“Daddy” by Harold Elliott
We pass a wooden security door with a thick metal frame built to withstand forced entry, out of the rainy day light into the stained stairwell, my Father’s shoes scrape the step where I smell the stale cannabis smoke from the younger youths on their way to college. Their forceful young male voiles boomerang off the walls when they are in the Estate and their behaviours exhibit strong territorial instincts, moving in large groups, wearing similar clothing and colour combinations. Once in a while somebody is killed in their tribalistic fights.
I’m being carried, swaying up the winding stair cases, 3 years old at this point in my tale. In the window of a car I just passed I saw something terrible, a bad omen, something I knew was deadly, while being carried across my father’s rippling shoulders, nestled in the solid strength inherent in his huge back. My Father had a strength that I thought I might not grow to possess. Earlier I picked the flimsy fleshy leaves of clovers from the lawn outside looking for one with four leaves. I didn’t find any even though I was sure I would. I found something far more terrible. Life and death was winking at me from behind the glass, a caged beast taunting me.
“On the way back into the flats I saw the black VW where the gun was so brazenly displayed, but with the sudden change in my Father rocking me to the core, causing a tight knot in my throat, I kept this knowledge to myself.”
I just saw a gun… it was like one I saw on a Cop programme I was glued to before lunch with Mum, with police men playing with their hair and fighting bad guys. It was sitting on the dashboard of the car, but when I spoke the words my father was delighted and asked me to keep saying it, ‘there’s a gun in the car’, he was so charmed he recorded me saying it. I went to bed warm with cocoa toast biscuit milk drooping eyelids stroked head brushing teeth mint smell of cigarette and drifted resting with a hot water bottle. The black metal and dark walnut handle haunted my dreams. I woke up in the morning to go and wake up my parents, they were already awake and smartly dressed, their awakeness was so apparent I was shocked, felt red eyed stings and yawned. I chatter about things, cars with guns in, men with guns who have cars. I explain I saw a weapon in a car. My Dad had no car, Mum had no car as far as I knew. I wouldn’t expect someone in my family to have a gun. This is England where people don’t have firearms in their houses, especially not in cars.
I said it, the words came out themselves with little thought, ‘there was a gun in the black car outside last night, Dad’.
Silky silence fills up the room and my Father left very quickly, saying nothing but donning his huge black jacket that slipped around him elegantly and planting a roll up between his thin lips. My Mother gave me a meaningful look and held me in her arms. I was soon asleep again.
It seemed that a great shadow enveloped my Father for the next few days, his attention to me dissipated and our usual play fighting ceased. His stubble grew past a comfortable length for snuggles and kisses, his coffee cup seemed to be full all the time, his empty cigarette packets multiplied and he only took me out of the house once, in a drizzling downpour we braved the local woods. It seemed there was some joy my Father had possessed that had been stolen from him, his exuberant voice had fallen an octave, his mobile phone conversation on the way home from the woods was quiet and urgent. On the way back into the flats I saw the black VW where the gun was so brazenly displayed, but with the sudden change in my Father rocking me to the core, causing a tight knot in my throat, I kept this knowledge to myself. On opening the front door my Mother embraced my Father with hot kisses, a glass of red in one hand. Dinner is a happy affair, the kisses continue and afterwards I’m subjected to a quick dip in a too hot bath, while my parents flirt with their eyes. When I am put to bed I feel nauseous from the warmth of the duvet and pillow, after my story I pretend to sleep and when I am alone, kick all the bedclothes off and flip the pillow over to the cool side. In the other bedroom my little brother is being conceived. I close my eyes and see a screeching cat face with huge fangs coming to get me, I wake, I close my eyes again and see a man in black jacket drawing down on me with a black pistol. Then I can’t wake up. When I wake up it’s straight into the blue pram beneath a pale blue sky with a fresh sun, October 25th, the day before my birthday I am stone faced and my Father is threatening with the thick scowl on his face. I have a psyche full of guns and possibilities.
Blue light and the bitter smell of coffee, radio voices breaking the calm of morning, bombing in Manchester, stabbing in Clapton, FTSE 100 down, nothing about me having bad dreams, I’ve been driving a car around, there was something heavy in the boot, something that definitely shouldn’t be there. I clamber out of bed and search for my parents, my little feet tap on the creaking floor boards, I think they must be outside smoking. It is a working day, early enough for the office to be closed at least for another few hours. My Father has already left for work, and my Mother is busy clipping at dead plants. She has a cigarette in her mouth trailing smoke as her secouteurs split the rose stems laden with dead yellow flowers. She briskly walks inside to put down the clippers, then she throws together a breakfast for me full of protein. Laboriously I mush food squelching, mopping my hair back over my head, thoughtful and quiet. I don’t notice the day passing in colourful shifts of scene, as I attend storytelling at St Martins chapel down the road, ride the bus and sit in a smoky pub watching my Father eat a steak, talking in short bursts of low frequency adult speak with a man. The man is dressed in dark clothes that seem to veil him from any observer to the point where a flash of his teeth seems like a clue to his true appearance. I kick my legs and drink my first coca cola. Halfway into the conversation between the two men I notice the light has fallen sharply outside, the haze of smoke is thickening like custard as people come in from work to buy a drink. It’s a Friday and all the men are going for beer, which I stare at wondering about the flavour of the golden liquid. It must be very special to have these wood furnished houses dedicated to its sale. The smoke stinks of sweat and sick, a man at the bar is staring at my Father with distraction, he is worse than the shadowy man, the parts that I see are frightening angular blurs. As soon as I am home, having spotted the black car parked further up the road this time, accompanied by the shadowy man from the pub, my Father leaves giving my Mother a kiss on the cheek. Mother seems fine.
‘Byeee’ she says, whipping out a lit cigarette as soon as the distant engine fires up. That night my insomnia kept me awake until the early hours, when the moonlight shone through my window and suddenly the front door rocked open shaking every window, followed by a rush of activity. Frustrated at my youth, not being able to go and see exactly was happening, I peeked through the blinds. Outside a car was double parked, with engine running, on the back seat a man was slumped on his side motionless. My Father was sitting static passenger side, straight faced with gun in palm and the driver was striding from the door of my house and getting back behind the wheel. The door closed quietly. Engines dying in the distance, now a wailing siren far far away and then the street fell quiet. Daddy was a gangster. When my brother was conceived my Father was in prison waiting on a High Court appeal decision, he was home for my brother’s first birthday. One thing I was told about my dad, ‘He gets away with murder, your Dad does’. One day I discovered a pistol in the dresser drawer, and not long after that there was a licensed shotgun on the wall in the study. Once in a while I saw my Father with a dark look in his eye that never failed to put a chill through my heart.
Words by Harold Elliott, Photo by Shane Connolly