by Jan Carson
I am afraid of you now, son, as I am afraid of the violent man sleeping inside me, as I am afraid of my own fists and the way they clench without my thinking about it every time I stand still. You are your father’s son. I can see it in your hands. I am afraid for you and how you are ruining yourself.
7
Tall Fires
I return to work in early July. I deal with my patients. I drive home again. This is just about all I can cope with. This, and the occasional glass of whiskey before bed. Everything in the world is Sophie now and I’m determined not to screw her up.
On my first day back at the health centre my first patient is a two-year-old boy who has wedged a raisin up his nose. ‘There might be a couple of them up there,’ explains his mother. ‘He was in the larder for ages before I noticed. Sorry about this, Dr Murray.’
I have forgotten that patients often apologize, as if they are responsible for catching head lice or contracting leukaemia, as if they might, with extra diligence, have warded off the early onset of arthritis thereby saving valuable NHS resources. When a patient apologizes I always try to smile, and say, ‘Sure I’d be out of a job if nobody got sick.’ I learnt this from Marty, who is good with people. I say this now and hook the offending raisin out with tweezers. The child howls throughout the procedure. I never once let my smile slip. I’m glad to have such an easy first patient. It is months since I last felt so competent. I’m already wearing my stethoscope. I’ve adjusted the chair to suit my posture and moved the stationery round my desk, leaving a clear spot for my Garfield mug. It’s all coming back to me with remarkable ease, like swimming or something more essential.
Once finished I fasten a ‘Well Done’ sticker to the boy’s pullover and he immediately stops crying. I keep a roll in the top drawer of my desk. They’re my only defence against children. The mothers I can handle, but the children terrify me. They’re like cats at this age, entirely unpredictable.
Between morning coffee and lunch I see psoriasis, two throat infections, a nasty case of croup, three time-wasters, who could easily have stayed at home with a bottle of Benylin, angina, asthma, and an elderly gentleman named Ronnie, who cannot remember what year it is yet insists upon giving me a blow-by-blow account of last night’s World Cup match. I refer Ronnie to the memory clinic where he will probably be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. When he leaves the surgery I shake his hand firmly. I know what the next few years will be like for him. I wish to send him off well, as if he is a soldier leaving for war.
At lunchtime I text Christine: ‘HOW R U GETTING ON?’ and she immediately texts back: ‘ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT,’ which is a strange phrase for a deaf person to use. Still, I feel calm inside. I think about running across the road to the sandwich bar for a BLT. Seconds later, Christine texts again. This time it’s a picture of Sophie sleeping peacefully in her raspberry-ripple cot. I take a mental snapshot of the exact moment when I look at this picture of my daughter, sleeping. This is the precise second I realize everything is beginning to get better.
I eat my sandwich in the staffroom. Usually I eat alone in my office but today I feel like starting a new routine. The lady receptionists pick up on this change straight away. They’re all a-twitter when I appear in the staffroom. The new doctor, having no preconceptions, assumes my behaviour to be completely normal. No one tells her otherwise. I introduce myself as Jonathan rather than as Dr Murray. She doesn’t even wince. Instead she extends her hand towards me and says, ‘Susan, lovely to meet you. I was so sorry to hear about your parents.’ I dip my head in and out of her sympathy. The lady receptionists huddle round my chair, echoing her concern. They are like hens when hens are confined within a closed space.
‘I hear you’ve a wee one we didn’t know about,’ says the lady receptionist with the particularly solid hair. It’s a clumsy attempt to change the subject from dead parents to something more palatable and the rest of them take to it immediately, pecking at me for details.
‘Aye, you’re a dark one, Dr Murray. We’d no idea you were a daddy.’
‘Is it a wee girl you have or a wee fella?’
‘What’s her name?’
‘Have you any photos of her?’
‘Sophie,’ I say. ‘Her name’s Sophie.’ This meets with a round of approving nods.
‘Photo?’ asks the one with the large chin, clapping her hands in front of her chest, like a sealion swiping at its own excitement.
‘I’ve no photos with me, ladies,’ I say, and then I remember the photo Christine has just sent me. I take out my phone and pass it round the circle. There seem to be more lady receptionists than there were when I left. It’s possible they’re multiplying behind the photocopier and the other doctors haven’t noticed.
‘The nanny took that this morning,’ I say.
‘Is her mammy back at work already?’ asks the lady receptionist with the Ballymena accent.
‘No, she doesn’t have a mother.’
‘What happened to her?’ all of them ask at once. The lady receptionists are not known for their tact.
‘She died,’ I say.
‘In the car accident with your parents?’ asks the original lady receptionist. For a moment I don’t understand what she’s talking about and I’m confused. Then, I remember and realize I’ll have to tell another lie.
‘No,’ I say, ‘she died in childbirth,’ and quickly add the bit about an underlying heart condition to make my lie sound a little more believable.
‘Uch, you poor thing, Dr Murray,’ says the original lady receptionist. ‘You’ve been through the wars this past year. It’s little wonder you went a bit mad.’
Then, all of them are trying to pat me at once as if I’m a kind of dog, a sad-faced dog, like a Golden Retriever. I enjoy this immensely. I lean into their pillowy concern. It is months since I’ve been purposely touched and the feel of them, pressing in with their breasts and their soft kindness, is the sort of thing that might leave bruises. When they draw back, returning to their phones and filing cabinets, they leave the lady scent of Estée Lauder and hair lacquer on my pullover. From time to time, between afternoon appointments, I sniff at my sleeve. It smells like nothing I’ve ever known before.
It is almost six when I get back. Standing on the Welcome mat, I’m caught by my own reflection, echoing back at me from the glass front door. I hardly recognize myself. The good day has run through me and left me a much stronger man. I turn the key and step into my house. ‘I’m home,’ I call out. Sophie’s mother aside, it’s years since I last came home to anyone. Even then, it was only the cleaner.
Christine is in the kitchen reading a book. She doesn’t hear me approach. I make my feet fall heavily on the tiles and she doesn’t even turn to look. It is a relief to know she has not been faking. I place a hand on her shoulder and she starts slightly. The book slips from her fingers and flutters to the floor, like a shot bird. I wish I knew the sign for ‘sorry’. I’ll look it up later. It’s likely to come in useful. I make my right hand into an ‘OK’ sign and she nods back, smiling with her too-big mouth. I reach for a notebook and pens and place them in front of her, indicating that she should pull up a chair. We begin a conversation.
‘How was today?’ I write.
‘Really good,’ she writes back. She is an extremely quick writer. This is probably because she’s deaf. When a person loses one of their senses the others will rush to compensate.
‘What did you do all day?’ I write.
‘Mostly slept. Sophie, I mean, not me.’ She draws a smiley face on the notebook and we both laugh without sound. It’s amazing how quickly I have slipped into her silence.
‘LOL,’ I write. I’ve seen this on the internet. It means ‘laughing out loud’. Neither of us is laughing out loud. Christine can’t. I don’t know why I’ve written ‘LOL’. Should I apologize? But I still don’t know the sign for ‘sorry’ (maybe an upside-down thumbs-up, or a sad face, like a mime artist). I look at Christine to check if she’s annoyed. She doesn’t
seem at all upset. Her face is folded in concentration as she fast-writes an account of Sophie’s day: ‘Sophie slept 2 hours. Bit strange when she woke. Then grand. She’d 4 wet nappies, 1 dirty one and 5 feeds. We looked at picture books and watched cartoons.’
I flinch as if I’ve been slapped. I can’t help myself. It’s involuntary, like sneezing. ‘NO TV,’ I scribble, and straight away notice that I’ve written it in block capitals as if my handwriting is screaming at Christine. I add a lower case ‘please’.
Christine looks puzzled. She writes, ‘Sorry. I didn’t know. Sophie can’t hear but she’ll still enjoy looking at the pictures.’
‘No TV, please,’ I repeat. ‘It’s a religious thing.’ In other cities this would make very little sense. Other cities do not have religion like a game where you make up the rules as you go along. Belfast does. Christine’s grown up here too. She knows better than to push the issue any further.
‘Got to go,’ she writes. ‘Same time tomorrow?’
I nod. I give her two thumbs-ups and a broad smile. I hope she’ll translate this as ‘thank you’ and ‘I’m very grateful’ and ‘Please don’t ever leave us because you are the only good thing that’s happened in months.’ In my mind I’m making a list of sign-language words to google later. I should learn how to do her name so I can say, ‘Hi, Christine,’ every morning. I could learn Sophie’s name too, and the sign for ‘father’. I correct myself. I won’t bother learning ‘father’. Father is a solid word without arms or softness of any kind. I’ll learn the sign for ‘daddy’ instead.
After Christine leaves I put a frozen pizza into the oven, empty the dishwasher and watch some TV. I feel like a very ordinary person. Normal, even. All over the world dads like me are doing exactly the same thing. This is the closest I’ve ever come to being part of a team. I could eat the feeling with a spoon.
Around nine Sophie begins to stir. I hear her on the baby monitor. She makes damp little noises with her mouth: clicks and kittenish mews, like two wet surfaces parting, coming together and parting again. I stand at the nursery door, listening to the sound of her not quite crying. I could stand like this for a very long time, just listening. When I lift Sophie she curls into the space between my collarbone and neck. The whole of her fits perfectly in this hollow, as if it has been carved out with just such a purpose in mind.
The day has been full. The day has also been easy. I can’t remember the last time I felt so hopeful. I look hard at Sophie, even her mouth. I can’t bring myself to be afraid. In this light, with the curtains not yet pulled, I’m almost certain her eyes are browner than they were this morning. They are the coffee-grounds colour of old soil. They are darkening down to mirror mine.
That’s my girl, I think. Tonight it is easy to dismiss her mother’s ears and the slick of dark hair curling over her head. The good day has coloured everything brighter. Outside it’s still light. The moon is full-ish and already up. The sun sits opposite, like a petulant twin, refusing to descend. I carry Sophie over to the window and we stand for a minute, framed between the curtains.
‘Look,’ I say, pointing towards the pale face of the moon, ‘there’s the moon, Sophie.’
Such an innocent sentence, five words in total, the sort of thing hundreds of fathers are currently saying to their daughters, in different languages, all over the world. In other circumstances I might also be pointing out the stars beginning to prickle their way over the Castlereagh Hills. I could even be singing ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’, making my hands flower in and out, like tiny cosmic explosions. Instead, I’m clamping a hand over my mouth, trying to suck the words back in. I’m sick in my belly, guts clenching and unclenching. This is how I felt every time her mother spoke. Pain. Nausea. Nervous twitching. I place Sophie back in her cot and steady myself. No harm done. She might not even have heard.
Despite this small setback, today has still been the best day in a very long time. I want to mark it in some significant way. I’d like to take Sophie out, have a small adventure together. It’s not that we never go out. We’ve been to the little Tesco at the top of the road dozens of times, and every so often we visit the bigger Tesco at Connswater. But I always leave Sophie buckled into her car seat. Tonight I want to take my daughter out with me. I want to be seen with Sophie and allow myself to be proud of her.
I try to think of somewhere quiet and uncrowded. Coffee shops are out of the question and Sea Park will be full of people out walking, enjoying the late-evening sun. Then I remember the swings at Victoria Park. I could drive my car to the edge of the play area, wrap Sophie in my coat and walk sharply past any dog-walkers still on the prowl. There will be no children in the play area at this time. It’s almost dark. The plan is foolproof. We’ll go to the swings. I’ll show Sophie the ducks and the loop-necked swans gliding across the pond. I’ll take a few pictures on my phone to satisfy the lady receptionists next time they ask about her. If I take them under the streetlamp it might even look as if we’re out in daylight, like an ordinary family, doing a completely ordinary thing.
That is not how the evening plays out.
I get Sophie buckled into her car seat and head for Victoria Park. On the way, we pass a group of ten- and twelve-year-olds gathered outside a Chinese takeaway. They are straddling their bikes, holding them balanced between pinched knees, as they watch the fire brigade work on a blaze in the butcher’s shop opposite. They are staring at the flames with the same rapt attention I’ve seen on the faces of teenagers staring at phones.
At the park I drive as close to the swings as the car park will allow. Apart from my ancient Renault there are just three other cars scattered across the hundred or so available spots. Joggers, I presume, most likely fat joggers who prefer to run under cover of darkness. Aside from the ducks and swans we are all but alone in the park. This settles me. I lift Sophie out of her car seat, arrange her against my chest and, just to be on the safe side, zipper my hoodie over the tiny bump of her. In silhouette I must look like a pregnant woman. I follow the footpath alongside the pond, past the bowling green and the public toilets to the play area for children. The dry-bread stench of duck shit catches in my nose as I walk. It is worse tonight because of the heat. The pond has begun to evaporate. There’s a half-metre line of exposed muck sandwiched between the water and the dry grass like the chocolatey layers of a tiramisu.
In the playground I pick a swing, sit on it and, after laying Sophie carefully along the furrow of my lap, begin to drift backwards and forwards gently. I’m not sure whether she’s enjoying this or not. It’s impossible to tell. After a dozen or so undulations, I begin to wonder how long I should keep it up, if I’m doing it right, and what else you can do with a very small baby in a play park.
I’m just beginning to question the sense of bringing Sophie out when I hear footsteps approaching the play area. I stop swinging, hold my breath and wait for the footsteps to pass by. They don’t. They stop at the gate of the play area. Something soft and heavy is thrown over the fence. It lands with a defeated swoosh on the rubbery tarmac. The gate grates open. The feet walk in. I can tell they’re trainers, from the padded noise they make. There’s more than one set. I try to count how many. All the action is taking place behind me so I can only guess that there are at least two other people in the park now, no more than three. They are trying to be stealthy. They are treading lightly on the ground, shushing each other as they walk towards me.
They are probably drug addicts. I’ve seen on television shows such as Casualty and EastEnders that drug addicts often congregate in children’s play areas after dark. Perhaps they enjoy the stark juxtaposition of evil and innocence, shooting up under a primary-coloured climbing frame. More likely, they’re just looking for a place to hide. I can’t believe I’ve been so naïve. I’m a healthcare professional. I should be more aware of the East’s drug culture. I brace Sophie against my chest, ready to run if the situation escalates. I think I may also be able to fight if they’re young, or already under the influence
of one of the downer drugs. This, if it happens, would be the first physical fight of my life. I’d be relying entirely upon moves learnt from moderately violent films. If they have syringes I will not engage with them at all. They could potentially give me AIDS or hepatitis B. I’m not sure how to tell if they have syringes or not. Perhaps I could ask before raising my fists.
I weigh up the odds and make a calculated decision to run as soon as the opportunity arises. I try to stand up, bracing my feet against the rubbery ground. My leg muscles refuse to move. I can’t seem to stand or run. I remember this stuck feeling from dreams and begin to breathe quicker. Sophie, sensing my anxiety, starts to cry. The noise of her, which is like a siren going off in the quiet park, brings three young fellas beating round the corner of the climbing frame.
‘Fuck!’ shouts the first one to spot us. ‘There’s a man here and a baby.’
Automatically I drop my hands to my lap and cover Sophie’s ears. The three young men line up in front of the swings. They seem confused. They are not at all angry-looking, or even threatening. I’m never very good at estimating how old young people are but these three look tiny to me. This is not to say they’re still children. In the rougher parts of the East a constant diet of cigarettes and Pot Noodles has left many of the young men stunted, no bigger at eighteen or nineteen than the average American twelve-year-old. I’d guess these boys are about sixteen, possibly even a little older. They’re dressed in identical outfits: blue jeans and tracksuit tops, the hoods drawn over their heads, framing their faces like tiny ninjas.
‘Sorry, mister,’ says the first, who is a half-head taller than the other two. ‘I didn’t mean to swear in front of your baby.’
I’m a little confused. I wasn’t expecting an apology. The boy lifts his hands to cup his own ears, mimicking Sophie and me. He shrugs his shoulders and smiles as if to say, I see you there, looking out for your wee girl. I keep my hands firmly over her ears. It’s not ideal. Sophie may still be able to hear them speaking, but there’s little else I can do to protect her. The urgency has gone out of the moment. It would be ridiculous now to run.
