Advent microstories: day 8
One rainy afternoon, our dad pulled up outside our house in a chauffeur driven car and took us off to work with him. I remember it was a silver car, but my brother Richie, two years younger and five at the time, is still convinced it was red. It was ages since we’d seen our dad – but when you’re seven, a week is ages, so I don’t know how long it had really been. We were both thrilled to bits to see our dad and be whisked off on a rainy day.
I’m not sure we really understood what it was that our dad did. We knew he was on TV, but we’d never seen him on TV and nobody asked us about it – probably because he wasn’t on the cartoons. We’d been to offices with him before, where we were excited to pour ourselves little cone cups of water from a machine, and usually we came away with some packets of post-it notes. But this time, it was a TV studio.
Dad hugged us tightly. I remember how good it felt to smell his leather jacket and feel his scratchy beard on my cheek. He picked us up, one at a time, and plopped us on to a squishy green sofa, with our legs sticking out straight in front of us. He whispered that he loved us very much, and that he’d only be a few minutes, just a few metres away on the couch in front of the cameras.
It was the mention of love that made me nervous.
“What are you going to do, dad?”
“Something I should have done a long time ago, Joel. I’m going to tell the truth. I’d like it if you could listen, really carefully, when I’m talking over there. Could you do that?”
I nodded. I didn’t really want to, but I knew it was right to do what he asked. I watched him walk away towards a big red sofa on the other side of the studio, where he sat alongside a smiley woman with brown hair.
I reached for Ritchie’s hand, because I was the big brother.
“Welcome back!” said the smiley woman. “Today I’m delighted to say I’m joined on the couch by Late Night Laughter’s Danny Armstrong. Welcome Danny, how are you?”
“Well, Jenny, I’m better than I’ve been for a while, that’s for sure.”
“I’m glad you said that, Danny, because there’s been a lot of speculation in the press recently about your health. You’ve been staggering out of clubs, asleep in cars and even spotted going into a brothel. Would you like to fill us in on what’s been going on?”
“Jenny, it’s not a period of my life I’m very proud of, but I’m here to say that I’m back, I’m better, and I’m ready to start living my life again.”
Ritchie leaned towards me. “What’s a brothel?” he whispered. I shrugged.
Dad used a lot of words that Ritchie and I didn’t understand as we sat silently on that green sofa. “Cocaine” was one, “bisexual” was another, along with “trauma” and “child abuse”. There were a lot of people standing around with their backs to us, but everything was very quiet.
I can still see that green sofa. The fabric was patterned with sticking-up rolls of shiny nylon threads, like little worms, going up and along like lots of tiny staircases. We sat still and silent because our dad had told us to.
“And do you know, Jenny, what it is that’s got me through it all?” our dad was saying. “What’s given me the resolve to beat my addictions and be here with you today? It’s those two incredible, amazing, wonderful little boys sitting right over there.” And he pointed at us, and he waved.
“Holy shit!” said a man’s voice.
Suddenly a woman with a clipboard was rushing towards us, blocking our dad from view. She knelt in front of us and grabbed our hands. “Boys, how would you two like to come and get a little drink of water? I’m pretty sure I can find some post-it notes if you like them?”
Ritchie started to cry. I said yes please, some post-it notes would be lovely thank you.
Soon we were back in the car with our Dad and the chauffeur. We had four different colours of post-it notes between us, and three kit-kats each. Nobody spoke for a long time. Dad was tapping his foot along to a song on the radio.
Eventually dad took a deep breath. “Boys, thank you. Thank you so much for coming with me today. Everything I said today was true. Telling the truth is really important. I want you to have all the correct facts. And the biggest truth of all is that I love you and I don’t know where I would be today without you. Do you understand that?”
I looked at my shoes. I didn’t have any questions because I didn’t know what was going on. I felt uncomfortable because I didn’t understand, not at all. But I thought the right thing to do would be to pretend that I did. So I nodded.
It was another 20 years before Ritchie and I talked about that day again.
Tea is my typewriter 