Live Forever

It’s three months official now, and we are celebrating by either defusing or exploding a landmine that has sat, silently, underneath the two of us. No, that’s not some strange innuendo. It’s called Lyla’s Dad. She’s managed to give him the slip ‘til now, but the deceit’s too much for Linda and, faced with an option of Medusa going round to Lyla’s to squawk about how they’re ‘practically family’ or Lyla casually mentioning that she may have a boyfriend and that he’s really very nice despite his Fulham-supporting tendencies, she decided on the latter. Incidentally, her dad supports Manchester City.
Who knew that one man could strike such fear into the heart of a sixteen year old boy? Nearly seventeen, in mid December, but that’s not the point. Oh, God. What have I let myself in for? My hands are clammy and sweaty, my head and heart are pounding in unison with terror, and I’m like an old man with Parkinson’s as my hands tremble a fraction before I take this bull by the horns and the knocker in my slimy clasp and... rat-a-tat-tat. What have I done? I can’t undo it, not now. This is it. I’m a shivering wreck by the time he drags the door back, and not just because Fulham scarves aren’t thick enough to stave off either a Mancunian winter or hypothermia. He’s in front of me. Half of Lyla. It’s strange.
First of all, he looks like a gruff Northerner. He’s got the greying hair, craggy stubble, thin eyes that survey all around him and a paunch to rival my dad’s beer/wine/insert alcohol here gut (which is saying a lot). So he doesn’t really resemble Lyla in any way, shape or form. Apart from the fact that, obviously, she doesn’t have stubble or a paunch (and thinking about her stomach just seems highly inappropriate in the company of her dad...), her eyes are more bulbous and they’re just, well, more alive than his are. The years have eroded the vivacity in his eyes that is still present in hers (you can tell that Lyla’s improved my vocab, can’t you?), and unlike the blue-sky, blue-sea, Chelsea-shirt-blue of her eyes, his are more of a grey. They’re the colour of Manchester.
But then he starts talking, and I see the resemblance between father and daughter.
“What the bloody ‘ell d’you want?” he rasps. “If yer want t’ sell a conservatory, yer in the wrong place. Now fook off.” The confrontation! It’s hereditary!
“Hi, sir. I mean, Mr... Mr...” Shit, I don’t even know what her surname is. She refuses to tell me on the grounds that it’s embarrassing. “Lyla’s dad. I’m here to see Lyla.” He looks thunderous. Oh crap, he’s one of those overprotective dads... thanks, Lyla!
“LYLA! Get down ‘ere!” he bellows, and grasps a cricket bat that just happens to be behind the door. Blasphemy or not, this situation is worthy of a ‘Jesus Christ...’ response. My girlfriend’s dad is a psychopath who wants to bludgeon me with a cricket bat. Brilliant. My birthday’s two weeks away, but I’ll never be able to drive because he’ll kill me first.
She appears. She stomps down the stairs, shooting an utterly evil look at him, before giving me a softer, but equally heinous look. With a carnal raised eyebrow. Hmmm. Spine tingles and goosebumps galore.
“Why the fook is ‘e wearing a Fulham scarf? Why’d yer date someone who likes that shite?” snaps Dad of Lyla. “And yer tellin’ me that you’ve been dating for three months and he still don’t know yer surname? What the fook do yer do on dates? Sit in silence? Fookin’ ‘ell.” I see that Lyla’s already spilled the beans. Well, it could have been worse than a rapping on the knuckles over my ‘shite’ (!) taste in football teams and disgraceful ignorance as to her second name.
“It’s a fucking stupid surname, that’s why. And he supports Fulham, though God knows why. I’ve tried to tell him that Chelsea’s where it’s at, but...”
“Chelsea? Fook off! It’s Manc City or bust. Well, are yer gonna fookin’ come in or are yer gonna stand there like a twat, freezin’ yer bollocks off, for the rest of yer life?”
I can’t help but think that Lyla’s dad is a legend.

***

“Uh, nice house.” I’m scrambling for conversation topics because Lyla’s dad is so grittily intimidating as he leads us into the lounge. It’s about the same size as my room and has the most hideous wallpaper in the history of the universe; gold with red pinstripes and splattered with awful etched heathers.
“Fook off, Lyla says yer as middle class as those Cockney cocks that she likes.” I’m nonplussed. Am I a Cockney cock? Is he talking about Blur? They’re not Cockney.
“He’s talking about Chelsea. Also, Dad, stop being rude. Offer him a drink.”
“Yer want Stella?” Being a Cockney cock, I misunderstand.
“No, I want Lyla.” Lyla howls with laughter.
“He means Stella Artois, fool. The drink.”
“Oh, uh... yeah, I suppose, thanks.”
Dad of Lyla clomps to the kitchen to get me a lager. Dad of Lyla returns. Dad of Lyla plonks a Stella (Artois, not Best Friend of Lyla) down on the table in front of me. Dad of Lyla looks menacing. Dad of Lyla is scaring the shit out of me, despite my admiration.
“Wass yer name?” he barks. “Talk!”
“Dan. Dan Abnormal...” Lyla’s pet name slips out before I can stop it; crap! Why am I such a tool? Why do I have to make such a twat out of myself in front of her family? Guh, this is every boy’s worst nightmare in flesh and blood. “Well, that’s what Lyla calls me, but I’m actually Dan Rigby. What I may lack in apparent football team taste, I make up for with my sizeable inheritance, both money-wise and wine-wise, and excellent choice in music.” I hope that this will appease him, but I’m a knob who knows next to nothing about gruff Northern dads.
“What kinda sod drinks wine? Pansy’s drink! GIMME A STELLA ANYDAY!” he roars and crashes down his can convincingly. I’m quaking.
“...Mmm, you’re right, it does have effeminate qualities. But seeing as half your family is female, then – oh fuck, shit, crap.” Yes, those three choice words have made their way into my conversation with the scariest man alive, and I’d just remembered that actually, only a third of the surviving members of Lyla’s family were female (from what I knew, at least) and I was the most insensitive bastard in the history of bastards, and that’s quite insensitive. Lyla stiffens slightly, her dad just cracks up.
“Yer nervous ‘cos of Charl’s death? Ha, ha, ha! That were years ago, don’t yer be a cock. Settle down!” And Lyla makes a furious noise and in a blur (pun not intended) she’s gone, stomp stomp stomp up the stairs. I consider following her.
“You know what it’s about, right? Her mum died, and she thinks I don’t give a fook.” He drains his Stella can. “Yer probably think I’m a cock, right?”
“Errrr... no?” This is going down in my top five most bizarre moments. Right between the time I found my ex-girlfriend and her best friend researching lesbianism with practical, hands-on[-in-more-than-one-way] research (well, that’s what she told me it was – Drama coursework. I told her that if I believed that, I’d believe anything. And she said “Well, you do, because you think that Fulham will win the Premiership one year.” Naturally, I dumped her there and then, citing blasphemy as the reason) and the time that I found a pair of Linda’s furry hotpants (don’t ask – seriously) down the back of my bed. I honestly don’t want to know how they got there, and I’ve tried to block it out the best I can, but it’s a recurring horror that ensues whenever I see her Marks and Spencer smalls (ha! The irony...) drying on the radiator.
“Well, I am. ‘Kay? I still miss her, course I do. But she’s gone now. But Lyl thinks I’m a bastard because of what I did...” Ooh! Gossip.
“What did you do?” I ask, not bothering to hide my intrigue. Mel Gibson won’t be quaking in his boots any time soon.
“Don’t yer know? Oh. Yer should go talk to her.” So I do.

***

Girls cry a lot, don’t they? Fair enough if it’s an Auschwitz documentary or a bereavement or whatever, but a particularly harrowing episode of Eastenders... forget it. But I think Lyla’s kind of justified, because her dad does seem a little too relaxed over his wife’s death, and from what I’ve heard her brother’s deserted them recently for his hedonistic uni lifestyle. And now I need to hear her side of the story. What her dad did. All the gory, nasty details. I’m expecting awful revelations about abuse (though he’d hardly tell me to talk to her about that, would he? I instantly discount it as a result of this reasoning) or murder (likewise...) or, more likely, him being the indirect cause of her death. Hmmm.
“Ummmm, don’t cry...” I mumble. Situation, thy name is awkward. “Seriously, stop crying or I’ll think you’re like those Nirvana-worshipping grunge kids who hate life and never wash or cut their hair.”
“Yeah, because my mum dying was equivalent to Kurt Knob-bain’s death...” she sighs, with a strange smirk. “Although it wasn’t so equivalent that I never wash my hair.”
Hair stroke, hair stroke, mutter soothing rubbish in her ear, a comforting hug, an awkward silence, the odd sob, red eyes, tear tracks. I can’t bear it any more. Curiosity killed the Dan.
“Errrr... so, can I ask how it happened?” And, without knowing it, I’ve turned into The Sun’s agony aunt.
“Well, we were tidying the house for Colin’s 18th birthday party, and Dad was hoovering the top of the stairs and into my room, and then Mum heard me ring the doorbell, and she didn’t see the hoover wire as she was about to go downstairs... and then she was at the bottom of the stairs... but he didn’t see it, and you’d have thought he’d have noticed when she screamed and the wire went taut, but no... apparently the hoover was too loud and he was so stressed by the thought of teenagers coming and getting drunk in his house that he was blocking everything like that out... and by the time he saw her, it was too late... Head trauma. He made me clean the floor afterwards and all.” That’s just cruel; it’s horribly, morbidly funny.
“Why do you hate him, then? Your dad? Is it because he didn’t notice?”
“More that he was a pig to Colin about it. Like, it was his fault that he wanted to celebrate his 18th. And then he acted like the whole thing was just one of those things and we had to get over it like that. He got rid of pretty much everything that was hers. Who can do that? Seriously?”
I’m tempted to tell her not to look back in anger, but that would be evil. I ponder and speculate, like a good boyfriend. Maybe if I mediate between the two, her dad will like me!
“Well, maybe it hurt too much for him to be reminded of her all the time. Maybe he blames himself for it.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Girls. Changeable as the wind. “Let’s go for a walk, or something. I need some air.”
We walk, silently, the raisin and biscuit Yorkie in my pocket forgotten and half-melted.

***

“Here. This one.” Well, I never thought I’d end up on a date in a graveyard, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles. To be fair, I never thought I’d end up dating a Chelsea-supporting, Blur-loving pseudo-feminist. But I am.
“‘Rosie Kite, 1950 – 1992; loving wife, mother, daughter, sister and friend. In my hour of darkness, she is standing right in front of me...’ Your mum was a Beatles fan, then?” Let It Be. I decide that I want the lyrics to Live Forever carved on my gravestone.
“Yeah, it was her favourite song. Either that or Sexual Healing, and Dad refused to put that on... it. Or carve a Yorkie onto it.” The Yorkie! That’s it! Sod roses and lilies and other conventional gifts to the dead, I’ll give her my Yorkie. And will turn a blind eye if Lyla doesn’t want it.
“Is that... Was that for me? Bless. Thanks. She’ll... she’ll appreciate that.”
“Do you want it? It was for you. And you can eat it as a toast to your mum’s memory.”
Several minutes later, she’s chewing on the last bit and nearly falls off the gravestone she’s sitting on when a gruff, Northern voice booms out from the other side of the cemetery.
“Oi, you.” Dad of Lyla stomps over. Lyla practically chokes on her Yorkie. “Thought I’d find you ‘ere. Oh, you’re with ‘im.” He turns to me. “Get it, now?”
“Errr, yeah...”
“Fookin’ hoovers. Fookin’ parties. If only I weren’t so fookin’ stupid, she’d be ‘ere today.” Is this an apology? Am I some sort of catalyst for a big family reunion? One huge father/daughter bonding hug later and not only does it feel like I’m in a Disney movie, but I’m also slightly jealous. Not of the dead mum situation, obviously. More that at least they know she’s at peace. And that there’s no Essex queen smoking away my inheritance with her 20-a-day habit. I feel a pang for the old days, when it was me and Mum and Dad at Craven Cottage week in, week out, and we were happy. Before the madness and the fights and the affairs and the craziness. It’s the first time in ages that I’ve thought about it properly; but then I think about it in a different way...
Now I’ve met Lyla’s mum (sort of), she needs to meet mine.