The Good Father

by Marion Husband

  She looked up and caught him watching and he went back to her and took her hand.

  Looking towards the house, she said, ‘We’ll go inside, soon.’

  ‘Yes,’ he smiled. ‘If you want.’

  ‘If I want.’ She laughed shortly. More softly she said, ‘I want and want and want.’

  ‘Yes.’ He kissed her, aroused by her strangeness. ‘So do I.’

  Drawing back from him she asked, ‘What were you and Peter talking about in the park?’

  ‘Nothing much.’

  ‘It didn’t look like nothing much. You looked all serious.’ Stubbing out her cigarette in the grass she said, ‘He’s creepy, isn’t he?’

  Guy laughed in surprise. ‘No! I should introduce you to some of my ex-house masters, then you’d know what creepy is.’

  ‘But he’s really odd.’

  He frowned at her, puzzled by the vehemence in her voice. ‘Then why do Martin and Stephen like him so much?’

  ‘Because they’re just little kids!’

  ‘Your father likes him.’

  She grimaced. ‘Does he? And even if he does, even if he doesn’t just use him so he can palm us off on to him whenever he wants to sneak out . . . ’ Suddenly she said, ‘Peter looks at me. Looks and looks.’

  ‘Oh.’ Guy thought how easy it would be for any man to look and look at her. ‘Oh well. Look back. Stick your tongue out or something.’

  ‘I’m not ten!’

  He grinned, unable to help himself because in fact she was behaving like a ten-year-old, completely out of character. ‘No,’ he said. ‘If you were, he wouldn’t look.’

  ‘He’s always looked at me!’ Her cheeks flushed. Angrily she said, ‘You don’t understand – I knew you wouldn’t. You’re just like Dad.’

  ‘I’m not like him. It’s just . . . Hope, you’re beautiful. Men will look at you.’ He despaired at this bald, uncomfortable truth. Flatly he said, ‘Ignore him.’

  ‘I do!’

  ‘Yes, I noticed.’

  ‘Oh – so you noticed. You should thump him!’

  He gazed at her; she was close to tears again and he couldn’t believe it was all because of Wright. Hesitantly, because he had been dreading asking her all afternoon, he said, ‘Hope, is there something wrong? I mean, apart from me going away.’

  ‘No. I just don’t want you liking Peter, that’s all.’

  ‘Then I won’t.’

  ‘He’s a creep! I can’t stand him!’

  ‘All right.’ He put his arm around her. ‘Calm down.’

  Shoving him away she said, ‘What did he say to you? Was it about me?’

  ‘No! For God’s sake, we hardly said anything anyway, just a bit about me joining the Army, that’s all.’

  ‘He was captured by the Japanese – I bet he didn’t tell you that. I bet he just laid his gun down as soon as he came within a mile of them,’ Hope said spitefully.

  ‘That’s a terrible thing to say.’ Guy thought of the photographs he had seen of men who had been held prisoner in the Far East. Somehow it was hard to believe that men who had suffered so much could ever have been cowards. Feeling only pity for Peter Wright, he said gently, ‘Let’s forget about him, eh? Let’s go inside.’

  Sulkily she said, ‘It’s horrible in there.’

  ‘But it’s private.’ He ducked his head to look into her downcast face. Then he whispered, ‘And you’ve never complained before.’

  ‘But I’m complaining now!’

  ‘Well, there’s not much I can do.’

  She bowed her head and began plucking at the grass again. After a while she muttered, ‘There’s somewhere else we could go.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Don’t look at me like that, as though I’m making things up! There is somewhere – you’re not the only one who knows places.’

  ‘Okay. Where?’

  Quickly she said, ‘If we go there, you’re to keep it secret. I know you will, but promise me.’

  ‘I promise.’

  She stood up. ‘All right. We’ll go now.’

  Hope felt as though she was about to walk out onto a stage to act in a play she hadn’t rehearsed. She had felt like this for weeks now, ever since she had first placed Guy’s hand on her breast and heard him gasp. He had been a virgin like her, and this had surprised her because he had seemed sophisticated and bold. But Guy was a good actor; she believed she knew him well enough now to know that he was just as strange as her. She realised that this was why she had been attracted to him when everything else – his good looks, his charm – was stripped away. They were two oddities, her and Guy.

  She had decided to embrace her oddness; to know that she was out of step made her feel strong and she had noticed the other girls at school, even the teachers, looking at her as though they suspected her of keeping a secret. She was beyond them; she realised she always had been, but had been too timid to be herself. And having sex with Guy had done most to make her understand how powerful she was. That gasp when he touched her breast was thrilling; she would never have imagined he could be so much in awe of her. She relished being so bad, knowing her father had no idea, that he was still afraid that Guy would kiss her when his back was turned.

  Only Peter had seemed to understand how she had changed; she had seen the look of painful recognition on his face that she wasn’t his any more. Seeing that look a few days after she had first been with Guy had made her want to flaunt herself in front of him Rather than stick her tongue out as Guy had suggested, she’d had an urge to flash her knickers. But that angry defiance hadn’t lasted. This afternoon she was back to being her timid self again, despite Guy’s presence. Guy was going away. She didn’t know how she could carry on without him. Seeing Peter had only added to her misery: he looked as though he understood everything. She had wanted to scream and rage at him in frustration for knowing so much.

  They had reached Peter’s house. Outside the gate that opened onto the path leading to the back garden, Hope hesitated, unable to find even a little of the courage she had thought she had so much of until today. ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t.’

  ‘Is this the place?’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t think we should go in.’

  Guy looked up at the house. ‘Who does it belong to?’

  ‘Peter.’

  ‘And because he’s at your house with the twins, you thought we could sneak in? What if he catches us?’

  ‘He doesn’t live here. It’s not Peter’s any more, not really. It’s Dad’s – ours.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  Impatiently she said, ‘It doesn’t matter! All you need to know is that he doesn’t live here any more and that there’s a key he keeps outside the back door. Do you want to go in or not?’

  Guy bit his lip. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Coward!’

  ‘It’s not that,’ he said. ‘It just feels wrong.’

  Unwittingly, he had said the right thing: his weakness made her bold. ‘Come on. No one will know.’ When he hesitated still, she said, ‘There’s a bed. A great big soft bed. You can do anything you want to me on a bed like that.’

  ‘All right,’ he said, aroused. ‘But let’s go in quickly, before the neighbours see us.’

  Hope had been afraid that the key wouldn’t be beneath the flower pot and that they would have wasted their precious time in going to Peter’s house only to have to return to the place she thought of as Guy’s den. But the key was there, and it turned in the lock easily.

  Inside, the house was cold, insulated from the sun’s heat. When her eyes had adjusted to the sudden change from bright sunlight to what seemed like the semi-darkness of the kitchen, she saw that everything was as it always had been. There was the battered kettle on the stove, the tea towels folded neatly on the rail by the sink, the shelves with the rows of brightly coloured mugs and plates that Peter had kept especially for her and the twins when they came to visit. When she was younger, he would sometimes set the kitchen table as though for
the Mad Hatter’s tea party and an elaborate make-believe game would follow; at other times, all the many dolls and stuffed toys that Peter kept for them in a room upstairs would be brought down and they would have a teddy bears’ picnic on the lawn. He would solemnly ask the bears and dolls how they took their tea, allowing them time to answer, talking back to them as if they had.

  Lately she told herself that she had been embarrassed by these antics of his, that even as a little girl she had thought how silly and odd Peter was. But in her heart she knew that she had been captivated by him; she had believed he was a magician – that if anyone could make her doll Katie speak it would be Uncle Peter. She knew too that she had loved him more than anyone – even more than her own father, who never had time for such games and even if he had, would have somehow made them less fun. Standing in his kitchen that still smelled of those times, that was so full of her childhood, she told herself angrily that if she had loved him then, she didn’t love him now. Peter was nothing but a dirty old man. He made her squirm when he looked at her.

  She turned to Guy. Still angry, she said, ‘I’ll give you the guided tour.’

  He glanced back at the door. ‘Hope, we shouldn’t. He’s your father’s friend, he trusted me.’

  ‘Trusted you? So you did talk about me!’

  ‘No!’ Guy sighed, exasperated. ‘But he let us go off together, didn’t he? Which is more than your father did. I think we should go back to your house – he’ll still be at the park with your brothers.’

  Although she knew he would stay with Val until late tonight, she said, ‘Jack might come home.’

  ‘Jack! Why do you call your father by his Christian name? Jack!’ Guy shook his head and she could see he was becoming as angry as her. ‘Honestly, Hope – you don’t have to be so bloody weird all the time.’

  ‘Weird?’ She laughed harshly. ‘I’ll show you weird.’

  ‘Will you now? How?’ He was smiling infuriatingly, making fun of her.

  Turning away from him, she walked out of the kitchen into the even darker hallway, not caring if he followed her or not.

  He did follow her, after a moment’s hesitation. He followed her upstairs and into the bedroom at the back of the house where Peter kept all the toys and games he had bought for them over the years. There was a Wendy house in one corner, a doll’s crib beside it, and a rocking horse beneath the window that looked out over the garden. Piled on shelves in the fireplace alcoves were books and games and jigsaws, and the stuffed animals and bears that had so often sat on the lawn where the dolls’ tea-set would be laid out in front of them. Katie, the blonde, curly-haired baby doll she had once adored, sat in a wicker chair, the skirt of her beautiful pink satin dress spread out around her, her arms sticking straight out in the stiff pose that had always made Hope want to pick her up, feeling guilty that she had left her alone in Peter’s house. She remembered how she would make Peter promise to look after her and he would say that she could take Katie home if she wished. But her father wouldn’t allow it. ‘She has enough stuff at home,’ he would say. ‘More than enough.’

  Guy went straight to the train-set on the table where a bed should have been. He exclaimed, all his irritation with her seemingly forgotten as he flicked a switch and the engine began to speed round the track. ‘I always wanted a set like this. Look – it has a station and everything. Even a little model guard – and passengers!’

  She went to stand beside him. ‘He bought it when the twins were born.’

  Guy glanced at her, beaming, happy as a little boy in a toy shop. ‘It’s fantastic. He’s taken so much care with it – everything to scale . . . ’

  She tossed her head and he frowned at her. ‘Come on, Hope, you must admit it’s great. Well, maybe not to a girl.’

  ‘I didn’t want to show you that.’

  ‘No?’ He looked at her briefly, only to return his attention to the train-set, picking up one of the other engines and turning it over to look at the workings underneath.

  ‘Put that down and come over here.’

  Above the fireplace was one of Peter’s drawings.

  Peter had presented her with the picture on her thirteenth birthday. He’d had a party for her, just her and the twins and Jack – she’d already had a party with her schoolfriends at home. After she had blown out the candles on the cake Peter had bought for her, he had brought out her present.

  Laughing and groaning at the same time, her father had said, ‘Pete, you’ve already given her a present. You don’t have to spend your money like this.’

  ‘I didn’t spend any money.’ Peter had smiled at her. ‘Open it. You can probably tell what it is, anyway.’

  From the shape of it she knew that it was a picture, a boring present compared to the roller skates she had asked for and he had duly bought. Smiling so as not to hurt his feelings – she had still desperately cared about his feelings in those days – she had made a show of being excited as she tore off the cheap wrapping paper. There, in astonishing, colourful detail, was the prince from Sleeping Beauty, the story she most loved of all the fairytales he read to her.

  In the picture, as if about to step from it, the prince led his white horse through dense, dark woods, his eyes watchful, afraid even. He wore a blue and gold brocade coat, a matching cap with a gaudy feather that shimmered in the single stream of sunlight breaking through the trees. The horse’s mane had ivy leaves woven through it, each leaf finely veined. Its eyes were as wary as the prince’s, its nostrils flared; it seemed to be picking its way carefully, as though the ground beneath its hooves was treacherous.

  But you had to look carefully to see what the picture was really about. There, in the undergrowth almost out of sight, was a goblin-like creature, peeping from behind a tree trunk. The creature smirked from its hiding place, such a look of up-to-no-good on its ageless face. At first she hadn’t noticed the goblin at all – she had eyes only for the handsome boy leading his horse so nervously – until her father pointed him out to her.

  Hope had come to believe that Peter had meant the goblin to be a surprise, that he hadn’t wanted her to see it that first time, had wanted her to believe that the creature had crept into the picture when her back was turned, that there was still magic in the world even for a girl who worried so much about her father and brothers, about everything, in fact. Looking at the picture as she did often, her eye was drawn to that corner where he lurked, where the mischief was. Finally, she had asked Peter about the goblin, curious because there were no such creatures in Sleeping Beauty.

  ‘I didn’t draw any goblin,’ he protested.

  ‘I know you did!’

  He’d smiled. Then, more serious than he ever normally was when they were alone together, he said, ‘I suppose he’s there to remind you to be careful.’

  Standing beside her in front of the picture, Guy said, ‘Is this what I’m supposed to be looking at?’

  ‘He drew it.’

  ‘Who?’ Stepping closer to the picture, Guy peered at it. ‘Peter Wright.’ He touched the signature in the bottom left-hand corner. ‘Peter who lives here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He whistled through his teeth. ‘It’s good, isn’t it?’ Still peering at it, he smiled and she knew he had caught sight of the goblin. ‘What’s this? It looks like a devil climbing out of hell. I suppose if he thought of putting something as scary as that in a kid’s picture, maybe he is a bit weird.’

  Looking at the picture, Hope said, ‘It’s meant to be a warning.’

  ‘Of what?’ Guy turned to her, ready to tease. ‘You know there are no such things as fairies, don’t you? I think he might believe in them, though.’

  ‘I think it’s a warning about boys . . . sex.’

  He laughed. ‘Yeah? Well, you should have taken more notice of it, shouldn’t you?’ He turned away from the picture and looked around the room. ‘Why does he keep so many toys in his house?’

  ‘They’re ours. We were always here. Dad could never be bothered with us.
’

  Guy sighed. Drawing her into his arms, he kissed her head. ‘Do you think all fathers are bastards, or just ours?’

  Hope wrapped her arms around his waist, holding him closely so that he might go on holding her; there was a strength, a solidness about him that she couldn’t get enough of. She thought of him leaving, abandoning her, and wanted to cry.

  Softly he said, ‘Hope . . . ’ He laughed brokenly, stepping back from her. ‘Hope, I don’t know if I should say this . . . ’

  Alarmed, she said, ‘What? Say what?’

  He gazed at her. Brushing a strand of her hair from her eyes, he said, ‘That I love you.’

  She looked away from him, feeling her face flush.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said immediately. ‘I’m really sorry.’

  ‘No, it’s all right.’

  He smacked his brow. ‘Damn! I’ve made things awkward now.’

  ‘No!’ She touched his hand. ‘I think I love you, too.’

  ‘You think?’ He smiled crookedly. ‘I suppose that will have to do, then.’

  After a moment he turned to the drawing. ‘That bloody creature’s watching us,’ he said huskily. ‘Come on – you said you were going to give me the tour.’

  Chapter 18

  Harry walked in the park with Ava and Esther. Ava held Esther’s hand, Ava’s other hand holding onto his arm so that they took up the whole of the path leading to the bandstand and others had to walk around them. Some of the children, even some of the adults, turned to take a second look; they did appear to be odd, Harry supposed. Esther carried the rag dolls because Ava kept dropping them, causing Esther to appear almost as eerily childlike as his wife. And the way she held the dolls didn’t help; she clutched them both to her breast, Danny’s head lolling because the stuffing in his neck had drifted. Harry smiled at Esther after yet another ill-mannered child had turned to gawp.