I can see her swinging there still, skin brown like the mud at her feet. A child � as startled by the thunder as she is of fault and mortality � she understands only a little of basic human emotion; that tears mean sadness; that a smile indicates some sort of joy; that a kiss is love.
Her Father is asleep. He drinks the days away � flying and then falling into the deep like a high diver, screaming as he goes. He is still when in slumber, allowing his anger to stand sentinel: it would never be permitted to lie down next to him, no matter how infinite the lull could be.
For her, fallibility without punishment simply does not exist. But his ruling is unpredictable: he beats her as much for her prayers as he does for her disobedience. And when she is bad, and he is done, she swings � Daddy�s cigarette between her lips. She imagines he can see her now, inhaling smoke like she inhales his disappointment - with complete commitment. At eight years old she feels an intensity of hopelessness rarely matched. Her heartbreak to see Christmas end is as real as from guilt.
The garden is fresh in the early evening. The taste of yesterday�s cut grass is on her tongue. She allows the cigarette embers to rest close to her face. When I see her there, swinging like a jewel about a lady�s neck, I want to destroy her. To protect her from what she will do to herself. She sings � a guttural sound, quivering � like Daddy�s.
He killed a woman in his car � the drink more than a mere factor � and there, on the road, his own life was devastated. That is what she has overheard, a fleshy, bloody human-being severed from this earth in Daddy�s magnificent high.
The chill in the air bothers her � the burning takes her mind to different terrain. Sustained from nights in the solitude of a perpetual tunnel; her loneliness is always a comfort in its familiarity.
She thinks far too much now�and nothing later in life, obstructing all sensation and refusing to feel. Self-awareness and silence have not yet consumed her, but they are neither far off, awaiting an opportunity to exploit. And when they come, shoulders touching, she will know what it is like to really feel pain. And she is stirred and soothed by it in equal measures. But, like the recovering addict, she avoids it in order to gain control.
She mimics. She sees Daddy smoke, like he was born to it � and does as he does. He bullies her, like he genuinely believes in the validity his actions � and, again, she does as he. He listens to music, feels it like the dirty exhilaration of pornography, and she learns to follow him through this escape. And soon she drinks � irresponsibly and aggressively and with the same devotion to the cause. Her Father, though immoral, despises hypocrisy. That is what she tells herself when he sees her drinking, and he grins. He couldn�t find glory in the obliteration of such a virtuous mind. Does he see himself in her? Is she just a slightly flawed copy, destined to repeat all his errors of judgement? What would he say to my mere mention of destiny? Such a word implies a plot, a destination, even, that defies the grave. �When she dies she will rot.�
I suppose love could have saved her, had she been alive enough to face the unpredictability of it. And sex? Another weakness? Yes, perhaps it was. But it would be over, and the memories would subside in time, and it was like she never knew the touch of a man. Bread is bread whether stale or fresh: she calls sex love, and vice-versa. And love hate. And vice-versa.
Home is always here, whether she leaves the house or leaves town. He is always here, in his garden. His critical perfectionism is his contribution to mankind and it touches everything � like the spread of germs from dirty fingers. And his temper is easily roused when compromised on this. It is easily roused in the dead of night.
She will not pass the cottage anymore, even if that means lengthening a journey or refusing to go out at all. The latter is common, for as much time that is spent procrastinating the same is spent arguing with whatever friends she has managed to keep. Or do they keep her? I don�t know. I don�t know how she continues to breathe some days. But I am prepared to drag her out of the weir during those desperate hours, as readily as she is prepared to look in the mirror and see what she is. She never hides � she drinks to disappear but faces it all eventually and never refuses to fight. But what else would she do? To cause oblivion means to take action and to have some pluck about the whole thing.
Meanwhile, her Father is sobering. He was given a shock and breaks the fucking pattern! And he stands innocent and laudable above the girl who is feverishly turning into a woman of decadence and bad-taste. She wakes up to see a chorus waving a disapproving finger in her vague direction, all in the form of the man she saw once in a ditch of his own, the taste of despair in his mouth. �Eat right�, he says. �Quit the fags and adopt a sense of dignity.� He smiles � a wan look to his complexion, and for the fist time he is proud of himself and his piano playing and all the books he has read. He exits, as though he owns the globe and set its axis at a tilt for his own delight. And, as he goes, I remember how I used to swing, smoking to exact my revenge. He is not as tall as I once considered, in fact he is a small man. With too many opinions.
I admire my Father less and less for his turnabout.
�Speed bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing,
Onward, the sailors cry
Carry the lad that's born to be king
Over the sea to Skye�
We often performed together. A clear voice, and a passion for melody and rhyme, and alcoholism and depression run in my family. And a surname that means nothing more than these things. I still will not list reform as a trait.
DAVID GRAY
JOHN BRAINE
