England
May 1972
I remember it as a very very hot summer’s day. We were on a boat. Not a seafaring boat, but a river boat. A pleasure craft on the Thames, somewhere between Henley-on-Thames and Windsor, I think. The details are fuzzy, probably because I was so small - still only a baby - and this is my first conscious memory. I remember a strong vibrant royal blue colour. Perhaps I was wearing a blue outfit, perhaps my pushchair was blue, or perhaps it was just the reflection of the water. I do remember an annoying elasticated hat (the kind shaped like a doily) that dug into my forehead which I persistently pulled off, much to my mother’s amused annoyance as the game of replacing it on my head ensued.
“Ooh, you little munchkin,” she’d said after replacing it back on my head again, only for me to pull it off once more, moments later.
“Who’s Mammy’s little poppet?” she’d said affectionately, nipping my chubby round cheeks, making me squeal with delight and kick my legs in response to her love and attention.
I’m not sure who won the game in the end - these details are not important. What is important, is that this is the only memory I have of my mother and father together. Even then, even in my innocent child’s mind, I could sense the tension. The discord that hung heavily in the air surrounding them.
I remember a view of my father from behind as he stood at the helm of the cruiser, steering us up the river. A tall man with a straight back and a mop-top hairstyle, wearing loose denim jeans and a thin cotton mustard jumper.
My parent’s marriage was short-lived. I, the only child from their tempestuous few years together and I don’t remember a time where I ever knew them harmoniously happy. Rather the opposite. I only ever remember them at war. I’m sure there was blame on both sides (although they would likely say different) and I’m sure the emotionally-charged divorce that raged on for years afterwards, including my own custody battle, which eventually ended up in the High Court, was pursued with only my best intentions at heart. However, the trauma I unconsciously absorbed as a result of the third party handovers every second Friday when my father came north for his custody weekend, or the sessions with the court-appointed child psychologist assigned to monitor the changes in my behaviour depending on which parent I’d spent the most time with recently, only served to make this vibrant ‘on the boat’ memory even more important to me.
It is the only memory I have of both my parents being in the same space at the same time. It is the only memory I have which solidifies that I am the product of two parents, albeit two people who were imperfectly in love. For me to even be here, to have life, a love on some level must have existed. There had to have been a moment when they came together to create me.
The challenge of being raised from such an early age by essentially a single mother and an absent father, who inconveniently lived at the opposite end of the country, is that you become overly reliant on the affection of one parent. Throughout my childhood, my mother was my primary source of all affection, validation, praise, encouragement, support and guidance. For fear she would withdraw her affection at any time, avoiding disappointing her became my daily burden. When I did disappoint, I had no second parent to redress the balance, so giving her no reason to restrict her devotion became deeply imprinted in my DNA.
Only much, much later would I appreciate the impact that the circumstances of my early childhood would have on my adult relationships, particularly my romantic relationships. Perhaps this unhealthy need for my mother’s affection, which over the years had grown into a feeling of being responsible for her own happiness, is why I allowed my father to drift from my life.
Our relationship had been strained for many years. Partly driven by a lack of contact and therefore things in common, partly by a lack of enthusiasm on my part. As is often the case, he went on to have more children with a new wife and although I always felt wanted when I was in his company, the additional complexity my presence added to his new family set-up was unsought. Added to this the deep feelings of guilt, if I admitted to myself, let alone anyone else (especially my mother) that I had had anything other than a truly terrible time in his company, meant that continuing a flaccid relationship with him became nothing more than an inconvenience.
I was around ten years old when it happened. I’d recently started a new school, an all girls’ private school where I attended as a day pupil. The transition had been hard, leaving my old friends behind and joining a new year group in the last year of primary, meant everyone in my class already had mature and established friendship groups. Added to that, the hour-long daily commute each way by private minibus, meant that I was unable to stay for any after school clubs, which could have allowed me more opportunities to mix and build a new set of friends.
My friends from my old school didn’t appear to miss me or want to maintain friendships outside of school. Simultaneously, I was struggling to break into established friendship groups at my new school, many of which had been formed for many years, which meant I felt displaced.
As a result, my grades suffered. I was never particularly academic but understood the importance of trying hard and doing my best. Added to this, I was one of the youngest in my year group and combined with the higher standard generally at the private school, it’s not surprising that my first end of year report was not the best. No matter how hard I tried, my best never seemed good enough. In fact, school always felt like a game of catch-up that I was permanently losing. Like treading water, but instead of water I was being forced to swim in treacle, having to work twice as hard just to keep my head above water.
Unbeknown to me or my mother, somehow my father had managed to get a copy of my year-end school report. So when he called that Friday evening, as he often did, I was initially shocked when he started commenting on my grades. It soon dawned on me what he was reading. I felt betrayed. My initial shock soon turned to anger. Didn’t he realise how hard I was trying, or the daily challenges I was facing?
After about 20 minutes or so of listening to him berating me, telling me everything I was doing wrong or should be doing better, and only answering his persistent questions with one-word answers, I hung up. When I say ‘hung up’ I didn’t actually hang up the telephone and cut off the line, that would have been a step too far and I was too scared to do that. No, I simply put the handset to our landline down on the kitchen counter and walked away. All the while my mother had been hovering around, finding mysterious reasons to come and go whilst I’d been on the telephone and now, as the handset lay abandoned on the side in the kitchen.
I can still remember his persistent shouting emanating from the speaker. Initially taking the tone of the stern parent calling my name over and over. This soon turned to anger, then to rage and finally to desperation. I’ll never forget the sound of his pleading voice calling out my name over and over as the realisation dawned that he was losing me and powerless to do anything about it.
That sound still haunts me to this day.
Eventually, after about another 30 minutes my mother put the handset back on its cradle, cutting him off. The handset rang again immediately and didn’t stop ringing for three hours that night. Eventually she unplugged the telephone from the wall socket, so it no longer rang, and the house filled with a heavy silence.
Not one word about the event passed between her and I, but she knew she had won. I had chosen her over him and I knew that pleased her. Earlier, I had spotted the imperceptible smirk that spread silently across her lips. Her unspoken praise validated my actions but did nothing to soothe the turmoil or guilt I felt inside.
I didn’t sleep that night, or for many nights after. I knew that cutting my father off wasn’t right. Literally and figuratively. Yes, I was cross with him for his lack of sympathy or understanding over my school grades, but did that justify what I had done? He was, he still is, my father after all.
Secretly I think I was hoping he would never give up on me, no matter how difficult or challenging circumstances became. I had hoped he would persist in maintaining a relationship with me, any relationship, no matter how hard it was and in doing so confirm that I was really important to him. Confirm that I was his daughter, that I meant something to him. That I was worth it and that he really did love me.
For the next few years, birthday cards and Christmas cards would arrive with regularity, but with no returning communication, even they eventually petered out. I felt powerless to rectify the situation, as doing so could jeopardise my relationship with my mother and on a more positive note, my day to day life became a lot easier without the added complication of him in it.
The more he stopped trying, though the more, deep down, I wanted him to try harder. To not give up. Why did he stop writing? Why did he stop sending cards? Was I not worth it? Was I not good enough?