Paul Robert Mullen - BREAD-LINE
Paul Robert Mullen is a writer, musician,
lecturer, radio presenter, traveller and sociable loner from Liverpool, U.K. He
has four published poetry collections: curse this blue raincoat (2017), testimony (2018), 35 (2018)
and disintegration (2020). He has had poetry and fiction
published in reputable magazines worldwide, including The Interpreter's
House, Barren, The Fiction Pool and Ghost City Press. Paul is the co-founder
and editor of The Broken Spine Artist Collective.
BREAD-LINE
Dad was a glove maker in a factory on
west-bank industrial estate. He had been all his life. He worked long hours to
support the family, and saved all the money he could to make sure we never went
without. He was a hero to me; never squandered a penny on himself, or drank his
wage away down at the pub like other fathers I knew. A quiet man, who
appreciated the simple things in life. He was also fiercely proud. The
neighbours respected him, and he always did what he could do help everyone in
our quarter. Hey George, everyone
would holler as we went by. The postman, the lollipop lady, the butcher, the
local builders, the lanky girl at the newsagent.
He was a deft hand with a paintbrush,
and he used to get ‘foreigners’ as he would call them – jobs for cash from
people he could trust. The extra money helped us out, but it left him tired. He
never complained though, and he always spent time with me growing up, whenever
and wherever he could.
Everybody spoke highly of my Dad.
Losing his job in the factory was more
than just a blow. It happened all of a sudden, without warning. He gave himself
to that job for over forty years, and then it was gone.
Dad’s face looked grey after that. He
shrunk overnight. The lines around his eyes stretched so that the veins in his
temples pulsed through. His shoulders folded like the corners of a battered old
book. All motivation and self-respect drained from him, as though blood from
body on a mortuary slab. Unemployment was failure to him. It meant he couldn’t
support his family.
We all felt sick at the news.
‘What can I do, Mum?’ I pleaded.
‘Can I get a job? Maybe I don’t need to go to college after all. Maybe I can just
get a job and help Dad out?”
She smiled through damp eyes and hugged
me like only a mother could.
‘God knows you’re a good boy,’ she
whispered, ‘but you are going to
college.’
Mum walked out of the room to make the
dinner looking suddenly older. The smoky scent of fresh braising steak, new potatoes
and sweet carrots in a thick, peppery stock seasoning infused the kitchen and living
room. It smelt like family. Our house had always smelt that way. If it wasn’t
home cooked food, the air was ripe with lemon bleach, or the airy smell of
clean linen, or that wonderful hum of pressed ironing.
‘We can barely afford to survive. We
might lose this house,’ I overheard Mum saying later that night to Dad, slumped
at the kitchen table.
‘I won’t let that happen, Marie. I swear I won’t.’
The vulnerability in his voice took my
breath away. He’d always been a strong man in my eyes, but I heard nothing
strong in his tone that night.
I heard fear, disillusion, frailty.
The next morning as I came down for
breakfast I heard them going at it again. I sat on the stairs, head resting
against tired wooden spindles. There was an urgency in Mum’s voice that
frightened me.
‘You’re fifty-eight, George. Who’s going
to employ a fifty-eight year old with no skills? What’re we going to do?’
‘Calm down, Marie. Something will come
up.’
‘Oh for God’s sake, things don’t just
come up when you’re our age.’
I
felt angry at Mum. She didn’t need to drum this shit off the walls. We were all
thinking it, and that was stressful enough.
‘I’m thinking hard every waking minute,
love. Really, I am. I’ll come up with something.’
‘There’s the mortgage, and the bills,
and Bray’s college fees. I’m a nervous wreck with worry, George.’
The more I thought about my college fees
the more terrible I felt.
‘I told
you,’ Dad said, suddenly firm. ‘I’ll think of something.’
I felt a rush of blood and pride and
other things I can barely explain.
He no longer sounded hopeless like he
had the night before. Granted, he’d barely slept, but there was a resilience in
his words and in his manner. He’d had his night to ponder. Now he was up,
striding around, thinking on his feet.
And I believed him.
I had to believe him. He was my father.
I felt guilty about the nice clothes, and
the computer, and the games console they’d bought me for my birthday. All the
other kids had them, but I didn’t need them. Gaming is stupid anyway.
I thought about selling my road-bike and
some of my records. School held a car-boot sale on the last Sunday of every
month. It wouldn’t be much, but it would be something. I had a mint condition
copy of The Beatles’ blue album on gatefold vinyl, which was probably worth
£30. I started to raid my wardrobes for all sorts of stuff I really didn’t
need, and decided that if I had a good day with the sale I could probably make
£100.
‘Dad,’ I asked later as he nursed a
rare brandy in front of the TV. ‘Is there anything I can do?’
He seemed wounded by my asking. I could
see it in his eyes that he’d have preferred I didn’t know. No father wants a
son’s help. Not until they’re too old to care.
‘Yes, Bray, there is,’ he said after
a period of thought. ‘Go and get yourself a bloody good education and don’t end
up in a job like mine, son.’
He got up to pour himself another
Brandy, and I noticed the dole forms on the table. He’d filled them in but
hadn’t signed them. He turned round from the drinks cabinet quicker than I
expected and our eyes met.
He knew what I’d seen and lowered his
head.
Outside a car engine roared into life,
and intense, tawny headlights cast silhouettes on the blinds. The TV played
reruns of classic sixties gold performances; The Searchers singing ‘Don’t throw
Your Love Away.’ The flicker of the TV lit Dad’s face up in fractals of
disjointed colour, and it seemed odd at a time like this that the singer’s face
should be so full of joy.
I walked to the stairs but something in
my gut made me stop.
‘I’m proud of you, Dad. Never forget
that.’