When Daddy Comes Home. Toni Maguire
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as they perused the menu. That wasn’t for me.
‘I want champagne and oysters first,’ I declared. ‘We’ll have the meal later.’
The receptionist hesitated for a moment over this breach of etiquette but then showed us the way to the bar where we could sit at a small table in the window and enjoy our treat. ‘Are you and your friend celebrating something?’ she asked with a slight sniff of disapproval; she might not have been overloaded with charm but she still had her curiosity.
I could have told the truth and said, ‘Yes, I’m celebrating my father’s death.’ But, not wanting to shock her, I took pity and said, ‘We’re just enjoying our holiday. And this place was very highly recommended to us. We’re looking forward to sampling the menu – I’ve heard it’s excellent.’
Her face softened. She obviously assumed that we were tourists from ‘across the water’ who knew no better, so she forgave our lack of decorum and showed us to a window seat.
For once my diet was to be forgotten, indulgence was the name of the game. The barman brought over the ice bucket holding the champagne and poured out two glasses. I raised my glass in a toast to my father.
‘Thanks, Dad, for the first meal you’ve ever bought me!’
‘To good old Joe,’ murmured my friend and, grinning at each other, we clinked glasses conspiratorially. She knew the truth. It was why she had offered to come with me to Ireland and help me. An hour later the champagne bottle was empty, the oysters eaten and it was time to go to the restaurant. We had already ordered a Chateaubriand steak for two with all the accompaniments and a bottle of full-bodied red wine.
‘Will one bottle be enough?’ I asked my friend and saw with some amusement the look of consternation that crossed the waiter’s face. Another thing that ladies do not do is get drunk in smart Irish restaurants. He was not to know that we were no strangers to wine and champagne. I was not bothered. I had already decided that we would get a taxi back and leave the car for later.
‘Yes,’ she replied firmly but relented when I ordered the cheese board. Afterwards we both agreed that Irish coffees were a must.
Three Irish coffees later, after we’d talked as old friends do when the hours seem like minutes, we suddenly noticed the day was fading and the restaurant was about to set up for the evening’s customers.
‘Time to pay the bill,’ I said, and signalled for the waiter.
A look of relief crossed his face when he realized we were leaving and not ordering more drink. The bill was presented with discreet speed on a silver salver.
The receptionist reappeared complete with her original look of disapproval.
‘Would that be your red car parked outside?’ she asked.
I took the hint. ‘Yes. Would it be all right if we left it here till the morning? We’ve enjoyed our meal so much we might have overdone it a little.’ I could see that she heartily agreed. Still, my sensible caution, not to mention the generous tip, seemed to mollify her slightly and with a gracious nod she walked off to order a taxi.
She held the door open for us as we were leaving. Before we could go, a group of men entered. I knew them – they were members of my father’s golf club.
‘So sorry for your recent loss,’ they murmured when they saw me. ‘A terrible thing to lose your father.’
Behind me, I heard the shattering of illusions.
I went back to my father’s house that evening. The funeral was the next day and the quicker the house was sorted out, the quicker I could leave town.
Only then would the past recede and free me from the thoughts of Antoinette that were flooding my mind. The pictures of her came one by one and unwillingly I felt my adult self being pulled back through the years.
Antoinette tried to ignore him, but she was aware that her father’s eyes followed her every movement. Whatever she was doing – tidying her room, making the tea, watching television, going out to work – he was watching her.
When she was in the house, Joe expected his daughter to wait on him like an obedient little servant. Outwardly compliant, Antoinette was continually counting the hours until she could leave the house.
Meanwhile, her mother continued with the game of ‘Daddy’s been working away’. She acted as though he’d only been gone a week. The reality of what had led up to her husband’s absence was a closed book. Ruth was determined that not only would there be no mention of the truth, but that the past was completely rewritten and her part in it whitewashed out. She had never stood by, wilfully blind and silent, as her husband abused their daughter over a period of years. It simply hadn’t happened.
For Antoinette it seemed that the last two and a half years had vanished. Once again she had become a girl with very limited control over her life. Now that her parents were reunited as a couple, they had become powerful again while she was locked outside their magic circle, floundering on her own and completely at their mercy.
The lodge no longer felt like the home that Antoinette and her mother had created. Joe’s presence had invaded it: overflowing ashtrays were left by the side of the wing armchair for his daughter to empty; newspapers, open on the sport pages, were tossed to one side while his cup stained with the residue of his numerous cups of tea, made for him by either Antoinette or her mother, sat on the coffee table. There was now a shaving mug in the kitchen and a grubby towel that Antoinette could not bear to touch lay on the draining board.
Just as two and a half years ago Ruth’s happiness had been dictated by her husband’s moods, so it was now. Her happy smile gradually faded, to be replaced by either frowns of discontent or the expression of the long-time sufferer that Ruth believed herself to be. Antoinette hardly ever heard her humming the tunes of her favourite songs now. Why couldn’t her mother see it, she wondered. Had she forgotten the simple pleasures of the quiet, harmonious life that they had shared before he had come back? Why would she wish to be back in his control, the whole house governed by his moods and the aura of grim power that surrounded him? It seemed impossible to Antoinette that anyone would want to choose this existence over the one that they had enjoyed together before her father’s release.
It wasn’t as though there had been any material gain, either. Although her husband got a job as a civilian mechanic working for the army, and was given hours of overtime, somehow his contribution to the housekeeping did not appear to make Ruth’s finances easier. In fact, with one more mouth to feed and the forty-cigarettes-a-day habit that Joe had, money seemed even scarcer.
Four weeks after he returned home, he announced that he had to work at the weekend. ‘Leave early and back late,’ he had said with his jovial smile.
‘Oh Paddy,’ she had protested, using her nickname for him, ‘not on a Saturday. You know I’ve the weekend free.’
The coffee shop where Ruth was the manageress catered to the professionals who worked a five-day week and without their custom the owner had decided to close after lunchtime on Saturdays, a decision popular with both Ruth and her daughter.
Seeing the suspicious look that his wife was giving him, Joe’s good-humoured expression changed to one of irritation.
‘Well, we need the money, don’t we? Sure, and aren’t you the one who’s always saying you want to move into a larger house in Belfast?’
Antoinette saw her mother’s face take on the resigned expression that had become familiar over the last few weeks as she replied, ‘Yes, dear.’
‘Well, then, what’re you complaining for? It’s time and a half at the weekend. Maybe if that big daughter of yours contributed more instead of spending it all on those clothes and that damn stuff she puts on her face, I wouldn’t need to work so hard.’