It was shortly after midnight when I got back in, my drenched clothes dripping water drops onto the laminate wood flooring in the hallway. My mind was still racing, thoughts of the night's happenings running amok my head so much I hadn't realised he was still up in the living room next to the window with the view of the garden. It was the same place he sat ten years ago when he told me my mother wasn't coming back home for dinner that night. It was the same place he spent his evenings either staring outside the window or reading one of his many books while his beady eyes busied itself behind his spectacles.
My father, Professor Edward Brinkbley retained his focus on the book which he held firmly between his laps even when I walked into the room. He was a difficult man to talk to, he wasn't given to many words but a man of great rhetoric, perhaps due to his lecturing years at one of London's prestigious universities before taking an early retirement two years ago. I wouldn't be exaggerating to say he spent most of the last two years next to the window sill sitting on the same wooden chair. It was as though he spent the last few years waiting for my mother to walk through the doors into his arms again. His hair had greyed gradually over the last few years and a black strand would have been the proverbial needle in the haystack.
'Young man, did I ever mention to you that at thirty I was married with a kid and I was living in my own house.' he said, his eyes still affixed to his reading. It was comments like this that reminded me of how miserable my life was; it wasn't like I needed reminding. I just had my first girlfriend since I left university shut me out of her life. A relationship that lasted for a pathetic month. Amongst other things that weren't going well for me was that I was jobless; I refuse to believe looking after a catalogue of books at the local library was a job. I knew he wasn't expecting an answer so I proceeded in taking off my wet jacket before dumping it on one of the four dinning chairs that sat around the dinning table, which had a number of books scattered over it. He proceeded with what I could only term as an assault.
'Now, not unless you've got a pregnant fiancé lurking around somewhere in a house you've purchased, I'm afraid you are not living up to the family name. Your mo...' he stopped himself mid-speech as he often did when the word mother was about to be spoken in a conversation.
He quieted himself, continuing in the same pose as he'd been since I entered the house.
According to him, I had precisely six months to live up to his standard and I was heading full steam towards missing the mark in a manner that could only be described as heading to hell in a hand-basket. I wouldn't have felt so self-conscious about the current state of affairs if it wasn't for the constant foray of sentences such as this which he would utter every evening without fail. I couldn't say he did not have a point because he was right, I was a bum who still lived with his father, had no job, no girlfriend and no ambition. I would despise myself if I was my father. It hurt that he was right. Inasmuch as I hated the way I was regarded by my own father, I loved him and assumed his denigrating comments were attempts at rousing a fiery passion within me. The Brinkbley family has always pride itself in producing great men he often said, telling unfounded tales about his ancestors including his own father who had inherited the family fortune and lost it all due to a cankerous gambling habit. Nevertheless, he managed to amass himself of some riches shortly after the loss of his family wealth; a fraction of what had been handed down to him. My father also put himself amongst one of the Brinkbley greats, the walls of the living room displaying his many awards, honours and recognition. Over the years, the house had managed to turn into a mirror that only showed me how much of a failure I was, a constant reminder I wasn't living up to something. It tore my heart to pieces, robbed of my ego and left me a broken man. I wanted to escape from the confines of the walls of this house but I lacked the means.
'Wake up.' he said quietly. I pretended, I didn't hear him the first time.
'Sorry?'
'Wake up, sleeping giant.'
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