I Wanna Be Loved
Thursday 22nd September 2005

Dennis Watts
11th July 1946 - 18th February 2005
Beloved husband & father

It's wrong to resent being made to stand here, I know. I'm alone after all. There's no Sharon, no Vicki. A bitter smile twists my lips as I think of my little sister. We've spoken a lot recently, but not really about Den. Cos unlike Sharon, Vicki knows not to push me. She understands that she could beg and plead, but there's nothing inside me worth releasing. They're all grieving and me? I'm numb. Because I know what my father was really like - and he was nothing like a father at all. So I'm here, mourning everything he might have been to me.

Cos when I was a kid, shunted from home to home, before I knew the truth, Den Watts was my hero. I feel pathetic for thinking it now, but I was just a kid, I didn't know any better. I just thought... there must have been some reason I was alive; and without my mum's affections, the only reason I ever came up with was Den. My dad. And if you weren't stuck in hell-holes like those, then you were a normal kid, with parents that loved you. Almost as soon as I was old enough to form my own thoughts, I knew my mum was lost to me, but Den? He might still have wanted to know, right?

I was his son after all. Lippy, yeah, always getting into fights but at least I always won. And afterwards, when my cuts and whatever else had been dabbed at and I was being reprimanded, I always had this thought that, if my dad could see me, he'd be proud of me. Cos I never let anyone get the better of me. That's how I lived through that life. Because there was nothing else to it. It was just an existence. 

I didn't really realise how naive I was as a kid until I met Den. Cos I thought I'd start living when my dad turned up one day, any day to find me. He'd stop at nothing to find me and he'd... take me wherever he lived and I'd start doing all the nice things the other kids did. The kids with their parents in the park... 

Yeah, I'd decided, pretty early on. He'd come get me and we'd go and play football in the park. Cos I was good at football, and dads like to have kickarounds with their sons on Sunday afternoons right? I'd always thought that he woulda been good at football too, like it must have been where I'd gotten it from. So stupidly lost in all these hopes and dreams, it took me ages to realise he never actually came. That he'd just left me there. I tried not to show it, damaged kids love to pick up on someone else's weakness and tear them apart and I knew that, but it still hit me hard. I was barely thirteen when I began to accept that maybe I just didn't matter to anyone.

I had a roof overhead, had shoes on my feet
Yeah, sure, I was fed
But no-one was there when I was in need
(Yeah)

And here I am, more than fifteen years later, stood over his grave. And despite how drastically my life has changed; I've been a married man for three weeks now, somehow I still feel exactly the same. Of course no-one knows that. Because the only person I'd tell would be Sharon. But how would I? Sharon; my wife... Den's daughter? 

She pleaded with me today to stop running from my grief, to admit that I felt something for Den, like if I did, we might be able to share our pain. Maybe she just doesn't understand me like I thought she did. Whatever I feel, how can it ever be compared with what she does? We're hardly going to sit round with photo albums, laughing and joking about the good times. Because I don't have any.

Den came into my life the night Sharon climbed shamefully from my bed. Well, hers, but whatever... it was too late for me by then. I was in love with her. It wasn't supposed to work like that. Ever. I never wanted to meet the old man and be jealous of the attention he was giving my sister. I could understand it with Vicki - she was just a toddler when he "died"; but when it came to Sharon, I was. I was jealous. Because she wasn't my sister. Yet she was using Den, "our" dad she said, to hide from me. From us.

I guess I've turned it the other way now haven't I? Using us, all the pain he threw into the mix of an already complicated relationship, to hide from him. Yeah, that's right. To hide from a dead man. God, how pathetic am I?

It's just, I'm looking at his gravestone, my burning eyes transfixed by the one word. Father. And I'm wondering, are these words recycled from the last time Sharon buried him, or is it meant to include me? It is after all his fault I've had to live this life. Never could resist a pretty young girl. Because of that, I am his son. Because of that I almost threw away the next thirty years of my life raising what might have been another of Den's sons. He'd have let me do it too, just to crucify me in keeping me away from Sharon. I never mattered to him in life. Why should it be any different in this, his true death?

So who am I now? Who do you want me to be?

But I suppose, that's it. He is dead. Sam Mitchell bashed his head in and buried him in cement. Even if he coulda have lived through the first again, the second woulda definitely finished him off. My father is dead. And it's probably the nicest thing he's ever done for me. Course, if he knew that, he'd be springing back out of this grave like a bloody Jack-in-the-Box. Nobody keeps Dennis Watts down after all, especially not his bastard son.

I can brave a smile as I consider there can be no more repercussions. Sharon's pain will heal. There's no other choice. And once it has, that leaves me and her... with no other threat to our marriage. No constant fight to remain in love. We can just... get on with our lives like every other married couple. Now, we're no different.

So the kid in me will always hate Den, for leaving me languishing somewhere, believing he might care, that we might one day head out to the park together for a kick-about. I'll hate that he never thought enough of me to do that. I've hated for enough years that he never gave me that one pathetic chance. But I got over that pretty quick once we met, cos me and Den, we had new battles to fight. But now they're gone, because he is. They're done and they can never be re-ignited. So for all those lost chances, that's some sort of comfort. The bastard's dead, what's the point of going on hating him when he ain't here to appreciate how damn strong it is? Just as long as he don't reappear in another fourteen years, I'll be as fine without him as I have been for all the other years of my life.

I can forgive you, but I won't re-live you
I ain't the same scared kid I used to be.
I'm gonna live, I'm gonna survive

My hands shaking as they hang idly at my sides, I glance down at my wedding ring, spluttering miserably. It's not fair. If I'd never lain my soul bare to Sharon like I did that night, if she could have told me she didn't feel anything for me like I did for her, then Den, I reckon he'd have given me a fair chance. Never woulda been impressed about the company I kept as I grew up, or that I'd been staying with Sharon and Vicki with those kinda contacts behind me, but he'd have gotten over it I reckon. Cos if he'd been there when I wanted him to be, I'd never have had to have gone that way would I?

But I couldn't pretend that being with Sharon didn't feel right. He made me try, "for the family" and whatever else, but it didn't work, did it? And I wonder if he knows that. That the night Sharon left him in The Vic, she came straight after me and we worked it all out; even came back to Walford ready to prove to him he'd never shatter us. And if he'd still been alive, would things have still worked out like they did? The engagement, the wedding?

When Sharon and me told Dot & Pauline we were engaged, Sharon was adamant it had nothing to do with Den, that it was our decision. And yet, I can't imagine that Den would have ever let us gather the Square together in his pub as they did, congratulating us, rather then shunning us. That woulda been more his style I reckon. And maybe Sharon wouldn't have held on then. After all, she wanted him at the wedding didn't she? Like he was really gonna stand round do the ecstatic father bit, chucking confetti over us.

So maybe I should be grateful to him for that an' all. Yeah, that's right - grateful. Because without him here, his sorry arse instead decomposing under the cellar floor at The Vic, I married his daughter. The rest of my life is hers and whatever happens, I at least now we'll be together. Perhaps not getting through it together, but still, together. I'm never letting her go. She's the one that proved to me there are other things in this world worth living for and I'm gonna know them all with her. I ain't afraid to dream the craziest dreams, I mean... we're married, aren't we? And that means something. Finally, I have a purpose. Living life, instead of just existing...

I don't want the world to pass me by
I wanna dream, I ain't gonna die
Thinking my life was just a lie.
I wanna be loved. I wanna be loved.

But the miserable thing is, Den was never anything I wished he might have been. I mean, I know I was pushing it when I got together with Sharon. I never really expected him to accept it, but I never quite expected him to hate me as much it was obvious he did. I wasn't trying to steal her away, I just needed her differently was all. So maybe when it says Father, no-one's really thinking of me as Den's son. Because I shirked the attachment, so sure I wanted nothing but Sharon. And that's still true. She's my world. It's just.... I still have to fit in here somewhere, don't I?

I'm looking at the wreaths and floral tributes covering the grave and I wanna know, what would I have done? Stooped to the earth and lain down a Dad tribute like a mournful son? Could I really have insulted him, insulted myself like that? He weren't really my dad, he weren't nothing close to what I wanted him to be. Like I say, I understand I ruined my chances as soon as I could bear to admit what I was feeling for Sharon. But... we make each other happy, and he coulda seen that for himself if he hadn't been trying so hard to tear us apart. Why couldn't he just be glad his Princess found someone to make her happy? Without her dad, she'd been so miserable for so long.

But maybe, family or not, there just wasn't enough room for the both of us. So I won out, but it's a bloody hollow victory. I never meant anything to cost Sharon her dad. I just, could never have let anything, anyone cost me the two of us again. So I woulda had to have stood, motionless, holding my wife's hand, a scorned son-in-law. Never gonna escaped that one bastard word.

Son.

I found a picture; our so-called family tree, yeah
I broke all the branches, looking for answers
Don't you know that ain't how it's supposed to be?

But how? How could he ever have accepted me? His own... his son? Or worse... a distance in our relation that no doubt would have been welcomed had it not made me Sharon's husband. His son-in-law. The choice woulda been his.

Son? Son-in-law?

Which?

Maybe it just can't matter anymore. Because I'll never know. My chances died with him. It was Sharon that came to me on our dad's last night. She's the one I'm never letting go. Because to her, I mean something. To Den, I never did. And I know that now. Because he never tried, even in all those years I was innocent, had never interfered in his family. It wasn't until I knew him that I ever did him any wrong. But there's nothing I can do about it now. And just cos he's dead doesn't mean I would.

Cos for the first time, I've got a life to live. For the first time, I've got hope.

I'm gonna live, I'm gonna survive
I don't want the world to pass me by
I wanna dream, I ain't gonna die
Thinking my life was just a lie.

I just wish that... maybe Sharon coulda been a different woman. Well, no, not different, but... not his. Then I might still have loved her without my own dad wishing I didn't exist. Cos that ain't my fault. Not that I wanna blame him. I truly don't. Because I'm here, and he ain't. And I'm... happy. Without him, when I thought for all those years as that lippy kid, destined to grow up just like him, without even knowing what was "like him", that he was the only one that could make it alright. Maybe he did. He is after all, the whole reason I have Vicki... Sharon...

I wish he coulda done something, anything for me that left with the need to love him. He's my dad for fuck's sake, all I ever wanted was a reason to love him. But I never got one. And now I have to let him go, knowing he wouldn't care that I'm struggling so hard to do it, enough tears burning in my eyes as my lips trembles treacherously, for even Sharon to be impressed by the volume of my grief.

But I ain't grieving cos he's dead. I spent too long hating him to care about that. I'm grieving because he never lived... to know me, to love me like he did Sharon and Vicki. Suffocating, controlling, but love nonetheless.

It wasn't until I met Sharon & Vicki that I had any idea what love meant. But I still gave it everything I had, for both of them. And I don't know why Den never saw that. I don't understand why, even just for that reason, he couldn't love me too. Just a little bit. I waited for so long, for something, anything. Now I'm gonna be waiting my whole fuckin' life.

I wanna give, I'm ready to try
Lay it on the line.
I wanna be loved. I wanna be...

So I'm there, paralyzed, by the weight and darkness of everything I never wanted to admit I was feeling. I never wanted to feel. Den seemed to have it pretty easy that way. I never saw him cry and I know damn well that if this was him, stood over my grave, he wouldn't be shaking like this, blinking hard to pretend there weren't tears in his eyes.

But I guess we're both stubborn bastards because I don't let them fall. Oh God, that would just be admitting more than I'm ever gonna be ready for. And even if he is dead, really dead this time, I ain't giving him any satisfaction.

Except I am. Because I'm whimpering as I bite into my lip, trying to keep sobs back. Sobs. This is not going to happen. Not like this.

Cautiously, a funeral worker steps up beside me, his hands stoved into the deep pockets of his long coat. I can barely look at him out the corner of my eye, just to recognise he is there. Because I don't want anyone to be able to see me in any sort of state - not over Den.

But it don't seem to faze him. It don't matter to him that I'm stood at some graveside. He smiles weakly, like it's some comfort, but at my deliberate unresponsiveness, sinks back on his heel, ready to move away and leave me be. And he's almost gone but for one question.

"Are you a relative?" 

I bite harder into my lip as I convulse, shaking my head jerkily. There's a lump swelling painfully in my throat, and I choke involuntarily on it at the unease of trying to find the words to answer him. Because I'm nothing - I know that now.

I ain't gonna cry, I don't wanna scream
But I got so much left unsaid inside of me.

"I barely knew him."

The End