The Good Father by Marion Husband

had expected her to. Instead she had gazed at him, her expression soft with concern. ‘Tell me about him,’ she’d said. They had been in bed, in that hotel where the huge bay window looked out over the sea, where he and Val had stood on the balcony and he had, for a few seconds, been able to imagine them both far, far away, free of anxiety and guilt. And for a few seconds in that hotel bed he had imagined telling her about his father as she’d asked him to, but his father mattered less and less to him; he had almost forgotten his name; it was only when he took comfort in a drink that he was reminded. Besides, in that bed, time was exquisitely precious. Val lay in his arms, such a wonderful luxury that could not be squandered on remembering. He had kissed her breasts, felt her fingers curl into his hair. Soon he would be groaning her name, all thoughts, all memories annihilated – the greatest luxury of all.
    Val. Thinking about her, he imagined bowing his head and banging it repeatedly against his desk, to clear her from his thoughts, to punish himself for remembering, for being an ordinary, faithless man. Hadn’t he so prided himself on his restraint? Hadn’t he always despised men who were governed by their cocks? After Ava’s accident he had told himself he could live an orderly, celibate life. Laughable now, he supposed, but still admirable, still something he might have achieved, perhaps, if he had been blinded, or deafened, if he hadn’t ever been close enough to Val to smell her, to wonder what it would be like to fuck her, that filthy, dehumanising speculation when his heart and soul suddenly became those of a rapist’s. The moment he saw Val Campbell all his noble ideas were unmasked, too feeble to survive his lust.
    The moment he saw her he heard himself saying, ‘I’d be delighted if you would care to dance with me later, Miss Campbell.’
    They had been standing at the bar of the Grand Hotel’s ballroom, where he had been introduced to her by Stanley Davies, who had organised this Christmas party for his staff at Davies & Sons, the engineering firm where Val worked and to which, by way of being Stanley Davies’s solicitor, Harry had been invited. He hadn’t intended to go, suspecting that Stanley would only corner him until he’d paid for his supper with advice. Then he would be on his own, watching Stanley’s employees drink themselves into indiscretions. But he had been feeling melancholic that day, the same melancholy that came every year with Christmas trees and the sight of Esther helping Ava to thread paper chains. Esther, sensing this mood of his, had said, ‘Why don’t you go, sir’ her voice that odd mix of shyness and encouragement as always. ‘Mrs Dunn and I will have a lovely time here, cheering the place up for when you get back.’
    Guy, sitting beside his step-mother, had looked up from the book he was reading. In that sardonic tone Harry had come to loathe, he had said, ‘Yes, Papa, do go. Do have a lovely time and don’t think of us at all!’
    So he had dressed in his dinner suit, complete with black dickie bow and black satin stripe down the trouser legs, a black cummerbund holding in his belly. Esther had smiled at Ava when she saw him. ‘Doesn’t Mr Dunn look the part, Miss?’ Ava had only looked at him as though he was a stranger, Esther’s expression adding to her confusion. What part was he fit for, anyway? He was a middle-aged man in an old-fashioned evening suit, weary, dreading the boredom that awaited him, dreading the return to a house that had been cheered by paper chains. In that time before Val he had begun to feel that he’d had his life – even though it was not one he would have wholly chosen – and that there was nothing left but waiting.
    Val had danced with him. Val had worn a green satin dress, close-fitting, even straining a little at the seam that