Just Once, When I was little

I sat there for a long time then I realised that father would be returning from the pub so reluctantly stood up and headed back to the tent. I wanted to be asleep, or at least pretending to be, before father returned. I didn’t want to annoy him in any way so I hurried my step and, in my haste, almost fell into the tent nearly squashing my younger brother as I stumbled through the tent flap. It was then I realised that, because I had been to the shower block and sat by the river, I was the last kid into the tent and I would have to sleep next to my father. The thought terrified me for some reason. There would be no way any of my brothers or sisters would trade places, no amount of persuasion or pleading would change their minds not even when I threatened to piss on them. I couldn’t sleep and the noises from the hillsides that only a few hours ago I had found so wonderful, now seemed nightmarish. With every sound I expected my father to burst in to the tent and fill the place with the stench of beer. By the time he did arrive I was petrified when I realised that I would be sleeping next to my father and I knew that the slightest noise or disturbance would make him angry and trigger a beating. He hadn’t fooled me with his pretend good mood; I had seen him leave the tent after he had beaten my sister for no apparent reason, so I knew it would be no different for me. My father didn’t so much enter the tent as fall in through the flaps almost bringing the tent down as he drunkenly tried to stop himself falling. Even though father had crash landed on to my siblings they, like me, did not utter a sound in either pain or protest; they, like me, dare not make a sound, preferring to cling to the childish belief that our father thought we were asleep . He was a heavy man my father; packed with muscle and an ever expanding beer gut. Father must have caused more pain as he wriggled trying to regain his feet, not caring where or on whom he stood on or dug his knees into. As he was struggling to stand father kept muttering something as he did so, something that I couldn’t make out, it was as if he didn’t even realise where he was, I could only make out the odd swearword as he continued his drunken struggle in the confines of the tent. Struggling and swearing he took off his clothes, threw them around the tent and then fell down at my side. Struggling to get him self comfortable, father didn’t care who or what he shoved out of the way, he finally settled of sorts and I cringed when he put his arm over me feeling his weight against my back.