The Day He Left Us
Mandy Horne
©
Copyright 2024 by Mandy Horne
|
Photo by Anastasia
Shuraeva at Pexels. |
This is a true story extract from my full memoir, relating to the day
my dad left. I have used alternate names throughout my full memoir as
it includes individuals I did not want to identify by name. I am
Donna in the story, at 5-years-old.
Squashed
in the back of her
grandad’s
greeny-blue Ford
Cortina with her nan
(dress size 22) and younger sister Tracey, Donna counted
the cars going past on the other side of the road as she day-dreamed
the journey away. She felt travel sick and it helped to look out of
the window and distract herself from the queasy and dizzy feeling she
had. She was dreading going over the flyover as she knew it was on
the road home, just as it had been on the way there. It was the worst
part of the journey. Dad always made her giggle when he was in the
back of the car with her as they approached the dreaded flyover, to
take her mind off the fact that she hated heights and especially
bridges. He’d make her close her eyes and wait for the funny
feeling inside as the car went over the top and down the other side,
like her tummy was being tickled from within by a huge feather. Today
she feared that would just end badly.
Donna,
Tracey, their mum, nan and grandad were on their way back home
from
what had been
quite a fun week at Pontin's
holiday camp in
Pakefield.
She'd made friends with a girl she met at the kids' club, Sharon, who
lived in Kent. Sharon was the
same age as Donna and
they established early on in the week that they both had
the same teddies, which helped them form an
instant bond. Tracey
also had the
same teddy, but hers was blind, as she’d managed to pull one of
his beaded eyes out, so mum had taken the other one out too, just in
case Tracey swallowed it. Their mum said that would be dangerous.
Sharon
was as light blonde as Donna was dark brunette.
She
was taller and
slimmer than Donna and she was louder
and funnier. Well
that's what Donna thought anyway.
Sharon had won the talent competition, singing ‘How Much is
that Doggie in the Window’. Donna had only come third in the
fancy dress. She hadn’t wanted to go in for it but her mum had
insisted, making her wear her mum’s version of a Red Indian
costume made out of tissue paper that Donna had had to walk in funny
so that it didn’t tear. The camp’s photographer had
managed to capture Donna’s unhappiness and embarrassment in the
official photo of the event.
Sharon's
mum and dad were really nice - it had
made
Donna miss her
dad, who had been with them on last year's holiday there,
but for some reason did
not go
with
them this time.
Donna supposed that he must be working; her dad seemed to work quite
a lot of the time as he wasn't home much when Donna got back from
school and sometimes didn't come home until after she went to bed.
The
exception was Sunday nights. Her
mum did the night shift at the
care home she worked at
every
Sunday, so
dad stayed home with her and Tracey. Donna
cherished these nights. As
Tracey was 3 years younger, her
dad
put her to bed
fairly early, which gave Donna precious time with him
alone. They would sit together drinking cream soda or cherryade, play
cards or jacks, make origami animals, or her
dad
would just tell
stories.
She
liked the stories best. Sometimes they would be about real things
- memories
- and
sometimes
they'd be fantastical stories out of her dad's seemingly crazy head.
The memory stories made her feel warm inside,
because
he made sure
they were always about her,
and the made-up stories always made her laugh.
They
arrived back in Elm Park in the afternoon that Saturday and Donna
looked out of the car
window
expectantly as they drove around the crescent up to their house.
Disappointingly,
her dad
wasn't there waiting outside. Instead, there was an unfamiliar red
car parked in their drive. Donna saw her mum exchange a confused look
with her
grandad
as they opened the car doors.
They
looked keen to
see who the car belonged to. The front door was open and Donna could
hear voices coming from the kitchen as they hesitatingly went
through. And where was Toby, Donna thought?
He
would usually come
bounding out to meet anyone who came to the house, barking from the
moment someone stepped onto the front drive.
Tracey
slipped her hand into Donna's as they both stood shyly behind their
mum, whilst
their
grandad
did the talking to a
man
in a grey
suit. Donna recognised Sarah, a girl from her class at school,
and
thought
that the other man
and woman must be Sarah's mum and dad, but was
puzzled by what they
were all doing
in her kitchen.
Her
grandad asked the man in the suit questions and, whilst Donna didn’t
completely understand everything the man in the suit said, she heard
that the house was in the process of being 'repossessed' while they
had been on holiday,
so
it was apparently no longer their house, and Sarah's parents were
interested in buying it. She
heard the man say that her
dad hadn't been making payments on the mortgage for some time and
that the men from the 'bailiffs’
came to see him in the week, but he had not been there and no-one
knew where he was. He seemed
to have disappeared completely.
‘So
it's good that you have all returned as we can now finalise the
transfer’, the man in the grey suit said, rather too enthusiastically.
‘The house is of course in joint names with
you Mrs Daking,
so notice can be served on at least one of you and then we can get
things in complete order.’
Donna’s mum was
looking a bit shocked, like she was about to collapse
or be sick.
Donna
was very confused but knew enough to understand that things were not
good;
in fact they appeared to be very very bad. With these intruders in
her home, Donna was feeling unnerved and lost and all the adults
seemed to be focussed on trying to sort out something with the man in
the suit. Voices were raised and Donna noticed that Sarah was looking
as frightened as Donna felt, so she beckoned to Sarah and, together
with Tracey,
they
slipped out of the room and went upstairs to Donna's bedroom. Once
within the safety of the bedroom, Donna asked Sarah what she knew of
what was going on.
‘We're
here to buy your house, did you not know?’ Sarah said.
‘But
I don't know why you are buying our house when we still want to live
here. I think we should probably wait for my dad to come home, he
always knows how to sort things out.’ Donna wasn’t sure
she believed her own words, based on what the man in the suit had
said, but it felt right to say it.
‘Well,
my mum said that your dad has run off because he had a problem with
drinking and gambling and he’s
spent all your money so you can't afford to live here anymore.’
Donna
was reminded of
why she didn’t
ever play
with Sarah at school, as she looked angrily at this girl who didn't
belong in her house and who had no right to say such lies about her
dad.
She
would see.
They
would all see. Her dad would be home later and he would be able to
explain everything. She was sure of it. He wouldn’t have done
all those wrong things and there was no way in the world he would
leave her or Tracey behind. He
loved them too much to do that, didn't he?
What
Donna didn’t know at the time was that she would never see her
dad again.
I’m 57-years-old, live in Suffolk, and have been writing poetry
and stories for the last ten years, but have only recently been able
to focus on making a career out of it. My writing relates mostly to
experiences I have had in life: loss, mental health problems, and my
interest in the environment. This I write in poetry, prose, short
story and memoir format, but I am also writing a science-fiction
novel with my partner. I have not published anything yet, nor won any
competitions. I am hoping this will be a first!
(Unless
you
type
the
author's name
in
the subject
line
of the message
we
won't know where to send it.)
Another story by Mandy
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