A blogful of writing by Nicola Monaghan. Extracts. Stories. Links to other places...

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Saturday 19 September 2009

Love Child

First published in Man of Trent, Launderette Publications 2003

The first time I met him he was younger, still hanging on to the roots of his hair, which he wore slightly too long at the back. He was wearing jeans and a plain T-shirt. He looked old enough to be my father but sexy, like the pop star he was.

I was on holiday in New York and he bought me a drink from across the bar. It impressed me. Hey, I was young. I still am. Only just getting over being a child.

Being a child. With my dad, the man who swept me up to ‘Bottle, Teddy, Bed’ through the cupboard where my parents kept the stairs. He made things. I used to watch him as he sanded down the corners of coffee tables to protect our little eyes or made wooden joints, or stuck Formica to the outside, lining up the edges so that it looked shop bought. He took me to work once and I watched, all wide eyes and open mouth as he pulled huge cables through ceiling vents and cracked them like whips, in charge of the magic that made lights work and sound emerge from speakers. My father, magician, all-powerful master of my universe, bringer of chocolates and punishments of the ‘wait ‘till your dad gets home’ variety.

I loved my mother too but in a different way. She was a soft cushion that I wrapped myself in as we sat by the fire. She told me stories about princesses and frogs and peas under mattresses, and she taught me to expect the handsome prince who would one day come to fetch me. She read me rhymes about babies in trees and men who jumped over candlesticks. In the book we had, Jack wore pointed shoes and jodhpurs as he nimbly vaulted the flame. Child of the eighties with parents of the sixties who were not religious, I had never seen a real candle burn. She would read and sing and point at the pictures and I would sit with my ears on her chest and hear her voice vibrate there, hear her heart beat steady against her breastbone and her inner organs buzz with life.

It’s easy to be a kid when your parents are who they’re supposed to be.

All children have changeling fantasies and I was no different, as much as I loved my parents. I was one of twins, a princess who had been misplaced, floated down the river in a wicker basket. They were still looking for me and when they found me they’d make my family Lords and Ladies for looking after me but I would be Queen. Or I was the love child of a famous popstar couple who were too drugged up to take care of me. They would come for me too, one day, and shower me with designer clothes and sports cars to make up for the years of neglect. Of course, I could have these fantasies and enjoy them, secure in the knowledge that when I came back down to the real world my parents would be there to catch me. My dad could save me from anything. Even now, I look in the mirror and see his features on my own face; the blue-grey eastern eyes deep set inside dark shadows, the small straight nose. Any doubts I had were erased by my reflection.

These weren’t the only fantasies I had. I lived within myself, ‘away with the fairies’ I would hear adults say. My first primary school teacher told my parents that I would never learn to read because I couldn’t concentrate long enough and all I remember her saying to me was ‘stop staring into space’. I can’t remember properly, but I suspect that I withdrew because of all the people. I was surrounded by them; aunties, uncles, brothers, sisters, cousins everywhere. But they were not enough for me so I invented extras of my own. Clebby and Cormy came everywhere with me and were consulted on any decision I made. Clebby, in particular, was very opinionated. My sister was always very keen to see them and would pretend she could but I used to laugh and move them away from her. ‘What do you mean they’re behind the sofa, can’t you see them on top of the table?’

More recently, I was told by a psychiatrist that imaginary friends and changeling fantasies are normal, healthy childish things. And I’m sure they were. If I imagined myself parents who were more glamorous and rich than the ones I had then that was fair enough and nothing to worry about, as long as I knew the truth.

Except that I didn’t.

The second time I met him I knew who he was. My mother had told me. He was wearing jeans and trainers with a blazer and hair that was slightly too long at the back. In the few months that had passed he had lost the battle with his hairline. He’d had his eyebrow pierced and I wondered if it was to compensate. ‘Sad old rocker’ was all I could think as I looked him up and down.

I’d read an interview with him a few years before that had made me laugh. He’d said he ought to be careful these days with his groupies in case one turned out to be a daughter he’d never found out about. I thought it was very funny then.

I’d been projectile vomiting all morning and sat opposite him, feeling nauseous. I’d taken the morning after pill but it hadn’t worked. My hand stroked my tummy, where she was growing. Our daughter. My sister, his grandchild. And my dad couldn’t save me from anything.

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