Anyway, that’s Dad. He’s not exactly what he seems. Then, the minute you’ve worked that out, he is exactly what he seems. And I think Biddy understands that. It’s why they work as a couple. I used to watch all those other women Dad had, and even when I was a child I could tell they didn’t quite get Dad. They could only see charismatic, charming, rogue-ish Mick, with his moneymaking schemes. Standing rounds at the pub, telling funny stories. That’s what appealed to them, so he played up that side. But Biddy isn’t about charisma; she’s about connection. She talks directly. She doesn’t mess around or flirt. I sometimes see them talking quietly together, and I can tell that Dad relies on her, more and more.
She’s careful and discreet, though, Biddy. She doesn’t ever get between me and Dad. She knows how close the two of us were, all those years together, and she’s all about standing back. Never venturing an opinion. Never offering unsolicited advice. Nor have I ever asked her for advice.
Maybe I should.
“Crisp, Kitty-Kate?” Dad has followed me outside into the winter sunshine with a bowl of crisps. His graying, curly hair is still rumpled from doing his morning jobs outside, and his skin is as weatherbeaten as ever, his blue eyes shining like sapphire chips.
“I was just saying to Katie, it’s lovely to have her home,” says Biddy. “Isn’t it?”
“Certainly is,” replies Dad, and he raises his glass toward me. I raise my own and try to smile—but it doesn’t come easily. I can’t meet Dad’s eye without seeing the little splinters of sadness among the twinkles. So I gulp my drink, waiting for the moment to pass.
If you saw us from the outside, you’d have no idea. You’d think we were a father and daughter reuniting happily on Christmas Eve. You’d never sense the waves of hurt and guilt bouncing invisibly between us.
The internship in Birmingham never caused a problem. Dad understood that it was all I could get; he knew I didn’t want to settle in Birmingham; he didn’t worry. The internship in London, he rationalized as well. I was “just starting out” and no wonder I had to get some experience.
But then I took the job at Cooper Clemmow, and something froze. I remember breaking the news to him and Biddy, right here. Oh, he did all the right things—hugged me and said, “Well done.” We talked about visits and weekends, and Biddy made a celebratory cake. But all the time I could see the stricken look in his face.
We haven’t really been right with each other since then. And certainly not since the last time he came up to London, almost a year ago now, with Biddy. God, it was a disaster. Something went wrong with the tube and we were late for the show I’d booked. A group of young guys jostled Dad, and I think—not that he’d ever admit it—he was scared. He told me in no uncertain terms what he thought of London. I was so tired and disappointed, I burst into tears and said…some stuff I didn’t mean.
Since then, we’ve danced warily around each other. Dad hasn’t suggested visiting again. I haven’t asked him to. We don’t talk a lot about my life in London, and when we do, I’m careful to stay upbeat. I never mention my problems. I’ve never even shown him where I live. I couldn’t let him see my flat and my tiny room and all my stuff slung in a grotty hammock. He just wouldn’t understand.
Because here’s the other thing about Dad; here’s the flip side of us being so close for so long: He feels everything on my behalf, almost too keenly. He can overreact. He can make me feel worse about a situation, not better. He rails at the world when it goes wrong for me, can’t let things go.
He never forgave that guy Sean who broke my heart in the sixth form. He still scowls if I mention the saddlery. (I did a summer job there, and I thought they underpaid me. Only by a tiny amount, but that was it as far as Dad was concerned. He’s boycotted them ever since.) And I know he reacts like that because he loves me. But sometimes it’s hard to bear his disappointment at life as well as my own.
The first time I had a run-in with a colleague at work, when I was starting out in Birmingham, I told Dad about it. Well, that did it. He mentioned it every time we spoke, for about six months. He told me to complain to HR…suggested I wasn’t standing up for myself enough….He basically wanted to hear that the colleague had been punished. Even after I’d told him again and again that it was all fixed and I wanted to move on and could we please not discuss it anymore? As I say, I know he was only showing he cared—but still, it was draining.
So the next time I had an issue, I quietly sorted it out for myself and said nothing. Easier for me, easier for Dad. It’s easier for him if he doesn’t know I’ve traded his beloved Somerset for a hard, struggling existence, if he believes I’m leading what he calls “the high life in London.” It’s easier for me if I don’t have to expose every detail of my existence to his uncomprehending, anxious gaze.
And, yes, it gives me heartache. We were so close, the Dad-and-Katie team. I never kept anything from him, not my first period, not my first kiss. Now I’m constantly careful. The only way I can rationalize it is that I will be honest with him, when I can tell him things that will make him happy. When I’m more secure, less defensive.
Just not yet.
“I was remembering Father Christmas’s Grotto,” I say, taking a crisp, trying to lighten things. “Remember the fistfight that broke out?”
“Those wretched children.” Dad shakes his head indignantly. “There was nothing wrong with those balloons.”