When Daddy Comes Home Read online

  The gate lodge was a pretty Victorian building standing on the edge of the town. It had small, cramped rooms cluttered with cheap, shabby furniture; the plaster on the walls was old and lumpy and cracks of age ran across the window frames and marked the skirting boards. Curtains with large flowery prints designed for larger windows had been shortened and hung in ungainly folds half way down the walls while the clashing floral carpets were faded and threadbare.

  ‘Here we are then, Antoinette,’ said Ruth, as they went in for the first time. ‘This is our new home. A room for you and a room for me. What do you think?’

  From the first moment she went into the old house, Antoinette began to feel safe. She didn’t know why this place should be where she began to leave the past behind, but it was. Here, the fear she had lived with for eight years, that had stalked her waking hours and invaded her dreams gradually diminished. Antoinette felt that the lodge was her nest, somewhere where she was protected from the world.

  Together, she and her mother began to turn the place into their home. Bonded by their desire to create something homely and welcoming, they covered the bumpy old plaster with two coats of fresh paint, applied with amateurish enthusiasm. They made the tired old sitting room into a pretty individual room filled with books and ornaments. Ruth’s collection of Staffordshire dogs were placed in one corner while willow-patterned plates were displayed on a scratched oak sideboard, alongside the little knick-knacks and pieces that Antoinette and her mother bought from Smithfield market in the centre of Belfast. It was there, among the stalls selling bric-a-brac and second-hand furniture, that they found their best bargains.

  It was on one of those days when they went out exploring the market that Antoinette discovered a green wing armchair priced at two pounds. Full of excitement, she called her mother over to see it and together they quickly made the purchase. At home, it became Antoinette’s favourite chair. She loved the soft velvet that covered it and the wings on the back that protected her from draughts.

  As the weeks passed and they settled into their new home, the closeness with her mother that Antoinette had craved since she was six returned and the trust that she’d once had began to grow again. She cherished it so much that she never asked herself why everything that had gone before had happened; she firmly locked away the memories of how her mother had once been and refused to ask herself the questions that had haunted her. Instead, she looked to the future. At last she was in a place where she felt safe, and at last her relationship with her mother was beginning to blossom. She discovered that the satisfaction of being free to love far outweighed the happiness of receiving it. Like a flower in the sunshine, she began to bloom.

  Ruth got Antoinette a job as a waitress in the coffee shop where she was the manageress. The work was not difficult and Antoinette enjoyed it. In the evenings, after they got home from work, she and her mother would eagerly scan the newspaper and choose from the two available channels a programme they both wanted to see. With their supper on a tray, they sat engrossed in old black-and-white films or quiz shows, kept warm by the coal fire burning away in the grate. The television was Antoinette’s pride and joy – it was the only piece of furniture that had been bought new and she had saved the money to purchase it herself.

  At the end of the evening, Antoinette would fill the hot-water bottles and carry them up the steep narrow staircase that led from the living room to a tiny square landing. On opposite sides of it, separated only by a few feet, were their unheated bedrooms with their sloping ceilings and ill-fitting windows. She would wrap each pink rubber bottle in a pair of pyjamas and tuck them into the cold beds to create a welcome patch of warmth for later.

  Then, back downstairs, a final cup of hot chocolate would be drunk companionably before Ruth would depart, leaving Antoinette to tidy up. Her last job was to damp down the fire with coal rubble and tea leaves so that in the morning, once prodded by the cast-iron poker that stood with its matching shovel and brush in the stand beside it, there would be a welcoming glow.

  Antoinette would rise first in the morning and go downstairs for a quick sponge wash, taken hurriedly at the kitchen sink. The steam from the kettle would mingle with the mist of her breath as she boiled water for their morning tea. Once a week, a paraffin stove was lit. It gave off obnoxious fumes as well as a faint heat; while it warmed up, Antoinette dragged an old tin bath out and then filled it with saucepanfuls of boiling water. She would bath quickly and wash her hair, as the kitchen heated up; then, wrapped in a flannel dressing gown, she would clean the bath and refill it for her mother. Clothes were still washed by hand and hung on a line suspended between two metal poles in the small back garden. While still damp, they were aired in front of the fire causing steam to rise as the smell of drying washing filled the room.

  On Sundays, when the coffee shop was shut, Antoinette would cook breakfast and she and her mother would share it together while Judy, now an old dog whose rheumatism was beginning to slow her down, would sit at Antoinette’s side, her eyes following their every movement hoping that both mother and daughter were going to stay at home and not leave her. On the days that Ruth and her daughter left for work together she would follow them to the door, a look of abject misery which the years had perfected on her face.

  It was a quiet life, but a comforting and healing one, as the great fissure that had once existed between Antoinette and her mother gradually began to close. The one thing they never talked about was what would happen on that distant day when her father was released. In fact, Ruth never spoke about her husband at all and there was never a letter from him in the house – not for Ruth the indignity of a letter marked with a prison stamp – and never one written to him, as far as Antoinette saw.

  Her father’s eventual release was a dark shadow on the horizon but that time was far off yet. There was no need to think of it now. Antoinette lived in blissful ignorance of Ruth’s future plans. It was just the two of them now.

  Eighteen months after they moved to the gate lodge, Antoinette resolved to do something about the ambitions that she had quietly been nurturing inside her. Although she liked her job at the coffee shop, she wanted more for herself than a life as a waitress, and she wanted to make her mother proud. But the problem was that prospective employers would be put off by the fact she had left school at sixteen with no qualifications. Without proof of her education, there was no way she could begin to better herself. But Antoinette had worked out a way to get around that. By going to a secretarial college, she would not only get a formal qualification but also a certificate that stated she had left school at eighteen, giving her those precious two extra years. All she needed was the money to pay the fees and she was already planning how that could be done.

  She had heard that lots of Irish girls went over to England or Wales during the summer to work in the holiday camps. The pay was good and the tips were lucrative, she was told. It would be a quick and relatively easy way to earn the money she would need to put herself through college, and the coffee shop would let her take some time off to work elsewhere and then take her back when she returned. Belfast was always full of students looking for temporary work, so it wouldn’t be hard to find someone to take her place for a while.

  It felt wonderful to have a goal to work towards. When Antoinette explained her plan to the owner of the coffee shop, it seemed that fate was on her side. He had a relative who owned a hotel on the Isle of Man and who was always looking for staff. Why didn’t she go out there over Easter and earn some good money as a combination of waitress and chamber maid? It seemed too good an opportunity to pass up and so within a fortnight Antoinette was on her way to the Isle of Man on the ferry.

  It was not quite the enjoyable experience she had anticipated. The girls were treated as little more than glorified dogsbodies, kept on the run from the early hours of the morning till late at night. Antoinette found it exhausting and not as well paid as she had been led to expect. But with few opportunities and even less time for spending he
r money, her savings mounted up and she decided to come home a few days earlier than she’d originally planned and spend some time relaxing at the lodge before going back to work.

  Excited to be returning home, she hurried back from the docks to Lisburn as fast as she could, wishing the taxi could go at twice the speed. But when she let herself into the lodge and dashed into the sitting room, her arms full of presents for her mother, she came to an abrupt halt, startled by the sight that she least wanted to see in the world.

  ‘Hello. How’s my wee girl?’

  It was her father, sitting in the green wing armchair, smiling at her smugly, while her mother sat at his feet, her face alight with happiness.

  Chapter Four

  Antoinette lay in bed, unwilling to get up, trying to tell herself that the night before had just been a bad dream. But she knew it was real, hard though it was to accept it. She was incredulous – how could her mother have done such a thing? It was as extraordinary as it was cruel.

  Unable to delay any longer, she pushed back the bedclothes, swung her legs to the floor and started to dress. Her whole body drooped as she pulled on clothes that had not changed in style since she had received her first pay packet. Her entire wardrobe consisted of pleated skirts and high-necked jumpers in muted hues; bland clothes that her mother liked. They were the uniform of a middle-class girl whose one wish was to conform and not to stand out from the crowd.

  Antoinette waited in her bedroom until she heard her mother leave for work; she had no desire to confront her that morning and, besides, the hurt and anger were so great she hardly knew if she would be able to speak. Then Ruth called out, as she did every morning, ‘I’m off to work now, darling. See you this evening!’ Her voice was more cheerful than usual, no doubt because of her husband’s weekend visit.

  When she had heard the door slam behind her mother, Antoinette went downstairs. Judy was waiting at the foot of them and, as she had done so many times in the past, she sat on the floor and put her arms round the old dog’s neck, resting her face against the warmth of the fur for comfort. Judy, sensing her despair, licked her face as though trying to offer consolation while Antoinette felt the tears come to her eyes then trickle silently down her cheeks.

  She went into the living room. Her nostrils filled with the scent of an enemy – an enemy she had thought she would never have to face again. Like a small animal sensing danger, she stiffened.

  She could smell him even in an empty room.

  She knew then that she had not dreamt the events of the previous night. When she had seen her father sitting there, she’d been unable to speak. Instead, she’d fled the room, dropping her parcels, and taken sanctuary in her bedroom. There she had stayed until he had left, trying to understand what had happened and almost unable to believe her eyes. She had thought that she and her mother had started a new life together but now it seemed that Ruth had just been marking time until she could restart the old one. Antoinette had just been her companion while she waited.

  Her father had left hours ago to return to prison when his weekend pass had expired yet that odour she remembered, of cigarettes and hair oil mingled with the faint smell of stale sweat, contaminated the room. Her eyes alighted on the ashtrays overflowing with the crumbled remains of her father’s rolled-up cigarettes; here was the physical proof of his visit. She opened the windows, took the ashtray with its cigarette butts and emptied it, but his smell still lingered, unleashing unwanted memories.

  Now she had to face up to the fact that her father’s weekend pass, granted after he had served two years of his four-year sentence, had brought him straight to his wife, who had clearly been delighted to have him back. From what she had seen, Antoinette knew that the visit had not just been tolerated by Ruth – it had been warmly welcomed.

  Her father had been in her home, he’d tarnished it. She felt as though she had suddenly stepped into quicksand and, struggle as she might, she was being sucked down, back to the past, back into that dark place she had been in for so many years. She tried to hold on to the fragile strands of the safety she’d known in the gate lodge, tried to push away the memory of the previous night and draw comfort from her familiar surroundings.

  But, through the numbness of shock and disbelief, another emotion was breaking through. The realization of her mother’s total betrayal started to fuel her anger, and gradually it consumed her.

  ‘How could my mother still care for a man who has committed such a heinous crime? She knows what he did to me, her own daughter. How can she still love him?’ she asked herself repeatedly, as she paced about the room. ‘And if she has been able to forgive him, then what can she really feel for me? Has it all been a lie?’

  Our hearts might belong to us but we have very little control over where they go and Antoinette was no different; one moment, she wanted to hate her mother and the next, she longed to be comforted by her and have her love returned.

  But she couldn’t accept the answers to the questions she asked herself. She felt ill at the thought that just a few feet away from her bedroom, her parents had shared a bed again.

  Had they had sex, she wondered. The idea that Ruth might have done willingly what she had been forced to do made her shudder. And worst of all, she knew that if her mother was willing to have her father back in the house even for a moment, it meant that in a few months’ time, when he was released, she would welcome him back for good into the home she shared with Antoinette.

  The sense of security which she thought she had found disappeared; the bottom fell out of her world and she felt herself falling into an abyss of unbelieving despair. That morning the feelings of betrayal became firmly fixed in her mind and no amount of will-power could make them disappear ever again.

  Chapter Five

  During the weeks after her father’s return to prison, a barrier of distrust replaced the warmth of friendship between Ruth and her daughter. There was an invisible wall between them, this time constructed by Antoinette. The betrayal she had felt when she saw her father sitting in their living room was too much for her to overcome and she wanted to get out and run away as far as she could, but she knew that was not an option open to her.

  Now that she had amassed some savings to put towards her dream of secretarial college, Antoinette still wanted to follow her plan of working away for the summer despite her experience on the Isle of Man. Hundreds of Irish girls would leave their homes to work the summer season at the holiday camps, hotels and guest houses of the mainland. With accommodation and all meals provided, along with high wages and good tips from happy holidaymakers, they could return with a substantial sum of money.

  She’d already got a job at Butlins lined up for the summer season and her father’s date of permanent release, eighteen months earlier than the sentence handed down, was due before her departure. Could she bear staying at home after he had joined them there?

  Up until now, she had not wanted to leave her mother, but faced with her perfidy and the prospect of having to share a house with her father, she longed to go. But if she left before she had earned enough money, she would use up her savings and have to say goodbye to funding further education. Without those all-important secretarial qualifications, she knew she was looking at a future of waitressing or shop work.

  ‘What choice do I have?’ she asked herself. She would be homeless. Nobody would rent a room to a girl who was under eighteen, even if she could have earned enough to support herself.

  The money she could earn at the camp, though, added to what she had already saved, would pay for the secretarial course she so desperately wanted to take. With qualifications, she would be free to leave home, get her own flat in Belfast and be independent of her parents.

  I’m frightened for my future, she told herself. I’ve seen too many middle-aged women trying to scrape a living by working long hours in second-rate restaurants, while the younger girls are given plenty of work at the better places where tips are high. Her jumbled thoughts scuttled around in her bra
in until she saw she had no option but to stay.

  Every Saturday morning since Antoinette had lived at the gate lodge, she had seen the billowing white furls of the dance marquee being erected in an enterprising local farmer’s fields. On a Saturday night, she had heard the beat of a band as the music floated in the evening air. She would lean out of her bedroom window as far as she could, straining to hear more while she looked longingly at the huge tent. Lit up by the many lights inside, it glowed against the dark of the sky, looking for all the world like a giant illuminated marshmallow.

  She knew that in there, young people entered their own world where they had their own music, wore their own fashions and had fun. As she craned out of her bedroom window, she remembered what her mother had to say on the subject.

  ‘Nice girls don’t go to such places, dear. If a boy wants to take you out then he comes to the house and collects you properly. You certainly don’t go looking for him in there.’ Ruth would always add her strange humourless laugh to her pronouncement and smile her bright, empty smile.

  Whenever her mother said this to her, Antoinette always replied obediently, ‘No, Mummy’, and was content to stay in with her mother, spending the evening pleasing Ruth by keeping her company.

  Thing had changed now, though. Now she wanted to be part of that world she could see through her bedroom window. She wanted to go to the marquee. Weekends were going to become party time for her; she was going to mix with other teens and live as they did. She was certain that other girls’ lives were not centred on their mothers but on fashion, makeup and weekend dances, and she wanted the same.

  Antoinette looked at herself in the mirror, giving her reflection a cool, appraising look. She knew she was different. Even apart from her English accent, her clothes were old-fashioned and her dark brown hair, falling almost to her shoulders in a page-boy cut, was more suitable to a fourteen-year-old than a girl of seventeen. It was all down to Ruth’s influence.