Stories I

28 March 2005

I’m posting this from work. There really isn’t a lot else to do. It’s Easter Monday, but Scotland doesn’t do Easter. I’m not unhappy about this. Being a self-employed contractor, a day I don’t work is a day I don’t get paid. But many of those I work with are from south of the border and have families, so they have taken the long weekend off anyway, and the office is looking a little like the deck of the Marie Celeste.

I would probably have taken the long weekend to spend with the kids as well, but there was no point. BQ has taken the boys away for a holiday, and as H didn’t want to go with them she has been left home to housesit and to feed the vast menagerie of animals they keep there.

Now I try to be a cool dad, and I think I mostly succeed. I mean there are certain parenting duties you have to stick with, but in general I know how difficult life can be living with the BQ, having done it for 9 years, and I don’t want to add to those difficulties. I think one emotionally manipulative psycho-bitch parent from hell is probably about all a child can cope with, so I try to be stable-dad, mate-dad, dad you can tell anything to and he isn’t going to turn into a spontaneous combustion victim.

But of course I worry. My little girl is all on her own in the house. It’s scary being on your own for the first time. She needs her dad to reassure her. So yesterday afternoon I phone her up to lend my support. A tiny nervous voice answers the phone.

‘Hullo?’ Oh my God, she sounds scared out of her tiny mind. I was absolutely right to call. She must be bricking herself. I mustn’t project my own fears on to her to add to the situation. I must be an oasis of calm, bright and cheery, I must respond in a ‘nothing could possibly be wrong’ voice.

‘Hey-ya Hoopy, how’s things going there?’ My voice contains all the forced jollity I can muster. It works, the sense of relief in her voice as she replies is palpable.

‘Oh Dad! It’s you!’ And then she speaks again, but this time off-phone. ‘It’s okay, you don’t have to be quiet any more.’ From behind her emerges the unmistakable sound of five million teenagers all talking at once.

I have nothing to worry about, she’s gonna be fine!

‘So what are you up to?’ I ask.

‘We’re dying Jenny’s hair black.’

‘You’re not planning to dye your hair black are you?’

‘Not yet.’

Okay, maybe not nothing to worry about.