Daddy Dearest (17 page)

I don’t know what I expected when I got back, but none of it was good. I stood there hammering the lift button and imagined my daughter floating in a bath, her hair spread out like seaweed around her. Rashelle had turned from Florence Nightingale to Myra Hindley in a second. Who knows if there was an accomplice in all this and she was going to hand my daughter over to them: some screwball like Ian Brady, or some Romanian sex traffickers? I heard they paid very well for kids.

It never struck me that Sherlock would have arrested her by now if anything was wrong. I am so careful with my little girl; I don’t leave her with anyone. If she was a child killer, I’d have known. I got off at the seventh floor and ran down the corridor. My heart beat loudly in my ears. Had the taps already been run? Was I too late? I put my ear to the door and gave the knock.

Nothing. I took a deep breath, knocked again, louder this time. Still nothing. I tried the door. Locked. I always liked to think I’d be good in emergencies. I liked to think I’d be one of the few who would act rationally and save themselves, but really that’s more to do with instinct and nature than the way you see yourself, or the way you think you are.

‘Rashelle?’

She’d taken my little girl. I fumbled with my keys, dropped them on the floor. Maybe she’d taken her to mine? I was about to pick them up when I heard a door opening and footsteps on the wooden floor.

‘Rashelle?’

It went quiet.

‘Rashelle, is that you?’

‘Daddy?’

The word sheared through the wood: she was alive.

‘Darling, open the door.’

‘I can’t. It’s locked.’

‘Just turn the latch, darling.’

I heard her fumbling uselessly. ‘Which way?’

‘To the right.’

She didn’t know right from left. She barely knew right from wrong. ‘Which way is right?’

‘Towards the bathroom.’

The bolt kept slipping in her hands. ‘I can’t, Daddy.’

‘Darling, where’s Auntie?’

‘She’s gone.’

‘Where?’

‘I don’t know.’

I looked round, trying to think what to do. ‘Hold on, sweetheart. Just stay where you are.’

I ran into my flat and went straight to the kitchen. I opened the drawer where I kept all my junk. Beneath the light bulbs and boxes of matches and piles of instructions I never read were two bits of wire. I took them out and rushed back. I didn’t know whether other floors were the same, but I never seemed to see people on ours. I mean you could hear them, especially at night, but you never seemed to bump into them. I prayed that wouldn’t change.

I knelt in front of Rashelle’s door and inserted the wires. I knew I could open it - I mean, I’d already tried on my own - but my hands were shaking so much, they kept slipping and the cam wouldn’t turn.

‘What are you doing, Dad?’

‘I’m trying to open the door.’

She was fiddling with the lock on the other side.

‘Just leave it now, darling. I’ll do it.’

Again the wire slipped.

‘Dad?’

‘Yes?’

‘I love you.’

She says it from time to time, out of the blue like that, and it kills me. All the time you think you’re providing for them, it’s a gentle reminder; you need them more. I don’t care if she’s just saying it for something to say; to me, it’s the kiss of life. When she said it, I could have wept. I didn’t deserve it. I didn’t deserve anything, not after the frightful things I was doing to her.

‘I love you, too.’

It was then I heard the ring. Someone was coming out of the lift. Now, sometimes in life, things come along too quickly to make a choice. There’s no time to weigh up the pros and cons; you have to rely on instinct. For me, it would have been easier to jump down a lion’s mouth. When it comes to action I have been more Hamlet than Sweeney Todd. You can’t change your nature, can you?

I stood there with the wires in my hands and wondered how I should go on. Should I give it one last try, or run back to my flat? Should I stay with my daughter or leave her on her own?

‘Darling, keep quiet.’

‘Daddy?’

‘Shh.’

There were footsteps on the carpeted floor. I had no time to hide. Maybe it was Rashelle? Maybe she had her accomplice with her? I ran to my flat, fiddled with my keys. Someone was there. I put the key in the lock. Should I look now? I thought I saw yellow from the corner of my eye. Still I didn’t look.

‘You okay, man?’

I turned.

He was carrying a broom, and dragging it along the ceiling where frayed cobwebs hung down. ‘I was jus’ cleanin’ up.’

‘So I see.’

The cobwebs blew just out of reach.

‘Any news of your little girl?’

‘No news, I’m afraid.’

‘Dat’s too bad. Maybe you’ll get it soon.’

‘I hope so.’

I knew there was something he wanted to tell me. He swept the skirting boards and looked up and down the corridor. ‘Da police talked to dat Chinese couple today.’

I put the keys in my pocket. ‘Really?’

‘Uh-huh. Dey took ’em away.’

‘That’s too bad. They found their stuff?’

‘Dey found everythin’, man.’

He had a glint in his eye.

‘That’s good.’

‘Dat rug we found?’

‘Yes?’

‘It had traces of heroin in. Da mutts were all over it.’

‘You think it belonged to them?’

‘I’m only a cleaner, man. Not a detective.’

‘That’s a shame. You’d have made a good one.’

He chuckled to himself. ‘I’d a made a good lot of tings, man, but I’m still here cleanin’.’

‘It’s not too late.’

He looked at me for a second and I caught the same glint of regret and resignation that has haunted me all my life. ‘Everytin’s too late, man.’

There was a footfall in Rashelle’s flat. For a brief second, I thought he was going to say something but he walked back down the corridor to the lifts. How was he to know, anyway? I waited for him to turn the corner, then opened my door. I stood in the entranceway and waited for the ring. I could hear him sweeping the lobby. Any second I expected my daughter to shout for me. I held the two wires in front of me and doused for hope. After a minute or two, the lift doors opened and he was gone. I went back to Rashelle’s.

‘Darling?’

There was no reply.

I inserted the first wire, then the second. I turned and twisted, then felt the cam turn. The lock was undone. I grasped the handle and pushed. Grey shadows came out to greet me. The living room door was open and a light breeze buffeted my face. I ran inside but she wasn’t there. I could sense the panic choking me again.

‘Darling?’

I opened the bathroom door. The taps weren’t running; nor was there the slow lapping of water in the bath. I ran to the playroom, put my ear to the door, and heard a faint, mechanical whirring sound. I pushed it open.

The first thing I noticed was the sun; the second was the open window; the third was my daughter on the floor. She looked up at me and smiled. She’d assembled the zoetrope night-light and the fairies were dancing round the room. She’d dressed herself in a fairy costume and was waving a magic wand at Jack and Sally and Chester the rocking horse.

‘Darling, what are you doing? Look at all the mess you’ve made.’

She’d pulled all the costumes down from the wardrobe. The floor looked like a medieval battlefield; bears fought dolls fought toy soldiers. There were feathers and stuffing and clothes everywhere. I don’t know whether it’s in me to say something good. I mean, it wouldn’t have hurt to pick her up and give her a kiss. I know I wanted to. But I was panicking. I wanted to know where Rashelle had gone.

‘Darling, who opened the window?’

She gave a cursory look and went on playing with the fairies. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Did you?’

She shook her head. Even if she had, she wouldn’t admit it. I’ve told her a million times not to, whatever good it did. It was the same with the lifts. She was drawn to them. I think it’s a genetic disposition; like mine for lying. If she was lying now, I’d let her have it.

‘Well, who did?’

‘I don’t know.’

She pitched that just right. There wasn’t enough defiance in it to drive me over the edge, but there was enough insouciance for me to know she didn’t really care.

I knelt down next to her and tried to swallow my anger. ‘Where’s Auntie, darling?’

She shrugged again.

I put my hand out and stopped the fairies’ dance.

‘It’s very important.’

‘She went out.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know.’

She mewed that one and started playing with something else. I could sense myself getting more and more frustrated.

‘Did she say anything to you?’

‘She asked me to stay here. She said to get Daddy to tell the truth.’

I was stung. The truth?

‘About what?’

‘I don’t know. I said you always tell the truth. So does Mummy.’

That’s the last thing to go: belief in your parents. After the Tooth Fairy and Father Christmas and the Loch Ness Monster and UFO’s, you discover they were lying, too. There was no perfect marriage, no happy ever after. The anger I felt at their failure burnt long into my raucous, malcontented twenties, flared for a little in middle age, then became a quiet resignation as they grew old. That was punishment enough for all their reprimands and long sentences. Before they died it became sadness that I’d never made it up to them, even at the end.

‘Did she say when she’d be back?’

She shook her head.

‘Did she do anything to you?’

I could see she hadn’t. There were no more bruises on her arms or tears in her eyes.

‘No, Daddy. She just said to wait for you.’

I picked her up, squeezed her tightly, and walked over to the window. It hadn’t really sunk in, yet. Being without Rashelle.

That afternoon the sky was clear. If ever there was a day to jump, it would have been then. But I’ve never had the appetite for suicide - it’s one of the good things about being a coward - nor did I want to be lumped with those selfish bastards who took their children’s lives. Not like that.

‘You know what time it is?’ I asked.

She shook her head.

‘I think it’s holiday time.’

There was a second before the words registered, then she grabbed my neck and exploded with life. ‘Are we going now?’

‘Yes, we’re going to pack our clothes.’

‘Oh, Daddy!’

I couldn’t get her off. The thought she might alert everyone in the building didn’t even enter my head. I was too happy being in her good books.

‘Guess how much I love
you
today?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘This much.’

She held her arms out wide.

‘That’s an awful lot.’

She nodded. ‘You’re my Daddy Dearest.’

‘Daddy Dearest? What’s that?’

‘It’s my dear Daddy.’

Yeah, I know it sounds sentimental. If it had been anyone else, I’d have thrown up. But the fact is, she said it, and she said it without a trace of irony.

I closed the window and helped her put the toys away. I didn’t know how long Rashelle would be away. There was always a chance she’d come back. Maybe she’d bring the police? Maybe she’d say sorry and confess it all? Life was a lot of maybes.

Too long have I stood on the watchtower, guarding against disasters that were never likely to come, watching my life ebb away with the yearly tide of inanity and heartbreak and let-down. I’ve missed sunsets and crowning glories to stand in the shadows of fools; I’ve listened to people I had no care for tell me what they thought and what they felt I deserved; I’ve been brow-beaten, fired, humiliated and every time I’ve taken it on the chin and turned my cheek till it burned. My life has been one long pursuit of a comet’s tail. I caught a glimpse of it as a child and I’ve been chasing it ever since. Once, it blazed fiercely and I felt I had the measure of it - I felt I had the ambition to get my palms burnt - but too many times I have let it go, or not realised it was in my grasp, and now it is well past perihelion. It has vanished into infinite shadow and the pulse of life I once had is no more than a flicker. I have missed all that I wanted to be, and worse than that, I seem no longer to care.

I’m trying to explain to you, if you haven’t already got it, how I came to be here. You know how she got here. You will have made up your mind. She was my star, the something brighter that entered my firmament. But the same inexorable cycle was repeating itself and I found myself already looking over my shoulder, into the sky, for the moment when I saw her tail vanishing over the horizon.

At first I toyed with the idea of staying in Rashelle’s flat. I mean, they wouldn’t look for me there, would they? Not immediately. There was the cupboard behind the water tank. There were places to hide. But it would only be a matter of time. Everything was just a matter of time. I needed to get out. We needed to get out. This was our chance.