Living With Evil by Cynthia Owen (ap literature book list txt) 📗

‘I can’t keep it for ever, you know. Tell your da he needs to pay for it real soon!’

On my way to the shop I had convinced myself that if Daddy really did buy it for me, it would mean he loved me and the bad things would end.

I couldn’t wait to get the money off him, to prove he loved me and that life was going to change. Daddies who bought their little girls beautiful Christmas presents had to love them and care for them, didn’t they? Wouldn’t I look just the one, playing the piano! Maybe Mammy would even sing along while I played it. I didn’t have a clue how to play, but it didn’t matter. I had to have it.

I ran straight out of the Golden Gift shop and went racing round the pubs looking for Daddy. I went in about three smoky lounges, my eyes stinging as they scanned the room looking for his Brylcreemed hair or his tweed jacket with the scuffed leather patches on the elbows.

I went in the Club, Hogans and the Queens. ‘Are you lookin’ for your da, Cynthia love? He hasn’t been in here tonight,’ a succession of men told me. I felt so out of place in those bars.

Every man in the room seemed to turn his gaze to me when I edged in the door. They frightened me, these smoke-breathing giants.

Where was my Daddy? I needed the money. I needed that piano, I really did.

When I finally found him, in McDonagh’s, I could have cried with relief. ‘Daddy, Daddy! I’ve found it! I’ve picked out my present. I need the money now to pay for it…’

He didn’t smile. In fact, I thought he looked as if he might try to hit me, and I held my arms in close to my side and took a step away from him, bracing myself to duck.

‘Not now, you’ll have to wait another week,’ he scowled. I cried all the way home, but I wasn’t giving up that easily.

The same ritual went on every week for three weeks. Those smoky giants in the pubs didn’t bother me in the end. I’d have fought through flame-breathing dragons to find my daddy and get him to give me the money for my piano.

On Christmas Eve, I finally found him in the Arches, at about quarter to five. When I told him how much money I needed he reacted as if it was the first time he had heard the news. He banged down his pint angrily and said, ‘No way - d’you think I’m made of money? It’s way too much. No chance! What are you thinking of?’

I felt like crying, but I bit my lip and looked at the floor, wondering what to do now. Maybe if I cried Daddy would give me the money to get rid of me! Now that was a great idea. I had to try it.

I started to snivel pathetically, looking at him with big, sad eyes, and letting the tears trickle dramatically down my cheeks.

‘Shut up, you’re shaming me,’ he snapped.

That was the idea, and my plan worked a treat. One of the men in the pub heard the commotion and said, ‘For God’s sake, Peter, it’s Christmas Eve, give the girl what she wants.’

Daddy grunted and scowled again, took a long slow slug of beer, put his hand in his pocket and gave me the money.

I raced to the shop like my life depended on it and bought my present. ‘Take that upstairs,’ Mammy tutted when I fell in the back door with it, panting with the effort of carrying the big box home as much as from the euphoria of winning my prize.

But what a prize it was. It told me Daddy loved me, and he wasn’t going to hurt me any more.

The piano was placed unwrapped at the end of my bed, which is what Mammy and Daddy told us to do with our gifts every year. I don’t remember getting a wrapped present, or a surprise present ever, apart from the little trike that time.

Daddy didn’t touch me in bed that night, and for once I fell asleep without trembling with fear. My plan had worked.

Christmas morning was magical. Mammy had prepared all the Christmas dinner the day before, so she could have a lie-in. The house was filled with the smell of turkey and stuffing and roast potatoes. The fire was roaring, and my brothers and sisters were happy and smiling.

I sat myself down at my piano feeling like the cat who’d got the cream. It made a great tinkling sound, and each note I bashed out made me happier and happier.

Yes! Daddy bought it for me! He won’t hurt me now, I told myself over and over again as I sang along, belting out one of Daddy’s favourite songs, ‘Scarlet Ribbons’. What I liked about that song was the idea that one day I might have scarlet ribbons for my own hair.

Daddy was still in bed when we had our dinner, and I offered to take his food upstairs.

‘Sit on the bed and wait till I’ve finished eating,’ he said quietly when I carried the plate to him.

I happily obeyed. The daddy who scared me had gone. He had disappeared in the night, and now I had a daddy who bought me a special present and wanted to spend time with me on Christmas Day.

I watched him start to eat his turkey and all the trimmings. ‘Did you like the dinner, Daddy? Did you hear me play my piano? Isn’t this the best day ever?’

Daddy was too busy eating to talk to me, but he looked quite calm and relaxed. When he finished eating he put his knife and fork down tidily on the plate and put it on the chest of drawers nearby.

‘Move closer to me,’ he ordered suddenly. ‘Come over to me.’

The way he said it made goosebumps bubble up all over my skin. He wasn’t smiling. It was