Lessons for a Sunday Father (12 page)

Mum just stood there. I thought she’d have a go at me or try to talk me round or something, but she didn’t. She just stood there, completely still, like she was a statue. It was kind of spooky. I almost wished she’d shout at me instead.

Then I fetched a tray and went and ate my pasta watching TV.

It’s Sunday. Goody-good Rosie drove me mad yesterday. She spent like the whole afternoon practically packing her bag, taking everything out then putting it back in again.

“You’re not going to live with him. You’re only out for the day. What d’you need all that for?”

“It’s just things,” she said, folding her blue jumper all neat, the way Mum would do it. “Things I might need.”

Then last night, Cassie came round again. She’s Mum’s best friend. She’s older than Mum even, but she’s OK. Not like most grown-ups. She swears in front of us and you can ask her stuff and she doesn’t mind. Last night, she offered me a lager, I mean, like really casually, like it was normal. Still in the bottle, no glass, so I could swig it. I held it tight, then Mum came in and I kind of dropped my arm down by my side, so it wasn’t so obvious.

“It’s OK for Nat to have a beer now, right?” Cassie said.

“What?” Mum spun round and looked at me, clocked the beer straight away. “Cassie! I can’t leave you alone for a moment! God, you’re worse than—you’re so bad. Honestly! He’s only just thirteen.”

Cassie took a swig. She did it all slow and lazy, just letting the liquid slide into her mouth. It looked really cool.

“Ah, come on, let him have it. It’s weak as piss anyway.”

Mum gave her a shove and went and got a glass. She held up the bottle to check how alcoholic it was.

“All right. You can have half a glass, no more.”

I held out the bottle.

“Can’t you leave my bit in the bottle?”

“What? Whatever for?” Mum took another look at Cassie. “Cassie, see what you’ve done? Now my children think it’s cool and glamorous to go round drinking from the bottle like a down-and-out. I hope you’re happy.” Mum was doing her telling-off voice, but you could see she was joking, taking the piss out of herself. She’s never joking when she tells me off. Still, she poured some into the glass and handed me what was left in the bottle.

“So-o-o-o-o,” Cassie said, tipping a whole handful of peanuts into her mouth all at once. “Bring me up to date. What’s the latest with that errant husband of yours?”

Mum nudged her and made a face. One of those children-in-room-alert-stop-saying-anything-interesting faces that grown-ups do and think you won’t notice them doing it.

“Nat, haven’t you got homework you should be doing?”

“Not really.”

Cassie laughed. She’s got this really loud laugh, even in the street. People turn round when she laughs, thinking she must be putting it on. But she isn’t. It’s just how she is.

“Go on, my man,” she said to me. “Shove off and let us old bags have a girlie natter for half an hour. You can come back down for pizza.”

“They’ve already had their tea.”

“Mu-um.”

“Fine, fine. You can have pizza, Rosie too. I don’t know why I bother knocking myself out trying to bring them up properly and nag them to eat their vegetables, Cassie, if you’re going to undo it all in two minutes.”

Cassie hasn’t got any kids. Mum said she had something wrong with her insides and she can’t have any. Maybe that’s why she’s not like a real grown-up, I mean sometimes when you talk to her she seems like she’s the same age as me. Or a bit older, like eighteen or something. Only then, if she’s talking to Rosie, she’s different again, almost like she’s Rosie’s age. One time, she went out in the garden with Rosie and skipped with Rosie’s pink and yellow and blue striped skipping rope, while Rosie chanted some stupid playground rhyme. Then she taught Rosie an old one, like from when she was a kid. But it’s good when she’s around because Mum’s different. She laughs more and she doesn’t get in a strop about little things like whether you’ve put your plate in the dishwasher or left your trainers on the kitchen counter. When Dad was here, Cassie used to come round sometimes with her husband as well. He’s called Derek and he’s got an artificial leg. He lets us stand on his foot. You can jump up and down on it even. It’s his left leg, but when we were smaller, Rosie and me, we used to pretend we’d forgot which one it was and we used to jump on his other foot as a joke. Rosie still does it sometimes, she’s still only a kid really, but he always laughs.

This morning, Mum kept dropping things at breakfast and she drank like a whole pot of coffee. She asked us if we wanted a cooked breakfast “to keep your strength up” like as if we were going to be running a marathon or something. I said I’d have a bacon sandwich and Rosie said could she still count as vegetarian if she had bacon and Mum said, well, not strictly, no, but she wouldn’t tell anyone if Rosie didn’t. When Rosie went upstairs after, Mum asked me if I’d managed to “have a think about going out with your dad,” like as if I’d change my mind or something. I sat there, zigzagging brown sauce onto my sandwich, and said yeah, I had a bit and no, I still wasn’t going. Then she put her hand over mine and went all serious and started calling me “Nathan,” so I figured I’d had enough. She went blah-ing on about things being important and how I needed a male role model in my life, someone to look up to. I mean, explain that if you can. When he was here, she was always saying Dad was a bad example and we shouldn’t copy him because he’s got lousy table manners and he doesn’t speak properly and he never does the housework and all that. And now she’s saying I should be copying his every move. Anyway, when she turned away to load the dishwasher, I snuck out to the hall, grabbed my bag and jacket, then yelled I was off round Steve’s and ran out the door before she could stop me.

I changed clothes twice this morning before he got here. As if I was going on a date. God knows why, I don’t even want to see him. Not after last time, after that awful row. After he’d gone, I laid my head on the kitchen table. I could just lie like this for ever, I thought, but then I realized I had to leave in the next two minutes if I wasn’t to be late for Rosie.
You can do this,
I told myself,
you have to do this. For Rosie, for Nat.
I haven’t got time to have a nervous breakdown.

So this morning I wanted to show him how well I’m doing.
See, you’ve spoilt everything but life goes on, la-la-la, I’m doing fine without you.
Here I am, in my good black jeans and my clingy white top. I wanted to look attractive but not like I’d made any special effort.

“Dennis,” I said, nodding.

Well, calling Scott Dennis, I haven’t done that—other than to wind him up for a laugh—since, well, ever. A small flinch tightened his face. I could see him digging his nails into his palms.

He cleared his throat and looked down at his feet. Hands in pockets. We attempted to chat for a couple of minutes, but it was hopeless. I kept looking for some sign of genuine remorse in his face, but I don’t think he’s even sorry. He said he wanted to talk, but what is there to say? Why should I sit there listening to him trying to come up with new lies and excuses?

Then he asked me to get Nat, but Nat had long since gone, sneaked out this morning with barely a word. I think he couldn’t face it, so he went round to Steve’s. Can’t say I blame him really. Scott had a go at me about it though, as if I’d hidden Nat away or something. I couldn’t believe it, specially when I’d been so bloody calm and civilized about the whole thing. I’d even tried to persuade Nat to go, for goodness’ sake, told him I felt it was really important for him to see his dad. But of course, Scott being Scott wouldn’t listen, just went into a rage and tried to make out the whole thing was my fault. Once he calmed down, he looked so young, not much more than a boy himself, a boy squaring his shoulders and pretending to be a man. And suddenly I felt sorry for him then, and said something about Nat just being a typical teenager, he’d grow out of it in time.

“Oh. Right. ‘Course.” Scott was full of bluff now and it made him seem even more pathetic. “Boys that age. Yeah. When I was thirteen, all I did was hang out with my mates. No time for old fogey parents, eh?”

I nodded and forced a smile. But Nat’s never been like that and we both know it. He loved his dad like no child you’ve ever seen, used to trail after him round the garden and in the garage, copying him, the two of them standing there frowning at the car, with Nat barely big enough to see over the bonnet but, frankly, as likely to fix the engine as Scott was. Once I got into a terrible panic because I couldn’t find Nat. Scott had just gone to work and this is about six, seven years ago, yes, Nat was only six. And it was before Scott had his mobile. So I was running round the house with Rosie toddling after me and me falling over her and trying to get her to play with her toys and keep out of my way, and Nat was just nowhere to be found. Under the beds, I looked, in the wardrobes, under the kitchen sink. I ran out in the street, expecting to see his little crushed legs sticking out from under a car, people gathered round, someone slowly shaking their head. I couldn’t breathe. Then I thought maybe he’d been kidnapped, abducted or something, and I ran inside and rang Scott at work and babbled madly at whoever answered the phone that they must find him and tell him to come home at once. I was totally hysterical. Then Scott came on the phone, he’d just got there, and I was practically screaming by now, completely all over the place and crying, and Scott said,

“Hang on, sweetheart, hang on. It’s OK. He’s here with me. He’s fine.”

“What do you mean? How is he there?”

“I left the car open and he scrunched himself in the rear footwell under the blanket. I only found him just now when I got here.”

   *   *   *

I started to cry then, really cry, thinking of how lucky I was that Nat was OK and my God why had I ever had kids when they could do this to you, make you feel your whole life was over just by playing a silly trick for ten minutes.

I looked over Scott’s shoulder and waved goodbye at Rosie sitting in his car, but I couldn’t even see her face because the windows had fogged over.

“Have her back by six,” I said.

I feel like I’m thirteen again. Nat’s age. I’m thirteen and I’m loitering by the front gate plucking up the guts to walk up the path and ring the bell for my first ever date. Her name is Sally. Sally Harrison. I’m crap with names, but I’ll never forget hers. No-one’s called Sally any more, are they? It went out of fashion. In class, Sally wrote Sally Scott, Sally Scott all over the inside back cover of her rough book, surrounded by hearts and flowers like daisies. I wonder what would have happened if I’d married Sally? I bet she’d never have locked me out of my own house in the middle of the night. She’d probably be standing by the stove peeling the spuds for Sunday dinner and laughing at my jokes, whereas Gail would rather be peeling my meat and two veg if you get my drift.

I’m stood at my own front gate, but who knows what reception I’ll get when I ring the bell. They’re my own children, but they might as well be stir-crazy tigers I’m so nervous.

As I start to walk up the path, my nerves go because the front door opens wide suddenly and Rosie comes flying out as if she’s been catapulted on elastic. Her hair bounces behind her in a ponytail; chunky trainers look comically large on her skinny girl legs. Then she stops dead right in front of me as if she’s not sure whether to stretch up for a kiss or to shake my hand.

“Rosie!”

I open my arms wide and she jumps up at me and I catch her and she clutches on like a monkey, the way she did when she was only two or three years old, exhausted after a family day out, sucking her thumb and clinging onto her blankie for comfort.

“Gail.” I nod as she appears in the doorway.

“Dennis.” A smirk crosses her face, which she immediately tries to hide. Jury, please note my tremendous restraint in not rising to this obvious piece of provocation. No-one, except my parents and they’re crumblies so they can’t help but call you by whatever stupid thing they picked out for you in the first place, calls me Dennis. Would you call anyone you liked Dennis? Course you wouldn’t. You’d give them a nickname wouldn’t you? Or say “mate” or something. Everybody else calls me by my surname, Scott—I like it, it’s a tough, stubbly, moseying-into-town, laid-back hero sort of a name. When Gail’s being nice, say once in a millennium or something, she calls—called—me Scotty. I put Rosie down and tell her to go wait in the car.

“Good one, Gail. Nice to see you’ve not lost your sense of humour.”

“Living with you has, of course, stretched it to the limits on a daily basis, but I do my best …”

Is she going to call Nat or what? I raise my eyebrows. She’s not going to make me ask, is she? Bugger this.

“Well, entertaining though this is, Dennis, chatting with you cosily on the front step, I’m very busy. Loads of clearing and
chucking out
to do.” She says this last with a slight grinding of her teeth as though she’s a lioness who’s spotted some defenceless bit of prey that doesn’t yet know it’s about to become a light snack.

“You’re not going to be playing silly buggers with my stuff, are you? If it’s under your feet, just stick it in the garage for now and I’ll sort it out later.”

“Bit late to be doing your Lord and Master act, don’t you think? What makes you think you can boss me around? Anyway, I have absolutely no interest in wasting my time trawling through your belongings and attempting to decide which bits of rubbish you might regard as precious. Clearly—as I foolishly imagined a fifteen-year marriage meant something whereas you thought nothing of chucking it on the scrapheap—clearly we have rather different ideas of what constitutes rubbish.”

Her tone is coolly polite but the frost on it’s so thick it gives me goosebumps. Why can’t she just shout and swear at me? Then I’d know what I was dealing with. This calm stuff gives me the creeps.

“How can you say that?!” I reach out my hand to touch her arm but she jerks away from me. “You know you—our marriage—means everything to me—”

“And sleeping with someone else is what? A demonstration of your undying love for me?”