Free Daddy's Little Earner by Maria Landon Page A

out drinking to drown his sorrows – althoughhe probably would have done the drinking anywaybecause he was already doing it before Mum left; hisbroken heart merely gave him another excuse.
    He never thought to hire babysitters when he was out,so if he didn’t take us with him Terry and I would sit waitingfor him to come home at night. Even if we grew tiredand decided to go up to bed we wouldn’t be able to sleep,worrying that Dad might have been involved in an accidentor a fight, or was so drunk he couldn’t find his wayback to us. I felt responsible for him. We knew that if something happened to Dad we would be orphans with nofamily left to look after us since none of our other relativeswere showing much interest. We wished he would takebetter care of himself as well as of us, so we could feel safer.
    When we did eventually hear him falling in throughthe front door after closing time we would hurry backdownstairs to greet him because we knew he liked that.If we had by any chance fallen asleep he would stumbleupstairs to wake us so that he could weep to us uncontrollablyabout his lost love, falling on his knees, sobbing tothe gods. He always needed to have an audience for thedrama of his grief.
    ‘Jane, Jane,’ he would wail, ‘please, please come back.’He would go on like that for hours some nights and therewas nothing either of us could do or say that would offerhim any relief from his misery.
    If we tried to sneak away back to bed during one ofthese performances he would go mad at us, determinedthat we should witness his torment in full and appreciatewhat a wicked selfish bitch our mother was. It was confusing:I hated her for what she had done to all of us, but Istill wanted her to come back for his sake, and for Terry’s.I kept thinking, why doesn’t this woman just come back?Not for me because I didn’t care, but for him, my poordemented father, as I watched him pleading, begging thegods, banging his head on the floor, beside himself withgrief. As I watched him punching the air and crying I would hate her even more but at the same time I rememberwishing he would shut up about it and get on with hislife with us.
    He was the same wherever he went. Down the pubthey all thought he was amazing for soldiering on aloneafter Mum had deserted him and the social services hadtaken away half his children. He spent hours telling anyonewho would listen all about his woes. He would tellthem of his struggle to get us out of care and regale themwith the story of how he had beaten up the social workerwho refused to let him see his children. He used to playthe same record on the jukebox, that one by Charlie Rich,‘Hey, did you happen to see the most beautiful girl in theworld, and if you did, was she crying?’ It was all abouthow a man had let the love of his life go and now realizedhis mistake, but too late to do anything about it. The lyricsfitted the picture that he held in his head of what had happenedand he played the same track over and over again,standing by the jukebox, tears streaming down his face,singing along like his heart was breaking all over again. Ilearned to hate the sound of that record. Just hearing thefirst few chords striking up would make my heart sink.Why did he always have to think about her? Why was healways pining for her, when he had me and I was willingto do anything to make him happy?
    When we were all at home together during the day Dadhad a little routine going. To help him elicit sympathy from everyone in the pub he liked to take one of us with himwherever he went, like a little trophy to show what agood father he was, part of his act like Pussy the corgi.Usually it was me who went because Terry wasn’t quiteas co-operative and for some reason he was more willingto let Terry off these duties than me. His money alwaysarrived on the same days. He would be paid his incomesupport for keeping us on a Monday and on a Tuesday hewould get his child benefit payment. The Post Office,where the money came