When Daddy Comes Home Read online

  But there was a price to pay. On Sunday mornings, she wakened reluctantly, unwilling to face the results of the previous night’s excesses. Her head pounded. From behind her eyes and across her head, waves of pain shot into her skull. Her tongue felt swollen, her throat dry, and all she wanted to do was stay under the bedclothes for the remainder of the day. But she refused to give her mother satisfaction by giving in to her self-inflicted misery; she knew that Ruth already thought she had enough reason to complain about her daughter’s behaviour without Antoinette giving her fresh ammunition.

  Instead, she tried to recall the night before. She would see the dance hall where groups of girls sat chattering and giggling as they studiously avoided the looks from groups of boys walking around them. Antoinette was beginning to understand how the game worked now. This was a competition between Antoinette and her friends of who could look the most nonchalant and the prize was to be asked to dance by the boy they’d already selected. As he approached, a blank look would replace the animated expression shown to her friends and coolly, almost reluctantly, she would accept his invitation to dance with a stiff nod of her beehived head.

  Both sexes knew what they wanted: the girl wanted to be pursued and courted and then to win a steady boyfriend. The boy wanted to show his friends he could have any girl he wanted.

  But for all their bravado, the boys knew the rules. They might try to get further but there was no surprise when they couldn’t. They knew that a passionate kiss in the back of a car and a quick fumble would only lead to a soft but firm hand holding him back. In the early sixties, before the birth pill had led a sexual revolution, a pregnancy would result in either marriage or disgrace; both sexes knew that, and for different reasons, wanted to avoid them.

  Antoinette, though, was playing a different game. She wanted vodka. She longed for her world to blur; she embraced the dizziness, then ran her wrists under the cold tap and splashed water on her pulse points to steady herself before looking for a refill. She smiled sweetly at the nearest boy whom she knew had a smuggled bottle. Mistaking her motives, he would hastily top up her glass and when she knew that no more would be forthcoming unless she parted with more than a smile, she would drain the glass and make a rapid departure.

  Not for Antoinette a hasty grope in the back of a car, or the struggle to maintain her modesty as some youth, looking for a return on the free drinks he had given, tried to hoist her skirt up. She had no interest in that particular barter system and always made her escape before it could begin. Her friends were too young to be aware that drink not boys had become her obsession. But Ruth knew only too well.

  It was drink that stopped her facing the fact that everything between them had changed. The trust and friendship that was so important to her had now slid away. Ruth had finally shown her plans to her daughter and Antoinette felt that any chance of survival was to exorcise that love that still remained.

  Antoinette knew that her mother had begun to see her daughter as a problem, just as she had during those terrible years when she had refused to acknowledge what was happening. Now, as Antoinette slipped away from her control, Ruth obviously thought of her daughter as yet another burden she had to bear in a life strewn with unfulfilled expectations. Antoinette sensed that Ruth had begun to believe that her daughter was the cause of her problems.

  Now she had made it clear that she would welcome her husband back into their home as though nothing had ever happened, she began to undermine Antoinette as much as she could, bullying her with subtle and skilful manipulation until she forced her daughter to accept the situation.

  Ruth wanted control and she knew very well the words that would always make her daughter dance to her tune.

  ‘You are such a worry to me, dear,’ she would begin. ‘I can’t get to sleep until you come home. That’s why I’m so tired in the mornings. Do you really want to worry me so?’

  When she tired of making Antoinette feel guilty, there were her attacks – ‘You’re such a disappointment to me’ – and her accusations – ‘I don’t know who you’re with or what you and your friends get up to at those places but I know what you smell like when you come home.’

  Antoinette tried to ignore her as she defiantly watched Juke Box Jury and, with a mirror propped in front of the television, applied make-up ready for another big night out. Then Ruth would play her ace.

  ‘You know I love you.’

  Antoinette longed for it to be true; underneath the anger she felt at her mother’s betrayal, she still loved her and craved to be loved in return. Over the weeks that fell between that visit and her father’s release, she tried to shut out the sound of her mother’s voice as Ruth tried to seek her compliance in rewriting history. Her mother jerked the strings harder over the next few weeks until obedience, that integral habit of her daughter’s childhood, started to win out. She demanded that Antoinette play the game of happy families, that she pretend that she was looking forward to her father’s return and that nothing had ever happened that might make the very idea monstrous to her.

  ‘Daddy will be home soon, dear,’ Ruth would say to her daughter, her voice happy and untroubled, as though she expected nothing less than a delighted response.

  Antoinette would feel her stomach clench, her fists tighten and the fear rise, but she said nothing.

  Ruth would say in sharp tones that forbade any argument, ‘I want you to try not to upset him, dear.’ Then add in the patient voice of the martyr she seemed to believe she was, ‘I’ve suffered enough! Nobody knows how much I’ve suffered. I can’t take any more.’

  Antoinette believed in her mother’s suffering – she had heard that refrain ‘I’ve suffered enough!’ so often that she had to – but she didn’t see it in her mother’s eyes. Instead, she saw in Ruth anger at being thwarted, coldness and an implacable need to cling on to her own version of reality.

  The day her father was expected home loomed on the horizon. For years, she had tried to block the date of his release from her mind but now it was impossible. The image of his face and the derisory tone of his voice haunted her sober hours – hours that were becoming fewer and fewer.

  The week before his arrival Ruth triumphantly produced a packet containing a brown hair rinse.

  ‘That red beehive has to go. If you want to do your hair like that when you are with your friends I can’t stop you, but while you live here you are going to leave the house looking decent,’ she told her daughter firmly.

  Antoinette knew better than to protest. Having her mother furious with her a few days before her father was due home was not, she knew, a good idea. Sighing, she took the rinse, brushed her hair until it was straight and then applied the dye. One hour later, when she had given her hair its final rinse, then towel-dried it vigorously in front of the fire, she looked in the mirror and was faced with the reflection of a drab Antoinette. Of Toni, who, with all her mistakes, had courage, there was no sign. In her place was a frightened teenager that looked like the victim she had once been.

  Her mother had won – she had destroyed the confidence that Antoinette had managed to build up since her father had vanished from their lives. And now, as his return loomed, she felt more than ever that she was being sent back to the place she had started out from.

  Her mother looked at the new hair colour. ‘Very nice, dear,’ was her only comment, said without warmth. It was not meant as a compliment.

  The night before her father was due to arrive an uneasy silence hung between Antoinette and her mother. Antoinette just wanted to escape to her room and block the thoughts of her father and his arrival from her mind, while Ruth was determined that the charade of a happy family would be played out in full.

  When her mother was silent, Antoinette knew that it was only the prelude of worse to come and as the evening wore on, her nervousness increased.

  ‘Well, I think I’ll go to bed now,’ she said eventually. ‘I’m feeling very tired tonight.’

  It was then, knowing she had won and that her d
aughter’s short-lived rebellion was firmly under control, that Ruth delivered her coup de grâce.

  She looked up at her daughter and said, ‘Tomorrow, dear, I want you to meet Daddy and bring him home. I have to work in the morning and I know you are on the evening shift so you have the day free.’ Opening her purse, she drew out a ten-shilling note and thrust it into her daughter’s hand, giving a smile that showed more steely determination than sincerity. Then, as though she had planned a special treat, she said, ‘Here’s some money so you can buy him afternoon tea at that coffee shop you like so much.’

  Stunned into obedience, she said, ‘All right, Mummy.’

  As she spoke, Antoinette felt her mother’s power over her slip back into place and saw the gleam of satisfaction in Ruth’s eyes as she smelt victory. As she had done every night before her brief rebellion, Antoinette kissed her mother quickly on the cheek and went to bed.

  She knew in her heart that she had been successfully sucked through the looking glass into her mother’s fantasy. She understood somehow that her mother needed to believe that she, Ruth, was a good wife and mother and that Joe was the handsome Irish husband who adored her. Between them, they had a daughter who was nothing but trouble and Ruth suffered because of it. She had been the victim of her husband’s disgrace, but as long as Antoinette behaved herself and did not annoy her father when he came home, everything would be all right.

  In Ruth’s universe, Antoinette was the difficult daughter who had caused all the problems. Although she tried to fight it, it would not be long before Antoinette began to believe that perhaps her mother was right.

  Chapter Eight

  The coffee shop where Ruth had arranged for Antoinette to meet her father was one of the many that were rapidly springing up in the centre of Belfast. These forerunners of wine bars sold cappuccino coffee to the youth of Belfast and this one was Antoinette’s favourite. It was there that she and her friends met before going to the dance halls, where they would sip their frothy drinks as they made plans for the evening ahead.

  That afternoon, on the day of her father’s release, she felt no pleasure in the familiar surroundings; the darkness of the interior looked gloomy to her while the large silver and black coffee machine, usually alive with a friendly hissing and gurgling, stood silently on the bar.

  It was too early in the day for the hordes of people who frequented it in the evening to be present, while the lunchtime crowd, a mixture of smartly dressed businessmen and sophisticated women, had returned to their offices.

  Her father’s imminent return had sunk Antoinette into a depression. It was like a black hole that she had sunk into, where she could not even think about tomorrow. Even the simplest task seemed impossible and anything was liable to make her panic. All her responses shut down and she became the robot she had once been, secure only when obeying orders.

  And then there were her other worries. What could she say if she met one of her friends? How could she explain him away? Why had her mother arranged for them to meet on what Antoinette saw as her territory? It was as though any independence that she had gained, any life that she had forged out for herself, had been taken away from her.

  All those thoughts were running through her head as she walked to one of the wooden tables and took a seat. His bus was due to arrive at 3 p.m. She was grateful for this as she knew that the chances of bumping into anyone at that time of day were slim.

  Which father was going to greet her, she wondered. Would it be the ‘nice’ one, who eleven years ago had met his wife and daughter at the Belfast docks; the father who had made Ruth glow with happiness as he hugged her and made his daughter giggle with pleasure when he swung her five-year-old body in the air, and then kissed her soundly on both cheeks? That father, the jovial man who had chucked her under the chin as he presented his wife with presents of boxes of chocolates after one of their many rows, was now only a dim memory. Or would it be the other father, the one with the bloodshot eyes and the mouth that quivered with rage at the very sight of her? Her childhood fear of the man she remembered most vividly, the one she had tried to force out of her mind, came back to her.

  Antoinette arrived early. She was dressed as her old self: her newly washed hair now hung to the collar of her navy jacket and a grey skirt and pale-blue twin set had replaced the teenage uniform of jeans and shirt. Her mother had come into her room early that morning. She had made preparations to see her husband again and was dressed in a grey jacket with a fur collar that framed her face, softening it. Her hair was freshly permed with a copper rinse to hide the grey that had appeared in recent years and once again fell in soft waves about her face. Her mouth was painted a bright red, a colour she had always favoured, while rings sparkled against the hands tipped with scarlet-lacquered nails. She had opened the wardrobe and selected the clothes she wanted Antoinette to wear.

  ‘That looks so nice on you, dear,’ she had said. ‘Wear that today.’

  ‘I don’t like it,’ Antoinette had muttered. ‘It’s old-fashioned.’

  ‘Oh no, dear, it makes you look very pretty. It’s your colour blue. Wear it to please me, won’t you?’

  And she had.

  Antoinette wanted to arrive before her father so that she had the advantage of being seated at a table with a clear view of the door. She wanted to see him before he saw her.

  Hanging lamps cast soft pools of warm light on the wooden tables. A cup of coffee had been brought to her and she needed both hands to hold it to her mouth because her palms were damp and slippery with the moisture that fear brings. Her stomach fluttered with nervous tremors and her head felt light from a sleepless night.

  She felt his presence a split second before she saw him. Looking up at the door, she could only make out a male form. With his back to the sun, he was a faceless shadow but she knew it was him. She felt the short hair on the back of her neck bristle and she placed her hands on her knees to hide the shaking.

  It was not until he reached her side that his features came into focus.

  ‘Hello, Antoinette,’ he said.

  As she looked into his face, she saw someone she had not seen before: the remorseful father. He’d been in prison for over two years and apart from that weekend leave, when she’d only seen him for a few moments, she had not spoken to him.

  ‘Hello, Daddy,’ she replied. Not wanting to hear any words from him she blurted out, ‘Mummy’s given me some money to pay for your tea.’

  Such was Antoinette’s conditioning to behave normally, she did. To any outsider the two of them presented a perfectly ordinary spectacle – a man taking his daughter out to tea.

  The moment she said her first words to her father, Antoinette took another step further into her mother’s world. It was a world where her sense of self-will disappeared, where she danced to the tune that Ruth sang. She had no choice, she had to comply. She acted her part in the charade that everything between them all was normal.

  But it was far from normal. This was a man who had been sent to prison, and it was her evidence that had placed him there instead of in the psychiatric ward that her mother had hoped for, the lesser of two evils. She had wondered ever since what his reaction to her would be when they faced each other again and now she was about to find out.

  She forced herself to hide her fear and look at him. She expected to see changes, even infinitesimal ones, in a man who had been incarcerated for a sexual crime. Even though the papers had not stated that the minor he was reported to have abused was his own daughter, the fact that his victim was an underage girl should have had some effect. Surely the other prisoners would have shown disapproval. Surely his popularity with other men would have disappeared. Surely not even his skill with a snooker cue could have saved him.

  But to Antoinette’s mystification, he looked no different than he had on the day of his trial. His tweed suit, which he had worn then, still fitted him perfectly; his tie was knotted firmly under the collar of his smoothly ironed pale-blue cotton shirt. His hair, wit
h its auburn lights glinting in its thick waves, looked freshly barbered and his eyes reflected not a care in the world as they returned her gaze with a warm smile.

  He took the seat opposite her and leant forward and placed his hand lightly over hers. She felt her fingers stiffen as they recoiled from his touch, then felt them tremble. She wanted nothing more than to rise from her seat and run. She didn’t even have the strength to avoid meeting his hypnotic stare.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, as though those words carried a magic formula that would make his deeds disappear in as many seconds as it took to utter them.

  But she wanted desperately to believe in him. She wanted to have her faith in the adult world restored, and to enter a time machine where those awful years could be rewritten. Most of all, she wanted to be a normal teenager with two loving parents and a happy childhood, laden with memories that she could take with her to adulthood. She wanted to be able to smile at her recollections of the past, to be able to share them with her friends. She knew that the stories of our past, our families and of our friends create the structure of life but hers were too terrible to recall, let alone to tell other people.

  She looked at the remorseful father and wanted to believe him – but she didn’t.

  Joe believed he had won. He smiled and ordered tea and scones. Antoinette watched him wash down his food with cups of tea but she was unable to eat. She just stared blankly at him and felt the familiar fear return. When she was little, it would make her glassy-eyed with terror while sickness swirled in her stomach.

  Eventually he put down his cup and smiled at her. ‘Well, my girl, if you’ve finished we might as well make a move.’ He made no comment at her lack of appetite, just told her to call for the bill and settle it. Then he took her arm in imitation of a caring father and held it firmly as he led her from the café.