Listening

I could never see very much – forehead pressed against the floorboards, one eye fixed through the largest gap. There was a pool of light, there was movement, there was the colour of the carpet, and you might see a head of hair move across your field of vision. Little more than that.

But I could hear.

I knew I wasn’t supposed to. My mother had warned me. She said, “your father needs his privacy when he’s with his clients.”

And yet. Just beneath me. A span of metres. The ‘sunken lounge’ – that was what we called it, and right beneath my bedroom. So I’d pulled back some of the carpet near the wall, and I flattened myself on the ground, all-focus on what was going on downstairs.

I must have been about five, maybe six. I still had a hero in my dad. I still listened for him with anticipation, with eagerness. I imagined him to be secretly proud of my eavesdropping, that maybe he intended a snippet here and there for me. A teaching moment.

There would always be the squelch of his shoes as he took them off at the door. And then the slow creak of the door as it opened. I would see the changing light, and I would see my father’s head as he walked in – a full head of hair in those days, dark auburn, with just the possibility here and there of red. He’d usually have a guest with him, and the guest would follow, their steps would be quieter, softer, slower, as if they weren’t quite sure they wanted to follow him inside. There would be laughter from the strange, and chatter – it had a slightly high quality to it, a little too fast, a little too stuttery.

My father had a routine. He’d weaponise the silence. Let the guest talk themselves quiet, only nodding, only murmuring now and then. He would, at some point, sit down in his preferred chair, and he would gesture with one hand that the guest could take another. I still don’t know if he did it on purpose, selected the chairs, left them unattended to, so that the high, pained squeak of a body sinking into them would unnerve the client further. Sometimes I’d hear a pitter-patter of their fingers on the arm.

Only then, my father would say, “All right then, but it doesn’t come free.”

Always the same: “How much?”

“Twenty thousand. No quibbling.”

“But for that… the whole deal…”

“What you need it to be.”

“Discretion, though.”

“Discretion is a given.”

There was a noise my father’s phone made when he flipped it open, when he invited the men – always men, never women – to press their thumb-print against a little white box.

“Are we done then?” Never comfortable. They never seemed to know what to say.

“We’re done.”

“How will I know…?”

“Oh, you’ll know.”

And there was a soft click each time as the man left the house, as the door closed behind him, and the walls remembered to breath.

I would only come down to him later to throw myself into his arms and enjoy his laughter. He would sometimes bring me treats– chocolate or jellybeans – or he’d let me have a taste of some strong liquor he was drinking – pretending not to notice my mother’s frown.

“What do you do, Dad?” I used to ask him.

“I’m a dream merchant, boy. I make men’s dreams come true.”

“What about me?”

“Do you have a dream, boy?”

“I don’t know.”

“One day. When it really matters to you. When you want me to make something happen for you, I’ll do it. I won’t even charge you twenty grand.”

“Okay, Dad.”

“One day you might learn to fulfil dreams too.”

“Okay, Dad.”

And my mother sat in a chair on the far side of the room, frowning. She never said a word, but I’ll always remember that frown.

Picture credit/discredit: author's own work