15 May 2012
5. Felix
I can hear water. The cool on my face feels like I’m lying on a hard wet beach, I can hear the water swilling around nearby. In the distance I can hear a child’s voice. I can feel a breeze across my moist forehead. The sun isn’t shining. I slowly open my eyes, they sting with fatigue and I can’t make out what I’m looking at. After a few seconds things come into focus. Ali’s at the sink washing something up and gazing out of the open window, Lola’s sat at the counter eating a bowl of some brown health farm concoction her mother’s making her eat. It turns out that I am lying fully clothed, spread across the island in our kitchen, quite how I fell asleep here is a mystery to me. My mouth feels like it’s been lined with second hand cotton wool. Heaving myself up to a seated position with my legs dangling over the edge I feel a rush of sickness come back to me and almost vomit again. I don’t need to look I know the girls are looking at me, Lola’s stopped chewing and what I thought were waves before are now still waters. I slide myself off of the island and walk over to Lola, pick her up and kiss her on her cheek. She pulls a face, “Daddy you smell horrible.” She’s getting a bit big to be picked up, and a bit old not to notice when I’m feeling like death warmed up. Ali’s just been staring at me this whole time, I know she’s mentally brewing what she wants to say to me, but she made it a rule never to swear in front of Lola, something I’ve found very hard to stick to.
I do a lap of the kitchen, eyes closed and face buried into Lola’s little neck, partly to clear my head and partly to give me time to accumulate enough saliva in my mouth to get any words out. “Baby, go and get all your things ready for school ok? We need to get going soon.” I put her down and she wanders off unenthusiastically upstairs. I turn around and walk back to Ali, she looks like she’s at a fucking funeral. “I know,” I start defensively. “I’m sorry, things got a little out of hand last night. I didn’t want to wake you up when I got in....” I trail off because what’s the point in the excuses? She’s heard them all before and her face tells me it’s getting old.
“So you had a good night then did you?”
“No not really I wasn’t in the mood for it, I’ve got a lot on my mind.” No point in lying to her, in this state she’d read me in a heartbeat. I start patting down my pockets to find a packet of cigarettes somewhere, getting desperate. I won’t have to meet her eyes that way.
“Felix, you’re nearly thirty-nine years old. We’ve got this house and our daughter together and you’re still going out acting like you did when you were twenty-one. I love your friends they make me laugh, but Jesus Fee they’re not exactly normal are they? I mean you’ve got Julian and Noodle who’ve never grown up at all and are still competing to see who can bed more idiot whores than the other. Simon spends half his life chasing the nearest massacre or disaster, and Ed... Well Ed should just know better and so should you.” All the time she’s been talking I can barely listen, all I can think about is watching my puke running down the gutter and where I’ve left my cigarettes. “Do you even know what time you got home? Felix! You got home at 5 this morning!”
“Well that explains why I feel like I haven’t slept then. And, babe, please don’t call me Fee, that’s a girl’s name.” I don’t have a choice but to vie for humour now, it’s forever been my only salvation with Ali and she hates it because she knows it works.
“Shut up! I’m not in the mood.” She shouts, clearly she really isn’t pleased with me. “You stink and I can tell you drove paraletic as well, how would you explain it to Lola if you ended up in a wheelchair? How would I explain it if you end up dead? You’re so fucking selfish sometimes.” She looks like she’s about to cry and I feel like my insides are being churned by a pneumatic drill. This always happens after taking coke, it’s a guilty drug.
“Fuck, you’re right. I’m being an idiot, even I’ve been realising it lately, I’m going to change I promise, you’re right I don’t think my body can really handle it anymore these days. I don’t need to be in the bar so much anyway I’ve got a good guy who’s been with me from the beginning, Caleb, you met him a couple of times.”
“I don’t remember, but that’s good. You’re paying them so use them Felix. I don’t want to end up like your Mum and be a widower with teenage kids.” She’s calming down, that’s good. I don’t think I could keep this up much longer anyway. “I just worry about you. You’ve gone from working long hours to working all kinds of hours, I never know if you’re going to be home, or if you’re staying out or what. It was okay at first but now Lola’s getting older she needs her Dad around, and I need you around because she’s not a baby anymore.” She stops, I can see her holding back tears. We were always planning on having a big family, four kids at least but there were complications when Lola was born and we were advised that another pregnancy wouldn’t make a full term and that we shouldn’t try again. Ali’s never got over it, she was the born parent between us. I’ve always just followed her lead.
I step closer to her and envelop her in my arms, my smell contrasts with hers so pungently I can see what she meant before. I can still smell the bile lingering in my nostrils, the taste of alcohol and tobacco in the back of my throat. I just stand there holding her for a while. “I’m sorry, listen I’ll talk to Caleb next week about him becoming the acting manager or something. Explain to him that I’m not going to be around so much anymore. He might get a little over excited so I’ll have to keep a close eye on him at first but I’ll be around here more during the week okay? No more staying out all the time and stressing you out, it’s not fair. Plus I can’t have Lola thinking I’m never around, we always said that would never happen.” At the risk of sounding selfish I can see how this plan may work in my favour. This way I’ll be around less, the bar might actually make some profit on alcohol if I’m not there drinking it all the time. I’ve got the CCTV all set up to keep an eye on the staff and if I can trust any of them I can trust Caleb to take the reins of the weekly business. Not to mention it’s going to get me away from the one place I might end up bumping into Belle again, though if she comes back again after last night she’s braver than I thought. So for now at least I get to spend some time with the family and rest on my laurels. We’ll see how long this lasts.
My thoughts get interrupted by a high pitched vibration in my inside pocket, very few people ring me at this time of day. Since I opened the bar nobody expects me to be up early anymore. Before I look at the phone I know who it’s going to be. I take my arms back from around Ali and quickly kiss her forehead before turning and reaching into my pocket for the phone.
“Morning,” I say in my least croaky voice possible.
My greeting is met with a familiar laugh which over the years I’ve grown to abhor, it’s one of those laughs which is never laughing with you it’s always at the expense of someone else. “Morning! You have a good night last night?” Every word is like someone clanging frying pans together behind my head. Every ounce of me hates this man. “I was in the bar last night, you’ve got some fascinating bar staff. Who was the leggy brunette over at your table?”
For a second I’m worried, I like to know every moment that Carlo is in my place. How could he have been there and I not notice? Talking to my bar staff too, an animal like him, Christ I must have been more drunk than I realised. “You were there last night? I didn’t see you sorry, did you want to see me?”
“Don’t worry about it, me ole’ China one of your girls kept me very entertained. Anyway you looked like you were having fun with your friends I didn’t want to butt my nose in and embarrass you. But yeah we need to meet, my place eleven thirty alright.” It’s not a question, we both know I’ll be there.
“Which girl?”
“What?”
“Which girl kept you entertained last night?” He knows how I run the staff and he’s still going to make me fire someone, everything I do is a fucking game to him.
“Oh you know what I’m like with names,” again with his laugh, he knows her name, he just wants to know where to find her again. “I’ll tell you what the next time I see her I’ll write it down so I can let you know.” More laughter.
“Carlo, don’t fuck around with my staff you know I don’t like them getting mixed up in my business.” Ali flashes me wide, angry eyes after I curse.
“Yeah, Yeah, stop being so serious all the time. Listen I’ve got some calls to make I’ll see you at half eleven, bye”
“Bye”
“Bye.....Bye,” Click and he’s gone.
I put the phone down and run my fingers through my hair, if there was one thing I didn’t want to have to deal with today it was a call from Carlo. I’ve been paying back favours to this guy for a long time and given recent events I feel maybe it’s time to stop. An arm wraps around my waist and I feel her head lean against my back. “You’ve got to go meet Carlo?”
“I’m sorry baby, I won’t be long. There’s nothing I can do I have to go.”
“Yeah I know, it’s okay I’ll drop Lola off at school. But tell him, Felix. Tell him you can’t do whatever it is you two do anymore. I need you here, and we’re fine for money.”
“I will baby, I’m going to run, I’ll see you in a bit okay?”
“Okay, I love you.”
“I love you too,” I tell her honestly today. I turn around and pull her chin up to face me so that I can kiss her. Then I walk out of the kitchen, shout a goodbye to Lola from the front hallway and go outside to the car.
Finall
Daddy's Gone 5.0 • Opuss № I