A FAMILY FAIRY STORY

Once upon a time there were three children, two boys and a girl, all snuggled up together with their Dad, ready for story time.

Out comes the book, a square hardback with a beautiful coloured dust jacket this time, full of pictures and potential, new and unknown.

Not everyone is excited by newness. The smallest child begins to howl “I want Horton the Elephant! I want Horton!”

Tired-faced Mum comes in from the sneaky cigarette on the back porch. “I’ll take him.”

Dad hands him up and the toddler is carried away squalling, to his own bed and the nightly rendition of “Maizy the Lazy Bird sat on her nest. She was tired. She was bored. She had kinks in her legs.” Mum and Dr Seuss were back, their brief rest over. Everyone in the house knew "Horton the Elephant Hatches an Egg" by heart, but the pages were dutifully turned over and the pictures examined.

The other two children wriggled in to see the front page of “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” by CS Lewis. Into the forest they go, with four completely unsupervised children who have extraordinary adventures with fauns, lions and wicked witches.

“Did you read this book when you were little, Dad?” It seems set in olden days. He shakes his head and smiles a “No.”

Dad’s voice is deep and resonant, totally unlike Mum’s. A precious commodity, that voice. Never says “Can’t you see I don’t have three hands?” or “Can’t you kids be quiet for one minute?” or “Stop that biting! That means kicking as well. And spitting.”

That deep voice is home for once. Not at work, heading out each morning in a taxi for the giant office building across the bridge. Not out at sea on a ship for months at a time, with a family of sailors and officers who obey everything he says instantly. Not the distant threat of the jam spoon “When Daddy gets home”.

Here, and reading adventures. Here, with his scratchy beard and smiling face. Dad, whose arrival home from sea means three children lining up in the hall, saluting, just like in The Sound of Music. Dad, the fun one, the cavalry stopping in after the children’s dinner for a brief “Goodnight.”

This night he’s here and reading. Totally forgotten are all the many evenings of stories from Mum, where she patiently reads and re-reads the same stories to each child, getting them tucked in, finding the stuffed Lambie, removing the dog pretending to be a hot water bottle between the sheets, returning with glasses of water for the endlessly thirsty.

This is Dad, reading a story. The best prize ever. The once and only, and therefore most precious and highly regarded.

But all too soon it’s over. The book is slammed shut and taken away so that no child can read more under the covers with the flashlight, eyes staring red, grumpy tomorrow, for Mum to deal with.

The middle child creeps out and checks her closet, just in case there’s something there, perhaps a forest, behind the neatly hanging dresses and jackets, the costume box with Dad’s hilariously huge white tennis shorts and Mum’s torn silk dress from her first dance. A dress from the days when dancing was her thing, not wiping running noses.

Lights are off, except in the family room, where Mum and Dad share a glass of wine and the smile that says another day is over without total insanity or a breakdown.

Goodnight, Dad.

Goodnight, Mum.

Goodnight children sleeping in their beds, dreaming of elephants, fauns and wardrobes where a new world waits beyond the spare winter coats.

Goodnight.