Lessons for a Sunday Father (19 page)

“I notice, of course, that you are not happy …?” Then he looked right into my eyes and it was all I could do not to burst into tears and sob hysterically in front of him. I could feel myself welling up so I looked down at my notepad and started drawing a series of loops across the page, the way Rosie would. “… and I am here any time you want—or perhaps you would prefer Dr Kerr?” Jane Kerr, my own doctor. “But, no. It is not for me to intrude in your personal life? If you are unhappy with something here at the surgery, you must tell me, yes?”

“Yes. No. There’s nothing. I love it here.”

“Good. Perhaps you will think about becoming fulltime then?” he smiled. They’d asked me twice before, but I’ve always put my family first. It would mean Rosie going to after-school club or round to Kira’s. Still, we could do with the extra money.

“I’ll think about it.” I got up and made to leave.

“And you will remember that I am here?”

“Yes. I will. Thank you.”

Cassie. Thank heavens for Cassie. She brought Rosie a snow shaker for her collection with the Statue of Liberty in it, and a baseball cap for Nat that he said was “Ace. Like majorly cool with a capital C"—which I think meant he liked it. Once the kids had gone upstairs, Cassie whisked out a pair of pink pants for me from Bloomingdale’s—with “Bloomies” across the bum.

“They’re great—shame no-one else will get the good of them.”

“Your choice, babe. I bet there’s no shortage of blokes who’d like a closer look at your lingerie.”

We started looking through her photos.

“You thought any more about having Scott back?”

“Of course. There’s nothing else I can think about. I’m so sick of myself, listening to the same old thoughts going round and round my head, it’s driving me crazy. At least work keeps me sane, being so busy means there’s no time to think.”

“So what’s the verdict?”

I shrugged.

“I don’t know. I really don’t. I suppose it sounds awful but sometimes I think if I had never found out, maybe that would have been OK. I’d never have known and I wouldn’t have had to do anything, d’you see?”

“Mm. Ignorance is bliss, yeah?”

“Sort of. But I can’t go back. I do know and I can’t un-know it now. And anyway …” I held a photo up close. “God, don’t tell me you let Derek out in that hat?”

“Don’t change the subject. And anyway, what?”

“Can I ask you something first? If Derek left, what would you miss most about him?”

“Seeing his artificial leg propped against the chair first thing when I wake up.”

“No, stop kidding. Really.”

“I’m not kidding. Every time I see it, standing there on its own, still with its shoe and sock on, I feel this great rush of tenderness towards Derek. He’s such a strong person, and he’s always been there for me 100 per cent, when I got made redundant, when I had that horrible cyst thing, remember? And—most of all, about not having any kids. He’s a rock. He never moans. Then I see his leg, or I watch him hop across the room, and I go all mushy inside and I just want to cover him in great big sloppy kisses.

“Anyway, never mind me,” Cassie gathered up the photos and packed them away briskly. “What do you miss most about Scott? Let me guess. Not the way he helped so much around the house, presumably?”

“No.”

“Not his love of serious intellectual conversation?”

“Right again.”

“Still, he is a laugh, you have to give him that. It is that, right?”

I shook my head.

You know, if anyone had asked me, back when we were still together, if anyone had said, “What would you miss most?” I’d have guessed it would be that. That’s what it used to be, you see. In the beginning, in the very beginning, he made me laugh. He was always clowning around. But someone clowning around when they’re twenty-four and you’re out with a whole bunch of you going for pizza or to a disco, it’s great. But when he’s forty and you’ve got a family and you’re trying to juggle the bills and worrying about your kids and planning and organizing, well, it just doesn’t seem so funny any more.

“What then?”

“I miss having him deal with it when there’s a spider in the bath and I miss having someone to put my cold feet on in bed.”

“Seriously?” she said, scanning my face, then seeing the answer there. “Holy shit.”

“I know.”

“But then that means …?”

“Yes,” I said. “It does.”

Afterwards, I felt strange inside, all churned up, and I couldn’t think straight. Saying it out loud, admitting it to Cassie, wasn’t the same as just knowing it in my head. As long as it was just in my mind, I could try to hush it up, ignore it, hum a tune to drown it out.

I made some coffee, even though it was after eleven by the time she left, then I went upstairs and ran a bath. I kept thinking of Cassie’s face, that look of near-horror because she realized exactly what it meant.

I dropped my clothes on the floor. Deliberately. Sounds silly, but it felt like a treat, telling myself I didn’t care, that I could be like a child tossing my things in a heap instead of folding them on the chair, that I could be irresponsible and—well, and spontaneous, that I could be like Scott, I suppose. Except, of course, even as I dropped them, I was thinking all this and knowing that when I got out of the bath I would pick them up and that I would hang up my towel properly and leave everything tidy, so it wasn’t all that spontaneous.

I sank back into the bath, and let my mind wander, thinking about friends and couples I’d known over the years where one of them had had an affair and what had happened. Sometimes they’d split up but sometimes they hadn’t. And, suddenly, now I knew why, what the difference was. It was so simple. The ones who’d stayed together had stuck it out—because they
wanted
to. It wasn’t that they were stronger than us or that the wife didn’t care so much that her husband had cheated on her or even that she believed that he’d really change. It wasn’t any of that. The simple fact was that they wanted to be together
whatever it took
and they would go through all the pain and hurt and anger they felt in trying to work things out because at the end they would still be with the person they wanted to spend their life with.

And now I was left with this cold, sad fact that I knew I didn’t want to be with Scott for the rest of my life but, much worse than that, in some part of me I must have known it for quite a while. Which meant that the moment I found out about Scott’s pathetic little fling wasn’t the beginning at all. The beginning was much, much earlier. Years ago even. And I hadn’t really noticed. Or, if I had, I’d decided to ignore it. I’d concentrated on the children, fussing round them and bustling round the house being busy, nagging Scott because it was easier than facing up to the fact that we had nothing to talk about, that we just happened to be sharing a house for convenience’s sake. And it meant that I’d been doing exactly what I’d always accused Scott of. I’d blamed him and blamed him and blamed him, making out—and really, truly believing it in my own mind—that it was 100 per cent his fault and that it was all just to do with him and his stupid wandering willy.

But now, this—this was much harder because it means that I’m responsible too. I knew how serious our problems were but I pretended nothing was wrong, even to myself. And now Scott’s hurting and I’m hurting and far, far worse than anything else, Nat and Rosie must be hurting and I can’t bear it. As long as it was all Scott’s fault, I could be angry and self-righteous and kid myself that at least I was still a good mother. And now I can’t and I don’t know if I can bear it, I don’t know how to bear it. I don’t know how.

Last Sunday, Steve had to go away with his family to visit his grandparents. Normally, I go round there and we play games on his new PlayStation and do a bit of homework and have a big Sunday dinner. His mum says she likes having me and it’s no more trouble to cook for six than it is for five anyway. Steve says going to his grandparents’ is a real drag and that they’re like majorly sad crumblies, but he really likes his gran, he just won’t admit it. I like my nan and grandad, that’s Mum’s parents, not the other lot. We never see my dad’s mum and dad much, ‘cause Mum hates them. I mean, even
before
—y’know. It’s OK by me, because I don’t like them either. We call them Granny Scott and Grandad Scott, but the nice ones are just Nana and Grandad. Grandad Scott stinks of tobacco and he’s always got this titchy roll-up stuck to his lip like it’s just landed there by accident, and his hair looks all greasy and he scratches himself. And he makes snide remarks the whole time, specially to my dad. And Dad goes all funny around him—he won’t sit down hardly, tapping his foot like he’s about to make a run for it, and he never laughs when he’s there, not ever.

Whatever. Anyway, I told Mum I couldn’t go round Steve’s on Sunday and she said why didn’t I stay home and hang out with her. That’s what she said: “You could
hang out
with me if you like.” It sounded funny when she said it, like she was putting it on, trying to sound like me. But she’s all right, I guess. For a parent. Steve thinks my mum’s really cool and he starts talking all polite if he comes round and smarming up to her, but I told him he wouldn’t like her so much if he had to live in the same house as her the whole time and be nagged to death about hanging up the towels and putting your shoes away and doing your homework and stacking your plate and stuff in the dishwasher and phoning if you’re going to be late. Steve says they all do that, it’s what parents are for. But, I mean,
get a life.
You’d think if you were grown-up you’d be out having fun and doing whatever you like, not worrying about whether your son’s left his trainers halfway up the stairs.

But Jason said I could go out with him and his dad on Sunday. He says his mum and stepdad dump him on his dad on Sundays so they can stay in bed all day, doing it.

“Nah!” I go. “They’re too old. They must be past it by now.”

“They’re always at it,” he goes. “One time I found a pair of my mum’s pants by the breadbin.”

“Euch! That’s gross! What’s she leave ‘em there for?”

“'cause they were shagging in the kitchen, stupid.”

I give him a shove.

“Don’t call me stupid. Why’d they do it in the kitchen then, smart-arse?”

He shrugged.

“Dunno. ‘s what people do, innit?”

“Maybe in your family, dipstick. D’you cook your tea in the bedroom then? Wash your dishes in the bath? Sound like a bunch of loony-tunes to me. You wanna watch it or they’ll send you up the hill.”

That’s what we say if someone’s a bit psycho—"up the hill"—'cause that’s where the loony bin is, on that hill on the edge of town. If you get taken there, they give you injections with a whacking great needle as thick as your finger practically. My dad said they stuff you full of tablets, whatsits—tranquillizers and that—dope you to the gills, he says, so you’ll be nice and quiet and not give the staff any trouble. He said it’s disgusting and they should close the place down. Then my mum told him off and said to stop exaggerating, you’re scaring the children, and that she’s sure it’s not like that any more, it wouldn’t be allowed, blah, blah. I bet it is.

Mum said I could go with Jason on Sunday as long as I did some homework on Saturday and would promise to finish it Sunday evening and she’d want to see it to make sure. Yeah, yeah, drone, drone.

So Sunday, him and his dad come and pick me up. They couldn’t come till eleven o’clock, so I had to hide out in my room when you-know-who came to collect Miss Goody-Goody. I looked down from my window, hiding behind the curtain. I’d make a great spy. See him come bounding up the front path, looking like really heartbroken—NOT—that he’s about to spend yet another Sunday without his only son. His hair’s going thin on top. I wanted to tell him to wind him up, ask him if he was planning on being a monk. We like to wind each—Used to like. Whatever. He’s getting old. Becoming a crumbly. He’ll be forty-one soon. Rosie keeps on about this idea she’s had for his present. Yawn. I don’t see why I should get him anything. I haven’t got any money anyway. I can’t even use my mobile now ‘cause I’ve run out of talk credits and Mum said she wouldn’t get me any unless I started helping out around the house more and we all have to watch the money a bit more now. I don’t see why me and Rosie have to suffer.

We went bowling. Like we did on my birthday. But Jason’s dad’s not the same. For a start, he’s like always got to be the best, yeah? I mean, course he’s bigger than us and that. And stronger. He’s bound to be better, but when we went before, with my dad, he still made sure everyone was having a good time. I mean, he’s like an ace bowler, my dad, but he still helps anyone else who wants him to, and he offers you a lead if you want one, and if you do a good bowl he cheers for you. But when I nearly got a strike this time, I knocked down eight pins, right? And Jason’s dad just goes,

“Not bad, son. Not bad.” And winks at me.

“I’m not your son, creep,” I went—only quiet, so he wouldn’t hear me.

And he kept on telling knock-knock jokes like as if we were only Rosie’s age or something and we had to pretend to laugh. It was so embarrassing.

When he brought me back, I remembered to say, “Thanks for taking me out, Mr Hall. I had a really good day.” Without Mum having to nudge me or anything. But it wasn’t a really good day. I only said it ‘cause you’re supposed to.

“Hey, pardner!” he goes, bellowing from the car like so loud my eardrums start trying to climb out my ears to escape. Like he thinks he’s in a Western or something. “You can call me Rob next time!”

Like he’s doing me a favour. Can I really? Gee, the excitement’s like getting too much, you know? I’ll call you Creep instead if you don’t mind, how’s that?

At least my dad’s not a creep.

I can’t stay any longer at Harry’s, it would put a strain on everybody. Maureen’s a nice woman, don’t get me wrong, but she will not stop fussing. I don’t know if she thinks I’m completely clueless or what, but she treats me like I’m an invalid. If I go to put sugar in my tea, she rushes across to do it for me. She even cleaned my shoes the other day; I left them by the front door and when I came down in the morning they’d been polished. Well, it was either her or the pixies. It’s kind of her, of course, but it just makes me embarrassed. A couple of days ago, I was padding about the house in my socks and one of them had a hole in it. I know, I know—bit sad, but I can’t find anything in these great sacks full of stuff that Gail so lovingly packed for me. Maureen’s making her thousandth cup of tea of the day—it’s a wonder she’s ever off the toilet long enough to drink it, I don’t know why she doesn’t just tip whole teapots of the stuff straight down the drain, cut out the middle man—and she says, “Ooh, look, you’ve a hole there wants darning, Scott. Just pop that sock off and I’ll see to it.”