My mother was strikingly beautiful, yet, as my father would often say, that was her only merit. I, who had once adored him with all the fervour of a beating heart, watched everything through his eyes.
Father taught political science at the university. He came from a respectable, welleducated family that had never taken kindly to my mother. I learned, many years later, how they had first met. While still a student, he joined a university workparty sent to a newlyestablished agricultural cooperative in a Yorkshire village, where they were to build animal pens. My mother was then only seventeen, working as a milkmaid on the farm. She had just eight years of schooling, and even after decades beside my father she could not read fluently; she would trace each syllable with a fingertip and whisper the sounds to herself. Still, her beauty was extraordinarydelicate, with porcelain skin, honeygold hair that fell to her waist, cornflowerblue eyes, and a finelychiseled profile. In the wedding photograph she looked as though she had stepped out of a magazine. Father was tall, darkhaired, with a thick moustache and a decidedly masculine bearing.
When my mother became pregnant that summer, father felt compelled to marry her. Perhaps he had once loved her, but his own parents pressed him, accusing her of having ensnared him by deceit. Around the university there swirled a cohort of young postgraduate womenperhaps not as striking as my mother, but educated and quickwitted, capable of holding any conversation. Moreover, each time father tried to take my mother to a dinner or a social gathering, she would eat clumsily, handling cutlery with little grace, laughing so loudly that he felt ashamed of her. He never hid his displeasure; my mother would only smile sadly and never argue.
I swore never to become like her. I wanted fathers pride. Before I even started school I mastered the alphabet and read far better than my mother ever could. I spent whole days practising numbers so that, when father set me a problem, I could answer correctly and earn his praise. At the table I watched fathers manners and mimicked themeating with my mouth shut, not licking the plate clean as mother once did, using fork and knife properly. Yet fathers affection remained distant; he would merely glance at me, smooth my untidy curls with an absent hand. The rare moments when he spoke to me became a treasured solace, and I replayed his words in my mind.
When I was in second grade father left us. Mother kept the reason hidden for a time, but eventually I learned he had taken another woman. The word divorce struck me like a cold wind, and all I could think of was, If only father would take me with him. Of course I stayed with mother. We were forced to leave the flat we had shared; the one we moved into belonged to my grandparents, Arthur and Margaret, who were merely relieved to be rid of us. For a while they forwarded modest sums from father each month, and Margaret sent a little extra at Christmas and for birthdays. Then the countrys economy faltered, father lost his job, and the payments stopped. Mother took on several cleaning jobs, scrubbing floors from dawn till dusk. Her wages were low and often delayed, so we lived in penury. Her onceradiant beauty dulled with time, and I ceased to see any good in her, silently blaming her for fathers abandonment.
Father, meanwhile, turned to business. One winter he turned up at our door with a new coat and a few pounds. I still remember that day vividly: I had just returned from school, shivering in my threadbare coat, the sleeves far too short for my arms. Father stood outside while mother was at work; no one would open the door, yet he remained, waiting. My heart leaptfather had not forgotten me! I offered him tea with sugar, babbling endlessly about my school achievements, trying to prove how clever I had become. He listened halfheartedly, never leaving, finished his tea, unfolded the coat, placed the money on the table and said,
Give this to Mum. Ill bring more next month.
Will you come to my birthday? I asked timidly.
He looked at me as though the date had slipped his mind, then said,
Of course! What would you like?
A doll, I blurted, feeling a blush creep up my cheeks. I was already too old for toys, but the word escaped me. I had always wanted that symbol of childhood from his hands. Father usually bought books for my birthdays.
Alright, he nodded, a doll you shall have.
When mother finally returned I told her, with pride, of fathers visit and his promise to bring a doll for my birthday.
On my birthday I raced home, heart thudding, fearing father might not wait. I hoped to see him at the doorstep, but he was nowhere. The night before, mother had baked a cake and given me a new patterned jumper, the style that was all the rage. I left the cake untouched, waiting. He never arrived. In the evening, mother and I ate the cake together, but there was no festive spirit; I wept bitterly. Mother understood, yet said nothing about father.
The next morning mother handed me a parcel.
Here, she said, it was delayed at the post office. Its from father.
Inside lay a brandnew doll in a pretty pink box. I shouted with joy and asked,
Why didnt he come himself?
Perhaps hes been sent on business, mother replied, averting her eyes.
That doll became my most treasured possession. I even took it to school, untroubled by any teasing. Father never appeared again, and the grandparents never sent another monetary token. Gradually I grew accustomed to a life with only mother, yet each day I longed for father, doing everything in the hope that one day he would return, see what I had become, and be proud of me.
After I finished my Alevels and entered medical school, the urge to tell father this news drove me to locate him. I remembered the address of the flat I had lived in for eight years and the one my grandparents occupied only on holidays. Without informing mother, I set off.
When I arrived at fathers flat, a woman opened the door and told me no one lived there; she had been there for seven years. I tried to ask about former tenants, but she slammed the door.
At my grandparents house there was no answer. I was about to leave when a dry, spectacled old lady in the hallway asked,
Who are you looking for?
Im looking for my father, Thomas, I replied, Im his daughter.
She examined me, then said,
Since youre his child, you should know theyve been buried for years now.
I flushed crimson.
I didnt know My parents divorced and I
Ah, yes, divorced So youre Em? she guessed.
Yes.
Wanted to see your grandparents?
Yes. And also my father, I sighed.
The old lady gave me a look that made everything clear.
Theyre all gone, dear. Killed over debts. In one day. All because of your father.
The truth crashed over me like a tide; I could barely breathe.
Dont kill yourself over it, she hurried on. Youre still young, life lies ahead. Your mothers alive, isnt she?
I nodded.
Here, she said, pulling a notebook from a drawer, Ill give you the locations of their graves. Talk to them; it might ease your heart.
She rummaged through the pages, read out the plot numbers and named the cemetery. I thanked her and left, though a cold dread clutched my spine.
The graves were overgrown, untended. I cleared the weeds enough to read the headstones, all lined up behind a low fence. When I saw the dates, I realised the deaths had occurred just two days after my last encounter with father.
On the tram ride home, trembling, the thought struck me that father could never have sent me that doll on my birthday. The doll I had kept all these years, cherished above every other gift my mother ever gave, could not have come from him. Perhaps it had been mother all along. A flush of shame rose in my cheeks, a lump lodged in my throat. My father, I realized, had been nothing more than a crook who had ruined the lives of his own family. It was a mercy that we never lived together; otherwise mother and I would have been left to rot beside him.
I never told mother about that bleak journey. I claimed I had been out with friends. Later I embraced her, whispered that I loved her, and lied once more:
Thank you for everything.
She looked at me with eyes that, though dimmed by time, still shone a bright cornflower blue.
I always knew it was you who gave me that doll, I said, and thats why I loved it so dearly.
Large tears streamed down her cheeks. I felt no shame for my falsehoods any longer. I only felt sorrow for all the years I had thought there was nothing good in her, apart from a fleeting beauty that had long since faded.
