Home Truth

Through the murky glass of the kitchen door, I watch Alice pottering about. God, she so reminds me of my mam. Her appearance, her long, dark hair. Her way of listening, really listening. Her smile is just like my mam’s, I swear. The same crinkling round her eyes, the same kindness. 

I miss my mam, even though it’s been years now. The way Alice reminds me of her, it makes me miss her more. 

Alice pushes open the kitchen door with her foot, and comes out carrying glasses and plates. Tucked between the plates and her chest, are two sets of cutlery.

‘Here, let me help you’ I say, feeling awkward. Watching someone else work without pitching in to help is not something I’m used to. 

Placing the crockery on the table, she puts her hand on my shoulder, as if to keep me in place. ‘You just stay there. Dinner’s coming.’ 

An image of my mother flashes before my eyes, as clear as though she is standing there with me. I can almost smell the orange blossom perfume she always wore. Tears prick at my eyes; I blink them away. I was lucky to have my mam; she was a good person. She made a difference to people. Just like Alice has done to me in these few short weeks.

Alice is serving the salad; ‘You’re okay?’ she asks. Another thing my mam used to do; she could pick up if I wasn’t ok. And she’d ask while doing stuff. When I was still a child, I was grateful for that, the way she’d never pressure me to respond. When I grew older, I realised the wisdom behind it; how I was more likely to talk that way, than if she did pressure me. 

Of course, we’d only have those sort of conversations when my dad wasn’t around, those nights he went straight down to the pub after the milking was done. 

My dad was an alcoholic.. and it messed him up. When he got annoyed, he’d turn violent. At least with me. I learned to stay well out of his way. If I didn’t, he’d beat the crap out of me. Even as a little kid, I could tell he had it in for me.. I’m not sure why. As a kid it hurt to feel like he hated me. To my mind then, it seemed that since he didn’t beat my mam, he loved her. And it hurt. 

It was only when I grew up, that I realised that the abuse he inflicted on her was different, hidden, but abuse nonetheless.

Dad hated that I was more interested in books and poetry than in the farm. His drinking buddies, they all had big, strapping sons, who helped out with the work. I was an oddity, a skinny kid with my nose always in a bliddy book. But you know, dad never had time for me, maybe because he was busy with the farm; maybe because he was ashamed of me. We never really got to know each other. We never found common ground. Or maybe he didn’t want to find any common ground. 

Even as a bairn, I have no memory of my dad ever playing with me. It was always my mam.. she played with me, read to me, watched endless kids’ telly with me. She taught me how to play the guitar; introduced me to poetry. When I got into football, she took me to practice, and matches. Never my dad. 

Those days he went to the pub, me and my mam would have dinner together, watch some telly together, and then go to bed. Mam would sleep in my bed and I would kip down on the camp bed we kept in my room. I’d fall asleep, and most times I did not hear him cursing and swearing as he fiddled to put his key in the lock. I usually woke to the sound of him, crashing about, knocking things over as he staggered from the kitchen to the bedroom. Other times, I’d wake up to find my mam gone, and my bedroom door locked. 

He didn’t get drunk every day. There were days when he’d come home after milking. 

Those days the car would be in the garage, being mended after he’d crashed it coming home. 

Those days he’d swear blind that he was never going to touch the bottle again. 

Those days he’d sit at table with us, to have dinner. And tell us about the various things he’d done on the farm that day. Today, I understand that the farm was a lot of work for one man alone, but at the time, it just seemed boring. All he talked about were sheep and cows, and milking and lambing, and sowing and picking. It used to irritate him that I could never show the interest he thought I should.

Those days could be worse, in a sense; worse than when he came home drunk. He’d rattle round the house, looking for something to whinge about. He’d complain about the food - it was under-cooked, or over-cooked. Sometimes, eager to be on the same page with him, I’d join in. He’d say to mam, see, even the boy thinks your cooking’s crap. It was only when I grew up that I realised that he was using me, that my mam was a good enough cook. That he was just being petty, and mean-spirited.

He’d get more and more twitchy as the evening wore on. You could tell he was dying for a drink. And that’s when he’d beat me up. He’d take his belt to me, slap me, literally throw me across the room.  

All it took was the slightest thing, and it would just escalate so fast. He’d open one of my books at random, and complain about my handwriting; if he’d give a pen to one of his hens, it would write better than me, he’d say. He would make fun of my work, tell me it was garbage, tell me I was hopeless. He threw my books out the window, more times than I can count. As I grew older, I began to realise that he was barely literate, which made his taunts about my work seem more cruel somehow; as a child, I just believed I was stupid. And I felt ashamed, even though I couldn’t explain my feelings at the time.

I would hear mam arguing with him, telling him that what he was doing was wrong.. she’d keep her voice low, but he’d always yell. He’d yell that he wanted a man, not a weed with his nose in books. As I grew older, a mate got me into weight training. I got serious about it, and my chest and shoulders bulked out. Stupidly, I thought dad would be happy; here was the strapping lad he’d always wanted. But instead it seemed to annoy him more. It was unnatural, he said, someone like me, with a farm like that, and no interest in it. I was unnatural. My existence was an insult to him. I cannot recall him ever saying anything nice to me.

As a child, I remember fantasising that maybe I was adopted, that I wasn’t his son. I didn’t want him for a dad.. other kids’ dads taught them how to ride bikes, and played football with them. Mine belted me every chance he got. When I was thirteen, I made it to captain of the football team; he told me football was for poofs. Real men played rugby.

No matter what I achieved, to my dad it didn’t matter. I was a disappointment and he never missed the chance to tell me so.

When I told him I was going away to join the army, he waited till mam was out of the house, to give me a beating. Or tried to. I was seventeen at the time, and I’d been lifting. I was almost as big as I am now. I fought back. And pushed him up against the wall. I think that scared him. 

The last thing he ever said to me was that if I joined the army I was dead to him. 

He didn’t come to see me off. Not to the passing out parade. Not when I was deployed to Iraq. I told the other guys my old man was dead. 

When I came home on my leave, after months away, mam was overjoyed; he ignored me. Completely. Like I wasn’t even there. I begged him to talk to me. I’d gotten him a small gift. He didn’t even look at it. It remained there, unopened. He didn’t even look at me. It made me feel like I didn’t exist. 

That was the last time I ever went home. When I was on leave, I’d stay at a b& b in a nearby village, and pay for mam to come stay with me. I don’t know what she said to him, but those times were wonderful. We’d walk and talk - it was just like when I was a kid, without dad crashing and cursing. It made up for all the hard times. 

When mam passed - it was sudden, an aneurism - dad just called the base, the day of her funeral, and left a message. It was my C.O. who told me that mam had died. 

I went back to the village, visited her grave, but I’ve never spoken to my dad again.