The Sheer Strangeness of Human Behaviour
Ray French talks about overcoming the contrasting difficulties in writing about his father and his daughter for Four Fathers
When Tom asked me if I'd be interested in writing something about my relationship with my father I jumped at the chance. I had written about father/son relationships in several of my short stories and, again, that relationship was at the heart of my first novel. At times I was trying to explore and identify exactly what had gone on between my father and me, at other times I was using fiction to imagine how things might have been if circumstances had been a little different.
He was a very colourful figure, straight out of Craggy Island. My friends at school would not believe the stories I told about him, and would always want to come to the house and check out the evidence for themselves. I, on the other hand, was reluctant to invite them, as every time I did I would be painfully aware of the astonished expressions on their faces, which was usually followed by failed attempts to stifle helpless laughter. There's something acutely painful about people pissing themselves at your dad's antics. When they laughed, my dad would simply laugh along with them, thinking it was all great craic, never suspecting for a minute that it was his behaviour that was provoking the hysteria. Jayzus, he was happy fella he'd say after they'd gone, You must invite him again.
That we were different was never in doubt. Most English people think that Father Ted is a wacky, delightfully surreal comedy, while most Irish people, or people of Irish descent, regard it as an interesting fly on the wall documentary. My father would think nothing of running through the house dressed only in a towel, singing Nickety Nackety Noo Noo Noo at the top of his voice – in fact this was a common ritual after his bath and he would see no reason not to do it even when we had visitors, which mortified my mother, who lived in a state of constant anxiety about being shown up by him. He behaved as if he'd never left the wilds of Ireland, and the ways of this country were a mystery to him. I love that comment by the Polish writer, Eva Hoffman, 'Every immigrant is an amateur anthropologist', I know exactly what she means. I longed for him to be more like other people's dads but, as I've grown older, I've come to realise that this feeling of being different to other people, of not fitting in, of being finely attuned to the sheer strangeness of human behaviour, has probably been an enormous influence on me becoming a writer. Although he could be frightening and unpredictable, he was also often (unintentionally) hilarious, and I'm sure it's no coincidence that now I just can't imagine writing anything that doesn't contain a lot of humour. I did find it difficult putting myself back in the position of being a child again when I wrote about him for Four Fathers though, to remember just what it was like to have an out of control father, a parent whom you could never trust or rely on, because he was so clearly off in his own world. It helped make me a very anxious person. Families are where we first experience the most powerful of human emotions – love, hate, jealousy, and intense loyalty, they're a kind of hot house for the emotions and writing 'On The Edge' brought it all back. I found it very upsetting to recall all this and, in turn, I felt very sorry for him – he was a wild man, totally unsuited to life in an industrial town, and must have been desperately unhappy a lot of the time. I so wish we could have had some 'quality time' together. It's too late now though, and I prefer to dwell on the laughter he brought into our lives.
I found writing about my relationship with my daughter even more difficult. While I feel that my relationship with my father – who's 86 – probably won't change much now and so is easier to capture, the one with my daughter is constantly evolving. I didn't want to write anything that attempted to be definitive and would later become a burden to her. After all, it's my interpretation of certain events that she can't even remember, which robs her of her right to reply. In fact, at the last minute I decided to replace my story about her with a short story about a father/son relationship, as I felt unhappy about writing about her. It was John and Tom who persuaded me that I should stick with the piece about my daughter, that it fitted better with the kind of thing we were trying to do with Four Fathers, i.e. to explore with as much honesty as we could muster the nature of our intimate relationships with our fathers and our children, and I am grateful to them for talking me around.
I did find it extremely hard to recall the incident in the playground when she turned around and panicked when she couldn't see me. In fact that hurt so much to write I knew it had to go in. For some reason that remains an extremely painful memory, and I'm convinced it will still have the same power twenty years from now, if I'm still around. I didn't want to pull any punches about just how awful it felt. I thought of her reading it when she's older, and wanted her to know how much I love her, and to understand just how complicated, emotionally draining and wonderfully fulfilling the relationship between a father and a daughter can be. I had read a number of accounts of fatherhood which went for laughs, dwelling on the unpleasant nature of nappy changing, having to clean up your child's wee or vomit while you were struggling with a hangover after a night out with the lads, etc etc. What I hadn't seen so much of were descriptions of how it actually made you feel. Of how it made you reflect again on your relationship with your own father. Perhaps there was a perception that that was women's territory, that men should steer clear of it. If so, that's a shame, because the more honest and open we're capable of being with our children, the more likelihood there'll be that they will go on to have good relationships when they grow up. And, of course, this brought me right back to my relationship with my father, and made me reflect on how it has contributed to who I am today, and help explain what a difficult so and so I can be sometimes.
Going Under, Ray French's second novel, has just been published. Click here for more details.