Six Months to Get a Life (17 page)

I phoned my ex from the hospital waiting room. She was there in half an hour.

‘What the hell were you doing?' she asked me once she had given Sean a cuddle.

I was too tired to argue. I just put my hands up and walked off to find a coffee machine. Had I hung around, I haven't got a clue what I would have said in my defence. I would have had one less leg to stand on than Sean.

When I returned from the canteen, the consultant was with my ex. Sean has broken the calcaneus bone (his heel). That's the end of his cricket season for this year, not to mention his chances of swimming in the Caribbean sea. The good news, though, is that he doesn't need surgery.

‘You do know you have wrecked Sean's Antigua holiday now, don't you?' my ex muttered angrily at me as she was pushing Sean out of the hospital doors in a wheelchair.

It was an accident that could have happened to anyone, but I don't think I will enter myself for dad of the year this year.

Sean had his foot put in plaster today.

Despite everything, Jack phoned me this afternoon and thanked me for taking them on holiday. Bryan also texted me and asked if I fancied going for a beer. I am not sure I can face seeing any more of either Bryan or Katie for a while.

With less than seven weeks until my 43rd birthday, I spent today reassessing my priorities. I have made progress on some of the goals I set for myself when my divorce came through. Our Turkey trip shows that I have got some way to go before I can call myself a great dad. The Julia incident could prove my undoing with Amy. And I haven’t got a job of any description, let alone a more interesting one.

On reflection, I feel the need to restate and slightly refine my goals:

1. Be a good dad;
   
2. Be proud of myself; and
   
3. Get a job
   

On the subject of goal three, I have spent most of today revising my CV. Did you know I once did voluntary work for the World Wildlife Fund saving tigers in India? Oh, and I ran my own health and safety business too. Katie would be proud of me.

Getting a job has to be a real priority. The more I think about money, the more I am starting to worry. My flat might not be something I am proud of but the thought of having to move back in to my parents’ fills me with dread. I have filled in five application forms over the course of the last few days. At least one of them, for a ‘performance manager’ job for my local council, sounds right up my street. Literally. It is based at the end of Martin Way, about a five minute walk from my flat.

Amy and Lucy arrived back from San Diego this morning. Amy’s ex managed to get his arse in gear this time and picked them up from the airport. I haven’t been able to get Amy out of my head since our weekend in the Lakes. Spending some quality time alone with her is even higher up my priority list than getting a job, so I was pleased when Amy phoned me when she got home and invited me to dinner at her place tomorrow night. Our kids were both supposed to be with their other parent but when Lucy and Jack got their heads together, they pleaded with us to be invited to dinner too. So now a romantic twosome has turned in to a slightly awkward foursome. I did invite Sean as well. He politely declined saying he didn’t want to sit there all night and watch his brother behaving like a sissy.

I am not sure if a rule book has been written for joint dates between fathers and sons and mothers and daughters, but in the taxi on the way over to Amy’s, Jack and I agreed to adhere to a number of rules. Jack undertook not to mention Julia under any circumstances. I agreed to buy Jack a new games console for Christmas. Jack also made me agree:

1. Not to mention him wetting the bed when he was six or putting his mother’s bikini on when he was seven
   
2. Not to get my phone out and show Lucy the video of him singing ‘If I Only Had a Brain’ in his primary school’s production of the Wizard of Oz
   
3. Not to make him eat all his vegetables at dinner, especially if it’s spinach
   
4. Not to boast about his academic abilities again
   
5. Not to kiss Amy in front of him
   
6. Not to laugh, comment or even look if he kisses Lucy
   
7. Not to pretend I am cooler than I actually am
   

As the taxi pulled up outside Amy’s, the driver muttered, ‘Bloody hell, they must be minted.’ Indeed they must be. The massive iron gates were open, revealing a house adorned with stone pillars and huge windows. Secluded lighting in the gardens that lined the drive lit up a positive zoo of ornately carved animals. And unlike the gravel out the back
of my flat, Amy’s gravel wasn’t threadbare and littered with cat shit. It looked like it had been carefully raked by a gardener just before our arrival.

On seeing the double-fronted mock something-or-other house, I half expected the butler to come rushing out to take our coats. Or is that the doorman’s job? If there is a butler or a doorman, Amy must have given them the night off because she and Lucy both came to greet us. Amy and I had an awkward moment where we didn’t know whether or not to kiss in front of our children and instead stuck to smiling at each other. Lucy on the other hand had no such qualms and wrapped her arms around Jack so tightly that she nearly suffocated the poor boy. I quite envied their uninhibited embrace.

Amy led us all in to her palace. I nudged Jack to get him to take his shoes off at the door but Amy laughed and told me not to be so stupid. I bet the hall carpet cost more than all the floor surfaces in my flat put together. It was about the same size too. I caught myself wondering whether it was a shag pile. We walked through to a wood-panelled dining room. The whole room was clad in dark wood. To my untrained eye it all looked a bit imposing and austere but I am sure it oozed class. The table was laid for four but big enough to host double that comfortably.

Overall the evening went well. Amy is a top cook. We had home-made spinach and ricotta calzone. Jack didn’t seem to notice the spinach. After dinner, the kids adjourned to somewhere else in the house (probably the drawing room) whilst Amy and I stayed seated at the table and shared most of a bottle of claret between us.

Amy told me about her and Lucy’s San Diego holiday. It wasn’t as hot as they were expecting but unlike our trip to Turkey, they had no dramas to report. Lucy brought Jack back a cuddly panda as a present. If I had given Jack
a panda, he would have given it to Albus and told me he wasn’t a baby anymore. But apparently it is OK to receive a cuddly panda from your girlfriend.

The kids are off to Antigua tomorrow. Jack told me on the way home from Amy’s that he didn’t want to go. Secretly that made me feel good but I was ever the professional divorced dad and told him he would have a great time with his mum and his brother, and his mum’s new bloke. ‘Mark’s a dork, and Sean’s a cripple at the moment so I don’t see how it is going to be fun,’ replied Jack. The fact that Jack thinks that Mr comb-over is a dork pleased me, but I suspect the real reason that Jack didn’t want to go is because he will miss Lucy.

The extent of Jack’s interest in Lucy is beginning to worry me. He is living life and that is great. Being in love is exciting, exhilarating. I am not worried about them having sex or anything like that either. They are still embarrassed about getting to first base.

What worries me is how Jack will be when, and in my mind it is when and not if, he and Lucy break up. He has never had his heart broken before. I know it is something he will have to deal with at some point. I certainly did when I was a teenager – Andrea Hollingwood, I still haven’t forgiven you. But as his dad I want to protect him for as long as possible. I guess I just have to accept that some things are out of my control. Jack has to live his life, heartbreak and all.

I went to my ex’s this morning to see the boys off. I haven’t seen Sean since he left the hospital with my ex. When I arrived he was sitting on the sofa with his foot up. He was totally grumpy and wasn’t looking forward to the holiday either. I can’t say I blame him. He will struggle to walk on the sand. He can’t get his cast wet so I don’t quite know what he will do for three weeks in Antigua. I gave him a new hand-held gaming thingy that I picked up cheaply on eBay. It was the least I could do.

I am not going to see the boys for the next three weeks. I haven’t gone that long without seeing them since they were born. I bet some people don’t go three weeks without seeing their kids for the whole of their lives.

I am feeling pretty flat this evening and yes, I am blaming myself for ruining Sean’s Antigua trip.

My evening gloom was interrupted by a phone call. Now, before I start on this one, in my defence I should point out that the phone reception on my mobile is dodgy in the new flat and I can’t read the phone screen without my glasses. I answered the phone.

‘Hello gorgeous, I have missed you,’ said Amy.

‘I am missing you too, sexy,’ I replied.

‘Ah, that’s good to hear. I need you. It has been a while since we made love,’ Amy said.

Hang on a minute, Amy and I haven’t quite made love yet. Yet. Panic.

‘Er, who is this?’

‘Who do you bloody think it is?’ replied a cross Julia.

I tried to recover the situation by telling her I was only joking but I don’t think I got away with it.

‘Are you seeing someone else?’ she asked.

‘No, of course not.’ I tried to sound outraged.

Letting women down gently is something else I don’t have much experience of. In my youth it used to be them letting me down gently. Or sometimes not so gently – Andrea Hollingwood, you have a lot to answer for. I was trying to let Julia down gently and thought it would be kinder to her to say I just wanted to be friends rather than telling her I had someone else, but I couldn’t seem to find the right words.

‘That’s all right then,’ she said. ‘I have really missed you over the last few weeks. Don’t you think it is great having someone special in your life again?’ This was getting worse.

‘Oh, Julia, you are special to me but…’

‘What are you doing tomorrow night?’

‘Nothing, but…’

‘Good, come round to mine. See you at 7.30.’

‘OK, see you then,’ I mumbled.

I’m a numpty. A doofus. I tried composing a text but decided I wouldn’t have been very proud of myself if I had sent it. It read, ‘Sorry Julia, I just can’t do this anymore. Goodbye. Graham’. It sounded more like a suicide note than an end of relationship text in any case.

I am still missing the boys but I feel better now because I have sorted the Julia situation out. I manned up and phoned her this morning. I told her everything. Literally everything. She started off upset but by the time I got to the ‘Father and son, mother and daughter’ bit of the story, she was less frosty.

‘Why didn’t you just tell me all this in the first place?’ she asked.

‘I thought you’d be upset,’

‘I am a bit disappointed that I won’t be getting any more nookie for a while, but it isn’t as if I had fallen in love with you or anything, and come to think of it, the sex wasn’t the best I have ever had,’ she said. Bloody cheek. In the circumstances though, I probably deserved that dig so I let it go.

Julia went on to tell me she has been talking to Katie. Apparently Katie and Bryan’s relationship has been on the rocks for a while now. Bryan has moved out and is living with his parents. That sounds familiar.

This weekend is a no-kids weekend. It is also a no-football weekend. I am not quite sure what I am going to do with my time as Amy is visiting friends in Cheshire. Why is it that when I visit friends, I go to places like Morden? Amy goes to Alderley Edge or Saffron Walden.

This is the furthest I have ever been away from my children. And I don’t like it. On the day they flew to the Caribbean I kept looking at Twitter to check for plane crashes. I never normally give that sort of thing a thought when I am flying with the boys. At least I know they arrived safely. Jack texted me and told me ‘we are here’. That is about as descriptive as I would expect Jack to get via text. They have been there two days now and I haven’t heard any more.

The boys are probably sitting on a luxury yacht being skippered around some idyllic island or other by Mr comb-over whilst my ex is sunbathing naked on the poop deck. I suspect this makes me a bad father but I hope they aren’t having too good a time. I am not wishing them an awful holiday. Just one that isn’t better than anything I can give them. I made the mistake of confessing my feelings to my parents when I went round for a coffee this afternoon. The coffee turned in to a few cans of London Pride. My mum reminded me that being a parent isn’t all about me. I should be putting Jack and Sean’s interests first. Apparently being a good parent is about being there when they need me, not them being there when I need them. Trust me to have social workers for parents. For once in their lives, why can’t they be on my side?

I ended up having a few beers with Bryan last night. He tells me that Katie is an alcoholic. Tell me something I don’t know. Bryan’s contention is that it is no wonder he is having an affair with Tracey the hairdresser.

‘Which came first though, the chicken or the egg?’ I asked him. He didn’t seem to get my meaning and I confess I wasn’t interested enough in the answer to bother pursuing it.

We spent most of the night talking about the pros and cons of living with your parents. But it must be said that over the last double whiskey we talked nonstop about what Tracey was like in bed. Very noisy apparently.

I have got another job interview. It is for that performance management job at Merton Council. Merton is famous for Paul, the comedian, who named himself after the council. Honestly, at least according to what I read when I started researching Merton.

The interview is next week so I will do some prep over the next few days. But for now I am off to Amy’s. Generally, I hate my kids not being around but occasionally it has its advantages. Lucy is at her dad’s tonight too. Is tonight the night? I shaved and put my nearly new briefs on just in case.