Lessons for a Sunday Father (21 page)

What the hell do people
do
with their children all day? The dads, I mean. Is there some secret place they all hang out that I haven’t been let in on yet? It’s probably a club, like Freemasons. The Sunday Fathers. Once you’ve been through all the initiation rites—your wife telling you to drop dead, your son pretending you don’t exist, your nine-year-old daughter feeling sorry for you, sponging off your friends like a sodding charity case, living like a student in a bedsit—then maybe you get your club badge and they tell you how it’s done. They teach you the special Sunday Father look, the cheery wave to your kid as you get back in your car feeling like someone’s just ripped your guts out and it’s another week before you’ll see her little face again.

They always say museums and art galleries, don’t they, but what would I know about stuff like that? What would I do in a museum? That’s for smart-arse proper dads, ones who can tell their kids all clever stuff and show off how much they know. What if you don’t know anything? I’m not going to show myself up in a museum. I’ll feel like a right prat, watching the other dads point out all the different bones in a Tyrannosaurus or explaining the principles of aerodynamics. I never know things like that. Jeez, I barely know what day of the week it is half the time.

When I come down, Fiona asks have I time for a proper breakfast, it’s filthy weather out there, have I seen? I put on the toast while she cracks some eggs into a pan.

She’s a woman. She might know what to do. I clear my throat and she half turns towards me.

“Say you had a nine-year-old girl to entertain on a rainy day, where would you take her, d’you think?”

“Would this be your daughter by any chance?”

“Mmn.”

Fiona reaches into a cupboard for a plate, talking to me over her shoulder.

“Well, what sort of things does she like doing?”

I shrug. “Dunno, really.”

   *   *   *

I say it casually, without thinking, but suddenly it makes me realize that I really don’t know. What does Rosie like doing? My own daughter who I’ve known her whole life and I’m here asking a virtual stranger who’s never even met her what the hell I should do with her.

I turn away and concentrate on buttering the toast, fiddling with the jars on the counter as if I can’t make up my mind whether to have marmalade or jam or Marmite. Fiona flips the eggs out onto the plate, carefully slides two halves of grilled tomato alongside.

“How about taking her swimming? Can she swim?”

Swimming. Swimming without Nat? Unthinkable. It was Nat who taught Rosie to swim when she was only five or six. Nat’s a star swimmer, swims for his school. Beats me every time and it’s one of the few things I’m not bad at. Whenever I walk past a swimming baths and get a whiff of chlorine, I think of Nat. No. No swimming.

I shake my head.

“Yeah, she can, but I don’t fancy it myself.” It sounds lame, selfish. I gesture at the rain outside the window. “Feel I’d never get dry again, you know?”

The pan hisses as Fiona plunges it into the sink.

“Oh, OK. Cinema perhaps? There’s a paper there with the listings in if you want. Or ice-skating? I’m not sure where the nearest rink is though …”

It’s about 30 miles away. Sixty miles round trip. Sounds a bit far, but it’s easier when we’re in the car. Facing front, playing games with the cars and the registrations. Racking up points every time you spot a car with the latest reg. or shouting out a word that uses all the letters on the number plate. Rosie’s good at that. Better than me half the time.

“… or a museum?” Fiona tops up my coffee and leans against the counter. I don’t know what my face looks like, but it must be a picture, ‘cause she says, “Oh, come on—they’re much better now, not like they were in our day.” She makes it sound as though I’m hundreds of years old rather than a man still (virtually) at his peak. “There are plenty of things for the kids to do and try out. None of those dusty exhibits mouldering in glass cases with faded labels on any more. Everything’s interactive now. You might even enjoy it yourself.”

My memories of museum visits are not so hot, as you’ll have gathered by now. A few depressing school trips (my parents are not exactly the museum-going type), with teacher making all us “difficult” boys hold hands with the “good” girls as an attempt to keep us under control. The girls are outraged by being lumped with us and we’re not exactly chuffed either even though we take pleasure in pinching them and giving them Chinese burns, flirting with them by being obnoxious, the only way we know how at the age of ten. As soon as teacher’s eye is off us, we shake off the girls’ hands and are up to whatever mischief we can think of. It all sounds pathetically mild now, what with the papers full of children sniffing glue and smoking crack on every street corner. We just ran around like wild things, touching anything that said do not touch and capering about, whooping and pretending to be chimpanzees. No, I’ve no idea why. It seemed like fun at the time.

And that awful, awful moment on a day trip when everyone gets out their packed lunch and you sit with the boy who lives next door ‘cause at least you know he won’t have any posh cake or cans of orangeade or fruit either, just a single round of cheese or sardine sandwiches, a couple of plain biscuits—and a flask of tea as if you were a grown-up navvy on a building site and not a kid out for the day wishing he was someone else. And you make out you’re not all that hungry, you had a massive breakfast you say, with bacon and eggs and that, and you make fun of your mum, she must be going scatty, she’s forgotten to put your crisps and your drink in, shame ‘cause they were salt and vinegar and there was a can of 7-Up, you know ‘cause you saw them right there on the counter, still you’re not fussed, you’ll have them later while you’re waiting for your tea. And you drink the contents of your flask because you’re thirsty, but all you can think of is how much you’d give to be normal and to hear the sharp hiss as you open your can of Coke or 7-Up or Fanta, still cold from the fridge, sweet and fizzy glugging down your throat, bubbles giggling up your nose, gulping it down fast so you can do burps deliberately—see who can do the biggest burp—me now—no, me. It doesn’t work with tea.

How did my life get to be like this? I didn’t ask for this. When I was a little girl, I used to dress up and play weddings with my sisters. Mari used to make some poor boy down the road be the groom (which was a non-speaking part as far as we were concerned, aside from saying “I do”) and the two of us would take it in turns to be the bride and the vicar. Lynn was always the bridesmaid, of course, because she was the youngest, but we let her wear this sparkly headband as a tiara and catch the bouquet so she put up with it. I thought that when you grew up, you got married, got your washing-machine and your fitted kitchen, your three-piece suite and your drinks cabinet, and then you lived happily after. I mean, I literally thought that that’s what happened—just because you were grown up.

And then, even when I was a teenager and supposedly had enough sense to know better, each time I started going out with someone new, I’d have this flutter of excitement in my insides, thinking, “What if this is
it?”
And I’d start picturing it in my head, our wedding I mean. And this is after I’ve been out with the guy once. I’d be thinking about my dress and what sort of sleeves it would have and how low cut it should be at the front and whether it should be pure white or maybe ivory would be better, and wondering if it would be best to go the whole hog and have the big fairytale number with the enormous skirt like an outsize meringue or should I be a bit more sophisticated and have something draped and elegant with a little beaded bolero jacket. I’m serious. I’d go on and on like this in my head.

Then, of course, I’d go for the second date, and we’d see a film or something, and he’d try to grope me in the back row or we’d go for a meal and he’d eat with his mouth open and all my dreams—the dress, the flowers, the speeches, my dad looking pleased as punch—the whole lot would go out the window and I’d be looking over this guy’s shoulder in the restaurant trying to see if anyone better had come in the door.

Then I met Scott. Right away, I liked him. The other guys I saw, they were all smooth, trying to impress and thinking they were slick. But him, he couldn’t get his words out. I knew he liked me from the way he would hardly look at me and the way he spilled his tea when I smiled at him. I thought he was sweet, just like a big kid really.

And, guess what? Scott
is
just like a big kid. He doesn’t plan for the future most of the time, he doesn’t remember anything important, only silly stuff that you’d never need to remember, stuff about sports and bands and strange things he’s picked up from quiz shows. “How many sides in an icosahedron?” he’ll suddenly say while we’re driving along. “I’ve no idea, Scott. Just tell me and get it out of your system.” He calls me a spoilsport, wants me to guess. Once, taking the mickey, I said why don’t we play I Spy (Rosie wasn’t even in the car). “Righto,” said Scotty, taking me seriously, “I spy with my little eye something beginning with S—B—.” Know what it was? No? Neither did I. It was Squashed Bug, on the windscreen. What can you do with a man like that?

Our Big Day turned out to be nothing like all my childish daydreams, of course. By then I was a bit more hard-headed and we were saving up to buy our first house. My parents said they’d be happy to splash out on a fancy wedding for me, or I could have the money for a deposit on a house. Scott said it had better be my choice as the money was coming from my family (I think his parents’ sole contribution was an extremely ugly fake crystal bowl that I gave to the Oxfam shop at the first opportunity) and he knew what girls were like about weddings. So we put the money down on a house and had a small wedding at a registry office, with me in a pale pink suit. See, here’s our wedding photo, God knows why it’s still out. I’m wearing this ridiculous flower thing in my hair and Scott’s in a grey suit with sleeves that were just too long so he looks like a boy out in his first grown-up jacket.

Then we had family and friends back to my parents’ home for a buffet and my father made a proud speech, telling everyone about what I was like when I was little, how neat and organized I was, standing in the lounge playing teacher, my dolls all sitting in a row, me telling them to behave themselves or they’d be sent to the headmaster. Thank God Scott’s father didn’t try to make a speech. I don’t remember him saying anything much, I mean not congratulations or anything. Scott’s mother stationed herself by the buffet table, as far as I can recall, refilling her plate every few minutes and looking round nervously as if she thought someone would come up and stop her at any moment. Still, it was a good day, and we were both very happy.

But, after all my dreams, now look at me. It was awful telling my family about Scott moving out, I felt so ashamed, like I’d let them down somehow. Mum was beside herself, twittering round the kitchen and making cups of tea every two minutes. Mari lost no time in saying how she’d always known it would come to this, if only I’d listened to her in the first place, she’d always said, hadn’t she, that Dennis was no good, wouldn’t ever amount to anything, coming from council house stock (yes, she actually says that) and trying to drag himself up by marrying me—as if we’re royalty or something. She’s a terrible snob, Marian, she thinks having a four-bedroom detached and a double garage with remote-control doors makes her a bloody Duchess. “That Dennis,” she calls Scott when she’s stuck in her you-could-have- made-something-of-yourself-if-you-hadn’t-married-a-loser groove—"that Dennis has done nothing but hold you back.” I’ve always claimed that I don’t feel held back, which isn’t exactly 100 per cent true, but I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.

To be fair, I don’t think she meant to be unkind. It’s just she’s got one failed marriage behind her already and I don’t think everything’s exactly a bed of roses with Robert either. He’s Husband No. 2, but he might as well be the Invisible Man, I can’t think when we last saw him. He’s one of those men who’s all hearty handshakes and rather crass jokes, trying to seem jolly the whole time, but when you actually talk to him, he sounds depressed. He wears those trousers with the permanent perfect creases down the front, and it always looks as if they’re holding him up somehow, rather than the other way round.

Dad was lovely, though: “All marriages have their ups and downs,” he said, making sure Mum was out of earshot first. “Maybe you’ll find a way to work things out. Scott’s a good man at heart, you could go a long way and find worse.” Then he stood there, holding me, the way he used to when I was just a girl and had got in a stew about something or other.

I shook my head slowly.

“I think it’s too late for us to work things out.”

“Well, if not, not. So long as our Gaily’s happy though, eh? That’s all that matters to us.”

“I’m OK, Dad. I’ll be OK.”

You know, I look back and think about why I ended up in bed with Angela and I know, whatever I say, it’s going to sound like I’m trying to shift the blame and I’m not. I’m really not. All I’m saying is, if the restaurant’s always closed you can’t blame a bloke for trying the café, can you? After all, it’s not as if I’d gone off Gail or anything. I still fancied her. She’s got this gorgeous smile—well, used to have, can’t say I’ve seen so much of it the last couple of years come to think of it—and really nice straight teeth. That sounds a bit like she’s a horse that I’m judging or something but I don’t mean it like that. She’s sort of clean and pretty looking but her smile is really sexy, like she’s all wholesome on the surface but dead horny underneath. And she’s got knockout legs ‘cept you’d have to have X-ray vision to see them because she almost always wears trousers these days because they’re more practical and she’s not messing about tarting herself up to please someone else thank you very much. But she used to—wear skirts, that is.

First time I saw her she was wearing this dress. It was white with little red dots all over it. It wasn’t especially short or anything but it swirled around her legs when she moved so that you noticed them and wished it were shorter and her hair was all shiny and I wanted to touch it. It was in that old caff that used to be in the middle of town—the Mocha Bar it was called; still had its fittings from the Fifties, chrome and padded banquette seats and jazzy-patterned lino. So, I was there with a mate and she’s there with her mate and then she goes up to the counter for something and I’m up there faster than a whippet out of a trap, then looking all casual. She’s standing, waiting for Sylvie behind the counter to brew the tea. And Sylvie’s got it well sussed already and giving me this “So are you going to chat her up or not?” look and swirling the teapot round and round slowly, giving me time.