Secret Lemonade Drinker

Every night I used to hear Dad going down the stairs, when he thought Mom and I were asleep.  He didn’t think anyone could hear him, but I am what Mom calls ‘a light sleeper’ - I wake at almost every noise and squeaky floorboard,  even when Mom and Dad come to check that I am asleep, but I have got used to pretending.  Even though I am only ten my Dad calls me a ‘devious sod’, though he usually says it with a smile on my face.

I used to worry a lot about what Dad was doing when he was downstairs.  I used to hear the kitchen cupboard we keep the glasses in opening, and him shuffling around.  He never put any light on, I know that clicking sound very well, but as the hall light was never turned off (in case I needed the loo during the night), Dad wouldn’t be in total darkness.  It costs Mom and Dad a fortune in lightbulbs, “Are you going to sleep with the light on when you have a girlfriend” Dad grumbles each time he got out the wooden stepladders out to replace the bulb, but he knows I get all red in the face and embarrassed when he talks like this, and I think he does it deliberately.  Mom and Dad don’t yet know that I don’t like girls at all, or ever will for that matter.  

Dad used to go down for maybe half an hour.  I had a Westclox Big Ben alarm clock with luminous hands and numbers by my bedside, but I had to remember to wind it up each night and I usually forgot.  Mom and Dad had a posh Binatone electric alarm clock with numbers that flipped over every minute, a radio and a buzzer, but it was never all that reliable.  Mom woke me up every morning anyhow, and then Dad, because he was ‘not a morning person’, especially as he had been awake in the night.

As I said I used to worry a lot about what he did during these little trips downstairs.  Sometimes I would hear Mom go down too, if she woke up and realised that Dad was not there.  She would always put on her long, pink housecoat before going  to talk to Dad.  Sometimes I would hear whispers, sometimes Mom or Dad would forget that I was supposed to be asleep upstairs and would start shouting.  Mom would always come back upstairs first, and then Dad would stay down longer than usual.

But one day, I solved the problem.  I was watching the first episode of a new TV series called Space:1999.  It was set in the far future, but it wasn’t this that solved the problem.

It was the first advert.

A man dressed in his pyjamas, sneaked downstairs quietly.  But not really quietly because he was singing a little like Elvis Presley - 

“I’m an R Whites secret lemonade drinker.”

“R Whites, R Whites,” chimed an invisible chorus in the background.

“And I’m trying to give it up, but it’s one of those nights.”

“R Whites, R Whites…”

This must be what my Dad was doing each night.  I knew he wasn’t the same man as in the advert, the man in the advert was thinner, and a little bit older than my Dad looked, but it all made sense then.  I know we didn’t drink R Whites lemonade, we had Purity Pop delivered every Thursday.  But surely this is what was happening.

And sure enough at the end of the advert the wife of the secret lemonade drinker came down gave him a funny look, and the man poured her a glass too.  Just like what probably happened when Mom went downstairs.

I didn’t tell anyone at first that I knew what my Dad was doing, but unlike my Dad I’m not very good at keeping those sort of secrets, even if it was only about drinking lemonade at night.  It was teatime a few days later, we had a Fray Bentos Steak and Kidney pie, but I wouldn’t eat the kidney so kept them in a tidy pile on the side of my plate.  I was still happy all through tea because I had sorted the mystery, and was quietly humming to myself the song from the advert.

“What’s up with you smiler?” Mom asked.  I couldn’t keep it in any more.

“I know Dad’s secret!” I exclaimed.

As soon as I said it I knew it was a bad thing I had done.  Dad put his knife and fork down very slowly.  Mom kept trying to look at both Dad and me at the same time.

“What do you know Joey?” Dad asked.  I was really scared now, I’d not seen dad look like this before.  I stumbled over my words, but said them too quickly.

“That you’re a secret lemonade drinker!” was what I wanted to say, but in my confusion I missed out just one word.  Lemonade.

“Go to your room now Joey, and don’t come down again tonight.”  Dad was still talking in a very slow, strange voice, as if he was being very careful about every word he said.  I was going to try and say more, but the way that Mom and Dad was looking at me, I decided not to.  I slid off my chair, and went to my room, shutting the door behind me.  No one came up to say goodnight to me, which was the first time ever that had happened.  In the end I cried myself to sleep, I still didn’t know what I had done wrong but it was clearly a very bad thing that I had done.  I would apologise to Dad and Mom the next morning for whatever I had done, and all would be okay I’m sure.

It was later than usual that night that I woke hearing a noise, and I knew it wasn’t one of the usual sounds that woke me up.  This was the front door being slammed shut.  My bed was directly under the window, so I could peer out without getting out.  At first I thought Dad was carrying a black dog which made no sense, we didn’t have a dog. As he walked down the street and passed under a street lamp I could see that it was a tartan duffel bag stuffed full and with the occasional clink of glass, like there were lemonade bottles stuffed in it.

At first Mom said that he had to go away for work, and for days I believed her, but as days turned into weeks and then months, and then Uncle Dave started stopping over, bringing me a different Matchbox toy car every time he did, I sort of worked out that I wouldn’t be seeing my Dad again.