As they sat facing each other, she realised something. She knew nothing about this man. He was her father but all she knew of him was that he was a bad man. She asked him what he was doing now and he said: “This and that. I’ve taken up fishing. I go out for a few hours most days and do a bit. It clears the head,” he said. “The fresh air is great.” It is, she thought to herself… if you had to stand at the bottom of the garden for five hours straight you might not be so enamoured with it! But, she reminded herself of her therapist’s words, ‘you are not that child anymore’. His response was as casual as you like, just like anyone else would do. Go out fishing, she thought. Wonders will never cease. “How’s Mum?” she asked. He explained that she wasn’t well and has move into a home to help with her Alzheimers. He said she doesn’t know anyone anymore. Jenny felt saddened on hearing this. Her mum was a soft kind of soul in her own way, but Jenny always struggled to understand how she could have stood by and let a man abuse her daughter like that. She just could not get her head around it.
He asked Jenny very little about herself. Maybe he felt he had no right to, she thought, which of course, he didn’t. When he asked her what she was doing now, Jenny told him she was a solicitor. She knew that would knock him. The law wasn’t something he was a fan of. At least now she could show him she wasn’t as stupid as he seemed to think, ha!
Then Jenny knew she had to ask him. There was no point in meeting him if she wasn’t going to and she had not come to appease his conscience. And with that, the word just fell out of her mouth – “why?” He looked puzzled and Jenny could not get the words out to further explain. She could feel tears well in her eyes. “No, no,” she told herself. “Pull yourself together, Jenny McMcCarthy. You can handle it.” And so after a few moments, she continued. “Why did you do it?” He looked away. Jenny could see him cower. She had the feeling that he had convinced himself that it hadn’t happened. “Look it,” he said eventually, “that was all in the past and that’s where it needs to be left. You are grown up now and you seem fine to me so just leave it, will you?” That wasn’t so much a question as a statement from him. She could feel her anger gurgle inside. She had not been expecting such a response, not that she knew what he would say but not this – a dismissal! But, it wasn’t so much anger as devastation- complete and utter devastation. She caught a quick glimpse of herself in the mirror on the side wall of the café and knew she had to get out of there before she burst into tears. She grabbed her bag. What had she been thinking? she thought. That he would throw his arms around her and say ‘I’m sorry’. ‘I’m sorry for the years of neglect, for the beatings, for destroying your life, for not being your father’. She felt stupid – terribly, stupid. Casting her blue eyes on him as though he was a lifeboat on the Titantic, she wanted so much for him to have changed. But, he hadn’t. There was nothing more to be said. She knew that this was likely the last time she would ever see him. It was time to buoy herself…again.
Jenny decided not to go back to work but instead started for home. Her counsellor, Maria had warned her that this could happen. She had given her a number of strategies to use to deal with this. She thought about ringing her but felt that would be admitting defeat. She could not let her father get the better of her again.
She spent the evening in front of the TV watching Oprah and the repeat programmes but nothing seemed to cheer her up. In the pit of her stomach she felt a vacuum and thought she might never laugh again. She felt defeated as she tucked into a tub of double chocolate ice-cream with a packet of fun size variety mini-bars to her right.
As she ate the chocolate off the edges of a Mars bar, she thought, ‘what the hell, what are you waiting for? A golden ticket on the inside if you take your time with it?’ And throwing caution to the wind, she shoved the whole bar into her mouth. It was not big, it was fun size after all, but to Jenny this was a big step as she always savoured the good things in life and in her disciplined way, chocolate was definitely one of them. Without a second to spare, she ripped the wrapper off a fun size Twix and devoured it whole just as quickly. She continued by eating as much of the bars in the packet this way, until she felt sick. Then, she shoved another one in just to be sure and a scoop of chocolate. With that, she felt her tummy make an almighty roar and had to run to the bathroom. She soon discovered that no matter what she may think, she wasn’t going to change overnight. And so, after a stint of puking and losing whatever bit of energy she had left, it was back to the couch for the evening.
She looked at the clock some time later – it was 9.23pm. So she decided to ring Brid, her sister. She had about 25 missed calls from her but just had not been in the humour to deal with her upbeat attitude today. Brid lived on the other side of the city.
Check out http://www.stylicious.ie tomorrow for the next installment.