Dirty Old Man (A True Story) (5 page)

I could hear my dad and
Derrick giggling in the living room, there was a hatch-way where a door once used to be. Every time his friends came over, they’d chain smoke underneath the yellow nicotine stained ceiling.

Then I heard him call my name and my heart almost dropped though the floor. My sister Beth looked smugly at me, and that familiar dizziness and cold sweat returned as I shuffled past the hatch
-way clutching the mermaid doll.

     “Moll’s going to get in trouble,” she sang.

I walked through the hallway and stopped for a moment outside the living room door. A hundred thoughts charged through my mind at that point, and I tried to recall anything I might have done. The only incident I could think of was the one with the cold pizza, and it occurred to me that the head-teacher may have called home. As I slowly opened the door, I mentally scrambled about, trying to come up with an excuse. I decided to say my frozen pizza had fallen onto the floor which was why I couldn’t eat it.

     “Don’t look so
worried, you’re not in trouble” he said, “we just wanted to see what your new glasses look like.”

I think I may have smiled a little at that point; it wasn’t often that the focus of attention was entirely on me.

     “Oh they look very special don’t they Jim?” said Derrick in his slimy, greasy voice. He wore glasses himself but they were bifocals which made his wandering eyes appear much bigger than they were. I’d never been one to accept compliments; somehow they always seemed fake and insincere.

     “Are you going to say thank you to
Derrick or just stand there?” he asked me.

     “Thank you
Derrick,” I said, knowing I’d have to before it escalated. Now wasn’t the time to let the awkward silence devour me.

     “Go and give him a hug then,” he said with a smile.

I stood frozen to the spot, hugging Derrick was absolutely the last thing I wanted to do. I didn’t feel comfortable embracing my own parents in such a manner; I didn’t want to be anywhere near this slimy stranger.

     “But I don’t want to,” I said as tears began to glaze my eyes, I hoped my eyes didn’t look bigger in my new glasses because they’d see the tears.

     “Don’t be such a silly little cow and give Derrick a hug before he gets offended, because if he does; you’ll be in trouble.”

I walked over to
Derrick slowly, avoiding eye contact, he hoisted me up onto his knee and squeezed me tight. I could smell the stale tobacco on his breath as he laughed. I clung to the mermaid doll and thought about that instead; of the adventures I could be having under the sea if I could be a real mermaid and not an unwanted toy.

     “You look very sexy in your new glasses,” laughed my dad in the way he joked about to make
Derrick snigger. I freed myself from Derrick’s grasp and jumped down, not knowing where to look in the room as they both appeared to be studying my reaction.

     “You could be our sexetary,” he sniggered, “would you like that?”

I knew what a secretary was but not a ‘sexetary’, even at six years old I considered it to be a bad, dirty word.

I didn’t say a word, but stood staring at the floor for a little while before he sent me back to play in the next room. They howled with laughter as I quietly closed the door.

     I went up to my bedroom tha
t I shared with my five sisters and looked out of the window at the kids playing in the street. It would be dark before my mum would be back from work, but I knew better than to wait for her as I used to. I’d sit on the windowsill and wait to see her shadow disturb the street-lit pavement.

I hoped one day that she’d spend time with me, and maybe she might even enjoy my company, she was always too busy or too tired and the others pushed harder for
her affection.

I took my glasses off and put them in the pink case I used to love,
as it snapped shut; I told myself that would be the last time I’d ever wear them in case other people looked at me in the way my dad and Derrick had.

I curled up on my side of the bed and drifted off to sleep to the sound of laughter downstairs. I slept away many evenings like this because it passed the time away and nobody seemed to notice. I’d go many evenings without dinner because my dad wouldn’t wake me up.

My mum was eventually told that I was sleeping a lot, and my dad said it was because I thought I was better than everybody else in the house. That made me an easy target for my siblings, as they believed what him and blamed every little thing on me from then on.

     My glasses ended up stuffed underneath my bed at the very back and I continued to struggle with my class work. Eventually Mrs Biggins decided (after many false promises to bring my glasses back into school), that I was unwilling to help myself and she didn’t show me as much attention towards the end of the school year.

     My dad drank a lot of tea; he almost liked it as much as cigarettes. He had his own cup which we weren’t allowed to wash despite the thick brown staining around the inside. He thought it added character to the taste. He’d even drink it cold when it had been left stewing for hours.

My mum used to take him a cup upstairs when he’d be having his daily bath, but as she was working longer hours
; she was no longer able to most days.

     I stood washing up in the kitchen one day, and my dad came in to put the kettle on. He was routing through a large pile of clean washing on the kitchen table as he was going in the bath. He ‘accidentally’ dropped a pair of black satin briefs onto the floor; I looked down as I felt them bush my leg. They had a gold zip that ran up over the crotch area.

     “Oops sorry, I wasn’t looking for those,” he laughed, as he bent down to pick them up, “these are your mum’s favourites, she loves it when I wear them but they look a little bit funny with the zip. Do you know what it’s for?”

I shook my head quickly and started to scrub at a badly stained pan, hoping he’d leave the conversation there; which he did.

     “I’m going in the bath in a minut
e, in about fifteen minutes; will you make a new pot of tea? Just bring it up and don’t worry about knocking.”

Then he left the kitchen
taking his satin briefs with him.

I was horrified, something felt very wrong about the situation but I knew if I didn’t take his tea up then he’d punish me with his belt or slipper like he often did.

I looked at the clock and tried to remember what Mrs Biggins had taught me about time, and I found where fifteen minutes would be.

I barely remember making the tea, but know I would have put three sugars in it even on autopi
lot. The last telling off I got was because I put too much sugar in and it ended with the tea being wasted. I was smacked so hard on my leg that I couldn’t sit down at school.

     When I reached the bathroom at the top of the stairs, such was my desire not to progress a step further, that I considered throwing myself back down to avoid seeing my dad in the bath.

As I opened the door, the first thing I noticed was the lack of scent, which meant he’d not used bubble bath and every part of him would be on full display. The air was moist and I desperately tried not to inhale even a single breath of it, because his perspiration was likely to have contaminated the air.

He sat in a fairly shallow bath but didn’t bother to cover his modesty which was in plain view. It seemed almost as though he enjoyed watching my eyes dart about the bathroom, looking for a safe place for them to settle.

     “Can you bring it over here please before it goes cold?” h
e asked brazenly, as though the situation was entirely normal.

    
“It’s bloody cold!” my dad spat it out into the bath after taking a sip.

    
“But I thought you liked cold tea?” I said.

    
“I do, but not when I’m in the bath. It’s because you’re too damn lazy to make a new pot of tea, isn’t it? You don’t give a damn about anybody but yourself in this house.”

I didn’t say
anything; I just looked at the floor which was slowly flooding as his movements became more animated.

     “Just get out,” he said,
“I’m disappointed with you yet again. I give you one important job and you can’t even get that right. You’re not part of this family.”

He pic
ked up a wet towel and threw it in my face. I moved downstairs as quickly as I could.

     About an hour later I could hear my dad moving about. The stairs creaked as he came down and I knew he’d come in, I had no time to go into the back room where the others were playing, I even thought about climbing through the hatchway into the next room to avoid a conversation with him.

He came through the door with just a towel wrapped loosely around his waist and he strode across the living room to his cha
ir. He sat with his legs open wide enough to make someone feel uncomfortable. I was watching ‘You’ve Been Framed’, a popular TV show where people send in their own funny home videos, if they were shown; there was a prize of £250. My dad always found it hilarious and would sometimes laugh until he cried. Often he’d still be hysterical long after everybody else had stopped.

He started talking about his own ideas for a home video as he wanted the £250 for a new pair of binoculars.
My sisters came in to watch the show too.

My dad had built a bar with an integrated fish tank
that you could walk behind to stand at the counter. I had fond memories of watching him build it when I was younger, I remember eating a slice of watermelon when he was sawing the wood, disappointed with the seeds that were inside the melon. ‘If you eat the seeds, a watermelon will grow out of your bum’ he used to say to me. That thought alone terrified me as watermelons are quite massive.

    
Without warning, he stood up and the towel fell from his waist. He giggled as he ran behind the bar and said that it was a shame we didn’t have the video camera to hand, as we could have sent the clip in.

Everyone in the room thought it was hilarious but my stomach churned over inside.

     My eighth birthday soon came about which brought with it, that odd birthday immunity. When somebody had a birthday in our house, everyone would be nice to them and any grievance would be put off until the next day.

I can’t recall exactly what gifts I received
, but vividly remember a small box that my dad handed me. It was blue with a velvet lining, and in the centre sat a small heart shaped silver ring. It was the first time I’d ever known him to acknowledge my birthday so today seemed extra special.

It was evidently bought from a well-known catalogue on the High Street
, and my sister Beryl would later trawl though the catalogue to discover it cost under £5. She would tease me about it but I didn’t care how much it cost because it belonged to me and nobody else. It would become the first and last piece of jewellery I’d ever want to wear.

I’d come home from school every day and the ring would come out of the box and go on my finger. If I ever forgot (which didn’t happen often)
, my dad would remind me.

     I’d come home from school each day and put the ring on, taking it off at bedtime as it became routine. One particular night in bed, I could hear my dad moving about downstairs, it was late; but because he slept during the day as he was quite nocturnal.

I heard his footsteps on the stairs, slow and quiet. He opened the bedroom door and stood looking at me for some time
, before turning away and going to the bathroom. I don’t understand why he did it so often and I don’t remember why it used to scare me to death, but I used to pretend I was asleep.

I was different to my siblings; I wouldn’t let him break my spirit. Every time he’d keep me up until silly o’clock in the morning, sat on that chair in the middle of the living room
, trying to break a confession from me for something I hadn’t done; I stuck to my word. It would often be a smack or the slipper for me. One day he hit me so hard that I couldn’t sit properly at school. I was examined by the school nurse and my mum was called in. It was never much fun having to strip down to your vest and pants, even though she was no stranger to me anymore.

I remember after my mum left that day, I had to go back into
assembly; I sat and cried for her. The teacher moved me next to the piano at the front as the school sang ‘Morning Has Broken.”

     I returned home from school that day and went upstairs to put my ring on. I opened the little blue box and slipped it onto my finger but something wasn’t right.

I felt a pinch
on the back of my finger and turned my hand over to discover the ring looked as though it had been cut straight down the back, split in half on the band.

It nearly put me on the floor. I was worried my dad would find out.

I’d been so gentle and careful with it, I knew that it definitely wasn’t in that condition when I put it back.