I’ve decided to stop calling my father, “Dad.” At least when I talk to my siblings. “Dad” is suffused with affection and a nod to the role of parenting, a role he abdicated years ago if ever he inhabited it. Instead, I’m calling him “Denis.” That’s his name. I could call him other things, but what use would that be.
Like many men, Denis likes women. Their minds, their opinions, their bodies, especially their bodies. But there is one caveat: they must be prepared to listen to him. Because Denis likes to talk and largely about himself. And these days his comeuppances inevitably involve women or money or more likely, both.
Last September I woke to missed calls at 3.10am, 4.30am and 4.45am. I was unfazed as he sometimes forgets I’m a middle-aged woman living in America and not the young Maid Marion living in Dublin. I moseyed downstairs, made a cup of tea and settled myself amongst the cats, the dog and the plants. Calm and comfort are prerequisites when talking to the parents.
“I’m done for!” He exclaimed. “I’m being spied upon by the bank and by God I’m entitled to do what I want with my money!” He had a point. I wouldn’t want my bank surveilling me whenever I withdrew a sum larger than grocery money. But these days Denis is vulnerable. His latest friend, Lady Lagos I call her, was threatened with a barring order by the authorities. His home helpers chanced upon her cosied up with him one Autumnal Sunday morning, both lounging on the couch in their dressing gowns enjoying tea and toast, the same weekend the bank manager called my brother to report sizable withdrawals from his account. Again. With his compromised memory and dwindling spending supplies, the authorities believed he was being exploited. It transpired there were many sizable withdrawals. And that weekend he was recorded on CCTV accompanied by Lady Lagos.
We were to learn Lady Lagos has been a friend for over twenty years, yet another entry into his lengthy companion registry. He was, he told us, seventy when he met the then twenty-something year old beauty. He filed her accounts (amongst other things apparently), giving her monetary handouts throughout the years, she being recently widowed with two babies to care for. He has promised these two babies are not our half siblings. To be determined.
At ninety-one, Denis is less dapper, of less sound mind, less most things. More vintage rug, faded and frayed at the edges. Yet his fibres are strong and stubborn as ever. And he is more endearing in an elderly enfeebled way than the dandy exhibitionist he was in his youth. Living alone amongst a gregarious community of most attentive neighbours, he walks daily down to the sea – most probably in the hopes of beholding a glimpse of women bathing – plays bridge once a week and has oysters and Chablis every Friday afternoon with a friend. When he’s not at a music recital, the theatre or a doctor’s appointment, he’s entranced listening to Strauss’s Four Last Songs or Tristan and Isolde or another favourite opera. Or talking to his broad beans and purple sprouting broccoli. Or most likely, tending to a friend.
There were many friends before and after my mother Mary. He fled to tooth-gap Tamara’s bosom following his departure from the family home in 1993. Then came fiendish Sandra, or Saundra as she insists, with her frizzy hair and Cockney accent. She was nursing tooth-gap Tamara through breast cancer treatment when she took up with him. Then there was posh Ethel who dropped him when he wouldn’t include her in his will. Intimidating Maeve, who would shame him for his narcissistic indulgences, was supplanted by dizzy Dymphna. These are the women I know.
More recently, Denis absconded to London the week before Christmas. He had called several times for my daughters’ – two of whom live in London – numbers. Reciting a twelve-digit number to a ninety-one-year-old refusing to wear hearing aids while his cognitive and dexterity skills are waning, and with The Magic Flute or some other Singspiel blaring on the stereo, is deliriously depleting.
Slowly and loudly, I called out the number. Many, many times. He said, “Okay then, I have,” (very long pause) “Four, four, seven, five, four…”
“No wait Dad, it’s four, four, seven, nine, four… let’s start again, okay?” I breathe. Deeply.
All in all, it took two days and many calls for him to get one daughter’s correct number. He mentioned he may “pop” over to London for a few days. A ninety-one-year-old doesn’t “pop” anywhere or anything other than knees or pills. He wanted to see his sister, Marie, saying he’d love to take his granddaughters to dinner.
“Oh, that’s nice Dad. Will you stay with Marie?” He stutters. A lot. He’s either anxious or lying.
“Well, well, I don’t think so, I may just stay with a friend.”
No! I thought. Not the dreaded fiendish friend! Anytime her name – Sandra, or Saundra – is mentioned, images of a primordial she-demon, pitchfork in hand, flash upon my siblings’ and my mind. With dollar eyes. Well, that’s how I see her. Parental responsibility lies with Denis of course, but she encouraged the severing of the tenuous ties between Denis, my brother, and my sisters. Clare, my younger sister, will never recover from Denis’s refusal to attend her wedding as yours truly wasn’t invited. When he was with she-demon, he didn’t see any of his children for several years. She had the audacity to visit my mother’s house to reprimand her for not being a good wife. Poor Denis! She whined.
And now it was back on! “Dennnnnis,” she would intonate in a rising pitch, “Wear your burgundy jumper with your burgundy shirt. And your burgundy corduroys like I told you!” The poor man would look like a corked vintage Bordeaux.
My older sister, Olive, also lives in London. Her relationship with Denis has been historically fragmentary ever since he abandoned her in the Wicklow mountains, so intent was he on summiting despite his then twelve-year-old’s cold feet and fatigue. He just left her on the mountain! And Denis hadn’t mentioned Olive any time we talked.
“Have you told Olive you’ll be visiting Dad?” I ask.
Stutter. “I’m trying to leave her a message, she’s always out. I just can’t get her!” He promises he’ll call and invite her to dinner. But he doesn’t call Olive. Nor does he see his sister. And my daughters are hoodwinked into dining with Denis and the pitchfork. Denis! Oh Denis.
Growing up, he was consistently late for dinner with the usual result of a tense dinner table. My father would preside over one end, my mother the other and they would hurl diatribes at each other. He wasn’t much involved in our lives, so we didn’t feel his absence. At weekends he would abscond to the Wicklow mountains vaguely asking my siblings and me to accompany him if, and only if, we kept his pace. I was a regular. Whether drawn to the mountains or him, I don’t know. What I do know is I became acquainted with the grand, formidable virtues of nature. Wild foxgloves, grouse darting amongst thickets, heather haphazardly carpeting the sodden windblown heathland, the gorse, yellow and vibrant in young spring sunshine, such gorgeous sights, smells and sounds quietly astonishing my young mind. The walks were tough, the Irish weather inclement. He would pack an orange, a small bar of dark chocolate and a flask of black tea. We would share these provisions, keeping the chocolate until we reached the summit. I would imagine the swans of Oscar Wilde’s The Children of Lir, flying over the Guinness Lake. He would stick his nose high in the air, look out, and sniff.
Most recently, he called me in a panic.
“Marion!” He sobbed, “I’m all muddled up Marion! Nothing is working and I’m all confused!” He has home help every morning. So, I was confident he was dressed and pill popped. To triage this latest calamity, I ask him what’s going on.
“The remote control won’t listen to me! I tell him ‘Play the rugby’ but it won’t. Feckin’ cartoons are all it gives me!” I get it. Remote controls fail to listen to accents, nuances in pronunciations. And narcissistic gargoyles. Still, I was concerned about his distress, so I called John, my brother, who calls Denis on-repeat most days, to give me the rugby match channel number. I called Denis who told me I was interrupting the match – Leinster has just scored! Now goodbye!
I was fourteen the first time I saw Denis cry. We were summiting Carrantuohill with Mandy, the family poodle. Clouds descended luring in snow. We didn’t talk while hiking, both of us deep in our respective solitude. I had sprung ahead. The weather worsened and afraid I would get into trouble on the cliffs, he left Mandy marching forward to find me. When he reached me, I was horrified he left Mandy. It was bitterly cold and snow impeded our vision and search for the dog. Eventually we found her sheltering by a large rock, her little body tired out. Denis put her in his orange rucksack and as we made our descent, I watched her head bobbing and her pink tongue lolling with every move. She took her last breath not long after. Together, as we dug her grave, we wept wildly and loudly.
Although I didn’t know it at the time, sharing this grief offered me a glimpse into the essence of this man, my father. I saw a kind, good man who wasn’t afraid of his emotions. The loneliness of grief was lessened knowing he loved Mandy. Perhaps knowing, he could and he did love.
Last October, after the Lady Lagos event, I travelled to Dublin to visit the parents. Denis asked me if I’d help him refresh his Bordeaux wardrobe.
I agreed, anything to give my siblings a break from caretaking. I tried not to care about his weird wardrobe of Saundra’s head-to-toe burgundy or green costumes. But I did. Walking around with a slight, elderly man decked out in chartreuse green, is frankly insulting to the Carthusian monks who toil to produce such a splendid liquor. Anyhow, I told him I’d collect him and we’d drive into town together.
“No, no, no,” he interjected, “I’ll hop on the Dart and meet you outside Marks & Spenser’s at 4pm on Friday. I’ll be reserving my favourite table at Dax’s, and we’ll finish the day with oysters and Chablis.”
Standing outside Marks & Spenser’s, I scanned the street, caught a glimpse of him, his cap, and was pleased to see he had his stick. He approached me in a bit of a cuffuffle, kissed me, and handed me his list which read something like,
- RaiN GoaT
- UndieS
- Skocks
- 2 trouzers
- 2 Jumps
- Belt
- 3 shits
Denis’s handwriting has always been abysmal. He writes with an ink pen in the hope of giving it some sort of respectability. But inevitably it resembles a snippet of an EKG reading.
As we were walking up the stairs to the men’s department, I took his stick so he could use the banister unencumbered when I noticed his stick was in fact a litter-picker, one of those tools with a lever and claw at the bottom to retrieve trash.
“Dad! Where did you get this? What on earth are you doing with a rubbish collector? This isn’t your stick!”
“What? It is! It is!” He insisted, taking a long look at the tripod tool. “Oh, I don’t know where that came from. It must have been in my medicine cabinet. Or the fridge. I don’t know!”
I groan. That Denis managed to be there in front of me was mind-boggling. I wanted to ditch the thing but didn’t for fear he’d need it at some stage to steady himself. Or clear a path on the crowded streets. Or to pick me up when I fell down wishing to disappear beneath the cobble stones.
Scanning the floor, I spot the conservative man’s wardrobe section. I chose three or four of everything so he could decide what colour and cut of trousers, shirt, jumper he preferred. Off into the changing rooms we went.
“Come in with me Marion,” he suggests, “You can sit on the mirror.”
“I’ll be right outside Dad. You get changed and come out when you’re dressed.”
He appeared in a perfectly fitting pair of inside-out back-to-front navy slacks. I can’t understand how he managed to zip them from behind.
“I love these, they’re perfect!”
“Okay, we’ll get those. What else?”
“Knickers, the undies Marion.”
I never visualised buying Denis’s underwear. But I never visualized changing oil in my car or cleaning my cats’ hairballs. I ambled off and chose a couple of styles.
“What style boxer do you wear?”
“These.” He gestured to the boxers under his slacks. I asked about the leg style – why did I ask about the leg style? Who cares! He yanked down the trousers and lo and behold it all came tumbling down and popping out.
“Oh my god, Dad!” I yelp, knowing I can never, ever, unsee Denis’s rambunctious willy.
Eating oysters was out of the question. I chose extra-small, extra-supportive boxers ensuring they would never, ever, fall down for anyone else again.
When Denis was twelve, he was sent away from the Tipperary family farm to live with his grandmother in Dublin. His reasoning was his studies would be better served in Dublin. But upon further probing, he confided he didn’t get along with his father. “He couldn’t stand me!” My mother insisted I go – but she didn’t want to let me go.” He told me, his blue eyes watering. Could it be this perceived abandonment by his mother that predisposed him to his narcissistic waywardness? His malignant attachment to dominant women? What tragedy that he is committing the same abandonment on his daughters. He embodies both the tragedy and the splendour of life. The bitter, the sweet. The charming and the sleazy. And there goes my phone! What calamity awaits on the other side of the Atlantic today? Oh Denis, oh Denis! Oh Dad.
