Lessons for a Sunday Father (24 page)

“Er, my dad. It’s his birthday.”

“How old is he then?”

She tucks her hair behind her ears and starts fiddling with that little silver star she always wears round her neck. I can feel myself going red.

“Er, really old. Forty-one.”

She laughs and turns back to the cards. There are loads for fortieth birthdays, lots of cartoon ones with blokes looking in the mirror and jokes about being old and past it. I can’t see any for forty-one.

“That’s not all that old,” she says,
“My
dad’s forty-six. Anyway …” She takes out a card from the Grandmother section of the rack and looks at it, staring down at this picture of flowers in a vase. “Jason said your dad’s left.”

I look at the cards and grab one with a red Ferrari on it.

“Yeah. So?”

She shrugs.

“Sorry. I wasn’t being funny. I just—well, I’d miss him if it was my dad, that’s all.”

“Yeah. Whatever.”

I open up the card to read the inside, but the lettering’s kind of blurry. I can feel Joanne right next to me. Her arm’s touching my arm. She’s reading the message on the inside.

“Oh,” she says, then leans across me to reach out another one from the rack. “How about this one? This one’s for dads.”

She holds it out to me and looks at me. Then she opens it out and reads the inside.

“See,” she says, reading the verse out singsong. It’s one of those crap poems you get in birthday cards. Dead corny, you know?

I shrug and dig into my pocket for a tissue. My nose is running and I’m fighting the urge to wipe it with the back of my hand. No tissue. Just half a packet of chewing gum and some change.

“'s all right, I guess. Bit over the top.” I offer her some gum and she takes a stick and slowly unwraps it.

“Yeah, but I bet he’d like it. Last year, I made up a poem for my dad’s card and he said it was the best poem he’d ever read.”

“If I did that for my dad, it’d be the
only
poem he’d ever read.”

She laughs then taps the card for her gran against her nose so all I can see are her eyes over the top of it, like she’s looking over a wall. You can tell she’s still smiling even though you can’t see her mouth any more.

“Well, s’pose I better go and pay for this then.” She’s still standing there. What’s she waiting for?

Then I get it. She’s waiting for you, you dipstick. I hit my forehead. I try to make it look like I’m just pushing my hair out my eyes.

“Walk you back if you like?” Casual as you please. Not bothered one way or the other.

“OK. You getting the card?”

I look down at the two I’m holding, one in each hand.

“Might as well.” I hold up the one she picked out. I don’t have to send it if I don’t want to, but it’d look rude if I shove it back in the rack after she chose it.

Then I open the Ferrari one again, just to read it before I put it back.

It’s not for dads at all. Inside it says: Happy Birthday Dearest Son.

How did I get to be so old? Tomorrow I’ll be forty-one. Practically as good as dead. I know—I should have got over the whole forties hideousness, mid-life crisis thing last year. I thought I had. Actually, no—being thirty-nine was the worst. Because at thirty-nine, there’s no getting round it, you’re nearly forty—and the only way to not turn forty would be to top yourself, and that’s not getting you ahead of the game either, is it? Last year, the nearer it got to my birthday, the worse I felt. I’d look in the mirror while I was shaving and be thinking “You’re nearly forty. You’re not a young man any more.” But, inside, I still felt like I was about seventeen—and that was on a mature day. In my early twenties, I was still a bit of a lad, you know, fancying myself as having the gift of the gab with the girls; then I met Gail and we fell in love and all that, got engaged, got married. But even doing grown-up stuff, like buying our first home, getting a mortgage and what have you, it always felt a bit like I was playing at it, and that any second someone would come along and ask me what the hell I thought I was up to. Then the kids came along and I was working all hours to pay for everything and I was too knackered to notice that I’d stopped being a lad. You see
—inside,
I still was. But on the outside, I must have looked like a normal adult going to work and taking care of my family and falling asleep in front of the TV. The whole of my thirties just zipped by. One minute, I had a new baby; the next, two kids both at school and wanting new trainers every week.

And because I’d built the whole thing about turning forty into this enormous great deal, and was so grouchy about it and thinking I’d have a crap birthday, of course it ended up being brilliant. Gail threw me a surprise party with all our friends and a great spread and I drank beer and wine till it was coming out my ears and kept telling Gail how much I loved her. Yeah. Anyway, I enjoyed myself. So really, being forty-one should be easier. I’ve jumped the major hurdle so this should be a piece of piss. But now I feel like I’ve got off on the wrong foot for doing my forties. They say life begins at forty, in which case I’ve managed to screw up right at the start. Say I manage to struggle on till I’m eighty or so—that means I’ve another forty years to spend trying to sort out the mess I’ve made of the first forty. You’d think I’d be due some kind of good luck by now, wouldn’t you? A few years sipping rum punch on a Caribbean beach having various portions of my anatomy licked by skimpily clad totty?

I figure I must’ve got some other sad git’s life by mistake. I didn’t ask to have a dead-end job and a semi-detached in a crap provincial town with the worst ring road in the history of mankind, you know. That’s not the box I ticked when I filled out the application form. I ticked Big Mansion with Swimming Pool, Slick Car and Hefty Wodges of Cash, far as I remember. There must have been a mix-up. I’m only in this life as a result of an administrative error. I want a refund. And somewhere there’s some toerag swimming up and down my pool who can’t believe his luck.

This year, what are the odds on Gail organizing me a birthday surprise? I’ve got more chance of being struck by lightning. Actually, with my luck, I’ve got a lot more chance of being struck by lightning. If you’re listening, God, that’s not meant as a reminder. I wasn’t volunteering—just pointing out it’s my birthday tomorrow so feel free to have a day off if you’re getting tired of pulling out all the stops to make my life a complete misery. Sod it, I’m not even going to tell anyone. I’ll just forget the whole thing and reschedule it for a couple of months’ time once Gail’s calmed down and we’re all sorted out again.

I am forty-one today. I am a forty-one-year-old man living in a bed and breakfast and hoping that I’ll wake up any second now and discover it was all just a lousy dream. At least I should get cards from the kids though. I mean, Natty would send me a card, right? Gail’s got the address. I have my shower and shave, telling myself in the mirror that I could easily pass for a man in his early thirties. I go on down to breakfast and ask Fiona if there’s been any post.

“Don’t think so. Why—you expecting something?”

“Yeah, well, no—not really. It doesn’t matter.”

“It’s not your birthday, is it?”

“It is actually.”

“Ooh, happy birthday! Sorry, I’d have got you a card. Is it a big one? Let me guess, it’s not your fortieth, is it?”

So much for thinking I can pass for thirty-two in a dim light.

“No. Forty-one.”

“Well, that’s all right then. You’re past the worst.”

Is that the best that can be said of my life, that I’m past the worst? Cheers.

I sit down and scan the paper, trying to cheer myself up by reading about the misfortunes of others. Never works that, does it? Think of the starving children in Africa, the teachers used to say at school when you didn’t want to choke back the pigswill we got dished up as dinners. Send it to them, then—that’s what we thought, what we always thought. Sure, I feel grateful I happen to have been born in a country where I’m not likely to actually starve to death, where I’ve got some sort of roof over my head, but I don’t say it makes me actively happy. Besides, it’s not like I’ve never been hungry, coming in from school and being doled out a thick slice of bread and marge sprinkled with sugar and trying to eat it slowly ‘cause you don’t know if you’ll get anything else later and you can’t ask case you get a clip round the ear. I’d never go back to that. I’d do anything to keep my kids from living like that. Anything. I mean it. I’d rob a bank if I had to. Once you’ve lived like that, you feel like it’s still out there, waiting to drag you back—and you have to keep away from it or it’ll get you, and all you’ll be able to think about will be money and food, food and money the whole time and you won’t be lucky enough to escape a second time, you know it, so you better make damn sure you stay away from it in the first place.

Fiona puts down half a grapefruit in front of me. There is a glacé cherry in the middle, an unexpected birthday treat, and a single small candle with a flickering flame. It is so pathetic I want to cry.

“Come on then, birthday boy. Make a wish and blow it out.”

I puff out my cheeks as if I am blowing out a flaming bank of forty-one candles and not just one standing alone. One blow and it’s out.

I wish I was someone else.

At work, things go from bad to worse. None of the lads have remembered. No surprises there, but Harry, who might remember, is a no-show. Maureen phones to say he’s feeling off-colour so he’s not coming in and nor is she because she wants to keep an eye on him. Lee and Martin keep messing about and between them manage to crack a double glazing unit that we’d just finished. Gary has just been chucked by his girlfriend and is mooning about with a face as long as a wet weekend. It is Denise’s day off. No-one even offers to make a cup of tea.

At five to twelve, I hear the toot-toot of the sandwich van and I go out, thinking well, at least I can stuff my face and bollocks to everybody else. Thingybob, the sandwich girl—woman—whatever, smiles at me which I notice, partly because it feels like the first proper smile I’ve had all day, and partly because I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for her. No, I don’t mean I want to jump her bones, just she’s got a nice face and a nice smile and well, you know. OK, I would jump her bones given the chance, but I don’t want you thinking I’m just a shallow bastard who’s always up for a shag.

I order Spanish omelette in a bap which might sound odd but I can assure you is the dog’s bollocks when it comes to filling you up and making the world seem a better place. I tell her not to bother wrapping it and I take an enormous bite straight away, asking her for two chocolate muffins at the same time.

“No chocolate ones left. Sorry.”

Could today get any more crap?

“Oh, come on! It’s not even twelve o’clock. How can you have run out already?”

She looks a bit taken aback and she flushes.

“I said sorry. It’s been really busy today. I can’t anticipate it when half my customers are in need of a chocolate fix, can I?” She looks at me and then her face sort of softens. “Having a bad day?”

“You could say that, yeah. Sorry.” I dig down into my pocket feeling my eyes prick, and make heavy weather of hunting for change so I don’t have to look up. I am definitely losing it today. Get a grip, man. Get a grip. “It’s my birthday actually and so far it’s been a non-stop jamboree of laughs, treats and extravagant gifts, you know?”

This is her cue to make some smart comment about my age—when’s my Zimmer frame arriving and can she offer to drop me off at the post office to collect my pension. Any second now.

“I’m sorry,” she says, treating me to another one of those smiles. It feels like a gift. It’s a smile that deserves a bit of rustly paper and fancy ribbon round it. “Happy birthday.” She ducks down beneath the counter. “Would you settle for a piece of lemon cake instead? Or cherry and almond? It’s home-made.”

“Go on then. I’ll take the cherry.”

I offer the money but she raises her hand firmly like a cop stopping traffic.

“Hold it right there. It’s on the house.”

“Really?” I wonder whether I should chance my arm and ask for a birthday kiss, too, seeing as how she’s in a good mood, but she might just give me a slap round the chops instead. Also, standing there in her van, it makes her higher up than me, and she seems impossibly out of reach. With my luck today, it’s probably best not to push it.

I realize I’m standing there with my mouth open, just looking up at her, without saying anything. She must think I’m not quite the full quid.

“Well, cheers then,” I wish I could think of something clever to say. I wish I could at least remember her name so I could drop it in casually. I wish … I wish. “Thanks again. See you.” Stunning. You’d think a man of forty-one would be better at this by now.

“Hope your day picks up,” she calls after me.

Of course it’ll pick up. At least once you hit bottom, the only way is up, right?

Wrong. Gail always said I was too optimistic.

In the afternoon, I hear on the grapevine that one of our regular clients has just gone out of business. I check the invoices and, yes, they still owe us money. Not a lot, but not so little we won’t notice it. I make myself a cup of tea to go with cherry and almond cake, but the milk—which admittedly had been a bit of borderline case in the morning—has given up the ghost and gone blobby and disgusting in my mug. We’ve no more fresh, so I have to make do with black coffee.

I ask the lads if they fancy going down the pub after work for a birthday booze-up but Lee’s got a date with some hot-to-trot babe who lives miles away and he’s got to go home first to change. Martin’s going bowling with his wife and another couple. Couples, couples everywhere. And Gary doesn’t feel like it, thank you, and to be frank, he looks in a worse state than I do. So then I call up Colin and Jeff and Roger and say, hey, lads’ night out, come on—let’s get slaughtered, thinking I should have sorted this weeks ago but I didn’t because I’ve been concentrating on surviving from one day to the next and my birthday didn’t seem like top of my list of priorities. But Colin says he’s not allowed out (What is he? Twelve?) because he got pissed one night two weeks ago and Yvonne still hasn’t forgiven him for falling over the hall table at two in the morning and making her think they were being burgled. I get Roger on his mobile, but he says no can do, he’s over 200 miles away at a sales conference. Jeff—who of course has even less of a life than I do, but not by much—says yeah, all right then, with his usual level of enthusiasm; he doesn’t mind tagging along, but he’s a bit skint and I say that’s OK, I’m paying, my treat, you daft bugger. But if you were looking for someone to cheer you up, Jeff wouldn’t exactly be Number One on your list, you know?