The Doll's House

It was dusk as I walked home. I noticed the glistening ice was already forming on the pavements showing it was to be a very cold night. I walked through the house. I noticed no fire was lit and the back door was wide open.  I looked out the door and saw Dad, and shouted, “Do you want a cup of tea Dad?”  I walked back into the kitchen to fill the kettle and I heard my brother shout, “There is no electricity you bloody fool.”  “Well isn’t there any gas either? I can put a saucepan on.” I received no answer so I went back to the door.  Dad was standing at the back step chopping wood for the fire.  Dad looked up at me in horror and dismay.  I could only just make out his features and that look of horror on his face in the dark.  He said “You’re too old for this now, and you do not play with it anymore.” 

I did a double take.  I did not recognise all the bits of wood lying in a pile on and around the step.  I said “What are you doing Dad?”  Dad just stared at me.  I could not identify or connect the wood on the ground as being my beautiful dolls house.  It was the look he gave me that made me realise what he had just said and he stared into my face without any expression.  I ran to my room to find an empty table beside my bed.  The anger was welling up inside, why, why?  I ran into Mam’s bedroom and screamed “Where is she, where is me Mam?” “Mam’s not in,” Robert shouted.  I do not think this would have happened if Mam were home.    I opened the landing window and shouted “Dad where’s Mam?”  Dad did not look up but he said, “She’s in hospital, she was taken in this morning, she is not well again and the coal has not come.  The house was too cold and we needed some firewood.”  He then carried on sweeping together my precious dolls house.  The bits had flown off in every direction, he had emptied the furniture on the bed but what use was that now?  I looked at it and threw it into a corner with a sweep of my arm, sending some of it on to the lino, like discarded junk, the furniture which I had put together with my own hands.  I had collected all the bits of wood and fabric, anything that could be transformed into furniture.

Suddenly the darkness became completely black with no streetlights it was darker than usual.  Later when the fire was lit with my dolls house it lit up the room, but the wood only burnt for a short while, I carried some of the furniture downstairs and threw it to the back of the fire grate.  I said “There, you might as well have the lot, are you nice and warm Dad, are you?”  The sparks flew around and up the chimney.  Dad said, “You didn’t have to do that, you could have used boxes for the house like before, you are clever and imaginative with that sort of thing, you made your cardboard house look really good; you could have made do again.  I have chopped up the piano up, as well it was not just the dolls house, no one ever played on that piano.  It just sat there with a vase of plastic flowers on it collecting dust.”  I could not argue with that I thought. “Marie I needed to do it, we have to keep warm, I made a pan of stew earlier we’ll have some soon.”  I could not believe he was carrying on as if nothing had happened and the thought of eating his stew made me want to vomit.  “I hate you,” I mumbled.  Dad stood up “What did you say?”  I ran to the door and shouted, “I hate you, I, really hate you.”  The tears flooded down my face as I ran to my room.

I wiped the tears from my eyes and threw myself on the bed still shouting with rage and hate.