The Learning Curve (29 page)

He’d sat at Helen’s grave, reading and rereading her inscription until it became a jumble of letters instead of a stab of pain.

After that he’d spent as much time as possible with Oscar. And doing so made him realise that Oscar was his tonic. Not alcohol, not work, not oblivion. Oscar. If Oscar was happy, he was happy. If Oscar was learning the skills to help him live in the world from a dad he loved, he was happy. And if Oscar was happy just because he was with his dad, he was dizzy with happiness. And that was OK. It was more than OK, it was good. Life was good. They were lucky. They had each other. They had life.

He looked down at his son’s head and felt something that was part emotion, part prayer. Oscar smiled drowsily on the bed beside him.

‘I can’t wait to have my own bathroom.’

‘And?’

‘Being able to redecorate it myself.’

‘What colour will you want?’

‘Green.’

‘I thought it was blue.’

‘No,’ yawned Oscar. ‘Green.’

‘Green it is, then. And what else?’

‘Walking to school.’ He yawned again. ‘With you,’ he whispered.

Mark crept out of the room and when Oscar woke up four hours later, he could make out the shape of a bulging pillowcase at the end of his bed. He was so relieved that he fell asleep for another two hours, making it the latest Christmas morning ever in the Samuels household.

Mark was right, this Christmas was different. It was the first year without Helen that they were making a full Christmas lunch at home, not having it at a friend’s house or at Mark’s
parents’ house or at an expensive hotel. Mark had donned a specially bought apron with a picture of Father Christmas on it and a tiara of tinsel in his hair as he dutifully cooked turkey, stuffing, sausages, sprouts, roast potatoes and parsnips. And Oscar was his sous chef.

But there were two other major differences this year. The first was that Oscar received a fraction of the presents he usually got. Mark had prepared a speech explaining the need for some restraint, but there was no need, because the other difference was that Oscar hardly noticed the presents. He was so excited to prepare the meal with Dad, he was so excited at the thought of them watching a video together tonight and going to see a pantomime in town together on Boxing Day, he was so excited at the thought of what next year would bring, that he forgot to play with his brand new shiny toys. Usually, Mark was unable to extract him from them.

As they began peeling the vegetables, Oscar sitting at the kitchen table, with a serious look on his face, holding a peeler in his hand as if it was Excalibur, Mark wondered how he could have got it so wrong for so long. Then he told himself just to enjoy the moment and appreciate that he’d got it right before it was too late. At that thought he got a flash vision of Nicky Hobbs and felt a jolt of nervous excitement.

He decided that now was the perfect time to break the news to Oscar that it wouldn’t be a wise idea to go on an expensive summer holiday next year and how did Oscar feel about going camping in Cornwall instead? Oscar’s reaction was yet another lesson in his education.

‘Camping!’ he shrieked ecstatically. ‘Just us two?’ He ran over and hugged his father, potato peel dropping on the
floor. ‘This is the best Christmas ever, Dad,’ he whispered into Mark’s ear.

‘I thought you loved your summer holidays abroad,’ Mark replied, thickly.

Oscar’s voice was muffled. ‘Only ’cos I’m with you.’

Mark was speechless, which was a shame because as he watched Oscar return to peeling the spuds, he realised that, were this an American film, it would have been the moment to tell him how much he loved him. Instead he switched on the television to a children’s pop programme and they continued their food preparation to a typically crappy combination of memorable Christmas hits and unmemorable recent ones, Oscar filling Mark in on all the details of his favourite bands.

Mark had thought carefully about inviting his parents to their special lunch. Christmas was about families, and Oscar needed all the family he could get. He had lost one set of grandparents when he’d lost his mother. Helen’s father had died before she had, and Oscar had never known him. Helen’s mother had emigrated to New Zealand after she’d lost her daughter. Oscar received a birthday cheque and a Christmas cheque and that was it. Mark knew why; Oscar was the image of Helen. Photos of Helen as a baby and a child looked like Oscar in drag. It wasn’t just his colouring, it was his features; the spaces between his features; the shape of his face; the speed of his smile – it was everything. Sometimes Mark would catch Oscar glancing up and see Helen’s face hover across his features. It shook Mark sometimes, so God only knew how it made Helen’s mother feel. The tragedy was that instead of this compelling her to see Oscar more, it compelled her to flee from him. She had
remarried in New Zealand and had adopted her Kiwi husband’s grandchildren as her own.

As for Mark’s parents, he had no choice but to invite them. He loved them of course, but he loved them most when he was greeting them and saying goodbye. The bit in the middle was hard.

Virginia and Harvey Samuels had never liked Helen, always believing that their only son had married beneath him. It wasn’t anything specific about her they didn’t like, except, Mark used to think, that she wasn’t of royal blood. Then when she died in a car crash, they were horrified. When Mark began to pay for a string of foreign hired help instead of grabbing an eligible, young wife to begin with all over again (after all, he was still attractive, young and highly eligible himself), they decided the only way to persuade him to remarry was to argue in favour of it whenever they saw him. After a few years of this not working, they moved on to a different method, namely that of expressing disappointment in him whenever they saw him.

Virginia’s face suited this method perfectly. It expressed disappointment effortlessly. Her features just fell that way. Her eyebrows had been plucked away decades ago, and every morning she drew them on in a high arch of disdain. Her upper lip curled down as if in a perpetual state of resisting speaking her mind, and all it needed was a glint of bitter contempt from the hard, brown knots of her eyes and the person at whom they were directed would be struck down with guilt. Her husband, Harvey, had Mark’s even, open features, but a lifetime of being struck down with guilt had hardened them.

By the time they had turned up (early) and Lilith, Daisy and Pat had joined them (late), the food was ready and Mark and Oscar were dressed in matching sweaters (‘
Whatever
’ scrawled in orange against a black background) and jeans. After lunch, they played a game of charades that lasted two of the longest hours of Mark’s life, and after Lilith, Daisy and Pat had gone home, Oscar went upstairs to play on his new computer game.

Mark sat his parents down over mince pies and port to tell them his career news.

He poured the drinks – a double for him – and put the warmed-up mince pies on the Conran occasional tables in front of them all. His mother perched, motionless, on the edge of the sofa, her back straight, her ankles pinned together, her hands clasped and resting on her knee, her head tilted in readiness for good news, as if she were a piece of live art. His father sat back in the armchair holding his drink, his eyelids drooping. Mark waited until their port needed refilling. Then he began.

‘Mum, Dad, I’ve got some news,’ he said.

Virginia audibly gasped and stared at him, willing him to make her a happy woman.

‘I’m not engaged,’ he rushed, realising his mistake.

She sighed loudly and pursed her lips hard together. Harvey downed his second port.

‘So, my news is,’ continued Mark, slowing down with every word, ‘that I have resigned.’

This announcement was met with a total, 100 per cent silence, made up of 80 per cent shock and 20 per cent port. In it, Mark poured himself another drink.

‘I’ve got a new job at Oscar’s school,’ he went on, ‘so I’ll
be able to walk there and back with him every day and take school holidays.’ He coughed. ‘And we’re moving house,’ he went on. ‘It’s a smaller place but it’s much nearer school. It means –’

‘Are you going to be . . . a . . . a
teacher
?’ his mother whispered.

‘Christ,’ shot his father, sitting bolt upright for the first time all day. ‘He’s having a mental whatyoucallit.’

‘No,’ said Mark firmly. ‘I’m still an accountant. And I’m not having a breakdown.’

‘Oh, thank God,’ breathed his mother. ‘Everyone hates teachers.’

‘An accountant in the public sector?’ quizzed his father, in a damning tone. ‘What sort of accountant is that?’

‘It’s the type of accountant who wants to spend more time with his son, Dad.’

‘Why?’ asked Virginia. ‘What’s the matter with him? Is he in trouble?’

‘Son, you are a
partner
in a
City
firm,’ reminded his father. ‘Do you have
any
idea how –’

‘No, I’m not a partner in a City firm any more, Dad. Because I resigned. To spend more time with Oscar.’

His parents stared at him uncomprehendingly.

‘So –’ started Mark.

‘Now listen to me –’ began Harvey.

‘Ruining. His. Life,’ Virginia staccato-ed to her husband. ‘He is ruining his life. Apart. From. Breaking. His. Mother’s. Heart.’

‘Actually –’ began Mark.

‘I suppose we should be grateful that he’s not engaged to
that Lilith woman,’ continued Virginia, talking only to Harvey now. ‘Did you see what her mother was wearing? Plastic earrings.
Plastic
earrings.’

‘You see,’ said Mark, ‘I was very unhappy. And so was Oscar. We weren’t seeing anything of each other. I was at work all the time.’

‘Of course you were!’ snapped his father. ‘You’re his
father
. I didn’t see you properly till you were eleven. I never saw my father at all.’

‘Being with the child is the mother’s job,’ Virginia explained, attempting to speak softly.

‘Yes, Mum,’ replied Mark slowly. ‘But Oscar’s mother died, so I am his mother
and
his father.’

Virginia spoke slowly and clearly. ‘If you
remarried
,’ she said, ‘he
would
have a mother. And possibly some siblings. And a family. And then you wouldn’t have to sacrifice your
career
.’

‘We
are
a family,’ replied Mark.

‘Oh no you’re not,’ shot Virginia darkly, ‘and you are fooling only yourself if you think you are. A family is a mother, a father and their progeny. Not a father and a son and a string of Eastern European help. Nor is it a mother, daughter and grandmother with plastic earrings.’ She turned to her husband. ‘What is wrong with this generation?’ she asked him. ‘Did they learn nothing from us?’ She turned back to her son. ‘You have a responsibility to the next generation and you are falling short, young man. You are falling short. I only thank God I’ll be dead before the next generation are adults.’

Mark sighed. ‘Actually, I did learn a lot from you. Even if it was only learning from your mistakes.’

‘Mistakes!’ exclaimed Virginia. ‘What on . . . we didn’t make mistakes! We did everything for you. We didn’t go out in the evening for the first ten years of your life. We never left you with a stranger once.’

‘All right,’ said Mark, ‘I have just
realised
, then, that I only have one opportunity to be with my son. And I’m not going to miss it.’

‘So you’re going to sit at home like a bloody woman?’ His father was now shouting.

‘No,’ said Mark. ‘I’m going to do a job that fits round my son.’

Virginia’s voice sliced through the men’s. ‘Speaking as a “bloody” woman,’ she said tightly, now talking directly to Mark, ‘if you are going through some mid-life crisis, dear, why don’t you just have an affair with your secretary? It worked for your father.’

There was a pause.

‘
What?
’ breathed Mark.

‘Right,’ muttered Harvey, standing up. ‘We’re going.’

He walked out of the room, taking his car keys out of his pocket.

‘Do say goodbye to Oscar for us, darling,’ said his mother, standing up.

Mark jumped up and called out to Oscar.

Oscar didn’t notice anything strange in the chilled atmosphere as his grandmother touched his cheek with hers and his grandfather patted him on the shoulder. After the kitchen was tidy, Oscar went to the cabinet in the lounge. He carried a heavy box carefully to the coffee table. They sat down on the floor, Mark with his whisky, Oscar with his chocolate orange, and opened the box. It was full of photos
of Helen; an exhausted Helen with newborn Oscar; Helen and Oscar smiling the same smile to the camera; Helen, Oscar and Mark on holiday together. (Mark noticed that he was never touching Oscar in any of the photos.) Mark recounted the story behind every photo that Oscar picked out, stories Oscar knew so well himself that if Mark left out any details he filled them in.

Then they watched a video together and went to bed.

ONCE TERM TIME
was over, the Christmas season stopped being Nicky’s favourite one. Christmas always did the same to her. She looked forward to it – because that’s what you did with Christmas – and then afterwards she was always inexplicably struck down with a depressed lethargy.

Most of her friends were not originally from London, and so at this time of year, they took the opportunity to vanish to their own homes across the length and breadth of the land, to be clasped to the bosom of their festive families. One year, Nicky accepted Ally’s invitation and joined her in Leeds, during which she learnt that the only thing worse than spending Christmas with your own dysfunctional family was spending it with someone else’s.

So for the past few years, she had spent the social desert that was the interminable week between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve getting on with work. From 8 a.m. to 3.30 p.m., she found something soothingly positive in such industry. Then as dusk settled, her life became epically tragic. She felt like a Brontë, old before her time, overlooked and unloved, sinking into the quagmire of work to escape the echoing loneliness of her life. Then she’d watch day-time telly and eat chocolate.