'No, Daddy.'

Finally, I could see her.
It had been nearly two months since the last time, when she’d refused to say goodbye, convinced that I was a bad man and a liar. She locked herself and my younger daughter in the bathroom and wouldn’t come out till I’d gone.
‘Go away, Daddy!’ Those words had all but ripped my heart out, but I didn’t blame her. She wasn’t to blame, and nor was her little sister.
Since being homeless and without work, I’d begged, borrowed and pawned to pay maintenance to her mother, but last month my greatest fear became reality. I’d used up all my lifelines for cash and couldn’t make the payment. I thought of robbery and I thought of hanging around The City, telling bankers of my situation, for what it was worth, but I’d done neither, so I’ve had to pay in blood. No contact.
All I could do was look at my daughters’ beautiful smiling faces on the wallpaper of my phone every morning. I’d kiss the screen, praying at night that they still loved me. How could they fail to love me? I was their father and, up until that last visit, nothing came between us. Apart from their mother, of course, but that hadn’t stopped us till then.
It was different now.
I feared that my eldest girl had been successfully brainwashed, aged seven, by my ex-partner.
My two step-children were long gone. They’d given up on me years ago, although Daniel and I would try and talk about things when we were alone, when she was out of earshot, which was hardly ever.

‘No, Daddy,’ she said, standing in the queue of the school canteen as I leapt up to greet her.
‘Darling, it’s Daddy,’ I insisted.
She didn’t seem to want to register and gave me a shrug of her shoulders.
Her friends, most of whom I recognised from telling my own children’s stories in her class, pointed at me and then hid words behind a hand.
More as a means to gain contact with my two daughters than anything else, I had asked to be sent parental emails by the school, and found that there was a special Indian-themed lunch that parents could attend.
I didn’t realise that I had to sit with the other parents. I’d thought that I’d be able to sit next to my daughter, eating tikka masala and telling her of my travels to India in my hippy days, but no. I had to sit with the grown-ups.
As she waddled along in the queue with a friend, she turned and shot a glance at me. By the time I had the chance to beam a smile back, she’d turned around again, as if to dismiss me.
I didn’t blame her. How could I? She was seven and her mother was all but mad now. A scorned woman. This was plain insanity; a hideous divisive sin that she saw as her inalienable right.
She’d never shared the love of her children. I’d seen that by the way she symptomatically brainwashed my step-children against their father ten years ago. They hated him now, laughing every Sunday when he called. They hadn’t answered for three years, unless she thought they could squeeze some money from him.
Poor sod. Even if he’d left her and remarried, no one deserved this.
My own ‘betrayal’ meant that I’d get the same treatment. To her, it was payment. Nothing and no one could stop her. She was the mother, after all.
My beautiful daughter sat across the dining-room with her back to me. It was booming loud and I could no more concentrate on what the other mothers were saying to me than I could steal a smile from my girl.
Every so often, she’d turn and steal a glance before I could smile back.
I didn’t want to leave but I was aware that I’d made her uncomfortable. It had been a bad idea.
I watched as she cleared up her tray and walked over towards me to pass to the playground.
If I hadn’t held out the book to her, she’d have waltzed straight by.
‘Darling,’ I called out.
She stopped, far enough away that I couldn’t touch her without getting up, and held the book out for her to take; ‘Things To Do With Mum’. It was almost Mothering Day. She took it.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked without feeling. I could hear the tone of her mother entwined in her voice.
‘I’m here because I wanted to have lunch with you. I just wanted to see you, because Daddy loves you so much. You know that, don’t you, darling?’
She nodded and then turned on her heel.
I was stunned. My own daughter was now a stranger, some sort of pre-programmed alien.
Up until our last meeting, you couldn’t get her off me. We were like that; two peas in a pod.
I got up to leave, saying goodbye to the parents.
When I got outside, I wanted a roll-up. I felt drained. My vision was cloudy, like I’d die any minute.
Then, I saw Daniel. His sister and mother were at the door of the nursery, where my younger daughter attended afternoons.
He tried to hide but I was in no mood for games.
I stood at a distance of about ten yards from them.
My ex turned to face me.
‘What are you doing here?’ she scowled, as if I had no right to be at my children’s school. From her bloodshot eyes, I could tell that she was on a path to destroy me, to dissolve my life so that she could remind my daughters that they were missing nothing. I was, after all, just a worthless, drunken layabout.
‘I went to the Indian lunch.’
Before she could offer a rebuttal, I staked my claim. ‘I know you’ve been putting her against me. I know you’ve been saying bad things about me to the girls.’
Daniel looked guilty, walking away from the pack with his head down, trying to catch my eye. When he did, though, he looked away quickly. His sister turned to face a wall while their mother’s eyes took aim at me.
‘We aren’t saying anything about you. Now stop shouting,’ she replied, flapping her hands in a downward movement.
‘Why are you whispering?’
She was whispering. I could only just hear what she was saying. There was no one else around. No one. She was probably late bringing my youngest in. Daniel and Daisy are home-schooled.
‘Be good,’ I said to Daniel, and left.
I felt lightheaded. From where I stood, I imagined that I was the father in an early scene from ‘A Child Called It’.
I had to have a drink.
When I told my Scottish buddy what had happened, he stood there, frozen. He’d been through the mill. Even if he was a bit of a rapscallion like me, he’d come out the other side.
His ex-wife was a good woman. He’d chosen wisely. She had decency in her heart.
Early on in their separation, they agreed to stop fighting. It had taken its toll on the kids and neither could afford to live with the guilt.
There was no court case, not even a divorce, and the children are well on their way now. He’d done his bit.
‘You’ve got to do something!’ he baulked at me, shaking with anger.
I told him that she’d only speak kindly of me when I was dead, but I was only kidding myself.
He hugged me, but I was limp and lifeless.