I Never Said I Loved You: by Rhik Samadder

Author:Rhik Samadder
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Headline
Published: 2019-08-05T23:00:00+00:00

Letter to Daddy

I think the boiler was a metaphor. Took me ten years to realise, to stop beating myself up for ruining our final hour. I was trying to speak your language. Not Bengali, I never learned that and didn’t know why it was so important to you, when all I wanted was to blend in here. To be invisible, I suppose. I know it was hard for us, not having the language to talk to each other in. Maybe you became a parent when that stuff wasn’t really done. More likely I shut down the possibility of anything smooth between us, because I needed things to be jagged.

I’m sad I never asked you about what it was like when the Beatles . . . well, when the Beatles. Or England winning the World Cup. And maybe you wouldn’t have had good answers, but it could have paved the way towards asking what it was like to be you. Because I think you’re an interesting person, and I should have been braver. Ma told me you moved here to escape Indian caste hierarchies. When she arrived, you told her to free herself of the old ways, to live free. I found the workers’ rights pamphlets of your youth in your study. In later days, you were working for an Aids awareness charity for black and minority ethnic sufferers, the people most left behind. You didn’t waste your days.

Now that you’re gone, I understand how much it takes to keep the wheels in motion. How did you do it? You kept us going, Ma and me, dug out a life big enough for us. It must have been bare hands in winter earth. Every brick of the house, every penny of education, every money worry and health difficulty I was shielded from was an act of protection that weighs far more than words.

But words are all I have, which Ma says I inherited from you. The further we get from each other in time, the more I see you. Anxiety, bunker mentality, I have those. The determination to make a place, too. I found it hard without you, and I know you wouldn’t have wanted to leave us alone, but it’s okay. If I was the last thing you saw, it’s as if you placed some part of yourself in me, a final gift. Like Columbo always says, One more thing.

Everything you did showed you wanted me to live free too and I never had time to say thank you, and I never said I loved you. What I talked about when I talked about the boiler, what I meant, was that we were going to be okay. We’re warm and watered and the winter can’t get in. We had a magnetic filter fitted, to keep the rads clear of sediment, and there’s a lifetime guarantee. Also we had to get a new freezer, but I guess you don’t know about that. Don’t worry about it.

It’s a really good boiler.

I love you.

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