Philip Larkin would know what I'm talking about

So, it was Father's Day on Sunday. I tend to be busy being Daddy myself these days, so I have to confess I don't tend to think too much about my own father on Father's Day anymore. I do on his birthday, though, which usually falls one or two days before.

My father was - probably is - what's affectionately known in the business as a 'character'. Bit of a lad. Liked a laugh. Always on the cusp of saying something completely inappropriate but then always managed to pull back from the brink by wrapping it in his unique accent and a naughty wink. Total misogynist, prone to somewhat old fashioned views generally, politically his right leg was slightly shorter than his left, tended to say rude stuff about people in front of them.

Loved by all.

He was the sort of person that people wanted to have around. Whatever his views, they were neutered by his genial personality, his wit and the fact that he had probably the best accent in the world ever; Italian, via a 25 year stint living in Libya, came over to the UK in the 60s not speaking a word of English. He learned the language from Scottish and Indian labourers. At some 90 kilos and 5' 4, he was a (not so) little ball of a man, which probably helped; even when he was occasionally miserable and aggressive, he was less a threat and more just Louie De Palma. I'm not kidding, people loved him.

And yes, I realise I’m speaking about him in the past tense. My parents, who were living in Spain at the time, split up just before I got married some 13 years ago (gulp, how long? you get less for murder, etc). We've all had plenty of time to get used to the idea, but my relationship with my father became more and more acrimonious in the years following the split until eventually, about two or three years ago, he simply left. No goodbyes, no forwarding address, no contact. Could be alive, could be dead, we don’t know. Gone, disappeared in a puff of disappointment.

If he'd had the courage simply to call it quits and move out immediately then chances are we would have all accepted this brave new world relatively painlessly. But that's not what happened. What at first was an attempt by him to make it less painful for my mother became this horrible long drawn out death throes that left everyone involved exhausted and bitter. He did eventually move out, but over the next few years he’d return to take up residence in an annex to my mother’s house, staking ever more trenchant claims on pensions, endowments, savings, the house. Then (mostly because the cause of the original break up was his new found desire for a younger model, less mileage, handles better in the wet) when my mother finally made it clear that the assets weren’t about to be split quite according to his plan, things started going missing; jewellery, cash, other valuables. One day they'd be there, next day they'd be gone, always after one of his visits. Then he disappeared for the first time. He was gone two years, during which we heard nothing at all, and then out of the blue I received a phone call: 'Hello boy,' it started, 'I in trouble.' He'd been in Brazil, borrowed some money to start up a restaurant, which then failed and he couldn't pay the money back and now he had to get out, quickly. But he couldn't leave without paying a fine for outstaying his visa. I nodded along, told him I thought it was all bollocks, and then sent him the money anyway.  

That was the start of a pattern; nothing for a while, then a call with ever more outlandish problems, a request for money, threats, pleadings, cajoling, the handing over of cash, a further disappearance. If his stories are to be believed he's variously come close to death at the hands of the Brazilian underworld and the Spanish mafia, he's become involved with the Colombian import/export business, and he's an official persona non grata in Brazil after having seriously outstayed his visa not once but three times (and yet seems to have managed to get back in again, go figure). At one point he asked me for £10,000 to start a shoe making business. I laughed and it was never spoken of again.

The last time he made an appearance he ended up renting my in-laws' house - furnished - with the intention of running a restaurant, which he intended to set up with the assistance of some Colombian friends. He paid his initial deposit and the first month's rent, and then (really? No. Who'd have thunk it?) funds dried up. A year later he was gone, the house having been cleared out (literally stripped; even down to the boiler and the pipework) and the in-laws seriously pissed off. Then, two months later, after having received several visits from some Colombian gentlemen asking, politely, about his whereabouts, my mother returned to her home one day to find it trashed. Curiously, all that had been taken was the jewellery, which he had always insisted was his. No contact since.

If I'm honest I have to say I'm really not as bothered as I should be. I go a little quiet when I remember it's his birthday, but it's only once a year and it's a fleeting thing. We've had plenty of time to get used to it, I suppose; he didn’t just go from Wonderdad to Madman overnight. It bothers me is that my daughter hasn’t really had the chance to know her grandfather. She’s met him, but always under strained circumstances and about all she’ll say about him now is that she thinks he’s ‘a bit silly’ to have gone away. She doesn’t really know him, and who knows if she ever will.  

 

What annoys me most of all, though, is that I can understand precisely what was going through his head when he decided that he wanted to go. It was part of his character to want something more than he had. He never was a mortgage, two cars, 9-5 sort of person, and yet that's what he'd become. What he'd been forced to become in order to fund an increasingly opulent lifestyle and a son who, in his eyes at least, he had to fund through university. I think he'd put up with a life he really didn't want for years, and when he no longer had to fund his son's education or upkeep, because son had grown up and had a family of his own now, the world suddenly opened up. Except of course, being the person he was he couldn't quite manage to extricate himself without causing pain, and angst, and much gnashing of teeth.

 

And so we come full circle. I look in the mirror and it's my father I see. I have his features, I have his mannerisms, I seem to be staring at the same bumps in the road. I'm not about to walk off into the sunset alone, but I'd say I share my father's view of the importance of not blithely bumbling through life with eyes half closed thinking 'this is it'. This isn't it. Perhaps this was his most important lesson to me. Perhaps I should be grateful.

 

Buon compleanno, papa. I hope you're happy.

Zen and the art of positivity

I'm feeling cheerful today. Don't really know why, just have a feeling of positivity about me. Perhaps it's because it's sunny (highly likely to be because it's sunny, in fact; how depressing our usual grey backdrop is), maybe it's because I know that The Annoying One is away next week and the office will be so much calmer and more pleasant without him, maybe it's because I have a particularly good tune on the go. Maybe it's a mixture of all three, maybe it has nothing whatsoever to do with any of it. Don't know, don't really care. I'm feeling less-than-depressed today, and that's good.

I quite like feeling like this because it means I actually do stuff. When I feel my usual self I tend not to want to do anything. Why is that? The more bored you are, the less inclined you are to pick yourself up and do things, even if things need doing, even if doing those things might make you less bored. Is it because actually those things themselves are inherently boring? Can't be, not everything is inherently boring. Or is it because the fog in front of your eyes is so impenetrable that the synapses in your head marked 'that'll be interesting' just don't fire? Whatever it is, sunshine, good tunes and the knowledge that I'll soon have a week off from having to deal with The Annoying One conspire to make Marcos a happy chappie. Let's strip naked and rejoice!

I do have one regret this morning. I’m a bit of an avid photographer. Like to take photos of stuff. Been doing it a while, and have a very large and heavy professional looking camera that makes me look as though I know what I'm doing. Every now and again I think to myself ‘really should carry my camera around with me.’ The only problem is that it is very large and heavy, and carrying it about is a bit of a pain (even if I'm not already carrying other things, which I often am), and this morning despite the weather being glorious and sunny, and the sky being blue, the grass being green and the conditions being bloody marvellous for a nice bit of photo taking action, I took one look at the thing and decided it was too much like hard work. Left it at home. Now of course I'm sat on the train on the way into work and getting more and more frustrated at myself by the minute as I realise what a complete tosspot I am. Lazy, weak willed, slothful. Allow opportunities to run past me with barely a look. If my headstone has an epitaph it's likely to be "Fuck it, that'll do."

Happiness doesn't last long, does it? Feeling quite fucked off now.

My life is full of little regrets. When you look at them all individually they don't amount to much, but add them all up and they lead inexorably to a deathbed revelation of despair and futility. Well, perhaps that's a bit strong. Didn't want to use 'regret' twice, you see, but it's probably more accurate: a deathbed revelation of utter regret at missed opportunities. For example, I once spent ten years learning how to fly, on and off. Ten years. Got quite good at it in the end, could fly in the end. Spent thousands of pounds on lessons, amassed about 60 hours of flying time, got as far as doing my QXC (qualifying cross country flight, for the uninitiated: a solo cross country flight from Stapleford in Essex, to Leicester, to Cambridge and back - in fact got lost on the way to Cambridge, that was a sphincter puckering moment), sat and passed five of the necessary seven written exams...and then stopped. I felt I had my reasons at the time, of course. The Child had just been born, money was tight, flying was taking up rather a lot of my time... but it's all utter tripe, really. All that time, all that money, all that effort, tossed away because deep down I'd grown tired of it and was secretly a little bit nervous at having to take the flight test.

Or playing the piano; spent years learning how to do that as well, and I really was good at it. Did my grade exams, was playing grade 8 and diploma pieces with ease, liked nothing more than to spend every waking hour tinkling away, practice wasn't a chore at all. Performing was a joy. Even got to perform my own pieces at the Queen Elizabeth Hall once, and believe me there’s no drug that can quite replicate the feeling you get when you soak up the applause of a thousand people. Then what happened? Life got in the way again. Exams took precedence. Going out with my friends took precedence. Not being arsed took precedence. Truth be told I got bored with it. I thought I'd take a break and come back to it, except of course I never really did. Now, years later, I can still play the odd little thing but not like before. All that effort, all that time.... Patterns do tend to repeat themselves, don't they?

I get bored, that's my real problem. I flit. My father was the same. He'd get really into something, spend a fortune on it, think of nothing else  and bore us all senseless for months, and then one day simply wake up and decide he didn't like 'it' anymore. Maybe I've got it from him then, this mad passion about something, this intense desire to do something, to become good at it, and then a sudden overwhelming boredom with it as soon as I have become good at it. Maybe that's why I've suddenly decided I loathe my job. Spent years on it, a great deal of effort, got quite good at it....and now I'd quite like to give it up and live in a cave somewhere.

How do you cure a problem like Marcos, eh?

Despite appearances, I am actually still quite positive. The urge to walk out in front of traffic was still there this morning (‘come on then, you feckers, prove you’re paying attention,’), but my usual desire to maim my fellow commuters with a blunt plastic coffee spoon just wasn’t. Positivity, see.