Dear dad

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DEAR DAD

Home (kitchen table) 11 June 10.20pm

Dear Dad

I know you’ve been dead three years, but I must talk to you.   Mum’s going to sell the garden to a developer!  Yes, your garden with its beautiful roses, could be disappearing under tons of concrete and probably a block of 14 flats. 

There are three developers interested apparently and one, a Brian Keane rings a bell, although I can’t for the life of me think why.  I’m sure it’ll come to me, but in the meantime, I’m going down to Bournemouth to see if I can change Mum’s mind (I’m touching one of my curls for luck as you always told me to).

Love you.

Sam xxxxx

 

Bournemouth (sitting on my old bed) 15 June 11.05pm

Here I am again Dad.   Thanks to hold ups on the M6 I was late arriving which really wound Mum up.  She greeted me with her Victor Meldrew face (remember the one?)  and complained I was late.  I was told to help myself to Horlicks and then she went to bed.

Now if that had been you Dad, you’d have waited up and given me one of your hugs and asked how your ‘little bear’ was.  Then we’d have sat in the living room drinking scotch until the early hours, talking and laughing and “ssshing” each other in case we woke Mum up. 

I miss you Dad.  Really, really miss you.

Must get some sleep now though, so I’m ready to do battle in the morning!

 

Bournemouth 16 June (sitting up in bed) – almost midnight

Oh Dad, there’s so much I want to say, but I’m tired and my brain’s racing faster than my hand will write and I keep making mistakes.  So best start at the beginning.

Had breakfast by myself.  Mum couldn’t be bothered to wait to have hers with me.  I know she’s got her routine, but you’d think she’d give herself a break when her daughter visits.  It wasn’t even as if I’d got up late.  I mean it was only 8 o’clock!  But from the look Mum gave me when I walked into the kitchen, you’d think I’d done something unspeakable like “doing” a moony in front of the vicar! 

Anyway, after I’d finished, we sat in the conservatory.  Try and imagine us Dad.  Mum and me facing each other like two tennis players at Wimbledon.  Me ranked 293 playing the number one seed.

Every argument I put forward, she crushed.  The arguments went back and forward, back and forward, with Mum’s mouth getting tighter and tighter like it always does when someone disagrees with her.  You know Dad; I sometimes wonder why her face doesn’t ping like an overstretched elastic band when she looks like that. 

Well this was how it went.

Me:  You can’t sell it Mum.  Not after Dad’s hard work and all his beautiful roses. 15-love. 

Mum: Your Dad’s not here to look after it is he and I certainly don’t care about his ‘precious’ roses.” 15 all.

Me: “OK so you can’t look after it yourself.  Why not get a gardener?” 30-15.

Mum: “I’m not going to pay someone to do it and I can’t keep asking Uncle Bill or next door for help, they’re not getting any younger either.” 30 all.

Me: “Well let me pay for a gardener then.” 40-30.

Mum:  “That’s very kind but no, I want the money.  Your Dad and I never travelled.  All he ever wanted to do was stay at home and do the wretched garden.  Well now I’ve got the chance before I get too old.”  Deuce.

Me:  “But you’ll lose the sea view and you won’t like living here with workmen swearing and playing their radios loud.”  Advantage me.

Mum:  “I won’t be here when they’re building.  I’m going to New Zealand to stay with Cindy.”  Deuce.

Me: “Oh yes, talking of Cindy, I bet she agrees with me.” Advantage me.

Mum:   “Actually she doesn’t.  She thinks it’s a great idea.  She knows what a sacrifice I made for your father so she wants me to go on a ‘grey’ gap year as she calls it.  I’ve been to see the solicitor and instructed him to sell.  So I’m sorry Samantha, you may not like it, but my mind’s made up.”  Deuce, advantage and match to Mum.

I stormed out onto the patio and threw myself in your chair.  You remember the one?  It’s got a cut in the arm from the time you used it to saw up a piece of wood, missed and started sawing through the arm of the chair too!

I sat there having to admit defeat.   After all, the house and garden are hers to do what she wants with.  I thought about offering to buy the garden myself, well Joe and me, but later, when she told me how much she’d be likely to get, that was definitely a no, no. 

After my anger had subsided, I did a tour of the garden. The roses are just like the jigsaw puzzle you bought me for Christmas one year, a mass of oranges, apricots, yellows and peaches.  Funny that, Mum not liking them, then she always was more of a tree than a flower person.

Look Dad it’s past 1 now and I’m getting a bit weepy with my memories so I’ll put my pen away.  Oh yes, in case you’re wondering, Mum and I hardly spoke for the rest of the day. She was abnormally cheerful, probably at the thought of getting all that money.  Tomorrow (well today now!)  I’m taking her to church and afterwards we’re having lunch and tea with Auntie Beryl (you’ll be pleased to know her hip op was a success), so Mum and I won’t be alone that much.  Thank goodness.

Nighty night.

Sam xxxxx

 

Home 29 June (kitchen table) 9.45pm

Hi, it’s me again Dad.  Sorry I haven’t been in touch for a while, but there hasn’t been much to report.  However, Mum rang today.  She’s agreed the sale to that Brian Keane (still can’t think why the name’s familiar).  He’s not going to build flats, which is one good thing I suppose, but a place for his family and a granny annexe for his mother who’s got Alzheimer’s and her carer. 

11.05pm

Got it!  I know who Brian Keane is (that second scotch must have helped!).  He’s the son of the women who had the allotment next to yours.   Now what was her name? Rachel? Rita? No Rosemary, Rose that’s it.   I remember visiting you there after school sometimes and you two were always laughing.  I felt a bit jealous, but then you’d turn and see me and hold out your arms and we’d hug and everything would be OK again, because I knew I was your ‘little bear’.

Now I’m going to let you into a secret.  You and Rose did more than laugh didn’t you Dad? You kissed her.  I watched you.  You didn’t know I was there. I’d been in one of my skitty nine-year old moods and was going to ‘boo’ you, but I stayed hidden behind one the blackcurrant bushes when I saw what you were doing.  I’d never seen you look so passionate, so like a man rather than my Dad. 

Naturally I had mixed emotions.  Shock to start with, then I was happy because you looked so happy holding and kissing Rose.  I never saw you hold or kiss Mum.  If you tried she always pushed you away, didn’t she?   Now I’m an adult I can see that you had so much love and affection to give to a woman, not the father-daughter type you showed Cindy and me, but the sexual, masculine type. 

It all fits into place now of course.  You keeping the allotment on even after we’d moved and you had a big garden.  Why you took so much care over the roses, because you made it for her didn’t you?  Now she’s going to be living at the end of Mum’s garden!   Wonder what Mum would say if she knew? Somehow I don’t think she’d care.  She’s too pleased with all that money and how she’s going to enjoy herself spending it.  

Well you’ll be pleased to know it’s not all doom and gloom.  Your roses are safe.  Joe and me are going to replant them up here.   Mum thinks I’m mad as we’ll have to hire a van to fit them all in and our garden isn’t that big.  But then she doesn’t understand, what they mean to me.  They bring you close.  So in future when I want to chat I won’t write, I’ll pop out to the garden and stand amongst your roses and whisper to you there.

Love and still miss you so, so much.

Sam xxxxx

THE END