Father

The sole of Dan’s shoe had torn loose. It scraped against the pavement every step of his journey home from school. He limped along the driveway up to his front door, muttering. The door open and closed. In the hall he pulled off his shoes and dumped them to the ground.

Hugo waited for his son in the living room. He was dug into a soft chair with both hands resting along the arms. The TV whispered, as if holding a hand to the side of its mouth. The light from the low clouds shone through the French windows, picking out Hugo's pale skin and dark eyes.

‘Hi, dad,’ Dan mumbled, poking his head around the door, gaining no response.

Dan edged into the room and took a seat on the couch. He tried to think of something to say, but words were snatched from his mind. After a frustrated silence, he stood, pulled out a crumpled piece of paper from his shirt pocket, and pressed it into his dad’s outreached hand.

In his office, Hugo flattened Dan’s piece of A4 paper onto the desk. The room was filled with pages and pages of notes that lay on the desk and across the floor. Most notes had been carefully filed, but others were discarded and allowed to litter the office. The room was becoming more chaotic with each passing day. A trail of crumpled paper snaked its way towards the door.

Hugo reached for his fountain pen and neatly ticked off every scrawled sentence from his son’s Daily Notes. Hugo was satisfied that Dan had been to all his lessons, had a can of coke and a bacon sandwich for lunch. He believed that his sixteen year old son had spoken to three of his friends; Thomas, Chris, and Ade. Everything was secure. The day had been like yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that.

Hugo flicked through the folders in the cabinet, where he kept the analyses of his son; notes on body language, friends, holidays, teacher reports, books read, films watched, dates, times and even a dream log. He slid the day’s notes into the blue folder. The crumpled page poked out, looking ugly. As he pushed the cabinet drawer closed, Hugo decided he needed to do something different.

The next day, Hugo swiveled to the left then to the right on his office chair, over and over. He watched his legs lean and his feet twist. The front door slammed shut. Hugo picked up his notepad and pen and slipped them in to his brown corduroy jacket. By the front door his son’s shoes were lying on their sides. One of the shoes had its sole peeled back. The shoes were scuffed and molded awkwardly after months of use. Hugo told himself to get rid of them when he returned.

Hugo walked along St. Gabriel’s road, pacing himself. He turned the corner into Dartmouth road that had a slow downward gradient. In the distance Hugo could see his son, moving fast, bobbing up and down. Dan stared at a girl across the street. She looked back. Hugo flicked his pad open and made a note. He followed on.

That evening Hugo stood before his office window looking out onto his back garden. Lights from the opposite houses, TVs, computer screens, table lamps, some exposed, some hidden by curtains, mingled and cast a blue haze across the mass of unfolding trees. He listened as Dan slouched up the stairs, and shuffled along the hall towards him.

Dan’s quiet breaths filled the room. He placed a crumpled piece of paper on his dad’s desk. Hugo turned to his son and waited for him to leave. He watched Dan’s feet scuff against the carpet and then out of sight, into his bedroom.

Hugo took a seat and unfolded his son’s notes. He raced through each entry; his eyes pouring over the page as if he were skipping to the final sentence of a detective novel. In one of the last entries his worst fear, a fear he had always guarded against, yet dared not contemplate, was confirmed. His son had lied to him.

Hugo ripped the day’s notes, calmly, deliberately. He was still for a second then raised his fists and brought them down ferociously upon the desk. His eyes shifted wildly, his face contorted. Suddenly the anger dissipated, his body became still, and he fell back into his chair. He got up to look at the lights outside his window. Then, with a sudden burst of strength, he grabbed the tall filing cabinet beside him, containing all his thoughts, suspicions, speculations and fears, and dragged it over, sending it crashing to the floor.

Stars looked down on the garden like strings of light threading through peepholes. He made a pyre of broken branches and balled up newspaper and swung the files on top. He poured gasoline on to the pile and then a match. The fire exploded into life, crackling and fizzing. The files were hugged by the flames, sliding along them. It seemed peaceful. Hugo stared into the fire as if trying to decode a message that offered itself for a second, and then pulled away.

Dan looked at his white school shirt. It was crumpled. Sharp lines weaved their way around it. Fully dressed, he looked into the mirror that stood beside the window. The morning light made him squint and he struggled to see his reflection. He moved from side to side, trying to shape his hair and straighten his tie. Satisfied, he slung his rucksack over his shoulder, and pulled one strap across his chest. He walked to school. Every now and then he looked over his shoulder.

But this time he returned immediately. He walked backwards through the front door and into the house. Inside, the walls, the light and the darkness, cracked. He reversed up the stairs, fast, then slow, then fast, and finally retreated to his room where he contemplated his shirt once again.

Hugo had made the surveillance equipment with bits of electronics that were scattered about his work room, accumulated from 30 years as an engineer. The bugs and cameras were three clicks away on a domestic spy website. He watched Dan jerk and shake on his computer monitor.

Dan would wake in the morning and leave the house for school. He would come home in the evening, sit in his room and read a book in front of the TV. Hugo would eat his dinner and watch. In the afternoon, listening to the radio, he would forward and rewind his son’s morning routine. But the more he watched, pushing his son around over and over, the more he saw new things. New connections, new mysteries, new doubts each time he clicked his mouse.

Of course, when Dan left the house Hugo only had sound. There was no practical way of filming. He listened. Words, breaths, trainers on the pavement, cars, the wind, children screaming. Hugo would lean, and push his earphone deeper into his ear to hear more details, trying to see. But he was stranded with his imagination.

His son’s movements became repetitive, repeating within repeats. Day after day Dan would look at his crumpled shirt spread out on his bed, stare into the mirror, turn his head left then right to see the sides of his short cropped hair. He would slip his trainers on in the hall and slam the front door shut, disappearing from sight.

One day, something changed. Dan found his shoes were different. They weren’t his new shoes, but the old worn ones with the unstuck sole. He stood over them, staring with his hands on hips, as if expecting them to justify themselves. He picked them up turned them round in his hands then hurled them to the ground. He tried to scream but he could only writhe and flail. He smashed a hand against the wall.

Dan picked up his old shoes and tried to put the sole back into place somehow. He gave up and pulled them on. He left the house. He sounded the same as he always did. He gave some muted chants, swallowed by the traffic, spat. Hugo sat upright in his chair, and opened up a new page.

On the side of the road Dan waited for a car to slowly move past. It accelerated away and he strode in to the street. From a side street behind him a Mercedes revved its engine and pulled out, unseen. Dan was two yards in front of the car. He swiveled and tried to push himself over to the pavement, but his shoe’s sole folded back upon itself. His foot gave way and he tumbled onto his knees with his hands flat against the tarmac.

Hugo could hear the growling car that got so loud he had to pull an earphone out. He could hear his son’s body slam against the car’s fender and then thump onto the ground. The car screeched to a halt. Dan’s breaths were short and fast. A woman’s voice shrieked. She was sobbing. Clear and crisp now, she spoke soothing words. Hugo could hear her touch his son’s arm, and stroke his forehead. He could hear her breathing. He thought he could see her dark hair, her hands crumpled by veins and a soft look in her eyes that made Hugo feel everything would be ok.