‘My dad walked out of my life when I was 10 – then I did the same to him four decades later'

Telegraph

16 hours ago

To date, I've enjoyed 19 Father's Days. So far so good, I hope. I get nice cards from my daughters and the hugs seem sincere. Now that both of them are on the brink of adulthood (my youngest is 17), I can increasingly allow myself the conviction that I did okay in the role. The relief is enormous.
I always feared I'd fail at fatherhood, largely because I thought my own father had. He was never much around, rarely home, and left for good by the time I was 10. In his stead came no strong male presence, my mother never remarrying, so how on earth would I make a good father myself without that formative role model?
Family strife
I didn't see my dad again until I turned 40, by which time I was a father myself. I'd previously been adamant that I'd never have children, convinced that, as in the films of Mike Leigh, families only led to strife. I didn't want any more strife. I'd remained very close to my mother until her death from cancer 25 years ago, at the age of 55, and she'd been a lovely, if complicated person: strong, independent, staunchly feminist, a vegetarian big into alternative health; also chronically depressed, with periods of bulimia and anorexia we were never allowed to discuss. In the absence of a husband, she promoted me to co-parent of my younger brother, and to suggest that my brother didn't much appreciate this is an understatement: it drove a wedge between us that exists to this day. To me, growing up felt like living in a perpetual minefield: at any time, one of them could blow, both, it seemed, reliant upon me to maintain an even-ish keel. Why me?
When I moved out at 19, the sense of escape was vertiginous. Free at last! When would I settle down? Hopefully never.
Fatherhood did eventually find me, as it does to so many of us. But because this was no longer the Seventies, I entered into it willingly and with self-awareness. Nevertheless, I still panicked throughout the pregnancy, then again during the first few months of parenthood (oh boy, did I), then, steered by my wife's surprising patience and wise counsel, I came to realise that history need not repeat itself.
So, yes: big relief.
Back in contact
I found myself contacting my father a few months before we had our second child. I'd barely thought of him in the previous 30 years, and the few remaining memories I held were not particularly encouraging ones: a pint perpetually on the go, brooding bad moods, a fondness for Dad's Army. But I was curious now. Who was he? Why did he leave? Were there regrets?
I found his address online. He lived just three miles from the family home he'd left all those years previously. He responded to my letter immediately, sounding happy, surprised, eager. 'Lunch? I'll pay, the least I can do.' We met at a train station, and I wouldn't have recognised him, this whiskery 65-year-old in an overcoat and flat cap. An hour later, I'd realised I was very much my mother's son. We had nothing in common, few shared interests, held differing world views. No missing piece of the jigsaw fell pleasingly into place.
That said, he was unfailingly polite, and, I sensed, afraid in any way to offend. There was diplomacy at work here. During the meal, I became increasingly aware that while he diligently answered all the questions I posed, he asked none of his own.
The second time we met, this time for coffee, we ran out of conversational steam alarmingly quickly – and I can talk to anyone. An absence of 30 years, and he'd nothing to say. While I was planning my exit, he suddenly suggested that our families meet, perhaps in pursuit of mitigating our mutual awkwardness with the presence of his wife who, he relayed fondly, 'can talk a lot'. I could meet his adult daughter, and he could meet my girls.
A tepid meeting
In truth, I wasn't keen. The dramatist in me thought that this might be an occasion for recrimination and revelation (Mike Leigh again), but I agreed largely because I didn't want to offend. Also, my wife, by now, was intrigued. She comes from a large, sprawling family, and could never understand my lack of interest in mine.
In the event, there was no drama at all, just a lamb roast, two veg and room-temperature wine at their small terraced house. His wife really was very chatty indeed, and perfectly pleasant. She made small talk last for an awfully long time, and gave us some leftover dessert in a Tupperware dish 'for the drive back'.
Early the next morning, he emailed to suggest another date 'soon', and so, over the next few years, we submitted to occasional Sunday lunches, just like normal people. At first, these occurred every few months, but then, at my delay, with much longer gaps in between. Consistently, I turned down their Christmas invitations until the hint was taken. It's not that I had any (or, perhaps more accurately, much) lingering anger towards him – I knew that their marriage had been a difficult one, and that both were responsible for the way it ended – but my mother had stayed, while he, irrespective of the reason, had fled. If I'd ever needed a father, it was back then. Now, I had no idea what to do with him.
Walking out of his life
My daughters were similarly mystified. Because I'd only ever called him by his name, and never 'Dad', they did likewise. Over the years, they wondered why these particular friends of ours were 'so old'. When I explained the bloodline, and its significance – something I had to do more than once in their young lives – their eyes widened.
'Does this mean we'll get presents?'
About a decade after that initial contact, I ended things. I was polite but firm. That early awkwardness between us had never eased; I still had no idea what to say to him whenever we met, and he never seemed to say very much to me, either. I couldn't quite work out where he fitted into my busy life, or, indeed, why he should.
His wife was furious, and wrote to tell me. No, she confirmed, she did not see things from my perspective. When he died last year, she emailed my wife, not me. There was no invite to the funeral. I was sorry, genuinely, for her loss, but I cannot say I regretted my decision. The deeper into fatherhood I got, the more I found it impossible to comprehend how someone might walk out on his children quite so emphatically. I couldn't imagine doing that myself, and found it increasingly discomfiting to be around someone who did.
But I'm glad I'd sought him out, and happy that he found familial happiness the second time around. His absence in my life has made me a much more conscientious father, and, for that, I'm grateful.