Dear Dad- Part 1

Sitting at his desk in a window frame across town is Frank, my childhood friend. Frank is always at his desk lit by a small flickering lamp, like a star assuming its assigned position in a constellation, purposeful and diligent. When away from his desk, Frank can be found in deep contemplation at a chapel two streets down from Anglesea Drive where he lives. I sometimes visit that chapel, if only to catch a glance of an old friend.

‘Dear Dad, I am the son you never had’. That’s how Frank starts his letter to his absent father. He was raised by Rosie, his aunt. She often told him about his mother who died 22 years ago. Frank is 23 today, and according to Rosie, his father doesn’t know he exists.

But Frank’s dad has always been his best friend. The one he speaks to in times of need or even writes his most intimate, most imaginative, thoughts to. He’s always striven to make him proud, choosing to study when others were out playing football, or down at the pub. He studied accounting rather than theology and took maths and physics A-levels instead of art and philosophy as he would’ve liked.
He imagines his Dad to be tall and ginger, just like him, with strong commanding hands instead of stubby fingers and a powerful voice where Frank has a lisp. His Dad has freckles, but only on his face. His Dad is an airline pilot and a war veteran. He fought a meaningful war and grew up in a time of deprivation and rationing, risking his life to make his family proud and bring food to the table. He’s never drunk himself into a beer induced stupor, but distinguishes malt beers from ‘hopsy’ ones. He comes from Esher in Surrey, a sunny little town not far from Kingston where Max, Frank’s friend from school, grew up. He appreciates nice things but is never frugal with his spending. On most days, his name is William, a strong regal name, but he’s also been called Fred when he’s played the piano, or Peter if he’s attended mass. When he walks into a room, heads turn and voices quieten. His women are treated as ladies, and the one he chose to love was Frank’s mother. His passion for her was strong and their relationship tumultuous, but they made a striking pair straight from the studios in Shepperton. Their idyll ended when he was sent off to war, and not because she fell pregnant with an unwanted boy. She was his Yoko, he was her John.
Frank is anxious to meet his true sweetheart, and promises not to make her pregnant until they wed. He pictures her blonde and buxom, a true English princess, an artisan of exquisite pork pies. And when they meet, he will send his father a wedding invitation along with a letter which will end with ‘I hope you are proud Dad, I followed in your footsteps’.

But Frank wasn’t all that observant. He was never really a stickler for detail, much more a poet and a dreamer. Had he been the pragmatic realist his father was, he would have paid more attention to footsteps. And more particularly to his Aunt Rosie’s footsteps. He may then have noticed Rosie’s unusually big feet, and her alarmingly ginger hair. Her strong hand and smoker’s voice. Or the curiously big silhouette she cut against the opening of his bedroom door.

That evening, as Frank sat at his desk redrafting the letter, Rosie stood behind him peering over his shoulder, her shadow so large it was easily confused with the looming dusk. As she read the lines of Frank’s correspondence she smiled and thought of that night she’d spent with Frank’s mother, the night he was conceived. She thought again of the night she strangled Frank’s mother when Frank himself was but a year old. She smiled again as she thought of the deceit Frank lived in, and the comfort he took in the stories he made up about his father.
If Frank were really so keen to follow in his father’s footsteps, thought Rosie, perhaps he should pay more attention to feet. This intended pun made her laugh to herself, appeased by the familiarity of this scene; yet another deceitful situation of her design.
Rosie never thought of Frank as a son. She was barren, as the doctor had informed once he’d completed the change. And this suited her. She had never felt maternal despite all the other feminine emotions she’d been subjected to since adolescence. She’s settled with the contempt she suffered for Frank, and blamed this on his general lack of intelligence. She took pleasure in mocking him, and watching him grow into an insecure young man. He occupied a room in her house and ate the meals she heated up for him, never asking for more. This she considered a good thing because she wasn’t ready to part with any of her creature comforts, let alone make any form of compromise to better accommodate his existence. He lived off his inheritance from his mother. She delighted in the idea of this malformed adult that she shared space with, and his awkward ways that made hers seem so graceful.