1001 Nights Cast

My father is a manipulator. That’s how she fell in love with him in the first place. Every sentence, every look, every action had a purpose, a deceitful and selfish motive. It always puzzled me how such a softly spoken man, so apparently full of wisdom and kindness could lie so convincingly.

When my father speaks to me, he does so in riddles. It’s not so much his words that step around the truth; (as far as I can tell) the real culprits are his eyes. I try to look anywhere else but into his eyes; my shoes, the floor, the slight crack in the closed pink Venetians that allow a small stream of struggling light to enter the room and illuminate swirling particles of dust…

But I can’t avoid those eyes for long, and then I’m defeated. When he speaks to me he looks so deeply into my eyes that there is no opportunity for escape. His words are so consuming that everything else just disappears; leaving me empty and susceptible to his lies. All I can do is accept the fact that Dad runs the show and leave it at that.

‘Dad, I’ll have to go home eventually,’ I choked to break the silence, despite the growing lump in my throat. ‘I cannot wear my school uniform all weekend.’

‘I’ll take you shopping,’ he said; more of an attempt to bribe me than to nullify my point.

‘I don’t need more clothes, I have enough at home!’

‘I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t be much of a father if I let you go home when it wasn’t safe,’ he said. I sighed loudly and stamped my feet. This was just Dad’s way of keeping Mum on her toes. About a year ago he charged into the house in the middle of the night and carried me away with no explanation or hint of return. Mum was screaming at him but there was nothing she could do; it’s not kidnapping when it is the father and he could take me whenever he liked. I was back in my own bed the next night.

‘Well at least let me ring Mum and let her know I’m okay,’ I pleaded.

‘Not yet,’ he said.

‘See, you just want to scare her.’

‘There is something I have to tell you…’ he said solemnly, I could see the tears welling in his eyes, never enough to spill over but a sufficient amount of moisture and redness to make me pity him while he still kept hold of his dignity.

‘Elle, your mother never wanted you. She never wanted any children. I had to beg her to keep you. I told her it was the only way to save our marriage.’ I looked back at him horrified and grasped at the swelling lump in my throat for relief.

‘It wasn’t her fault, we married too young and I should have known that she wasn’t ready. One day I came home from work and you were gone. You never stopped screaming Elle, that’s why your mother is an alcoholic, she couldn’t handle being home with you. She gave you to Natalie all day so she could drink and drink until I got home that night. I thought that phase of her life was over, but it appears that it isn’t.’

The lump in my throat died. I stared at my father menacingly, hoping that my eyes conveyed to him how I felt. I knew why Mum took to drink and it was not because of me. For years I wondered why Mum never spoke to her sister, the last remnant of her family, but one day Natalie arrived on our doorstep. Time it seemed healed all wounds and they began to talk. I listened when perhaps I shouldn’t have, but I’m glad I did now. Natalie apologised for having an affair with her husband, my father. She said she was young and naïve and he made her think it was okay. She apologised for ruining my mother’s life, it was their fault she began to drink.

Court cases and custody battles so often have a dramatic effect on the children of an ended marriage, but this divorce was long over, the custody papers had been signed and sealed for years.

This is the last straw, I thought. No longer will I allow him to run our lives with vengeful deceit. I looked straight past his tender eyes and kindly face and walked towards the phone.