Crustaceans by Andrew Cowan Page A

free of your needs, the work you demanded. There was the long labour of getting you dressed, and the mess that you caused, the smears and spillages and trails of food, the cupboards repeatedly emptied, and the bins and pot-plants upended. I remember the churn of the washing-machine, and the piles of clothes to be ironed, the mop in the hallway, your nappies. Every other task I began was left uncompleted – our walls half stripped of their paper, the ceilings half painted – for nothing much held your interest for long; soon enough I would have to return to you, abandon whatever I’d started. Our house was a shambles, and even when you were sleeping your presence remained – in your buggy and toys and discarded clothes, the scribbles and daubs that I’d pinned to the walls, the crayons I trod on. Everything then seemed to breathe with your energy, whilst I could barely stop yawning.
    I remember all this, and my frustration – the fits of complaining to Ruth – and yet I know too that I’d never been happier, more at home in myself. I liked being your father. I was what you’d made me, and often as I looked after you, played my part in your life, I would wonder what you’d later recall of these days, how much would stay with you. It was a time when you lost as much as you learned. A word spoken one day would be forgotten the next; a toy removed from under your nose would hardly be missed. One passing event succeeded another – leaving no mark, it seemed, on your memory – and of course I wanted to preserve it all for you. My camera, permanently cocked on the shelf by the fireplace, had caught the moment you first walked, aged almost one, your arms outstretched in your sleepsuit; and then later, wearing only your nappy, fleeing from Ruth in the garden. It had captured you naked, gazing down at your willy as you peed on the floor of the kitchen, and again as you stood on our bed, blotched all over with spots. There were photographs of you crying, and feeding from Ruth, asleep on her shoulder, and so many more of you smiling. But it is the photographs now I recall, and rarely the moments. One day’s traumas were resolved and forgotten; your sudden achievements were soon taken for granted. What remained was the continuing fact of our life together, and of course my camera couldn’t capture that.
    The albums now are with Ruth, and though I can remember the sequence of pages, and the notes I pencilled into the margins, what comes to me more often and clearly is waking again that July morning to find you standing beside me, cheerfully babbling, gesticulating, and the momentary pause when you realised I’d woken, the crease in your brow. You gave a sharp squeal, and ran to the end of the bed. You barked something at Ruth and returned. You widened your arms to be lifted. C’mon? you said, nodding; Daddy, c’mon? No, I replied, and rolled into the dip of the mattress, across to my own side of the bed. I heard the pat of your feet as you followed me round, and blearily watched as Ruth slipped out of her nightshirt, pulled it free in one movement. The tea she’d placed on the floor was stewed and lukewarm and it spilled down my chin as I drank. You were tugging my arm, clambering to get onto the bed, and when at last you started to whine I lifted you onto my belly; I held your chest in my broad hands. Your hair was soft and unruly and curled back from your collar. I saw Ruth’s blue-green eyes in yours, the dark arch of her eyebrows, her father’s cleft in your chin. You were no weight at all, and when I raised you into the air, held you over my head like a trophy, I remember Ruth smiled, her glance meeting mine in the mirror. I remember she zipped up her skirt, turned it round on her hips, and came over to kiss me, as she would every morning, though this time she lingered. She lay down on the bed and nestled against me; she made herself late for