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It’s almost like she just asked if I would venture into a cave beneath ground, filled with water and snakes and all kinds of nasties… because the fear hits me at the thought of seeing him… it’s as bad as facing an underground watery cave with snakes as hosts.
Kallie pushes on my back gently and begins making small talk with Julie. I walk slowly, so slowly toward my impending doom.
When I get there, he’s in his high-back armchair, eyes closed, hands resting on his lap in front of him. His black hair has all gone now, not a trace left, only a white, fluffy snow cloud left on his head. That’s how long ago it is since I last saw him; he still had a little bit of black back then.
He could be confused with a corpse since his head is tipped back slightly and his mouth is open. Only the chest moving up and down and occasional sound of him breathing lets you know he’s alive. The whole routine of getting up and dressed must be tiring if he’s had to take a nap so early in the day.
I stand looking at him for a while, not knowing what to say or think. He doesn’t have any photos lying around, except for one. I sent him my graduation photo in a frame and he’s kept that on the mantelpiece. He never came to the graduation over in Bristol, claiming he had to work. I sent him the picture as a way of showing him what he could’ve been a part of, and also in part, to prove I wasn’t going to become like him—and especially not like her.
Anyone else would see a harmless, frail old man with not a bad bone in his body. All I see is belligerence and how he ignored me my whole life.
“Uh, uh,” he suddenly says, shaking awake as if from a nightmare. It takes him a few minutes to get his eyes open, then when he sees me, he pushes himself into the back of the chair as if seeing a ghost.
“Lisabeth,” he says, eyes wide and full of terror.
“It’s me, Dad. Mirabelle.”
I’m standing beside the fireplace looking down at him. I must seem a fright. So tall and intimidating against his small, crumpling frame. Mum was tall like me too, taller than her husband even, though I guess they must have loved one another at some point. It was an odd pairing indeed, my mother so much younger and so beautiful. He a small, timid man with a valiant work ethic to be sure, but he never had the lust for life Mum did.
“How did you get in?” he says weakly, sounding much older than his sixty-seven years.
Indeed, if someone told you he was eighty, it wouldn’t seem a stretch.
“Julie let me in. She seems nice.” I stare him in the eye and see only an echo of the man he used to be. Now he’s reduced to accepting help from whoever will provide it. Once upon a time he was too proud and I would have to admit, I’ve inherited that pride. It’s why I never went to a teacher at school and told them I was missing meals at home and needed help; why I always refused to let Cheryl offer me her son’s hand-me-downs, since I grew to be as tall as him and had a liking for boy’s clothes back then.
“The drugs make me see things,” he says, his voice so gravelly. “I thought for a moment it was your mum.”
I take a seat on the sofa adjacent to his armchair. “It’s me, Mirabelle.”
“I know that now. You’ve got her looks but my gait. I used to box, you know.”
This is the first I heard of it. “What?”
He nods fast. “I used to box. Never told you cos I had to beat up a couple of fares a few times. Was ashamed of it a bit, but mostly I didn’t want you knowing I was a nutcase. Your mum saw that I was a few times. Didn’t like it.”
Jesus.
I’m still reeling when he says, “Nah, nah. No. I never hit her, not once, but I had a temper. You’ve got a bad temper, too.”
I nod that I have. On occasion, I get very bad-tempered.
“Here we go,” says Julie, entering the room in a flurry of cheap perfume, big smiles and seemingly inoffensive banter.
Kallie takes a seat next to me and holds out a cup of tea for me. I take it but it doesn’t taste quite right. You can tell some of his cups haven’t been used in yonks and have a strange smell.
“Is he a bit loopy right now?” I ask Julie, as she hand-feeds my father—a sight I never thought I’d have to see. Yes, perhaps now I see why he didn’t immediately want me here. Not until things got really bad, anyway. Since he seems to be breathing okay.
“He’s on some strong painkillers,” she explains, while passing him his tea in a sippy cup.
“Fucking hell,” Kallie says under her breath beside me.
Kallie hates sick people. It gives her the willies.
“He gets picked up by the hospital bus, they take him for his chemo, but soon I think it might be decided it’s doing him no good and he’ll have to come off. So this will be about as lucid as you’ll get him right now, love,” says Julie, speaking kindly but matter-of-factly too. “Before hospice care becomes necessary.”
My father isn’t really listening to Julie, I can tell. His eyes are so focused on the toast he can barely chew but desperately craves nonetheless. He dribbles tea when she gives it to him, but she’s used to quickly mopping that up.
“Need toilet,” he suddenly says, and she drags out a walking frame from behind the door.
