My Dad Is Ten Years Old

by Mark O'Sullivan

  Our street, at last. From the good end. The river end. We go by Mrs Casey’s. A half-filled plastic message bag hangs on the doorknob. She’s in hibernation again. Lucky her. We turn into our drive and I let Dad climb out first.

  ‘It worked out perfectly for you tonight, didn’t it?’ I tell Martin when the back door slams shut. ‘You get everyone fired up and Dad freaks out and he’s another step closer to getting locked away.’

  ‘Eala?’

  ‘And your big donation? That’ll really go down well with Mam, won’t it?’ I say. ‘You think money can buy everything, don’t you?’

  ‘No, I don’t. And I didn’t give them money. I gave them the house in Friary Street.’

  My fingernails feel like cat’s claws and I want to tear him to shreds.

  ‘So we get to dump Dad in there and you get another shot at Mam?’ I say. ‘Well, you can forget it because I’ll never let you get your hands on her. I’ll do whatever I have to do to stop you. Tell everyone you’re a dirty old man if I have to.’

  ‘Eala?’ he says. More shock horror. ‘Don’t be like this. You know me.’

  ‘No one knows anyone.’

  ‘Eala, this isn’t you. This talk, these notions of yours … Should you maybe have a chat with Fiona?’

  I get out of the car and follow Dad up the steps. He’s got his green retro Puma kitbag slung over his shoulder, but it could be full of rocks he’s so hunched over. When I open the front door, Mam is coming out along the hallway. She’s brighter than I’ve seen her for a long time. Beautiful again.

  ‘So how did you get on, Jimmy?’ she asks and I’m about to flam some lies, but Dad cuts across me.

  ‘I’m useless at football,’ he says. ‘And I’m a nutter.’

  He throws the kitbag on the floor. She’s stunned. She looks at Martin, who’s come in behind me. She shakes her head slowly as if to say, I told you so.

  ‘You’re not a nutter,’ she says.

  He tries to get by her, but she pulls him to her and kisses him on the lips. And it’s not a little peck. Some show she’s putting on, Angie says. Does she think you’re birdbrained enough to believe in it? Mam steps back, but she’s still holding him.

  ‘Is your door still locked, Judy?’ Dad asks.

  ‘We’ll talk about this later, Jimmy, OK?’

  ‘Talk? All you ever want to do is talk,’ Dad says.

  I’m seeing stars. White noise hisses in my ears.

  ‘Martin,’ she says. ‘Can you stay with Jimmy for a while? Fiona’s here. We need to have a chat.’

  ‘Sure.’

  Dad starts to descend the stairs to his room. He’s not well pleased to see his old pal follow him down. Martin’s aflame with embarrassment at what he’s heard. I make for the stairs to my own room.

  ‘Eala, please,’ Mam says.

  She steps aside and I see Sean and Fiona Sheedy sitting on the bay-window sofa. Sean’s been crying. Miss Understanding holds his hand on the coffee tabletop and he doesn’t pull it away when he spots me. I need a tab so bad.

  ‘Please,’ Mam says. ‘I don’t want to make any decisions without you.’

  28

  High tea on a low table. That’s how Dad used to describe it when the best china came out and we sat round the coffee table here in the sitting room, entertaining some visitor. Back then, we’d always have a fire going. As a kid, I always wanted to be the one to pour and to deliver the cups and saucers and offer biscuits from the fancy gold-rimmed plate. This evening, Mam does the serving. Sean’s sitting back on the sofa, all red-eyed and placid. He won’t make eye contact with me and I want to scream at him because I can’t tell if he’s betrayed me, betrayed Dad. Miss U draws me into the small talk.

  ‘And the show’s going well?’ she asks.

  Soft-focus eyes, that same irritating tilt of the head to the side. But there’s something different about her that I can’t figure out, my head’s in such a spin.

  ‘It’s OK. It passes the time.’

  ‘I love that show. A modern version of Romeo and Juliet, isn’t it? And who’s your Romeo?’

  ‘A moron called Derek.’

  Mam flashes me a warning glance.

  ‘Fiona has something she’d like us to discuss. Something we need to come to a decision on.’

  ‘We can talk about it among ourselves,’ I say. ‘We don’t need her.’

  I watch Miss U and the tender way her gaze falls on Sean.

  ‘Things have … things have come to a head tonight, Eala,’ Mam says and I’m thinking, This isn’t about Dad’s prison stretch. It’s about what happened this evening in the assembly hall. I was right. Martin had rung her. ‘We all need to take a step back …’ Mam’s struggling and I’m ready to attack her, but Sean cuts me off.

  ‘Starsky’s been here.’

  ‘And?’ I’m blushing fiercely, stupidly at the mention of Brian’s father and I’m wondering if Martin rang Starsky too, filled him in on the details of Dad’s headbutt and the rest.

  ‘I told him I didn’t poison the dog and he goes, “Grand, but I’m away to Morocco on holiday and whoever takes over the case will have to interview your dad tomorrow.” So I had to admit it.’

  My head’s all over the place. It’s like I’m on some mad carnival ride that’s out of my control and keeps changing directions in rough, unpredictable jolts.

  ‘He said he’d try to keep it out of court, but I don’t want to get off scot-free,’ Sean says. ‘I don’t deserve to.’

  ‘We’re all of us stretched to breaking point, Sean,’ Mam says and turns to me. ‘All of us.’

  There’s a biscuit in my hand and it’s in bits and I can’t remember how it got there or how it got broken. I hold the crumbs tight in my fist so they won’t fall and mess up the floor. My head won’t let me think. All three of them are staring at me. Say something, Angie tells me, anything.

  ‘The Man is Zidane.’

  ‘Zidane?’ Miss U says.

  I explain my theory, but it doesn’t sound very convincing because I leave out Dad’s headbutt. I rabbit on anyway. Mam and Sean are mesmerized, though I can tell it’s not my theory they’re mesmerized by, but me.

  ‘You may be reading too much into that dragging action of Jimmy’s,’ Miss U says. ‘He’s made terrific progress physically, but hemiplegia is difficult to recover from entirely.’

  ‘Hemi–?’ I’ve heard the word before, but my brain’s too addled to dredge up the meaning. It sounds like the name of some planet in one of Sean’s sci-fi books.

  ‘The paralysis in his left leg after the accident?’ Miss U says.

  ‘Right, yeah, right,’ I say.

  I hold on to the chair tightly with my free hand to stop from shaking. The crumbs in my fist are getting all damp from my sweat. Mam comes and sits beside me. She slips her arm round my waist. I don’t want to be touched, but if I move away from her they’ll think I’m even freakier than they already do.

  ‘I thought the Zidane thing might mean something,’ I say. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘There’s nothing to be sorry for,’ Mam says. ‘We’re worn out. We need to … to …’

  She turns to Miss U. It seems like Miss U cops at the same moment I do that Mam’s expression isn’t exactly friendly. There’s irritation in it, maybe even resentment. A nervous, saucer-rattling sip of tea and Miss U switches from being our best pal to being a psychologist on the job.

  ‘First, I want to say that in these situations, no one ever feels they get it right. It’s perfectly normal to think that we’ve failed, that we haven’t proved equal to the task.’

  ‘We?’ I say. I can’t seem to rein myself in. ‘What’s this we craic? You’re not one of us. You don’t know what it’s like.’

  She keeps her cool, her head moving like one of those nodding toy dogs you put on the back shelf of a car. I feel like I’m one more hysterical kid she has to deal with, one of m
any.

  ‘You’re right, of course,’ Miss U says. ‘I don’t know what it’s like. But I can see the toll this is taking on all of you. How impossible it is to keep going. Not without some …’

  Tablets, yeah, I’m thinking and I don’t like the way Miss U is looking at me. It’s like she knows I’m up to something weird. I wish I could get my foot to stop tapping, but I can’t.

  ‘… Without some respite. As you all know, Jimmy’s had certain, well, behavioural issues of late that he needs help with. The fact that these behaviours are so out of character with the man you knew as your father, makes them all the more difficult for you to comprehend.’

  Sean and me swap looks. His comes with the raised eyebrows of a question; mine with a warning frown.

  ‘Normally, the rehab psychiatrist would see him only on an outpatient basis to reassess his medication and such,’ Miss U continues. ‘But Dr Reid is anxious to keep Jimmy under observation for a couple of weeks and, fortunately, a bed has become available. Respite care is almost impossible to get these days, what with the cutbacks and all, so –’

  ‘This is how it starts,’ I say.

  ‘It’s for the best,’ Sean says. ‘We’re totally strung out. You are too.’

  ‘Two weeks at most,’ Mam says. ‘Dad gets a proper assessment and we get to recharge our batteries.’

  ‘And we get used to not having him around,’ I object. ‘Next time it’ll be four weeks and then six or whatever. That’s the plan, right, Mam?’

  ‘There’s no plan. We need to do this.’

  ‘You need to,’ I say and I punch even lower. ‘Have you talked to Martin about this? I bet he thinks it’s a great idea too.’

  Mam puts her cup and saucer back on the coffee table. I wish I hadn’t mentioned Martin. No. I wish I hadn’t mentioned Martin in front of Miss U. Mam stands up and brushes the crumbs from the front of her dress to the floor. And it bothers me to see that mess on the carpet. I keep wanting to get down on my knees and pick up every last crumb, add them to the fistful in my hand.

  ‘I’ve a wash I need to put in the dryer,’ Mam says and glides from the sitting room wearing her Judy’s hauteur mask.

  Miss U has me in her sights. No sign of sweet sympathy from her now, only the flush of annoyance as she glares at me. We can swap glares, stares or whatever else all night, Miss U, I’m thinking, and you won’t best me. I feel like laughing at her.

  ‘You’re on something, Eala,’ Sean says. ‘You’re pure wasted.’

  ‘You think everyone is as dumb as you are?’

  ‘Did Brian …?’

  ‘I’m not with Brian, right? I was with him three or four flipping days or something, I can’t remember how long, and that was it, right? I copped on to him, right?’

  Miss U won’t stop gaping at me and suddenly I cop what’s different about her. She’s started to care about her appearance. A touch of make-up, a deep green dress that goes well with the mousy hair she’s had cut looser so that there’s more bounce in it than before.

  ‘Break-ups are never easy,’ she says, all sweetness again.

  ‘Leave Brian out of it. This has nothing to do with Brian.’ Inside I’m shouting, but it’s coming out like a whine and I can’t make the whining stop. ‘Can’t you leave us alone? You’re tearing our family apart.’

  ‘We’re doing a fair job of that ourselves,’ Sean says.

  ‘Sean, Eala.’ The sudden firmness in Miss U’s voice catches me on the hop. ‘Listen, we all have – and I include myself in we this time – we all have idealized notions of family, of how we come together and stick by one another in a crisis. It doesn’t always work like that. We quarrel, we blame one another, doubt one another’s motives. Everyone gets hurt and if this goes on and on without a break, the hurt will never heal.’

  I hear Mam coming back downstairs. I wish I could think of some clever put-down that would pin Miss U to the sofa but, of course, I can’t. You never can, can you? Especially not when your brain’s gone to jelly. Afterwards, half a dozen smart remarks always come to mind and it’s too late. ‘L’esprit d’escalier’, Dad called it. I need a tablet more than I need a row with Miss U or Mam who’s at the doorway now. Tom rescues me. He’s started to cry. I’m on my feet and away to the door, but Mam’s blocking me off.

  ‘I’ll go up to Tom,’ I tell her.

  ‘There’s nothing between Martin and me but friendship, Eala.’

  ‘I know, I know, I shouldn’t have said that.’ A lie.

  ‘Are you OK with this respite care?’

  ‘Yeah.’ A second lie. ‘It’s only a few weeks.’

  She lets me pass. She touches my arm as I go by and I try not to shrink from her.

  ‘Everything’s going to work out OK, Eala.’

  ‘Yeah.’ The biggest lie of all. I keep moving and call up to Tom from the foot of the stairs. ‘Coming, Tom.’

  I sneak by Mam’s room. The door’s not locked. It’s open a few inches and I see Tom staring up at the ceiling and crying away without so much as one tear falling. On the second landing, I slip into my own room and make for the wardrobe. I fish out a tablet from my stash. A downer. And a second. One of those antidepressants that make me scarily high for a bit before they set me floating down gently. In the bathroom, I swallow the tablets with a glass of water from the cold tap. The water is tepid and stale. I go back down to Mam’s room.

  Tom’s sitting up in bed, his green tractor alongside him. He raises his arms towards me and I swoop him up and spin him around until he starts giggling. I get him back under the covers and he leans on the pillow, holding my hand.

  ‘Stowy, Eallie,’ he says and I lie down alongside him.

  ‘This one is about the day Terry met the teapots.’

  ‘Book. Wead book. P’ease.’

  Why not? And why not a Terry the Tank book? I don’t have to explain who wrote it, do I?

  ‘I’ll find the book.’

  ‘Wiggie,’ he says, chuckling at the very thought of my mad red curly wig.

  ‘If you promise not to laugh at me.’ I feel my face thawing out, a smile warming it, a loopy smile.

  Tom nods and turns his face into the pillow to hide his giggles. I head over to Dad’s workroom. I don’t need to turn on the light because the curtains are open as always and I know exactly which shelf the Terry the Tank books are on. In the corner over by the window, the tailor’s dummy stands guard over Dad’s secrets. It has no eyes, no mouth, no ears. I find the book.

  As I head up to my own room for the wig, I hear the murmur of conversation from the sitting room. I bet they’re talking about me and my weird performance down there. You’ll have to keep your mouth shut, Angie says, not blurt out every daft thing that comes into your head or they’ll think you’re mad. From further down in Dad’s room, no sound comes at all or none that I can hear. Even if Dad and Martin are talking, I can’t imagine for the life of me what they can find to say to one another.

  ‘Eallie?’ Tom calls.

  ‘Coming.’

  I take the wig from my wardrobe. I think about taking another anxiety tablet, but I talk myself out of it. I put on the wig and check myself in the long mirror on the wardrobe door. I’m Angie, looking at Eala. Two down and one to go, Eala, because Sean and Judy have given up on Dad and it’s all down to you now. But what can I do? I’ve tried everything. You’ll think of something, Eala, something to drag Dad back out from that black hole. In Mam’s room, I make a grand entrance, my arms wide and bowing to my audience of one. He laughs himself silly.

  ‘Missy Casey!’ he chuckles. ‘You Missy Casey.’

  I have to smile. You don’t know how right you are, Tom. I go and sit by him, opening the book. Terry the Tank Meets the Teapots. I begin to read and, like Mam and Dad always did when they read to us, I ask Tom to point out the details in the illustrations that appeal to him.

  ‘Gun,’ he says, pointing to the gun
barrel of the tank. Boys will be boys.

  ‘And what colour is this flower?’

  ‘Wed.’

  He points at the red bandana Rosie the Mechanic wears above her psychedelic boiler suit.

  ‘Wed.’

  His finger drifts down to Rosie’s face, down along her body. She’s got my black hair and my slightly upturned nose and a tiny tattoo of a swan on her left arm.

  ‘Eallie,’ he says.

  I read on, taking my time, drinking in the smell of my little brother, the wonder in his eyes, his sighs of satisfaction, one hand distractedly rubbing along the flesh of my arm, the other holding on to his green plastic tractor.

  I remember when he was a baby. I remember lying alongside him on this same bed while his busy fists pummelled the air and his legs pumped like a sprinter’s. Such a happy time that was. Everyone wanting a piece of Tom – even Sean. Everyone floating on cloud nine. The house radiating milky warmth and contentment. And Dad, the perfect Dad, changing nappies, testing the milk’s heat on the back of his hand, singing Tom to sleep, like he sang me and Sean to sleep. ‘Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.’ Never again. Not unless … Not unless you have your own baby, Angie laughs, ha ha ha!

  ‘Eallie cwy,’ Tom whispers.

  29

  Dad’s been gone a week now. We don’t visit. It might unsettle him. That’s the theory. The truth is he was actually glad to go. He told me so the evening before he left. That and a few other home truths that didn’t make the parting any easier. I didn’t help matters much. I forced him to watch the Zidane DVD.

  These sleepers don’t always deliver what they say on the box. Or not for long enough anyway. I blank out quickly when I take one along with the antidepressants. There’s a queer chemical taste from them that’s disgusting, but you want that taste so badly knowing that sleep will soon follow. A few hours later you wake up. The temptation to take another tab is huge, but I’ve only given in once. The morning after you’ve taken one sleeper, you feel groggy. After taking two, you’re completely out of it and seem to be living in a weird echo chamber.