Toni Maguire - When Daddy Comes Home

Such was Antoinette’s conditioning to behave normally, she did. To any outsider the two of them presented a perfectly ordinary spectacle – a man taking his daughter out to tea.

The moment she said her first words to her father, Antoinette took another step further into her mother’s world. It was a world where her sense of self-will disappeared, where she danced to the tune that Ruth sang. She had no choice, she had to comply. She acted her part in the charade that everything between them all was normal.

But it was far from normal. This was a man who had been sent to prison, and it was her evidence that had placed him there instead of in the psychiatric ward that her mother had hoped for, the lesser of two evils. She had wondered ever since what his reaction to her would be when they faced each other again and now she was about to find out.

She forced herself to hide her fear and look at him. She expected to see changes, even infinitesimal ones, in a man who had been incarcerated for a sexual crime. Even though the papers had not stated that the minor he was reported to have abused was his own daughter, the fact that his victim was an underage girl should have had some effect. Surely the other prisoners would have shown disapproval. Surely his popularity with other men would have disappeared. Surely not even his skill with a snooker cue could have saved him.

But to Antoinette’s mystification, he looked no different than he had on the day of his trial. His tweed suit, which he had worn then, still fitted him perfectly; his tie was knotted firmly under the collar of his smoothly ironed pale-blue cotton shirt. His hair, with its auburn lights glinting in its thick waves, looked freshly barbered and his eyes reflected not a care in the world as they returned her gaze with a warm smile.

He took the seat opposite her and leant forward and placed his hand lightly over hers. She felt her fingers stiffen as they recoiled from his touch, then felt them tremble. She wanted nothing more than to rise from her seat and run. She didn’t even have the strength to avoid meeting his hypnotic stare.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, as though those words carried a magic formula that would make his deeds disappear in as many seconds as it took to utter them.

But she wanted desperately to believe in him. She wanted to have her faith in the adult world restored, and to enter a time machine where those awful years could be rewritten. Most of all, she wanted to be a normal teenager with two loving parents and a happy childhood, laden with memories that she could take with her to adulthood. She wanted to be able to smile at her recollections of the past, to be able to share them with her friends. She knew that the stories of our past, our families and of our friends create the structure of life but hers were too terrible to recall, let alone to tell other people.

She looked at the remorseful father and wanted to believe him – but she didn’t.

Joe believed he had won. He smiled and ordered tea and scones. Antoinette watched him wash down his food with cups of tea but she was unable to eat. She just stared blankly at him and felt the familiar fear return. When she was little, it would make her glassy-eyed with terror while sickness swirled in her stomach.

Eventually he put down his cup and smiled at her. ‘Well, my girl, if you’ve finished we might as well make a move.’ He made no comment at her lack of appetite, just told her to call for the bill and settle it. Then he took her arm in imitation of a caring father and held it firmly as he led her from the café.

Antoinette and her father sat side by side on the bus that took them on their short journey from the centre of Belfast to Lisburn where the gate lodge was. They had taken seats upstairs so that he could smoke. She watched him roll a cigarette, saw the tip of his tongue slowly moisten the paper before he lit it, then felt him relax as he contentedly blew curls of smoke into the air.

She breathed in the fumes, letting them mask the familiar smell of his body that had always repelled her. She tried to make herself as small as possible. His arm pressed against hers and the heat from his body scorched her side at the point of contact. She turned and looked out of the window. His reflection was staring back at hers and on his mouth he wore a smile of insincere warmth, the one she remembered from her childhood.

When they arrived at their destination, Joe and his daughter alighted almost in tandem. He held his small suitcase in one hand and her elbow with the other. She tried not to flinch as the pressure of his fingers on her arm left her with no choice but to walk swiftly by his side. With every step, she felt an overwhelming desire to shake his hand off but the years of having her thoughts controlled had stripped away her will power and she could do nothing.

Once inside the small hallway, he dropped his case on the floor. Judy appeared to greet Antoinette and, seeing her, Joe dropped down and ran his fingers roughly over the little dog’s head as a way of greeting. Judy didn’t respond with the rapturous welcome that he felt was his due, so Joe pulled her ears and forced her face towards him. Unused to such rough treatment, Judy wriggled to escape and then crept to her mistress’s side. She hid behind Antoinette’s legs and gave a suspicious look at the interloper.

Annoyance flashed across his face. Even dogs had to like Joe Maguire.

‘Judy, do you not remember me?’ he asked in a jovial tone that barely covered his displeasure.

‘She’s old now, Daddy,’ said Antoinette quickly, hoping that would shield her pet from his irritation.

He seemed to accept the excuse. He walked into the small living room, sat on the most comfortable chair and surveyed both her and his surroundings with a satisfied smirk.

‘Well, Antoinette, aren’t you pleased to have your old man home?’ His voice was laden with mockery. Taking her silence as acquiescence, he said, ‘Make me a cup of tea like a good girl, then.’ Almost as an afterthought he pointed to the case carelessly dropped by the door. ‘First take that up to your mammy’s and my room.’

As she stooped to lift it, she saw through lowered eyelids a smug smile cross his face. He knew now that two years of absence had not undone the years of training that had suppressed her normal emotional growth. Antoinette was no rebellious teenager – he had seen to that.

She saw the smile and understood it. She picked the case up without a word. His authority remained unbroken and she was aware of it, but she knew she had to conceal the resentment that was rising in her. As she took the case and went back to the stairs, she could feel him watching her every move.

She dumped the case inside the door of her parent’s room, trying not to look at the bed she knew he would now share with her mother. Then she went back down to the kitchen where, robot-like, she filled the kettle and placed it on the hob. Memories of other occasions, when she had used that ritual of tea making as a delaying tactic, sprang into her mind.

It was her mother who came to mind. Inwardly, Antoinette railed at her and asked the questions she was longing to hear the answer to. ‘Mummy, how can you put me in danger like this? Don’t you love me at all? Don’t those years with just the two of us mean anything to you at all?’

But she knew the answers to those questions now.

The whistle of the kettle interrupted her thoughts as she poured boiling water over the tea leaves. Remembering her father’s temper if he was kept waiting, she hastily set a small tray with two cups, poured milk into a jug and placed the sugar bowl beside it, before carefully carrying it through to him. She placed it on the coffee table, and then proceeded to pour out the tea, remembering to put the milk in first, and then two teaspoons of sugar, exactly as her father liked it.