How to Tie a Tie

With mechanical movements, I passed the tie around my neck, adjusted it, and started tying it. I watched myself in the mirror.

He'd taught me how to do this. When I was eleven. In a rare display of patience, he'd stood beside me, and showed me, step by step.

Pass the thicker end over the thimer one... Bring it up behind... Tuck it through...

I try to squash the old man out of my head, but it's no use. He's determined to take up space today.

+

I remember sitting in the car with him, listening to him rant and yell... and not even feeling upset. I had no fear left. Just a detached wondering: was he really going to keep shouting for the whole journey? It was well over an hour.

Do you know, I can't even remember where we were travelling from, or why we'd gone there? It doesn't matter, now, anyway.

Staring out of the rain-speckled window at the darkening sky, I let his voice wash over me. Like the blurry lights whizzing past, and the white marks on the road, it had taken on an almost hypnotic quality.

At one point he slammed his foot down, and swerved across the road. A lorry blared its horn at us. Dad yanked on the wheel again, and we missed the truck by a whisker.

I barely even noticed his words anymore. They were bound to be his greatest hits, anyway. When was I going to be a man? Why was I such a disappointment to my poor mother? Blah blah blah.

When he pulled up outside his house, where I was supposed to be staying, I noted with the same detachment, that, yes, he was still going.

I didn't sigh. That would have riled him further. But I wanted to. I was just so tired of his shit. So tired. I got out of the car, and shut the door carefully. I opened the back, moving like a robot, and took out my bag. Slinging it over my shoulder, I turned, and started walking away.

I didn't walk towards the house. I headed the other way, towards the main road.

"Hey!" Of course he yelled after me.

I kept going.

"Hey!!"

Oh, he was getting madder. I watched my reaction with vague interest. My steps did falter. Did he notice?

Some part of me still wanted to manage his behaviour somehow. It was as much habit as anything else. I wondered how often I'd even succeeded...

...and then his hands landed on the back of my jacket. He yanked me off my feet and around to face him. My bag slid to the ground.

The storm from his mouth blasted into my face in a cloud of rage, manipulation, and bad breath. I dangled from his grip, just wanting his tantrum over, with as little damage as possible.

When he released me, he did it with a shove, as if he couldn't bear to have me near him another moment. I sprawled on the wet tarmac, and tasted blood.

I knew he wouldn't stop. Ever. He would keep coming at me until he was forced to stop. One way or another.

I powered myself to my feet just in time. He would have reached for me again, but I stepped forward and swung. The shock in his eyes was as satisfying as the crunch of my fist hitting his mouth.

"Leave. Me. Alone."

I could have spat at him that I was an adult, I had a job and a place of my own, I didn't need to deal with his shit anymore. I think I distilled it all down to those three words, and hurled them like rocks.

I picked up my bag and walked away. The certainty had settled into my bones that I'd never see him again. Never waste another word on him.

+

I'm here today for my mum, and my sister. Not for him.

I thought I wouldn't cry when this time came. But here I am, and I am not so sure. I'm angry at myself, because the old man doesn't deserve tears.

Maybe I do. Maybe mum does.

My reflection looks back at me, and just like the last time I saw my dad, I almost don't recognise myself. There I am, in my black suit, the same one I've used for job interviews. And court.

I adjust the tie. It's black, to match the suit. He flickers in my mind, that last halfway happy memory with him in it...

Everything seems to bring him to mind today. Probably natural. Maybe I should stop fighting it. Could be, it's making it worse.

Mum is calling me. Her voice is shaky. It's time, she says. We have to be at the crematorium at two.

My sister is standing beside her, waiting. Decked out in black, like me. For a moment, I remember the crows she was so fond of when we were children, and how I teased her for it. I broke her bird table. I told her they were dirty, and noisy, and stupid. I was to her the way he was to me. A bully.

She is smooth and collected, and her eyes are dry. When I meet them with mine, I almost break.

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