signal before taking her hand and leading her downstairs. There they would settle on the sofa and he would tell her the story of
Cinderella
or
The Tin Soldier
. Or this story that now, on her brother's bed, had brought such memories back to her –
Tom Thumb
.

Her voice trailed off and Stephen said, ‘Hope! Don't go to sleep. We want to know what happens next.'

She closed her eyes, remembering how once, in the middle of
Tom Thumb
, she had asked Peter if he had ever wished for a little boy of his own. He had only laughed a little, kissed the top of her head as she'd gazed up at him, and told her, ‘One day, perhaps.'

‘After I'm grown up?'

He'd gazed back at her. ‘Yes, after that.'

She had been satisfied, realising that she didn't want to share him with other children he might love more than her and her brothers. Boldly, because her mother's bewildering absence had made her demanding, she'd said, ‘You're not to get married until I'm old.'

Recalling this, Hope opened her eyes, anxious suddenly that he might have taken her demand seriously. Of course he hadn't – he had probably forgotten all about his promise that he wouldn't marry, but all the same she felt a guilty kind of fear dart through her. Had he had stayed unmarried and unhappy because of
her
?

Stephen had come to stand beside the bed. Hands on hips, he stamped his foot. ‘Hope! Finish the story now!'

She sat up, not wanting to go on with Peter's story, not wanting to be reminded. Quickly she said, ‘They all lived happily ever after. Now, let's go downstairs – Dad's left us some chocolate.'

The band began to play ‘Rock Around the Clock' and Val Campbell tapped her foot beneath the table, thinking that she and Jack Jackson were too old to dance to music like this and that she shouldn't look as if she wanted to dance so badly because that might make her seem too flighty. She looked at Jack surreptitiously, thinking that he didn't really look his age. He was slim and slight and his dark hair was still thick, with no grey that she could see. When he smiled unguardedly – which wasn't often – he looked even younger. She had been told that she looked younger than her years, so that was one thing they had in common, at least. She was as blonde as he was dark and not particularly slim, certainly not slight –
buxom
, Harry used to call her. Harry would slap her bottom and laugh and call her ‘wench'. Vulgar and vivid, Harry would be on his feet now, throwing himself around the dance floor, the first to laugh if he fell on his face. Too big, too loud, she sensed Harry's presence most strongly in places like this where there was food and music and drink and the air was blue with tobacco smoke. Harry had smoked cigars as fat as his chubby fingers. His clothes, those beautifully cut suits and hand-made shirts, had smelled of cigars, his breath of sweet, ruby port. Naked, he had smelled of sandalwood, clean, expensive, subtle; the naked Harry was a different, calmer, gentler man.