Some people have dark hallways…

On Monday 12^th I woke with ears ringing from the thunderous Zappa spawn of the night before, and after a light breakfast and haircut Martha sped me northwards. The roads were unexpectedly clear and I arrived in Northampton after just two hours and twenty minutes.

Dad had been moved to a private room in the Althorp ward and I found him dozing with daytime quiz shows booming from the TV. A tap on the shoulder alerted him to my presence and he responded with a wide toothless grin. Our mutual pleasure at seeing one another felt strangely alien and I mused for a moment on how things had changed in just 12 months. I found myself feeling pleased and guilty simultaneously, as if I was sleeping with the enemy; betraying my mother and sister. Tumbling thoughts soon settled to bring me back to my own selfish purpose and diving for pearls.

‘Here's to the few who forgive what you do, and the fewer who don't even care’ – Leonard Cohen.

It was fascinating to dip into his fading life, make sense of a past riddled with bullet holes and better understand my own weave. We began by talking about his early working life in a shoe factory. He started aged just 13 in the ‘rough stuff’ where the heavier leather required for the soles was cut and matched.

His own father had been an engineer working for Express Lifts before the first war, but being gassed in the trenches put paid to any conventional working life. Hillery junior was withdrawn from school early to work but was not unhappy with his lot and the family of twelve lived well in a three bed house. Food staples were pig trotters, chicklings, sheep cheeks and faggots which were a Hillery senior speciality. So good apparently that local children would stop by to ask 'any spare faggots Mr Hillery.'  Oh the wonderful double entendre of meat products.

Excerpt from the British Food Trust –

A popular supper dish was faggots, also known as savoury ducks. Faggots are generally liver meatballs wrapped in caul. Other foods were made with pig meat and offal such as chicklings (chitterlings), polonies and other sausages, haslet, brawn, tripe and pig’s trotters.

Most of the family income still came from Hillery senior, always on the lookout for a deal, ducking and diving with the best. House auctions were a favourite, and he would leave with poacher’s pockets stuffed with stolen spoils to sell later in the local pubs. Dad recounted a trip to the Silver Cornet where he was deployed to take a bag to the toilet for a pick up.

As sure as a river finds the sea, talk meandered through time to naval glories draped in Vampires, Barracudas and Swordfish before landing at 11 Ansell Way and later battles.

I sat and listened to his stories of an ungrateful wife and mummy’s boy as I tried to stitch in my own memories flooding the decks. Talk turned to my mother’s betrayal, the day we left the house and an axe.

Excerpt from a memoir – Riding with Stabilisers

The fateful day came and I lay in bed listening intently as dad went about his morning rituals. I could smell his Old Spice filling the house with its stench as he moved around. At last I heard the back door close and soon after the clunk of a car door and an engine starting. The crunch of gravel as the car reversed out of the drive was our signal. We emerged from our rooms simultaneously and got to work filling bags, suitcases and boxes, creating a pyramid of hope in the centre of the kitchen. The removal van was due soon and our final job was to empty the chest freezer and defrost it. Like some macabre pass the parcel, we busily wrapped cuts of meat in the newspaper we’d been saving under the settee for the past few weeks. With the freezer washed out and wiped clean, we were ready, sitting nervously on the floor with a rapidly filling ashtray between us. The van arrived on time and I felt both exhilarated and nervous. Buzzing with adrenalin I helped the driver load our lives now measured in a few cubic feet into the van. Mum sat at the kitchen table in her favourite chair with a face that said ‘am I doing the right thing?’ I blew her a kiss and she smiled through the veils of smoke.

 

 

Engrossed in the task at hand, I hadn’t heard the car parking outside in the street. I noticed the Austin’s cold chrome grimace mocking me before I saw my dad’s shape crossing the driveway. ‘What’s going on?’ he shouted, the customary bellow cracked with doubt. He appeared shrunken and walked without his familiar bravado and swagger. I felt the roots of my growing confidence greedily absorbing his power and authority. I felt grown up, in charge and eager to exert my new power and control over him. With a sense of righteous indignation I feasted on the realisation that he was no more ready to ride without his stabilisers than I’d been all those years before. Looking into his black eyes as he came to face me, I stared straight back and just said ‘we’re moving.’

Mum had heard dad’s voice and nervously came outside with the van driver who she instructed to take a break. As dad strode past her mumbling ‘cow’ under his breath, she followed him back inside.

What are you taking?

Just our clothes Bob, the rest you’re welcome to
I paid for this meat
I’m taking the freezer; it’s mine
But not my meat
It’s no use to you without a freezer Bob.

I had been standing watching this ritual bating in disbelief but decided to join the fray.

Have the meat

You stay out of this
We’re taking the freezer
That’s my meat
We’re taking it
You’re taking nothing from this house

I stood anchored to the spot, legs apart with arms by my side as our eyes wrestled for a chink of weakness. His stare broke and cursing under his breath he disappeared outside. I felt powerful, but I realised how much we still had to do. Just another hour I thought and it’ll all be over. A bag of nerves, mum lit another cigarette not noticing that one already burned in the ashtray.

Suddenly dad was back with a look of menace in his eyes; his power buoyed by the axe he brandished at shoulder height. I’d seen the beast many times and had witnessed the wounds it inflicted on the Hawthorn at the back of the garage. Mum stood, fear rippling her face.

Bob don’t be stupid

This is my house
Please Bob
You’re not taking it

I stood between him and the small freezer which had become the Goose Green of our battle.

Get out the way

Leave the freezer alone
I’ll smash it rather than let you take it
Leave it alone
Then I’ll smash you first

He raised the axe and pulled it back past his ear like a cobra ready to strike. I watched as his fist tightened on the shaft bound in brown leather and the muscles rippled over the anchor tattoo on his forearm. His eyes were black glass and empty of emotion. For a split second I imagined my skull smashed and my life ending because of a freezer and a pile of cheap cuts wrapped in newspaper. I kept my nerve and calmly stood to one side.

You’ve gone too far this time. I’m calling the police.

The axe didn’t smash into the back of my skull as I walked from the kitchen into the lounge although the thought did cross my mind. How strange to have that thought as an axe split your brain in two. The act of dialling 999 brought home to me what had just happened and after replacing the receiver in its cradle waves of nausea swamped me and I began to cry.

I walked back into the kitchen and to my amazement found mum and dad sitting at the table in their Sunday spots, silently smoking as if nothing had happened. The axe lay on the floor where dad had dropped it. Still numb I took a deep breath and said ‘they’re on the way’ before walking outside to see our driver sitting in the van reading a newspaper. I apologised but he just grinned and muttered ‘happens all the time’ and carried on reading. As I waited for reinforcements I wondered how many other families he’d seen dissolve on our local pavements.

It took about fifteen minutes for the police car to arrive. They parked behind the Austin and two officers emerged.  A crazed lighthouse flashed on the roof of the car like a circle of paparazzi.  As I walked down the drive to meet them I was pleased to see net curtains twitching the length and breadth of the street. I imagined Mrs Wilkins at number 37 giving a running commentary to her husband as the action unfolded, no doubt branding us thieves and vagabonds. It was a sweet relief to see the officers and their bubble of security and feeling relaxed I found myself enjoying the notoriety.

The officers listened carefully as I did my best to explain the events of the morning. For some reason I left out the part with the axe inches from my face and just said that my father had been threatening. The shift in power that I’d felt was reward enough and I had no desire for revenge. When I’d seen dad at the kitchen table he’d looked defeated and broken. There was no need to ransack and pillage what was left; he’d have years to do that himself. After our chat the police followed me into the kitchen and asked my father to join them in the lounge where they sat either side of him on the settee like a clamp. I tore the driver away from his crossword and we finished moving the remaining boxes, the freezer and soggy packages of meat.

Without that blunt rusting axe I’d have left 11 Ansell Way a bullied little boy. Instead I left halfway to being human.

Dad remembered everything about the freezer but in his version he had threatened my stepfather. When I told him the truth, that he'd actually held the axe to my face, he looked aghast, clutching his forehead, mouth agape. All he could muster were the words 'I'm sorry' over and over. It felt life affirming to hear and accept the apology, let go of some hate and feel forgiveness ooze into the cracks of our relationship. When all's said and done, he's my dad and love conquers all.

 

 

Naked and new born

Held aloft by tattooed arms
The proudest of fathers
Naval stripes and broad smiles
In cosy complicity
March 1959

Together but alone

Distanced by pride and similarity
And denial of love
The most hated of fathers
Cigarette smoke and red leather
February 1978

Thirty years of indifference

Still feeling the wheals
Driven by curiosity of a future
The saddest of fathers
Blind and horizontal
November 2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVPFzj3UnNw

Breaking up is hard, but keeping dark is hateful
I had so many dreams,
I had so many breakthroughs
But you, my love, were kind, but love has left you dreamless
The door to dreams was closed.
Your park was real dreamless
Perhaps you're smiling now,
smiling through this darkness
But all I had to give was the guilt for dreaming