28. "Dad, Why Did You Do It?"

Emma's mum will never know how her husband died, because Emma can't bear to tell her mother the awful truth about her father. How did this situation arise?

Every time the phone rings in my flat I jump, especially if it's near midnight. Deep down I know it's only Mum, ringing for a chat because, yet again, she can't sleep. But for a fraction of a second I freeze.

It was midnight when the call came that changed the way I felt about the person I loved most—my dad.

I'd watch his friends playing around with young girls and then look at Dad. "Ridiculous," he'd say, and I'd smile, knowing he could never behave that way.

Last October, as if to prove the point, he whisked Mum away for a romantic weekend in Rome to celebrate their silver wedding anniversary. She was so happy.

I didn't think any couple could be closer and I always dreamed that when I got married it would be the same for me—secure and caring.

Dad always wanted the best for me and he made sure I got it. Thanks to his Army career and pension we were financially better off than most. But he always pushed me to achieve things for myself and not be too dependent on him and Mum.

I loved him for that, but when he packed me off to America for a year to 'find myself' I didn't want to go.

Hugging me at the airport, Dad wiped away my tears. "It'll be character building, Emma," he said, adding: "Anyway, if you don't like it after a few months you can come back. But trust me Princess, you'll love it."

He was right. I loved the States, and living there built up my confidence.

Still, I missed Dad like mad. I remember sitting in a coffee bar in Chicago and hiding behind the menu as tears poured down my face.

I was frightened, alone and I knew Dad wasn't there to put his arms around me and reassure me. I rushed out to a phone booth to call him. As soon as I heard his sleepy voice I felt okay.

Then, when I got home 12 months later, nothing much had changed ... I thought.

Mum was as madly in love with Dad as she'd been since the day he'd first kissed her in the school playground; and Dad seemed to feel the same—on the outside.

Except he'd finally left the Army and was now an area manager for a car manufacturer. Mum was over the moon—it meant he no longer had to travel all over the country and spend months away from home.

Dad was excited about his new job, and when he started working late neither Mum nor I thought anything of it. He told us it was a new project, and so confidential he wasn't allowed to tell us much about it. I believed he was at work, tucked away in his office—until I got that unforgettable midnight call.

The woman's voice was hesitant but panicky. She asked if I was George's daughter. I didn't realize who she was until she told me Dad was with her—at midnight.

She said she hadn't wanted to ring, that she'd never wanted me to find out about her, but she had no choice. Someone had to know that Dad was on his way to hospital. "He's had a heart attack," she said, her voice trembling.

As I paced up and down the hospital corridor, this strange woman explained that she'd been with my father when he'd collapsed. The thought of them together made me feel ill. While I rushed to the toilet to splash water on my face, I heard a cry. It was her.

As soon as I saw the doctor taking off his mask and laying a hand on her shoulder, I knew Dad had gone.

I couldn't make myself go and look at him. I would've seen a stranger lying there.

The man who for 24 years had told me never to lie, to be true to myself and always to treasure family values above all else, had slipped away from my life for ever.

Only then did I discover this woman worked for the company. She was Dad's so-called 'confidential project'.

An hour or so later I broke the news to Mum. I said Dad had suffered a heart attack while he was at his friend Roy's house; that has made me feel even more guilty, because I've had to draw Roy into it all.

I told Mum that Dad had been going over the new project with Roy and had collapsed. Nothing could be done. I even remember saying he'd been working much too hard lately.

The last image I have of my Dad was as he'd waved good-bye that night. He'd ruffled my hair and told me he loved me. Then he went to see her.

If Mum ever found out that he'd been deceiving her and had died in someone else's arms, it would kill her.

So I've tried to make sure that never happens. Sometimes I wonder how I'm strong enough to keep this secret Dad has burdened me with. But I must—for Mum's sake.

In the last six months I seem to have lost all sense of what is right and wrong. Worst of all, I've lost the person who meant so much to me. In my eyes, my Dad died once when I heard her voice on the phone. And he died again when his heart stopped beating.

The pain of knowing I lost him twice makes it doubly hard to bear.

From Bella 19, May 1993.