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The rubber sheath felt
good in Gerald Mather's hands and he smiled gently when his fingers
closed around it, relishing the familiar anticipation as it both
relaxed and excited him. He assumed the correct stance, feet apart,
knees slightly bent, head down and paused for a moment.
He swung the putter back
while his gaze burned into the white ball on the carpet, following it
even after the club had sent it in the direction of the lamp. His
smile faded when the ball stopped short of its target but he adjusted
his hand position on the grip and hit another, watching it pass his
first attempt but still miss the lamp.
Yet another sacrificial
ball was drawn from the huddled pile and this time it looked good.
Gerald held the club at the end of its swing while he watched the
progress of his shot, silently imploring the ball to tap the narrow
base of the lamp in true Jack Nicklaus style. His smile returned
because the ball seemed to be responding to his will. It trundled past
its predecessors and looked certain to reach its goal. Gerald assumed
a smug expression. That shot had to be at least twenty feet and he was
sure that most of his golfing buddies would have needed more than
three tries to hit the slim target.
The ball's trajectory
was, however, somewhat altered when the door leading to the hall was
pushed inward, not only blocking the ball's path, but batting it back
across the carpet where it bounced up off the sloped side of the
magazine rack and sailed through the air in a decidedly deceptive
flight path. Gerald lurched forward with outstretched hand to attempt
a mid-air rendezvous but the ball had other ideas. It dropped suddenly
and landed in the dark green ceramic ashtray on the glass coffee table
with a loud crack.
Gerald breathed a sigh of
relief. Three inches in any direction would have probably smashed the
glass but, luckily, the missile had found this ornamental island where
it now sat with every last drop of kinetic energy, spent.
"Bernadette! Can you not
watch what you're doing?" he said sternly. His daughter flashed a look
of disdain in the direction of his knees before she spoke.
"This isn't a golf park,"
she countered, "and you wouldn't have been doing that if mum was in."
"Course," he corrected,
"and less of your cheek, girl." She was right though. Pauline would
take an eppy if she knew he was carpet golfing. She'd been funny about
it ever since he smashed the pendant lampshade teaching wee Bobby what
was wrong with his backswing. He looked from Bernadette, back to the
ashtray and decided to remove the evidence before his wife returned
from the Saturday morning shopping.
He extended two fingers,
picked the dimpled sphere out of its resting place and stared at the
virgin ashtray, not yet spoiled by the staining touch of tobacco. He
was sure that he could make out a fine, jagged line snaking its way
across the ornament but he had trouble deciding whether or not it was
part of the pattern.
His grip caused a course
grating sound that stung his ears and he winced when only half of the
ornament left the tabletop. The other half remained motionless and
although Bernadette wasn't looking at him, he was sure that she had
noted his predicament.
Quickly, he placed both
halves together and considered the possibility of glue. The break was
reasonably clean so it might work but there wasn't any ceramic glue in
the house.
Again, he looked at his
daughter. Her presence might be unusually advantageous to him. He
frowned and for a moment forgot about the ashtray.
Why was she here?
It was Saturday and her
mother was at the shops which usually meant that Bernadette would be
at her side, helping to carry bags in the hope of being rewarded with
a new top or skirt or pair of jeans or pair of shoes; the list was
endless. Either that or she'd be loitering about with one of her
million odd friends (odd being the operative word). Instead,
though, she was here in the living room staring gloomily at all four
TV channels in quick succession and wearing a face like a battered
haddock.
In fact, come to think of
it, she'd been in some sort of mood for weeks now. Moping around,
never smiling even when Gerald cracked his best jokes. He supposed
that, for a fifteen year old girl wrestling with her hormones, this
was par for the course.
The euphemism reminded
him of his own activities for the rest of the day.
He looked at the wall
clock and saw twenty minutes to meet Bobby on the first. With a bit of
luck, he would be able to persuade Bernadette to go to the shops, get
some glue, bring it back and make the damaged ashtray whole again.
Gerald assumed his 'if Daddy's little girl does something very
important for him, he'll be indescribably proud of her' expression and
took a breath to speak.
"Dad?" said Bernadette
cautiously before he could issue a sound. The timid friendliness of
her tone caused Gerald to feel both flattered and suspicious.
Bernadette would only initiate a civil discourse with
him if she wanted
something and that generally meant that his wallet was about to become
a few pounds lighter. Everything began to fit into place. That's why
she was here.
It had been at least
three weeks since she'd tapped him and Pauline had been buying her a
plethora of fashion necessities lately. She was probably scared of
milking her mother dry and had decided to take advantage of him
for a change.
Well, that isn't
necessarily out of the question, he thought. Mutual benefit could be
the order of the day, today. Might as well listen to what my dear,
darling daughter has to say.
"Yes?" he prompted
carefully. Sometimes, talking to Bernadette was comparable to walking
across a frozen lake wearing crampons.
"Do you remember when we
used to go walks down the esplanade?" she asked without looking at
him. He marvelled at the apparent speed of her entry into womanhood.
When Pauline was going to ask for some household chore to be done or
tell Gerald something that she knew would upset him, she had the
admirable skill of broaching the subject from the most ambiguous of
directions.
Bernadette had mentioned
walking so it must be shoes she's after, thought Gerald with a wily
grin. She hadn't quite mastered the art, yet. He nodded slowly at her.
"It's a lovely day, isn't
it?" she said and glanced into his eyes. Gerald took a moment to
analyse this and peered out of the window while he did so
"Great golfing weather,"
he said and remembered his imminent appointment. Fifteen minutes.
"I was thinking of going
for a walk down the esplanade, today." said Bernadette with rarely
used enthusiasm.
"Good idea." replied
Gerald with the same enthusiasm. He retrieved his putter from the
floor and carefully slid it into the golf bag. "You'll enjoy that. Get
some fresh air into your lungs!"
"Would you come with me
please?" she asked. Gerald looked at her, then at the clock and then
back to his daughter.
"Ehm......" he said and
fidgeted nervously with the clubs jutting from the top of his bag.
Bernadette now held him in an expectant gaze, her wide eyes tracking
his every movement like a dog waiting for its master to say 'walkies'.
"I......,ehm........." he mumbled and shuffled his feet in a way that
made him appear younger than his daughter.
"Please?" she petitioned.
He pictured the first tee in his mind's eye, the view, four hundred
and thirty yards up the fairway to the distant green marked by an
orange triangular flag fluttering in the breeze, a par four paradise.
"Don't you want to go to
the shops?" he almost pleaded and hoped that she'd complain of having
no money.
"No, not really. That's
why I didn't go out with Mum. I thought it would be great if we could
go for a walk like we used to."
Gerald thought back years
to those walks and remembered them with halcyon fondness.
"I'll buy you an
ice-cream!" she offered like a skilled negotiator and Gerald was
genuinely surprised by her zeal. He remembered that this was the first
time he had seen her smile in weeks and thought that it might actually
be fun to do something with a daughter who usually treated him like an
unfortunate and extremely embarrassing necessity in her life.
Ten minutes to go. He'd
have trouble making it in time now and Bernadette obviously couldn't
be bought if she was offering to buy him something, so he made his
decision.
"Okay, then," he sighed,
"let's go."
They walked in silence,
neither wanting to talk until they reached the mile long esplanade,
where they could look out across the mirrored surface of the Clyde to
the Argyll hills beyond.
Gerald breathed in the
strong, redolent odour of seaweed from the river and enjoyed the
narcotic rush of memories.
"When you were about
three," he began, "you used to ask me what kinds of things lived in
the river. I would say fish and sharks and jellyfish and you would
ask if there were dolphins or whales or penguins. I would say no and
that would be fine but one day when we were walking, you asked if
there were any polar bears in the river. I think we'd bought you a
book about Pauline the Polar Bear and her Penguin Pals or something
like that. Anyway, I said no and you burst into tears. I think people
thought I'd hit you because you were screaming and the only way I
could get you to stop crying was to lie. I said there was one polar
bear in the river and you dried up right away. It was amazing!"
Bernadette looked at him through squinted eyes. Her expression had
reverted back to its teenage mix of disgust and embarrassment and
Gerald guessed that she was regretting his company after all.
"Amazing what a lie can
do." she said, flatly.
Multi coloured yacht
sails swarmed over the two mile wide river, vying for the good wind
while people stretched out on the benches and grass verges or strolled
along the path. Young couples, Mums pushing prams, children riding
miniature mountain bikes and a father and daughter struggling for
conversation.
"So, had a good summer,
then?" Gerald invited. Bernadette and Pauline had visited Pauline's
sister in Devon at the start of the holidays and stayed there for
about four weeks. His wife hadn't pushed him to come along, probably
because she knew of the mutual dislike that existed between her sister
and her husband so he'd been able to play golf to his heart's content.
He'd even managed to get his handicap down to nineteen.
Bernadette shrugged.
"Are you alright,
Bernadette?" he asked with an edge of irritation. Why had she plead
for his company if she was intent on abusing it. He remembered the
golf match that had been sacrificed to allow this stroll and tried to
quell the subsequent anger that coloured his face.
"Suppose so." she
answered glumly. Gerald felt his frustration bubble over and tried one
last time to get through to his daughter.
"Tell me about Devon.
You've hardly spoken about it since you got back." he suggested with
contrived compassion. No response arrived from his daughter so,
feeling real anger well in him, he bent forward to look up into her
face.
Instantly, his anger was
evaporated by a burning and, this time, very real compassion. Tears
were streaming down Bernadette's cheeks and around her arched mouth.
Instinctively, Gerald put
his arm around her shoulders and gently guided her towards the nearest
empty bench. He felt something close to pain in seeing his daughter so
unhappy and he desperately wanted to resolve whatever was causing her
upset.
"What's wrong??" he
petitioned of her in a voice pitched with surprise. Her sobs did not
subside but she managed to squeeze out two, verbally mangled words.
"I'm sorry!" she wailed
with emotive effort.
"Sorry?"
repeated Gerald. "You've got nothing to be sorry for! C'mon now, tell
me what's the matter." He waited patiently for the crying to subside,
noticing a couple of old ladies glower at him as they hobbled past. He
was struck by a chilling sense of deja-vu as he remembered the polar
bear incident.
"Give your eyes a wee
wipe." he suggested, gently handing her his Pringle handkerchief which
she took without looking up at him. "Whatever's wrong, it can't be
that bad and, whatever it is, there's no point in keeping it all
bottled up. Tell your Dad all about it and we'll get it sorted out."
Bernadette turned her
face towards him and he watched her quivering bottom lip curl round
again and her eyes flood with sparkling tears that prismed the bright
sunlight. The weeping was starting over but this time it was to be
accompanied by an explanation.
"Dad?...." Her upper
torso began to heave but her mouth was open, trying desperately to get
the words out before they were engulfed by her sobs.
"I had a wee baby........."
and then the bawl exploded and she fell forward into his arms. He
stared blankly as he held her, no longer seeing anyone or anything
else around him. A baby she said. That couldn't be right.
Troublesome images swirled around inside his head and he tried to
collate them into some sort of order.
He felt anger, sorrow,
guilt and curiosity all rolled into one sickly emotion that lay on the
bottom of his stomach like a stone anchor.
How
could Bernadette have had
a baby? Well, that was obvious really, and the accompanying image that
appeared in his mind was allowed to remain there for less than a
second.
Why
hadn't he noticed? Pregnancy was a pretty obvious condition. Was he
really that wrapped up in himself?
Where
was the baby? He could
guess the answer to that question.
Bernadette seemed to hear
his silent questions for she began to explain in a torrent of broken
diction.
"That's why we went to
Devon. Auntie Betty got me booked in at the hospital down there and
mum stayed with me when she was born."
She....
"Mum
said it was best if you didn't find out because you'd only go mad and
that she would take care of everything. She bought me lots of dead
baggy gear and I didn't really get that big so you didn't even
notice."
How could Pauline have
done all this without mentioning a word to him? His own wife!
"You said I was getting a
bit chubby at twenty eight weeks and we thought you were going to find
out so Mum bought you a new putter and you never mentioned it again.
Do you remember?"
Gerald nodded dismally
and looked towards the ground. He also remembered how good he'd felt
when his wife and daughter left for Devon and the guilt stung him.
"I wanted to tell you,
Dad. I've felt terrible ever since it happened..." She looked at him
with dry eyes. "I'm sorry."
He admired her strength
and control but felt his anger rise. She was his daughter, a little
girl for God's sake but she had shown bravery in telling him the truth
and in turn, he had to support her during this emotionally testing
period of her life.
"Is the baby still in
Devon?" he asked softly.
"It's been adopted." she
answered quietly. "Mum said that was for the best."
"Is that what you
wanted." he queried. Bernadette shrugged.
"I feel empty, as if a
bit of me is missing but I didn't want to get pregnant. I was bad to
give my baby away. Should I have kept it?"
"That baby will make some
unlucky couple very happy. Some good will have come out of all of
this." assured Gerald in a tone careful not to trivialise his
daughter's experience. He too felt a strong sense of loss. His first
grandchild and he would never know her.
"I didn't want to kill
her. That's why I didn't get an abortion but I'm so sorry I lied to
you, Dad."
Gerald nodded proudly at
her sense of morality and sighed.
"Sometimes, it's best to
lie." he smiled. He needed to help her. It wasn't good enough to just
empathise.
"But, you've never lied
to me."
"Have you forgotten about
the polar bear?" he said with a nod towards the river. This was the
time to honour his daughter.
"I was only young then,
and it wasn't a real lie." she countered.
"Okay then." he agreed
and fell silent for a moment. "LOOK!!" he shouted and pointed towards
the river.
"What?" pleaded
Bernadette. "WHAT??"
"Polar Bears! Hundreds of
them!!" his voice trailed away and he let his arm fall to his lap.
Bernadette stared at her father with a quizzical squint, confused by
his outburst.
"Those bears are all the
times that I've really lied to you." he said.
"I don't know what you
mean. You've never lied to me."
Gerald sighed again.
"When I said that the
baby would make an unlucky couple very happy, it was because I know
from experience." This was the right time, Gerald was sure. He took a
deep breath "Your mother and I were over the moon when you came to us
and we've loved you as if you were our very own, ever since. We just
didn't know how to tell you and it was easier to lie, so we did... I'm
sorry."
Bernadette's face
contorted through a myriad of different emotions.
"I'm adopted?" she
squeaked, timidly.
"Only on paper. As far as
we're concerned, you're our daughter."
Her lip quivered again
but she didn't weep. She was stronger now.
"You must have a ton of
questions because I know I have so I think we'd better go back home
and have a family talk, eh?" he said. She looked up at him and her
expression was one of uncertain acceptance contorted by an unruly
confusion but, after a pause, she nodded. They stood and began to
slowly retrace their steps.
"I..., ehm, don't think
it would be a good idea for you to say anything about what's happened,
though." suggested Gerald, nervously.
"WHAT!!" cried
Bernadette.
"Well," he explained, "my
wife will go nuts if she finds out about the ashtray! You know how
much she loves it!"
For the first time in
months, Bernadette laughed.
"I love you, Dad."
she said.
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