Dear Dad - Part 2

Mrs Blake had lived on Anglesea Drive for over thirty years now. She’d watched Rosie’s gender transformation, as well as Frank’s stunted evolution. She thought she remembered Frank’s mother, but her husband Jack assured her it couldn’t be. Rosie always strutted outside Mrs Blake’s home, a queen bee in her hive. She held her head particularly high when she crossed the doorstep of number 11 Anglesea Drive. She did this to exude confidence, hiding the fear Mrs Blake evoked in her.

She would inevitably think back to the night she murdered her wife, for she remembered the light in number 11 turning on as Alice drew her last breath. It was unusually warm that evening. Frank had been put to bed in his nappy, with the window open to ease his first sweat. Alice and Ed shared a glass of wine over which they exchange amorous glances hinting at a heated night ahead. A pineapple stood on the kitchen counter, ready to be carved. Ed was hungry, and fretted that Alice had forgotten to prepare his dinner. She’d been distracted since the arrival of the baby. In truth, she’s been distracted by the events of a fortnight ago and the strong feelings she felt for her husband despite that night’s revelation. Ed had seen her watch him play in the arms of a man, as uninhibited and daring as he’d never been with her. He could feel her stare on his naked back, but never turned around to meet her eye. He’d carried on loving the stranger in his house, occasionally looking up to Alice’s reflection in the mirror. He was amazed at the pleasure he felt, fuelled by his anger at his wife, and the murderous spark he caught in his eye. Alice and Ed never revealed each other’s secret. To Alice, she’d caught her husband with a man. To Ed, he’d enjoyed a passionate moment with an anonymous lover and revelled in the immense pleasure brought on by the presence of a spectator.
Hunger rumbled in Ed’s stomach, echoing the excitement he felt for the upcoming entertainment of the evening. His plan was to woo Alice into alcoholic submission, and squeeze her throat until life spewed out of her. He would then dispose of her useless body in the creek behind number 11; the unimaginative Blakes would never suspect him. And so, on an evening like so many others, she drank, died, and disappeared, leaving behind a son and a relieved husband. He would always blame her for leaving. He would tell her family they had quarrelled and she had left in a rush, crossing their road inadvertently, hit by a bus. Frank slept through his mother’s murder, and awoke the next morning, clueless.

Frank has been clueless since; always led to believe that bad things happen to good people – “that’s just the way it is”, would say Rosie. She would add “you’re a thinker, not a doer, so don’t expect much from life”. She saw him as the simpleton he was, a young man who believed that life would happen to him. He was tall and ginger like her, and easily the most uncharismatic Frank to be born on British soil. He spoke in murmurs and offered a limp handshake to the rare few who extended theirs. His breath smelt of hunger, though he was regularly fed. And the sweat on his brow had never truly left him since that warm evening 22 calendars ago. She would laugh to herself as she found various ways to describe him, one more demeaning than the other. He wasn’t worthy of her love, which is why, she told herself, she would never try to love him. She was left with other duties towards him which she performed negligently. She always assumed the trade-off between her life with Frank’s mother, and their current arrangement, as fair. She kept him warm, clothed and fed in exchange for being at once the woman and the man of the house. She thrived on this thought. Rosie’s teachers at her all boys’ school had once described her as uncompromising; an astute observation, she thought.

Frank is planning to go church this evening. He’ll be taking a shortcut to get there. As he sets off, he rethinks the letter, redrafting it but always using the same beginning and end. He wishes that his Dad could see him today: a hardworking, churchgoing, strapping young lad. He walks through dusk, like a puppy finds its way to the nipple, trustful and instinctive. But tonight his footing is clumsy, he trips over a raised pavement slab. He can’t fathom the reason for his gaucheness. He’s distracted by his inadequacy, convinced that his father must be watching from his seat in heaven, ‘tutting’ away in disapproval. He attempts to correct his gait, clutching his fists, and frowning a determined frown. In doing so he hopes to appear confident once again. He reaches the shortcut fast, and despite his awkwardness, decides to take the narrow alley between number 11 and number 13 Anglesea drive. He peers into Mrs Blake’s window hoping to catch a glimpse of teatime and intimacy. But the lights are off. It seems the Blakes are out for the evening. Emerging from this thought, he notices he’s halfway down the passage. This realisation brings him back to awareness, and he feels uneasy again. The walls are dizzying in their proximity to each other, and a foul smells rises from the stagnant water collected where the sloping cobbles join. He walks as if on ice, afraid to slip, fall and humiliate himself. As an afterthought, he remembers the time, and decides against shortcuts in the future. But there’s an intriguing moistness in the air tonight which is making his thoughts clammy and unclear. It’s compelling somehow. He feels the need to investigate. He sees a lit window looming ahead, towards which he shuffles attentively. He peers in. At first he’s taken aback by the sight of an unusually tall woman, but soon recognizes the shape as that of his aunt Rosie. But she isn’t alone. She’s in the company of a man. Frank is startled and can’t look away. But she sees him, always the eagle eyed member of the family. He panics and sets off like a hunted deer, eyes alight with the burn of the setting sun.
He’s an action film star. He runs, jumps, rolls on the ground, dodging the invisible enemy and showing off. He finds a gate, and attempts to jump over it. But the alley is too narrow to gather speed. He tries the handle and the gate swings back as if waiting for him. He dashes in, breathless.

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.