In the name of O Father! O Satan! O Sun!

A cough, just a little one, but one that makes me look at Kayleigh, and Kayleigh look at me. We have a four hour trip to Hertford, just north of London, and that impending cloud of doom is closing in on us from all around. Our 2 year old daughter, Aria, has been fighting off an illness on and off for a few weeks, but now it’s winning, and the worst is about to come.

The purpose of our trip is to see my brother Nick, and his family, but also to see the Polish black metal icons, Behemoth. I am a fairly recent convert to the world of black metal, but I am fully committed. No, I am not going to adorn myself in white makeup and pierce every part of my face, but lose myself in the music and sing from the top of my lungs I shall.

We arrive at my brother’s house. The niggling feeling that something isn’t quite right within my daughter’s body grows and grows. And as I see my much younger niece toddling around happily, my girl is pale, withdrawn, clingy and as every second goes on, the flow of snot gets heavier.

I am meeting Nick at the venue at the Kentish Town Forum, a mid sized arena that tonight will be host to several thousand black metal acolytes, having a good time to songs about satanism.

We meet in a bar and he asks me how I am. I reply that I am OK but a bit worried about Aria. She is ill, and I am struggling to let go of the fact that I should be with her. But I have to see Behemoth. I have to see them play O Father! O Satan! O Sun! I inherited a love of music from my father, his greatest gift to me. I will find joy in almost any music, and that is a song that gives me immense pleasure.

But that feeling of guilt is in my belly and I can’t let it go. So I have a drink. And another. And a couple more.

The feeling is still there, but I can deal with it. She is there, my wife is there, and she is a much better parent than me. I may be enjoying myself, but I am entitled to, and when I tell my daughter about this night in a few years, she will understand. I am sure she will.

So I try to enjoy myself and put my phone away.

We’re at the venue. Black everywhere. Piercings everywhere. Mad hair and scary looking people everywhere. This is their time to let go, just as it is mine, and I cannot wait to see the building energy unleashed.

Time for a tradition.

When Nick and I saw Mogwai at the Brixton Academy a year or two before, we drank red wine and stood at the back of the venue. He told me that he was to be a dad, clearly somewhat unsure of what was to come, but I hugged him anyway, and we bought more wine. That trepidation turned into joy and we toasted the incoming gift of life as Mogwai deafened us with Rano Pano and other post-rock hits.

Roll on six months and I am with my other brother, Chris, seeing The Chemical Brothers at Manchester Arena. Two bottles of wine, his bright red puke at a train station, and two very responsible fathers have had a good night.

But back to the Behemoth gig.

The bar doesn’t have big bottles. I must have my wine, that is what I do at gigs now. So I buy two mini bottles of white, which is all they have. And as the feeling of disappointment starts to spread over me, the gnawing in my belly gets stronger.

I am not going to look at my phone.

A support act comes and goes, Nick and I chat about the things that dads and brothers chat about. A lack of sleep, work goals, women, sport. Our children.

I sip my wine and feel my pocket shake. Then again. For a moment, my phone has found some signal, and the outside world can reach me again. The feeling in my belly grows. I feel guilty for enjoying myself while inside I know that something bad is happening not all that far away. I feel angry that I feel guilty and I feel sad that anger is one of my go to emotions.

But then they start and I forget my phone, I forget the terrible wine and focus on the chanting and big open chords of Solve. It moves seamlessly into Wolves of Siberia and all I can feel for a moment is blast beats, the singer Nergal’s growls and a mass of energy given over to the moment. I smile, my brother smiles and I am back to enjoying myself.

Next up is Daimonos, which features a nightmarish cinematic opening. And it is at this point that I absentmindedly look at my phone and see the messages.

[7:41 pm, 09/02/2019] Kayleigh: Can’t get her to sleep at all. Cough is really bad :(

[8:24 pm, 09/02/2019] Kayleigh: Think she’s asleep! Hope you’re enjoying the gig. 🤞

I was but now I’m not. My belly is twisted and the wine is making me feel sick. I don’t care that they’re playing Bartzabel. I don’t even notice when they play Ov Fire and the Void. All I want to do is get back to my daughter so I can be there. I won’t make things better, I never do, but I might have tried.

I pretend to headbang, to give myself over, but all I can think about is how long is left, how long it will take to get back, whether she is asleep or not. There are moments where the low tuned guitar and the endless rhythmic assault of the drums break through the fog, but all I want is to be with Aria.

They don’t play O Father! O Satan! O Sun! and Nick sees through my performance. The band leaves the stage and that part of the night is over.

We get to Hertford, and it’s not good. My wife is awake with my daughter, who cannot stop coughing. It’s getting worse and worse and she is climbing, clambering, clawing at the travel cot.

On the way here I looked at my phone.

[9:01 pm, 09/02/2019] Kayleigh: Ah fuck. Awake again!

[9:35 pm, 09/02/2019] Kayleigh: She’s really not well. Got a temp as well so given her Calpol. Try not to drink too much if you see this. Might be a long night xx

[10:16 pm, 09/02/2019] Kayleigh: Got her back to sleep. Just going to go to sleep myself. Night night love you xx

The last message was not a lie.

In her desperate attempt to escape her cot, she is sick all over it, and onto the rug next to it. So we take her out and she sleeps with her mum. I get the floor next to the bed. We have been here less than 12 hours and already we have soiled our hosts’ spare room.

As my daughter gets in bed with her mother, and I am left on the vomit soaked floor, the chance of any sleep escapes me.

What follows is me making sure my little girl doesn’t fall out of bed. There is no bed rail and several times I have to catch her. She coughs and I spring up from my bed of half masticated fish fingers to try and soothe her. Again and again and again. Four hours of slumber based purgatory but this is what I wanted, I wanted to be here for her, I wanted to help and protect her and if that means sacrificing the chance to sleep, then so be it.

It’s 4am and she wakes up again, and this time she isn’t going back to sleep. It’s not our house and I don’t want to wake anyone so I take her downstairs, and after some discussion with Kayleigh we are going to ring Accident and Emergency. She needs a doctor.

Peppa Pig and a bowl full of raisins; her Behemoth and red wine. That keeps her happy and I ring for an out of hours medical professional to fix the ailment that is eating away at my child.

A few hours later we're at Harlow A&E. They have a specialised children’s unit and much to my surprise it’s actually quite nice. Moana is on and as Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson gets through his big number, I can’t help but feel the emptiness of the gig I missed that I went to just a few hours before.

Then comes the long wait.

She is impatient, I am impatient, and we’re all tired beyond words. But I stay awake. My wife managed to go back to sleep in that Peppa Pig infested period where I took Aria downstairs, but the mist has overtaken us all. None of us can focus, and our eyes are like broken steel shutters, trying to come down but stuck in a weighty limbo.

After some time, we see doctor after doctor after nurse after radiologist and the final conclusion is that she has a very bad viral infection, but to be sure, they will give us some antibiotics.

I look at her, all small, weak and pathetic. She sits deadly still for her chest x-ray and holds her mother’s hand when the doctor wants to look in her mouth. Not my hand, never my hand.

A few hours later and we’re back on the long road home. But she won’t take her antibiotics. We stop at a service station and all she does is scream a tortured scream like I paid to see and hear the night before. So we get back on the road and decide to stop at A&E again on the way. We don’t know what to do.

Kayleigh drives as I haven’t slept at all and counting to ten is hard enough right now. Every time I drop off, the guttural machine gun cough that Aria has made her own wakes me up.

I grab my phone and call Kayleigh’s parents who live just round the corner from us. I ask them to meet us at the A&E, and they do. Committed parents who will do anything for their family, just like mine. But mine are far away, just like I was.

I wonder if they have ever felt that knot in their belly?

The A&E is packed and the wait time is at least five hours. So we leave it. We have antibiotics, and if we have to force her to have them then we have to force her to have them.

Father knows best.

But before we leave for the final leg, I break down. I can’t speak, I can’t form my thoughts, I just cannot be the parent I need to be. All I can do is cry.

So they take Aria in their car, and as we follow behind, I look out of the window and a fog descends upon me.

Could I have done more? Should I have gone? Why am I not with her now? Why am I not a better dad? Why am I not as good at this stuff as my dad is? Why didn’t they play O Father! O Satan! O Sun!?

We’re home and we try to get her to have her medicine once more. She declines. We try to give her sweets as a way to bribe her, but she shouts louder and louder that she doesn’t want it. We’re armed with an infant’s plastic syringe, but she has every type of armour up imaginable.

We’re a moment from pinning her down and forcing her like a deleted scene from A Clockwork Orange, when one of us suggests a spoon. She looks at it, looks at me, looks at her mother, looks at both her grandparents, then nods, smiles, puts out her mouth and takes it all. Anything to feel like a big girl.

Thirty minutes later and she looks better, sounds better, says she feels better and that knot in my belly is a little bit looser too. Antibiotics don’t work that fast do they? Is that all she needed all this time?

The next day her cough has almost vanished.

As she happily eats her breakfast while watching yet more Peppa Pig, I watch her and I unwind that knot some more, and ponder the events of the last 36 hours or so.

Yes I may not have been there at the start, but I deprived myself of sleep for her, I spent the night in sick for her, I have and will continue to do everything I can for her no matter what. Because I love her no matter what.

I am not the best dad there ever will be, but I am the best dad I can be.

Roll on three years and she is five. I have seen Behemoth once more since and it was fantastic. No illness, no desperate messages from my exhausted wife, and the only knot in sight was Slipknot, whom Behemoth were supporting. I was able to get a bottle of red wine, and I remember all aspects of both sets, including the fact that Behemoth opted not to play O Father! O Satan! O Sun!...again.