Fourth to the Right teaser taster

Look there... To your right, not that far right... That bench. Not the one with the missing plank, next one over; with the peeling paint, fourth one from the end gate. Yeah, that’s the one... See it? Look at it... I mean really look, see the rotten planks of wood along its length, the peeling black paint on its old metal frame, smell its old mossy smell combined with the stale smells left by drunken late night fools. Look carefully and you might still be able to make out the faded brass plaque that’s dedicated to some long forgotten Victorian couple. 

That’s where it started. My life.

It was that very bench where my Mum and Dad first met. It’s where they sat on their first date, where my Mum’s waters broke when she had my brother. And it’s where my Dad would take me every weekend, every single weekend without fail, come rain or shine. Dad would take me to sit and watch the children play. The bench was ideally situated for a perfect view of both the children’s play area and the games field. Trees lined the long patch of grass that stretched behind the path that the bench stood on, they would shower their leaves on us in autumn, and their soft petals in spring. In the summer they would shade us and in the winter they would stretch over us like protective hands. Not anymore. Nothing in this park is as I remember it to be. I remember when the grass used to shine bright green and smell so sweet, when the play area actually looked like a play area for kids, not these modern gymnasium-like frames which look better suited in the Tate. I remember when the picnic benches that fill the small space of grass between the play area and the bandstand were a healthy brown and full of chattering families. Now everything’s old, broken and unkempt, forgotten by the passing crowds, faded into the dullness of a hollow estate. No one uses the bandstand anymore; it was torn down two years ago and replaced with a circular patch of earth that’s meant to host flowers but instead just hosts lager cans and chip shop wrappers.

I remember when the shops behind the bandstand used to be brightly painted, with colourful posters and adverts in their windows. And when the shadows caused by the tall, sky-high tenement buildings were kept at bay, so that when I was sat on that bench with my Dad I could almost forget that we were in the middle of nothing. Our own piece of the countryside in the middle of waste.

That was such a long time ago, back when my life was simple and didn’t need to make sense. When I questioned everything and yet nothing. That was when Dad lived with us.

I was five when Dad left.

Mum worked as a receptionist in the local surgery. It was a good job and she liked it very much. She liked talking with all the people who passed by her desk each day, watching the generations amble through the surgery doors, mothers with their daughters and grand-daughters, fathers with their sons and grand-sons. She felt privileged in her job, privileged with the trust that people had in her to manage such delicate and private personal details. Dad did something to do with building: but he’d told me once that he’d always wanted to work in a school. He never did, he’d said because he couldn’t afford to go to college for the qualifications needed. So he grafted hard instead, following in his father’s trade. He worked away during the week, somewhere in the city, too far to commute to every day. He would stay at his brothers’ during the week and come home Friday night with a bag of fish and chips from Henry’s behind the bandstand. Then we’d all sit as a family at the tiny kitchen table: Mum, Dad, Tommy and me. We lived in a small two bed flat on the twelfth floor of The Gandhi building, one of ten high-rise flats to litter the skyline of our broken-down community. I had the bigger bedroom; it was purple and green with two single beds in it. One of these was Mum’s. During the week she’d sleep in there with me. But, on weekends, she and Dad would sleep in the living room on the sofa bed. Tommy had the tiny room in the corner all to himself, I wasn’t allowed in there. He had a sign on his door that said ‘No girls allowed!’, he would get very upset if I ever ignored it. Which, of course, I did from time to time. He had a bunk bed with messy sheets and clothes all over the floor. On his walls were posters of people dressed in raggedy shirts, with long, untamed hair, playing guitars or drums. Tommy was eight years older than me; he would play football with his friends in the park’s games field at the weekend. He had so many friends back then. Everyone liked him, just as everyone liked Mum and Dad. Every Saturday night Dad would meet up with a bunch of his friends down at The Old Hand pub behind the bandstand. And every other night or so Mum would have gaggles of giggling friends over, filling up the living room and laughing louder with every fresh glass of wine. Life was so busy then, so full of people and laughter and fun. Before Dad left.

One week Dad went to work on the Monday morning as usual but didn’t return on the Friday. We had none of Henry’s fish and chips that night. Instead we had a knock on the door from two yellow clad police officers who spoke to Mum in my bedroom. Mum stayed in bed all that weekend and wouldn’t answer mine or Tommy’s questions until the Sunday when she sat us down separately, me at the tiny kitchen table and Tommy in his out-of-bounds bedroom, and told us that Dad wasn’t coming home. Ever. She never explained why, she just told us he’d left us. 

After that life changed dramatically...