Seeing Other People (36 page)

Once breakfast was over the kids and I cuddled up underneath my duvet and continued watching TV but after half an hour or so they began to get restless.

Rosie turned to me. ‘Dad, what are we doing today?’

It was a good question but sadly one to which I didn’t have an answer. All I wanted was for Penny and the kids to stay and never leave; surely that wasn’t too much to ask for after all we’d been through? Yes, there was the Scott problem, and the school problem, and more likely than not a million different other dilemmas that would demand our attention, but at least the main issue of whether or not we should be together had been decided. What was it that Penny had said? ‘We will talk, just not now, not yet.’ That had to mean her plans had changed. Surely that had to mean she wanted us all to be together.

Both the kids were staring at me waiting for an answer to Rosie’s question.

‘I don’t know.’

Rosie pulled a face. ‘How can you not know what we’re doing? That makes no sense.’

Jack stretched his hand up in the air, desperate to join the conversation. ‘I’d like to go to the park. There are parks in Harrogate but I don’t like them as much as our one here. Dad, can we go to our park?’

Rosie chimed in, warming to the theme. ‘And after we’ve been to the park can we have lunch at Pizza Hut? We haven’t been there for ages.’

Jack nodded enthusiastically. ‘Yes, I’d like to go to Pizza Hut too. I’d also like to see my old school friends because I lent Jake Flanagan two of my best pencils in class and he never gave them back to me and I’d really like them back because the red one was my favourite one and—’

I felt momentarily overwhelmed. If it were up to me I’d give them all these things and more. ‘Guys, guys, you need to calm down. We can’t make any plans yet, not until Mum’s up.’

Rosie wasn’t at all satisfied with this answer. ‘But don’t you want us to stay?’

‘Of course I do but it’s not that simple.’

‘Well it should be,’ said Rosie.

I switched TV channels as a means of distraction and as the kids settled down to a new programme Penny came into the room. She’d had a shower but with the absence of a hairdryer had tied her wet hair up in a ponytail. Her face looked somehow different from the night before in a way I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

‘Mummy, you missed breakfast,’ said Jack without lifting his eyes from the TV. ‘Dad made his special scrambled eggs. He said he’d make you some too.’

Penny shook her head. ‘As appetising as that sounds I think I’ll stick to coffee if there’s any around?’

‘It’s pretty much the only thing I am guaranteed to have in,’ I replied. ‘Why don’t you sit down with the kids and I’ll sort you out a cup?’

‘Actually,’ said Penny, ‘I’d better not get too comfortable. We’ve got a long journey ahead of us and the kids really need to get ready if we’re not going to spend all day in traffic.’

Rosie stood up, hands on hips, eyes defiant. ‘Are you saying we’re going back to Harrogate right now?’

Penny took no notice of the outrage in her voice.

Rosie began to get upset. ‘But Jack and I don’t want to live there. That’s why we ran away – we want to be here where we belong with Dad and our friends.’

Penny was unmoved. ‘That’s just not possible right now. But don’t forget, sweetheart, you’ll be back for the holidays and you can catch up with all of your friends then.’

Wide-eyed, Rosie turned to me as the voice of reason. ‘Dad? Aren’t you going to say anything? Tell Mum we need to be here.’

I looked over at Penny, silently begging her to change her mind, but there was no response to my plea. Penny’s decision was made. Whatever the change of direction that had been incubating in her heart it had died overnight. I wanted to challenge her, to make the case to stay, but to have done so in front of the kids would have made Penny the enemy here, and while she was undoubtedly many things this was one role she most definitely wasn’t carved out for. I on the other hand had proved it was a part that suited me just fine.

‘Mum’s right, the sooner you get back into the swing of things in Harrogate, the better. You need to get settled there, sweetheart. It’s your home now.’

Rosie sobbed. ‘You don’t want us here! That’s why we have to go. I wish we’d never run away. I wish we’d just stayed where we were.’

She ran from the room and headed upstairs. I went to go after her but Penny stopped me. ‘Just give her a bit of time. She’ll be fine. I promise.’

‘Will she?’ I said sharply. I glanced over at Jack. ‘Son, as your sister’s packing it’s probably a good idea if you start too. Just gather your stuff together and wait upstairs while I chat to Mum.’

Jack nodded solemnly and left the room head down, shoulders slumped. This was the most mournful of his repertoire of sad walks, reserved solely for the worst of times.

I waited until Jack had closed the door behind him before I spoke. ‘I don’t understand. Why are you being like this?’

‘Like what?’

‘Do you really want me to spell it out for you? Last night you were on the verge of staying here for good. I know you didn’t say that exactly but I could feel it and I know you felt it too. This is it Penny, we’re supposed to get back together and I know it’s complicated, and I know that there are still problems to overcome, but there are two things I have no doubt about: the kids don’t want to live in Harrogate and neither do you. You might not think you do, but you still love me, Penny, and your running back to Scott isn’t about you loving him, it’s about the guilt you feel because he’s done so much for you. It’s about feeling like you ought to do the right thing instead of the thing you really want.’ I reached out and held her hand. ‘I’m begging you, don’t go, stay here with me and let’s work this whole thing out.’

Penny snatched her hand away. ‘I can’t. I just can’t.’

A knock at the door prevented the conversation from going any further.

‘Jack’s crying because he can’t find one of his action figures,’ said Rosie.

Penny moved towards the door. ‘Are you packed?’

Rosie nodded. ‘Do we really have to go, Mum?’

Penny picked up her bag. ‘Yes we do. Say goodbye to Dad and I’ll meet you in the car.’

It was impossible for me to say any more to Penny with the kids around and between Jack sobbing over his missing action figure and Rosie’s tears over not wanting to return to Harrogate I wasn’t sure that I’d be heard anyway. As it was, Penny had clearly made her decision. She had committed to Scott and a life away from me, away from London, and there was nothing I could say or do to change her mind.

Penny sat in the car with the engine running while I said my goodbyes to the kids. I promised them that I would be up to see them the weekend after next and I asked them to call me the moment they reached Harrogate. Clutching on to the Ultraman action figure I’d bought him all that time ago for comfort, Jack assured me that he wouldn’t smile again until the next time he saw me. This hit me so hard that I had to look away before I could hug him and tell him that I needed him to smile every day otherwise I’d be sad too. Rosie meanwhile was sobbing too much to say anything at all. Even when she hugged me and I whispered in her ear that I loved her, she looked up at me with red and swollen eyes to reply but the only sound to come out of her was the anguished sob of a broken heart.

At the door Jack turned and ran back to me. ‘Daddy, I want you to keep this,’ he said, thrusting Ultraman into my hands. ‘I want you to keep him so that you’ll never forget me.’

He was gone before I could even form a reply and so at the front door I stood rooted to the spot watching Penny’s car pull away, all the while clutching his favourite toy to my heart. I was still there long after they had gone and it was only when I heard my neighbours coming out of their house that I finally went back inside, closing the door behind me. For a moment I stood in the hallway, not quite knowing what to do next, the house that had been so noisy and alive just moments before now reverberating with silence. It was empty and so was I and in that same instant I dropped Jack’s action figure and I fell to my knees as wave after wave of searing pain crashed over me. This was it. I was at the end of the road. I just couldn’t take any more.

A sudden gust of wind blew across my face followed by the noise of distant traffic in my ears. I opened my eyes fully expecting to see the front door that I thought I’d closed now open but there was no door and even more oddly there was no house: I was somewhere else entirely.

37

I recognised my new location immediately: the top level of Lewisham Shopping Centre’s multi-storey car park. The view across Hilly Fields Park and beyond was one I knew well from the times I’d reluctantly parked here when the shopping centre was reaching maximum capacity. This level was the last resort of the casual Saturday shopper, the place you only came to when there was nowhere else to go and here I was without a clue about how I’d got there.

‘So they’re gone, are they?’

A strong waft of Poison filled the air. Fiona was behind me, sitting on the bonnet of a silver VW Golf less than six feet away. This time, unlike every other, she was dressed – from her cardigan and blouse down to her jeans and shoes – entirely in black, and at her feet was a black cabin-sized pull-along suitcase. Everything about her changed appearance unnerved me greatly. Something was going on and I had a strong feeling that I wasn’t going to like it.

‘What am I doing here?’

‘You didn’t answer my question,’ she said firmly. ‘I asked about your family. Are they gone?’

Straight away I was close to tears as I pictured Jack and Rosie in the back of Penny’s car driving away from me. They were my world. I was never going to get used to being away from them.

I looked at Fiona, who was casually brushing lint from her jeans. ‘Yes, yes, they’re gone.’

‘And there was me thinking that this was going to be your happy ending. You must be heart-broken.’

Fiona’s manner was different from how it had been the last time I’d seen her on the night of my date with Bella. Then she’d seemed almost maternal towards me, but everything about her now seemed harder, meaner, more spiteful, as though she had made up her mind that she’d got a mission to complete and was going to take a great deal of pleasure in seeing it finished. This new incarnation unsettled me deeply, and the last thing I wanted to do was antagonise her, but I needed some answers.

‘Fiona, please, tell me what I’m doing here.’

‘Penny doesn’t love you, Joe.’

I wasn’t going to let myself get sidetracked.

‘Come on, Fiona, just tell me what I’m doing here!’

‘To be honest, Joe, I’m not sure that she ever did.’

I still wasn’t going to take the bait.

‘Look, I get that you’re in control but please tell me why I’m here.’

‘And now another man’s going to be raising your kids. How long before they start calling him Dad?’

I couldn’t help myself. ‘That’s never going to happen!’

Fiona grinned, thoroughly pleased to have provoked me into a reaction. ‘Says the man who claimed he’d never let his kids move away.’

‘I didn’t have a choice!’

‘Joey, Joe, Joe, there’s always a choice. I thought you would have learned that by now. Makes no odds though, sending the kids away was the first smart thing I’ve seen you do. You know as well as I do that they’ll be better off without you.’

‘That’s not true.’ Even I was surprised by the lack of conviction in my voice. ‘It isn’t.’

‘Oh, but it is! You’re a loser Joe, an absolute loser. You couldn’t make a go of being a decent writer, no one respects you at work, your wife is getting more satisfaction from her lover than you ever gave her, and your kids, Joe, your kids! I’m guessing they pretty much hate you right now sending them away like that. Come on lover boy, admit it, you’ve given this life game a fair old crack of the whip, isn’t it time you just called it quits?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Oh, come on Dumbo, don’t try and tell me the thought has never crossed your mind. Your life is a mess and it’s
never
going to get better. No one would think you were weak if you packed it all in. In fact I think people might say it’s the first thing with actual balls that you’ve ever done.’

‘You want me to kill myself?’

‘This isn’t about my wants, Joe, this is about your needs.’ Sliding off the car bonnet she sauntered over to the red metal barriers surrounding the car park and looked over the edge. She turned back to me briefly and beckoned me over. ‘Come and take a look. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of looking is there? We’re just “trying the idea on for size”.’

I didn’t move.

‘Oh, come on, Joe, there’s nothing wrong with taking a look.’

I still didn’t move.

‘I promise you, there’s nothing to be scared of.’

She waved me towards her again. ‘You never know, if you go through with it, you might get lucky and end up with a job like mine. Think about how much fun that would be! We could be work mates!’

Surreal as this all was I had to laugh at that one but then I remembered what it was she was asking me to do. I took a step backwards.

‘Fiona, I don’t want to die.’