Читать книгу Tripping Over - John Hickman - Страница 13

Mum worried herself sick when Dad came home later than usual from a US base.

She’d imagined the worst and became frantic only to find him arrive in one piece but drunk. To make matters worse Mum saw what looked like lipstick on his handkerchief. She accused him of having an affair. ‘It’s all starting to add up, Bill,’ she snarled.

‘Not good timing, Alice,’ Dad said, with a hint of sway.

Mum didn’t care. She was angry. ‘No Yankee bitch is going to steal my husband from me. You’re lying like a cheap toupee.’

There was a frightful row, which Dad was incapable of winning. Instead he lashed out and hit Mum full in the face.

Wide-awake I cowered under my bedcovers, but Mum tried to give as good as she got. Dad in his drunken rage nearly put her and their dressing table mirror out through the rear bedroom window. Mum was left shaking and in tears. She ran from the bedroom in that stumbling way women sometimes do in heels—only she wasn’t wearing any.

Next day Dad apologised to Mum. ‘The last thing I wanted to do was hurt you, Sweetheart.’

After that brawl I had trouble sleeping. Mum insisted I stay in and read rather than play outside. My eyes passed over the pages of my books but I read nothing. Even the works of Lewis Carroll and my favourite Alice in Wonderland did nothing for me.

Mum had a telltale black eye for several days and spent lots of time cuddling me and crying. I enjoyed her cuddles, but sensed Mum’s fear of Dad. My heart beat twenty to the dozen and I thought surely Mum would hear it.

After a few days Mum waved her white flag. The ruckus blew over but Mum remained unhappy about Dad’s late nights out.

‘I have no choice, Alice. Only the Yanks are in a position to spend up big on jewellery. Our British economy is shot to buggery. I’m worried about work and money.’

Mum sobbed. ‘The usual, you mean. Too much of one and not enough of the other.’

‘If I agree with you, we’ll both be wrong.’

Mum continued to be unhappy. ‘Why can’t you be like other men? Surely you don’t need to drink so much all the time. And as for other women, Bill, I won’t tolerate it.’

Sometimes Dad would call out in his sleep during the night. Later when he’d gone to work Mum explained he was having bad dreams because of his memories of the war. I thought that strange. ‘I never have nightmares about my birth certificate,’ I said.

Mum smiled. ‘Not those sorts of worries it’s more a style of shell shock.’

I often awoke to strange creaking noises from the direction of my parents’ bed. Sometimes I heard Mum whisper, ‘Shush, Bill, you’ll wake, John.’

Dad never spoke back but I could hear him breathing heavily and moving about. He’d open his bedside drawer and then close it again. I lay quietly until it was time to get up for school.

The argument they’d had about what appeared; as lipstick on his white handkerchief, had never been resolved. Even though Dad swore on his life he’d never played up on Mum, she was not convinced.

Then one day Dad’s handkerchief had become damp from overuse of him blowing his nose. It found its way in to the same pocket as his Swan Vestas matches for his pipe. Constant rubbing against the box of matches resulted in red dye from the matchbox attaching itself to the handkerchief. Dad showed Mum and she was content to believe the previous occasion may not have been lipstick.

‘Who says smoking isn’t injurious to health?’ Dad quipped.

Mum became upset with talk of another war on the wireless. The name Nasser was mentioned a lot, together with unrest in the Arab world. ‘Oh, Bill.’ Mum broke down in tears. ‘Please tell me you won’t have to go back, not again.

I couldn’t bear it.’

Dad consoled Mum. ‘It’ll be all right. I’m sure they’re only sabre rattling but I can’t go back now anyway, Alice. They wouldn’t want me. I’m too old.’

Mum and Dad cuddled standing up for a long time. After a while they pulled me in with them. We stood like that for what seemed like a long time before I was set with a book to read while they attended to something important for Dad in the bedroom.

Despite Mum’s concerns Dad continued to visit the US bases. ‘We have to speculate to accumulate,’ he told Mum, ‘diamond solitaire rings are popular with the Yanks. I specialise in big carats for less bucks. You’ll see business is on the up.’

Dad was proved right.

He also cut back on his drinking and Mum calmed down. Either he became a Houdini at covering his tracks with other women, or there weren’t any tracks to cover.

Mum eased up further on Dad when he told her, ‘I worry I’m a target for thieves.

I’m always carrying diamonds and on the way home US dollars as well, Alice.’

Mum agreed he should carry his old RAF revolver for protection.

In my eyes Dad had become John Wayne.