A Really Bad Day

It started off ok: with you ironing and singing along to the Spin Doctors,
and me running upstairs downstairs upstairs downstairs
looking for trainers water socks mobile wallet keys
trainers hairbrush socks water keys…

And as I rushed out of the front door I yelled
that I was off to the park
to play football
and you could come too
and bring Kiri.
You said you might well do that.

I don’t know what you did next because I wasn’t there.

When you first turned up it was sunny sunny sunny and we were
all charging around
in uneven teams
and arguing what was ‘out’.

We took opposing sides.

Then it began to rain those heavy summer drops
that saturate your skin
that make you heavy.

A few of the girls bailed,
And went to the pub.

We played on.

Kiri got hit in the face with the ball.
She cried from the shock and the boy who kicked it felt VERY BAD.

We played on.

Now ankle-deep in water
Nobody can make the ball do
What they want anymore.
I remember thinking that a fuck-load of rain
is a damn good leveller.

You loved the rain because the sun
hated your skin
and made it red and itchy.

We played on.

You got tired.
and lay down:
In the rain.
In the grass.

We played on.

Sprawled like a star.

We played on.

You didn’t get up.

We played on.

I came over to call you a Lazy Old Man
And gloat cos my team were thrashing yours.

But the smug got caught half-way up my throat,
Because your eyes were doing funny things.

I said “Dad, are you ok?”
(what a vacuous thing to say)

You said “I don’t feel…”

The rain had clogged phones
And so the cry of “somebodycallanambulance”
Echoed and echoed before
The frantic breathy “okokok”

I pumped your chest like the nice man on the phone said

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15….

And another girl gave you breath.

And

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15…

And breathe…

Once or twice your chest seemed to inflate
with more air than was given to you.

But there was no beat except my own in my palms as I pumped:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15…

And I wished I could push the beat out of me and into you.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15…

Then the people in the luminous jackets came and got out their
Defibri… thingy…
But the rain said
No.

The ambulance man said
Get this young lady to the hospital
and I realised he meant me.

I grabbed Kiri
Got in the car and
spewed words I didn’t believe:
He’ll be ok, he’ll be ok…

I realised that my arms ached
more than anything had ever ached before

At the hospital they wouldn’t tell me what was going on
Until Mum arrived:
too young to take the burden but
old enough to figure out what their silence meant.

I realised that my heart ached
more than anything had ever ached before.

A nurse with a kind face and a hard hard job
Offers us NHS pyjamas.
I remember I am drenched.
Kiri’s teeth are chattering.
My T-shirt says ‘Boys are Smelly’,
I feel very small.

The look on Mum’s face is not one
Of welldoneyousavedyourfather.

She says it’s “very bad news.”
She doesn’t need to spell it out.

But I do:
When Ray turns up
Flustered
And gabbling
“whathappened?Isheok?He’sokisn’the?”

The voice that comes out is not mine,
I do not recognise it and it must be lying.
Because it says “sweetheart,
he
died.”

---

It started off ok: with you ironing and singing along to the Spin Doctors,
and me running upstairs downstairs upstairs downstairs
looking for trainers water socks mobile wallet keys
trainers hairbrush socks water keys…

But it turned out to be
A really, really bad day.