Invisible Child

by Mary Hayward

  Mum had been away for three weeks now, and I was learning a bit about cooking meals. It was quiet in the house. Jane was lying on her bed, busy with her colouring books, and I was sitting in my bedroom reading a copy of Judy, when the front door slammed. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon, and seemed too early for Dad to be home.

  I heard a banging on the stairs, and my bedroom door swung wide open.

  I jumped up, wondering what was going on. Dad was standing in the doorway, clutching the handle of the door. He shifted to one side, and sort of hung there trying to steady himself.

  “Why haven’t yer cleaned the house, then?”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  He was so drunk. The fumes hung in the air like a curtain.

  “I give yer the housekeeping—what yer doing with it?”

  “What am I doing with it?” I said. “It’s not my fault the place is in a mess. I’m at school all day while you’re down the pub.”

  “Well…”

  “Well nothing, what time do I have?”

  “Well, ish not good…ennuff.”

  “What do yer mean? You’ve got a nerve! I spend all the money that you give me on food!”

  “Well it ishn’t good en..nuff.” He was just like a broken record as he stood there, clutching the bedroom door like a drowning man. “You haven’t done anything,” he said.

  I had done everything to keep the family going.

  “I’m cooking and feeding you and I’ve got Jane all the time—she’s only little. I’m trying to cope with her all by myself, and that’s not easy. I’m not Jane’s mother.” I heard the echo of my own words, as if hearing them for the first time.

  I waited for a reaction, but none came.

  “I don’t understand...” I felt myself gag with upset. “What do you expect me to do?”

  “I ex..pect the place to be cleaned. It’s filthy.” He was slurring his speech badly now.

  I walked up to him and spat my words at him, like a flamethrower at the circus.

  “Well, why don’t you clean it then? I don’t have the time.”

  He struggled to stay attached to the door handle. Suddenly it swung away and there was a little kafuffle as he tried to steady himself.

  “It’s your job, not mine to look after us,” I said. “Why have I got to do everything?”

  I cocked my head and forced him to look at me. “Well, isn’t it?” I stared straight at his face.

  He gave a little cough, and then the corner of his mouth lifted with a half smile. “I’m sorry love, I’ve lost my job, and I just wanted to have a go. Sorry.”

  He just scuttled out, staggering off to the toilet. He was still there an hour later. I could hear him snoring. I felt a bit like Mum, let down and worrying about where the next penny was coming from.

  It was about 9 p.m. when I went upstairs to put Jane to bed. I knocked on the toilet door to say I wanted to use it. It was unlocked. I opened it gently and peeked in. I was embarrassed and ashamed by what I saw.

  I went down and told Jane I was getting her bed ready, and she could read for a bit longer.

  Rushing upstairs once more, I found Dad was exactly where I left him hours earlier; sitting on the toilet asleep, his trousers round his ankles and his head slumped down on his chest.

  I did what I had to do, took hold of his arms and shook him roughly.

  “What, the…?” He started to stir, calling out as if in a dream: “Dummkopf!” I didn’t understand what he was saying, but it sounded as if in his dream he was back in Germany during the war.

  I helped him get up from the toilet, and getting some newspaper from the top of the low level black cistern, I had to wipe his bottom and clean him. I didn’t want to do it, and the very thought of it made me retch, but I had no choice.

  I coaxed him along the landing to the bedroom where I helped him fall onto the bed. He lay there like a corpse: dead to the world. I put a blanket over him, and left him snoring and gently closed the door.

  All his dignity was stripped away by the drink, and my pride for him shrunk in an instant. I sat at the top of the stairs and hugged myself for a moment. I felt like I wanted a blanket to wrap around me to make me feel warm, and to cushion me from the world. I found it disgusting, especially as he bled. It must have been from all the drink.

  I worried what would become of my Dad. Would my Mum get better, and what would happen to Jane and I, if she didn’t? I clung to hope.

  Dad got laid off. The work he took was casual most of the time and it seemed to me he would alternate between being on the Dole—‘sign on the Panel’, as Dad called it—and working. Mum worked part time, so I didn’t qualify for free school meals. So when she went into hospital for three months, she lost her job. Dad stopped giving me any money, and soon the cupboards were bare.

  I didn’t understand how he had money for drink.

  When I got home from school with Jane, he was already sitting at the kitchen table smoking a fag and reading the paper—the sports page. Checking the racing results, I suspected.

  “Dad.” I waited for his attention to look my way. “Why do you have to keep going down the pub?”

  Silence.

  “Don’t you know how it makes me feel having to step over you in the morning, lying there in the hallway blocking the door to the kitchen, in your own sick? It’s horrible for me, Dad. Can’t you see that?”

  He kept on reading the racing results.

  “You were sat on the toilet asleep. I had to help you to bed. Why do you keep going down the pub all the time?”

  He glanced up from his paper. “I don’t know, it’s just a drink. That’s all, you know. A swift half on the way home from the betting shop.”

  “But you don’t get home, do you?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “You go every day, to the pub, the betting shop or both. Why can’t you stay in with me and Jane at night? That’s what all my friends’ parents do.”

  He turned and spoke to Jane. “Hello darling. Did yer have a nice day at school?”

  “She did,” I answered for her. “Don’t distract! I am talking to you. Answer my questions please!”

  He got up from the table and put his paper down. “I’ve got to go out to see a man about business.”

  I rummaged through his jacket pocket as it hung on the back of the chair.

  “What’s this in your pocket?”

  He glanced up at me, watching me search. “Betting slip,” he blurted, flicking the hot ash from his fag on the floor.

  “Look,” I said, “here’s another five or six!” I pulled out a whole bunch of them and flung them on the table.

  “Hmm.”

  “We can’t afford it, Dad. Please, not any more.” I pleaded with him.

  “You checking up on me, eh? Just like yer bleeding mother.”

  “No,” I said, “I just want us to be a family while Mum’s in hospital, and be together. Please can you stop going to the pub and come home, please Dad—please?”

  “Hmmm, I’ll see.”

  “And give the betting shop a miss Dad,” I added. “Walk past for our sake. If not for me, then for Jane.”

  He leaned over to me, and whispered, “I’ll try. I’m going out, I’ll try and get a job.” He reached out to me and tenderly stroked my hair.

  “So what time will you be home tonight then Dad?” It was four o’clock already.

  “Oh...” He thought for moment. “Around half past six, love.”

  He got up, picking up the old betting slips from the table, and stuffing them in his pocket he quietly slid out of the house.

  The next day at lunchtime I returned home and searched for anything to eat, scraping raisins off the bare shelves, until there was absolutely nothing in the house at all. I had to come home at lunchtimes, I didn’t have a choice. If I hung around at school then questions might have been asked—about why I wasn’t staying for school dinners. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself, otherwise the Social
Workers might get to know about our circumstances.

  There was some mail on the hallway floor. I decided to open it. We had a ‘red’ Request for Payment of rent, and I wondered what was going on.

  It was three days before I saw Dad again.

  I started to realise Dad must have been giving me money for food, from the rent money. It didn’t come out of his drink money. Oh no! Suddenly I worked out why he had stopped giving me anything for food.

  Was there an arrangement between my parents to divide up the responsibilities?

  Who paid for what? Perhaps Dad was responsible for paying the rent, and Mum for the food?

  It was the only way I could explain why the rent hadn’t been paid.

  Dad must have carried on paying the rent, spending the rest of the money on drink as he always had. So when there wasn’t any money for food because Mum was in hospital, it didn’t seem to register with Dad that he would then have to pay for the food as well. As far as he was concerned, it was up to Mum. The fact that she was in hospital wasn’t his fault, until, that is, I nagged him so much. Then what he did was to give me the rent money, and spend the rest on drink in the usual way.

  This explained why we were getting the notices to quit. He hadn’t paid the rent, he had given it to me, and I had bought the food with it—until it ran out, of course.

  I hadn’t had any money from him for about three days, when one night his mother, Grandma Alice, came round knocking on the door.

  My Dad’s mum was definitely an East Ender and drank quite a bit, as I understand. She didn’t have the nerve to beg for drink when Mum was at home, but she knew Dad was a soft touch. I was ironing in the living room by the window when she knocked on the door. She stood on the other side of the room, chatting to Dad, and I was quietly listening.

  “How’s Nellie then, she getting better?” She made herself comfortable in a chair by the fire.

  “Still in hospital,” he said, lighting up a fag and wafting great clouds of smoke. He got up and slung the empty cigarette pack on the fire.

  “How’s she getting on then?”

  “Ole, all right, she’ll be a few months getting better.” Dad shuffled in the chair.

  She gazed over at me. “Yer helping yer dad with the housework, are yer dear? That’s nice.”

  I gave her a passing glance, and smiled, but said nothing and buttoned my lip. I suspected she had come round to scrounge off Dad, and I was watching for it.

  “She’s a good girl, isn’t she Jimmy, helpin’ yer out an’ that.”

  “Yeah.” He took a drag from the fag. “She doing…” He stopped to clear a bit of tobacco from his lip, spat it out on the carpet and then carried on, “Doing well at her new school.”

  Sidling up to Dad, she whispered in his ear. I thought she was going to scrounge a cigarette, except that he had thrown the packet in the fire. I didn’t hear it all.

  “Could yer see... lending... little money... drink for ages.”

  Well, that was it! I had had enough. She was asking Dad to lend her money—give, more likely.

  “Nan, I’m sorry, but we don’t have any money,” I butted in. “Dad’s not working, Mum’s in hospital. We can’t give you anything, we don’t have enough for ourselves, and besides, I’ve got Jane to feed as well.”

  She looked startled, but I didn’t care.

  “You should be helping us out,” I continued. “We’ve got nothing. I’m living on the free school milk. Look at the cupboards if you don’t believe me. Come on, look at them.” I walked to the door and beckoned for her to follow. She got up and followed me into the kitchen.

  I opened each cupboard in turn until they were all open. I wanted to show up Dad in front of his own mother—to let her know he hadn’t got us any food. To show her, in the hope that it might prick her conscience.

  “What do you want me to do, Nan?” I said.

  She didn’t say anything.

  Staring at the empty cupboards she stood there, whilst Dad sheepishly lounged against the kitchen door.

  “I’ve got nothing, and you want me to share it with you?”

  “Right,” she said, “I think that I had better go home.”

  The cupboard doors slammed like a machine gun as I punched them closed with my hand.

  She made her way to the front door. Dad followed closely, but I watched to see that he didn’t give her anything.

  I smiled from the doorstep as she disappeared out of sight, then closing the door I brushed past Dad. I was making my way back to the living room to finish the ironing, when he grabbed me by the arm. I shook him off and ran into the living room. He started shouting out at me from the hallway.

  “Yer shouldn’t be talking to my mother like that, she’s your Nan! Have some respect, who do ya think you are?”

  “I’m the one doing all the housework, that’s who! I told your mother because she was coming round here to scrounge money for drink, and besides... she needed to know some home truths.”

  He followed me into the living room. “Well, I don’t care what you think.” He moved over to the ironing board. “You’re not talking to her like that, do you hear? I don’t know who you think you are!”

  “I’m the one running this place, and I’m not having you giving money away.” Grabbing the iron firmly, I held it up and threatened to smash it into his face.

  He went to grab the iron and pull it out of my hand.

  “Mind, it’s hot!”

  He let go.

  “If she dies in hospital I shall never forgive you, you know. I will find you and make you pay!”

  Suddenly he backed off.

  “And, what are all these red demand notices I’ve been opening?”

  “What notices?”

  Walking over to the radiogram, I selected one from the pile.

  “Here you are, like this one.”

  He looked at it for a moment in silence.

  “Aren’t you paying the rent, Dad?”

  “Just don’t open the door to the rent man. Remember, don’t open the door, okay?”

  “Why?”

  “Look, just don’t open it, okay? You won’t, will you?”

  “All right, I won’t”

  I was no longer frightened of him. I had put up with so much—there was nothing worse that could happen to us.

  A couple of days later after I got home from school I heard someone ringing a bell. I went out to the end of the block to find the Rag and Bone man sitting there on his horse and cart. I walked over to talk to him, giving the horse a wide berth. I hadn’t seen a horse close up before, and the size of it made me a little nervous.

  The large grey mare stood still in its shafts, the blinkers mirroring each side of its face. I thought that its owner looked frightening. He sat high up on his wooden seat, his mean eyes peering out from beneath his old cloth cap. His scarf was tucked tightly around his unshaven beard, and he held his little crop tightly in his right hand.

  “Excuse me mister, how does this work then?”

  “What do ya wanna know then? He’s an ’orse, and this’en here’s a cart.”

  “Well,” I said, “do you buy clothes and things?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Would you buy clothes from me?”

  “Yeah. You bring out some old clothes, or rags or the like.”

  Suddenly the horse made a rasping noise, and then there was this awful smell. I stepped back and held my nose, much to the amusement of the driver.

  “It’s all right my darling,” he chuckled. “Bessie’s just farted. Come on round this side.”

  I walked around the cart.

  “What do you mean, like from a dress, shirt, or coat or something?”

  “Yeah, that’s right, then I weigh it on these here scales over there, see.”

  “Right.”

  “Then we agree a price and I give you some money for it.”

  “Are you going or will you wait here for a minute for me?”

  “I’ll wait for yer. Don�
��t be long.”

  I rushed indoors and got Dad’s old coat out from underneath a pile of clothes that littered his bedroom, and scurried back to the waiting cart.

  “What will you give me for this?” I held the coat up for him to see.

  “Let’s have a look, shall we.” He took it from me, bundled it up and placed it on the scales. He mumbled something I didn’t hear, then he spoke loudly. “Two and six.”

  “Thank you then,” I said. “I would like to take it if that’s all right with you.”

  Dumping the coat on the pile of clothes behind him in the cart, he counted out two shillings and six pence into my hand.

  Brilliant, I thought, now I could get some food for the whole week! I never told Dad that I had sold his coat. I didn’t think he would be very pleased, but I was in a devilish mood and the gloves were off. Keeping things afloat with my own money and the bits I scrounged out of his pockets put me in control and I didn’t have to rely on anyone.

  From the jobs I did for the neighbours I managed to get a little food for Jane, sometimes sweets like a packet of Spangles as a treat, a packet of biscuits or a large potato. But it wasn’t long before there was no money for the electric meter and the gas had been cut off again.

  I got used to candles and did the best I could. It didn’t matter if we had any carrots or peas. We had no way of cooking them. In desperation I managed to retrieve some coal from the railway tracks and lit a fire. I put the potato in the ash tray of the fire and cooked it in that.

  For a short time I managed to keep Jane and myself fed, but no matter how hard I tried, or how many jobs I ran, there came a time when I didn’t have enough for myself.

  Dad kept coming home late, completely drunk and not a penny in his pockets. He lay in the hallway, between the front door and the stairs. He didn’t even make it to the living room, only a few feet away. He lay where he fell, in his own stinking vomit. In the morning I had to step over his body in order to get into the kitchen.