Dirty Old Man (A True Story) (6 page)

I couldn’t tell him about it because I knew he’d go up the wall
, so I just put it on and went downstairs, hoping the conversation would never come up.

I was conscious of the pinching all evening; I couldn’t enjoy TV or my dinner because it bothered me so much. It was the first evening my dad hadn’t mentioned the ring, in fact, he barely registered
I was there at all.

The next day
I was so pleased to not be wearing the ring to school. I knew my dad would be in bed all day and unlikely to find where I’d hidden it inside my pillowcase.

I couldn’t
concentrate on anything except that damn ring and its phantom pinch. I imagined my dad going through my things and coming across it. I worried about a confrontation at home. Maybe he’d search my room because he saw I was acting strange the previous evening.

     When I did get home, he said nothing to me. My mum came home late and went straight to bed so I didn’t get to speak so much as a word to her. I wanted to tell her about the ring but she didn’t have the time.

I was last up to bed again that night, my dad wanted to talk about dinosaurs because he thought I was interested in them. It was my own doing really, we’d been to the museum on one rare family outing and I saw a box of dinosaurs I wanted. I was a typical child and wanted everything even though I didn’t know what half the stuff was.

They bought me the box of dinosaurs and from then on, I had to make them believe I was really interested in them so I didn’t get told off.

It was then that Dad raised the matter of the absent ring on my finger. I’d been so anxious that he’d find out it was somehow broken, that I’d completely forgotten to put it on.

I went upstairs to my room and stuck my hand into my pillowcase to find it, it wasn’t there.

I opened the dressing table where it was normally kept and it was right there,
back in its box.

I
felt sick to the stomach, I knew I hadn’t imagined it and it was in a place where I hadn’t left it. To make matters worse, when I put the ring on, there was no split at the back!

I did not want to go back downstairs at all. I was sure he’d mention something about it. He must have known it was broken, yet I couldn’t explain how it had turned up somewhere else in one piece.

    
I looked at my sisters fast asleep in their beds; I so desperately wanted to be one of them at that moment. I sometimes wondered if they were actually awake and thanking their lucky stars they weren’t in my shoes.

I walked slowly downstairs, hoping my dad would have fallen asleep, and I stood awkwardly in the doorway until he spotted me and told me to sit back down. He wanted to continue the conversation about dinosaurs whilst he watched a lady dance naked around a pole on television to some sleazy music.

I hated it when he put these programs on in front of me. I never knew where to look and I always felt he was watching me for a reaction.

He’d sit with his eyes fixed on the TV, then he’d talk to me about dinosaurs and a long pause would come whilst he watched the woman again. I often wondered what he was thinking during these moments because it wasn’t the first time it had happened.

I felt so awkward that I made my excuses to go to bed. He asked me to put the dog out in the garden first so that it could do its business underneath the weeping willow tree.

When I came back in, he was very short with me and told me to just go to bed if I didn’t want to talk to him.

It was two o’clock in the morning and I had to be up for school in the morning.

I crept up to bed and fell asleep feeling very isolated indeed.

I never can recall how I lost that ring, but it was never spoken of again.

     My older sister Beryl had signed up to a modelling agency which made my parents very proud. They’d shower her with new clothes every week, and my dad would help to build her portfolio by taking, (looking back now as an adult) what were quite risqué shots of her in the back garden. She was often wearing very little.

I despised her smugness, and the way she’d tell me that I’d never be a model bec
ause I wasn’t pretty enough, Freckles weren’t ‘in’ apparently. Also, I was too much of a tomboy, (which I owed to my brother’s hand me downs), and because I was covered in scabs, as I used to pick at my skin out of anxiety when my mother wasn’t there.

My face and arms were covered in them, and my parents would always tell me how ugly it made me look.

I wasn’t too bothered because I didn’t want to be a model anyway, I wanted to be a scientist which I felt was a much more respectable job. It wouldn’t really matter if I was covered in scabs and scars.

I was never jealous of the way Beryl looked, but more of the
attention she was given and the nice clothes she was bought. She had a huge nose and I called her ‘Concorde’ and duck every time she’d turn around.

Because of her stuck up attitude, I often hid her clothes when she needed them for modelling. My favourite spot where I knew she’d never find them was in my brother’s pillowcase, and in her own duvet. I was always the first suspect, but I enjoyed watching her panic as she shouted at me, desperately trying to find them whilst her freshly made up face and hair dripped with sweat and fell out of place.

When my hiding places were discovered and the bruising from my dad’s slipper had faded away, I’d put her clothes in my school bag and hide them in my locker at school where I knew she’d absolutely never be able to gain access.

     Each Wednesday, one of us would get to go with Mum to the city in the evening to take Beryl to one of her modelling sessions. Today it would be my turn.

I’d heard stories from the others who had been before, how they’d secretly eaten out at a well-known fast food establishment that our
father had forbidden us to use because he’d heard rumours that they sponsored the IRA. He was well into his conspiracy theories, likely because they made him feel he was still part of society, without the responsibility that came with it. Today it was my turn to join the rebellious eaters club and I was most excited.

     We caught the double decker bus, and I convinced them to sit upstairs; mainly by walking up the steps anyway. Mum stared lovingly at Beryl who was the apple of her eye, whilst I pulled faces in the mirror that the driver uses to see what was going on upstairs. I looked out of the window for the majority of the journey, while they chatted about Beryl’s plans for super stardom.

     “I want to start in magazines first and then maybe get into television,” said Beryl.

We got off at the bus station and the driver smiled at me as I hopped off. Beryl got dropped off at her vanity building; Mum didn’t take me inside which she thought was in Beryl’s best interest because of my scabs. Her skin was greasy and riddled with acne but it didn’t stop her looking down her big nose at me.

When w
e left, Mum was more vacant than usual; I didn’t get the meal I’d been so looking forward to, though I did get a doughnut and a drink.

We reached a
pay phone and she made a phone-call to Dad as she normally did to let him know we’d got there okay. They had a small but heated exchange and she slammed the receiver down.

I followed quickly behind her as she stormed off back in the direction of the bus station, where we sat on some fold down seats
; clock watching until it was time to pick Beryl up.

     “You know,” she started, “if it wasn’t for you lot, we wouldn’t have arguments like this,” she paused, “if it wasn’t for you kids, I’d leave your father and be happy.”

I remember feeling a little crushed as the burden of adult problems was placed upon my shoulders, I didn’t know what to say, so I sat in silence watching the clock tick by.

Mum barely spoke until it was time to pick Beryl up from twenty minutes walk away. I was glad to stretch my feet.

The outing was nowhere near as exciting as I’d expected, and I felt a little deflated as I walked alongside my mum, not daring to try holding her hand.

     “You know how you came into this world don’t you?”

I assumed she was speaking to me and was thankful for the conversation, I shook my head.

     “No?”

     “It’s a funny story really. Want to hear it?”

     “Yes,” I smiled, because now it was all about me and I was getting the attention from her that I so desperately craved.

     “Well, it all started when my dad – your granddad, died. You never got the chance to meet him because he died before you were born. Your Nana was in a right state for a long time afterwards so we had her move in with us. It was fine to begin with and we’d not long had your brother. Your Nana had her own ideas about the way we should be bringing Alex up and we didn’t agree with her interfering.”

I listened intently, waiting for the part where it would become all about me.

     “Anyway, after we fell out, she locked herself in the bedroom and refused to come out. We left trays of food outside the door but she refused to eat, like she was on some kind of hunger strike. We were getting worried about her until your father caught her shimmying down the drainpipe one evening. It turned out that she’d been sneaking off to the bingo every evening for her dinner. We were so cross when we found out and we’d had enough of her interfering so decided she had to go.”

I giggled a little, I’d never had a relationship with my Nana because she never seemed to like me, but the imagery of her sneaking out the house made me laugh.

     “That’s why we had you. Because then there would no longer be space for her and she’d have to move out. Funny though, I get on better with her since she moved out.”

She smiled at me and I smiled back as I choked the tears away, it was dark so she couldn’t see my true reaction.

At least I understood now why Nana had always disliked me, and treated me differently to the others. She’d always ‘forget’ to buy me presents at Christmas, while everyone else got teddy bears and watches. When she’d be called upon to babysit, I’d play behind the sofa while she watched Coronation Street. The whiny melody of the theme tune still makes my skin crawl when I hear it and I’ll always remember that cat that slinked along the wall during the intro. Nana would always tell me to play quieter else she’d smash my toys to pieces and tell my mum that I was responsible. I didn’t mind being behind the sofa so much because at least I didn’t have to look at her haggard, old hateful face.

     We reached the modelling agency and Beryl was waiting for us outside in a fit of hysterical tears.

The reason unfolded on the walk back to the bus station, me lagging behind from the weight of my heavy heart and my mum comforting Beryl.

As we waited for our bus, she continued to tell us how the evening had been like an exam and how they’d been graded on the various things models have to do. Things like walking down the catwalk while maintaining the correct posture; she was also graded on her physical appearance and attire.

She’d been given an ‘A’ for posture and grace which Mum reassured her was an excellent grade. She scored a ‘B’ for attire and a ‘C minus’ for her face which was the reason for her inconsolable crying.

     “It’s the worst thing in the world,” she sobbed.

     “Worse than war, and
those children starving in Africa?” I asked, genuinely interested in her response.

My heart felt a little lighter and Beryl must have seen it written across my face because she scowled and accused me of smirking which I apparently did quite a lot.

The journey home was relatively peaceful apart from the sound of Beryl’s crocodile tears and my mum’s comforting words.

I wished we’d caught the same double decker bus home because I felt like I really needed to see somebody smile at me again.

     Amy was late to call for me that morning. She’d normally be at my house by eight o’clock, so I figured she was probably off sick or bunking off so I left without her.

I stepped out into the cold grey morning and shivered as the remaining fog spattered my face like a light rain shower.

I was anxious at the prospect of having to walk past Mrs Arnold’s house alone, me and Amy had trodden on her flowerbeds the previous week. Not for any particular reason other than we were silly, immature twelve year olds.

There was an odd sensation looming in the air that day which I could not place my finger on, other than to say that things just felt wrong.

Nobody was about as my footsteps echoed on the lonely pavement where crowds of children would normally gather as they walked to school.

I walked quickly past Mrs Arnold’s house with my head down like a coward until I heard a thud of footsteps becoming louder behind me. I spun around expecting Mrs Arnold but it was Amy.

     “Hurry up else you’ll make me late again.” I shouted.

She doubled over when she reached me and tried to catch her breath as she held up one hand.

     “I didn’t think you’d be in school today,” she panted. “Haven’t you heard what happened last night?”