Dad's Glasses

There, nestled in an old ice-cream tub, are my dad's reading glasses. They've been there for nearly six years. After he died I tidied them away, along with some familiar bits and pieces from his work bench.

We've moved house four times since then, but we've only just opened the box marked 'Dad's Workshop'. I'd been ignoring it, along with the boxes marked 'Sell - Ebay' and 'S clothes (too small)'. We've only been in our current (forever) home for eleven months, but the unpacking ground to a halt within a few weeks of moving in. Every now and then - when we need to make some space in the garage - we open a few boxes. After the thrill of unearthing our karaoke DVD's, we moved on to the difficult stuff.

I took out each unusual tool, spring, wheel or ancient box and held it in my hands for a few seconds. Trying to feel something. To remember. I could smell stale cigarette smoke, methylated spirits and watch oil. This combination has always been enough to make me nauseous. Still I touched each item, hoping to get a piece of my daddy back. When I held his glasses I felt overwhelming loss. 

I miss him.

I wiped away big splashy teardrops and carefully put dad's glasses back in the ice-cream tub, on top of his tools. One day I'll put everything into a proper display case, so my boys can see what their grandad did. I'll tell them that my daddy made the clock on our mantelpiece. Not now. Not yet. Now I've put dad's glasses back in a box in the garage. Buried them under the spare bits of carpet and empty boxes. I've tucked away my grief and will keep it for another day.

Dad's Glasses

Have you ever been to Graceland?

Six years ago today I was sat in my childhood bedroom. The carpet was still an acrylic mixture of browns and buffs designed not to show the dirt (or the backs of earrings). The bedroom door still didn't close properly. If you wanted to sleep with the window open you had to wedge the door either side with jeans and a t-shirt to stop it banging in the wind. In the cupboard over the stairs 'I love John Taylor IDST' still showed through two coats of white paint.

Dad was downstairs, watching television. 'Are you being framed' (sic) probably, or 'Watchdog'.

I was sifting through the responses to my internet dating profile, thinking it would be nice to go on a date. A night out would be fun. I'd spent too many quiet nights in. Dad wasn't well enough for me to look for somewhere else to live, but neither was he that poorly that I had to stay in with him every night. I especially didn't need to be in when Phil and Ken came round and the three of them talked at each other for a few hours while they drank gin and tonics and ate Fruit and Nut.

I logged into the 'chat' section of the dating website for the first time. New chat windows were opening up faster than I could look at them. Paul said 'Hello', Dave said 'Hi', Chris said 'Hi', Rob said 'hi' (how hard is it to find the shift key?), then Andy asked 'Have you ever been to Graceland?'.

I didn't even look at his photograph or profile at that stage. We just started chatting about freaky waxworks in Country and Western museums. I closed all of the other windows down. Andy was intelligent, funny and on my wavelength. We exchanged email addresses.

Reader, I married him.



.

Have you ever been to Graceland?

My Old Man

I've been worrying all day, wondering whether to post this. You see, it's a deeply personal piece of creative non-fiction. I wrote it late last year, inspired by a writing prompt from my creative writing group. The writing prompt was simply 'old'.

***

The keys in my hand are warm, familiar. I can smell the metal. I glance around the living room for the last time.

My head is flooded with memories of my life in this house.

I see myself laying face-down on a scratchy orange sofa, my foot up so that my dad could try to tweeze out a piece of cocktail stick. Swinging between two chairs over a sea of cocktail sticks was not my finest hour, but I was only seven.

My dad could fix anything. He wore a white coat but he wasn’t a doctor. He was an horologist, a healer of clocks and watches. He could take a watch apart, clean it, repair it, oil it and put it back together with no parts left over. It would not leave his workshop until it kept perfect time.

He had a motto. He said there was nothing he could buy that didn’t need to be repaired, modified, improved, changed, altered, corrected, rectified, upgraded, adjusted, adapted or converted.

I’m pretty sure he didn’t need a thesaurus to compile this list. He kept it on a yellowing piece of paper, on a shelf in the kitchen, behind his angina spray. I now keep it in my purse.

When I was small my dad used to take me to Woolworths. He would sit me on the counter and buy me gonks.

When I was big we would sit in our places at the dining table. We nattered on a Saturday. We played ‘if I won the lottery…’. We said how much we would give each other. Dad wouldn’t move house, but he would buy a bloody nice car. I would move to a big house and do voluntary work. Satisfied we wouldn’t let the millions go to our heads we would turn to watch the dusty garden birds queuing up to take a bath in the plastic pond liner.

‘Christ, you’ve put on weight Sandra! Here’s what you should do. Cook your dinner, put it on your plate and then put half in the bin’.

‘Shut up dad, stop going on at me!’.

‘Do you want a choc ice? I’m trying some Lyon’s Maid ones, chocolate’s a bit thin’.

‘Yes, thanks.’.

***

Dad didn’t always pay me so much attention. I am sat in the brilliant sunshine. Navy blue curtains billow around me in the breeze from the open patio doors. The curtains are stiff and sticky and smell of smoke. I pull them back to proclaim to the previously shady room that I’m bored. ‘

Close the curtains Sandra, I can’t see the telly and Borg’s playing.’

I go outside with mum’s wooden racket and play tennis with the aphids.

***

Dad and I once stood here by the sofa, shifting our weight from one foot to another in unfamiliar new shoes. Afraid to sit in case we crumple our clothes, keeping watch for the be-ribboned Rolls Royce.

‘Are you sure you’re doing the right thing Sandra?’.

‘It’s too late now dad’.

‘Do you love him?’.

‘Of course I do’.

‘Christ Sandra, you need a cork for that arse!’

We start to giggle. Farts are funny, it’s a fact. The laughs get bigger in direct proportion to the farts. I run to the kitchen to dab my eyes with kitchen roll.

‘Car’s here Sandra’.

***

I moved back home many times over the years; after a failed marriage, after travelling, when mum left, after dad had his third heart attack.

Each time the layout of the furniture was different, but the house was the same. Same woodchip, same smoke-stained paintwork, same white coat hanging over the radiator. Same chats about the neighbours, clocks, the lottery, the birds in the garden, my weight, the price of fags (‘I’ll give up when they reach £x per packet’), whether dad had been to the fish van this week, whether they’d had jellied eels.

The last time I moved back home was as a carer. In some ways I was the parent and he was the child. I looked after his physical needs, just until he was better.

***

‘I’ve got a date on Sunday dad’.

‘Where’d you meet him?’.

‘On the internet’.

‘You be careful Sandra, he could be a paedophile, he’s probably been grooming you’.

‘Dad, I’m 36, not 6!’.

‘Sorry, course you are. But I’ll always think of you as 6. You’ll always be my little girl’.

***

You never met Andy, or your beautiful grandchildren. You’d be so proud of me dad. You’d never tell me, but I know you would be proud.

***

‘Sandra, I can’t breathe’.

‘Okay dad, I’m coming’.

‘I’ve been sat here for a while, but didn’t want to wake you before 6’.

‘Oh dad, that’s what I’m here for’.

‘I know’.

The ambulance arrived quickly. The paramedics, bulky with their coats and bags, worked efficiently. As they carried you down the stairs, your eyes were open, but I could see that you had already gone.

‘It’s 6.53 dad’.

***

For my old man

17 July 1932 - 25 March 2006

My Old Man

Happy Birthday Dad

Happy Birthday Dad.

I knew you were fed up with a box of wine gums every year, but I have a better present for you this year. I've sorted my life out, I've found what I was looking for.

I wish you could see me now.

I have a wonderful husband, I know you would get on really well with him. He's clever, like you. I met him a week before you passed away. I'm sorry I didn't tell you that I'd met the love of my life (well, I didn't exactly know that then, but I had a pretty good idea). When I mentioned there was someone I wanted to meet off the internet you thought he would be a paedophile, grooming me. I reminded you that I was thirty-six years old. You said you would always think of me as a six year old. Your little girl.

I still am sometimes.

I wanted a hug from my daddy this week, when we lost our cat Eric. You would have shed a tear too and then told me to pull myself together. We would have sat at the dining room table drinking coffee and eating your delicious homemade bread, covered with soft butter. You would have told me I was putting on weight and should I be eating that. I would have told you to shut up. We would have looked at the crossword together. We would fantasise about winning the lottery, how much each of us would give the other.

Your best present of all, of course, would be your two gorgeous grandchildren.

I bet you'd given up all hope of becoming a Grandad.

Presley looks a bit like you, he definitely takes after our side of the family. Cash looks more like his Daddy. They are amazing boys. I can see you with one on each knee. You could tell them the story about the hedgehogs that you made up when I was small. Of course you would take thousands of photographs of them and we would watch their little eyes glaze over when you went into far too much detail about the settings on your camera. Don't worry, we take plenty of photos of them.

When they are old enough to ask where Mummy's Daddy is, I will tell them he is smiling in heaven, proud of Mummy.

Happy Birthday Dad. I love you and I miss you x

Happy Birthday Dad