I am
IO
Somehow we all survived the school summer holidays, though I must confess I spent the last two weeks praying for the start of the new term so I could have my precious little bundles off my hands again and return to sanity. Scott pitched in more than he ever used to at least, though it wasn’t that much help with Nat who’s still taking things slowly as far as his dad’s concerned. Nat went out on a few trips with Scott and Rosie, but only if it was swimming or seeing a film, still I suppose it’s a start. We’ll all just have to be patient. Scott even took Rosie up to Scotland to stay with his sister while Nat was away in Cornwall with Jason, and they had a great time. Rosie loves Sheila and they all made a fuss of her and she came back with what feels like hundreds of tartan knick-knacks for her room including some horrible furry little gonk thing clutching miniature bagpipes.
Also, it was Rosie’s birthday—10 at last! It feels like she’s been looking forward to it for ever. Anyway, we had a party at home for her and Scott and I agreed that Rosie would love it if he came as well. He managed to behave himself fairly well (for him) and had the kids playing silly games and shrieking with laughter and they all got very excited and thought he was wonderful and he was grinning from ear to ear like a big kid himself. Then we turned up the music and we adults had drinks in the kitchen while the kids held a mini-disco in the lounge—have you seen the way they dance these days? All wriggling their hips and sticking out their flat chests, desperate to be sexy—except they’re only ten years old. It’s truly hideous. Then they practised the dance routines they’ve seen on the telly being done by those awful bands they all go mad for, and I spent most of the next day trying to scrape up bits of ground-in cake from the carpet. Scott wanted to join in the dancing, but I thought it would embarrass Rosie (have you seen Scott dance?) and talked him out of it.
What else? Oh yes. Now don’t laugh but I did go on another date. Well, more than one actually. I’ve been seeing Dr Wojczek. Greg, I mean. It’s short for Gregor. He doesn’t really look like a Greg, but I can’t quite bring myself to say Gregor because it sounds silly. I knew he had been married but I’d assumed he was divorced or separated, but actually he’s a widower. His wife died two years ago of cancer—just before he joined the practice. Poor man. It must have been awful.
Anyway, we went out for dinner to that rather posh restaurant in Wye and I felt very nervous, which was silly because of course I’ve known him for nearly two years. It was strange though, being out with someone else. For the first hour or so, I was thinking, “I don’t know how to do this. Should I be laughing more? Should I be talking less? What if he finds me boring?” Then after a while and a couple of glasses of wine, I forgot to think about how I was and what impression I was making and I started to enjoy myself. And there were candles and we had wine and I ate far too much and it was all such a treat, I can’t tell you. When you’re cooking for a family day in and day out, desperately trying to think of something new that you can defrost or whip up in half an hour and that your children won’t push round their plates saying, “It tastes funny,” it is so wonderful to be taken out to dinner. Except all through the evening I couldn’t stop wondering what it would feel like to kiss a man with a beard—because I never have, not in my whole life. I was sitting there opposite him and I kept imagining it. I had to stop myself lunging across the table at him to have a quick stroke. I thought it might be really prickly.
Course, Cassie was on the phone at crack of dawn the next day, when we were all in our usual chaos, tearing round trying to eat breakfast and find our games kits (you know what I mean). She said,
“Sorry, I couldn’t wait. How was it? Did you do it?”
“It was only dinner! Of course not!”
Honestly, what does she think I am?
* * *
We didn’t do it till our fourth date. And, by the way, it’s not prickly. But it does tickle.
It was Rozza’s birthday. She had all her little friends round for a party and a disco, but it wasn’t a proper one, just dancing around to CDs in the front room. We pushed all the furniture against the walls and Mum changed the light bulbs in the lamps so there was a red one and a blue one and a green one. It was quite funky actually. Well, it was OK for little kids. And we had piles of fried chicken and jacket potatoes with different fillings and Mum did Coke floats with ice-cream. My dad came and goofed around for a while. Rosie liked it.
In the holidays, I went with Jason and his family to Cornwall and we did windsurfing. You fall off a lot at the beginning, but it was still pretty cool. Jason’s stepdad tried to do it but he’s a bit of a noodle and he couldn’t balance right. I guess he’s too old. Bet my dad could do better than him. Yeah, well. Still, the stepdad—Mr Wonderful, that’s what they call him, only not to his face—he’s not so bad, he’s better than Jason’s real dad if you ask me. He got us loads of ice-creams and he doesn’t keep asking you stupid questions the whole time, he just lets you alone.
Yeah, I went out with Rosie and my dad a couple of times, so what? It was only swimming and blading and that. It’s not like I had to talk to him much or anything, only to say what I wanted when we got something to eat. Big bloody deal. I wasn’t going to go, but Joanne said I must be a loony tune letting Rosie have all the treats by herself and she’d never let her little sister get away with it.
Mum’s going out with someone, and Rosie and me wind her up about having a boyfriend. He’s like way too old to be a boyfriend, of course, he is majorly decrepit. Mum says he’s “only forty-five.” Yeah, like I said, a total crumbly. And he’s got a beard. Creepy. It’s that Dr Whatsit only we’re supposed to call him Greg as if he’s a mate or something, so mostly I don’t call him anything, ‘cept I call him Weirdy Beardy to Rosie. When he came to pick up Mum the first time, he shook my hand and said, “Hello, Nathan. How do you do. Or you prefer Nat, yes?”
“Mn.”
“Your mother tells me you are quite the hotshot with computers.”
“I do OK.”
“I really envy you. Gail is trying to teach me how to use mine properly at the surgery.” “Mum’s teaching you?!”
He must be seriously crap.
“Oh, yes.” Then he looks at her with this soppy face. Vomit time.
Rosie says she bets they snog a lot, but I reckon they are getting a bit old for it. Anyway, he hasn’t stayed over yet—not unless he sneaks out at six o’clock in the morning. Next time he comes round, I’m not going to go to bed till I know he’s left. I asked Mum if he was moving in and she said,
“No, course not! Do you really think I’d install some man without talking to you and Rosie first? Besides, I’m in no rush.”
She can’t get married again yet anyhow, until she gets a divorce from Dad, and that’ll take ages and ages.
We’re back at school this week. Thrillsville.
I guess you want to know if I ever had enough guts to phone up Ella, you know, the sandwich lady. Well, no I didn’t, but only because I didn’t need to in the end. I had to bide my time till after the weekend ‘cause I couldn’t track down her card and I didn’t know her surname so I couldn’t look her up. I’m no good on the phone anyhow. I’m better when I can see what I’m doing.
But, come Monday morning, I’m ready to make my move.
I hang back till after the small queue’s subsided and there’s only a couple of blokes lounging nearby, eating their rolls outside in the sun.
“Hey there. So what treats have you got in store for me today?”
She smiles.
“Oh, mostly leftovers and a few stale crusts. Still, you just name what you want, then I can tell you I’m all out.”
“Now that’s what I like—a woman who can satisfy my every need.”
I was right. Definitely no wedding ring. But maybe she takes it off so it doesn’t get all covered in crumbs.
“I’ve got that chicken in herby mayonnaise thing you like.” Ah-ha. See, she notices these things. “Or Spanish omelette? Roast beef? What do you fancy?”
Don’t ask.
I go for the chicken and while she’s doing it, I pounce, smooth and slick as a panther.
“Um …” I say.
“Ye-es?” She’s smiling at least. Come on, mate, get a move on. She’ll be off in a minute. Don’t you just hate working under pressure?
“You do a great job, feeding us lot day in and day out.”
“Thank you. It’s nice to feel appreciated. It makes getting up at six every morning to begin the day’s buttering while I’m barely conscious seem almost worthwhile.”
“Maybe I could do the same for you some time?”
She pauses, her knife poised mid-spread.
“You’re volunteering to help me butter my rolls? Or you want to make me a sandwich?” Her face is straight, her voice deadpan.
“Er, neither actually. Just wondered if you fancied going for a bite to eat some time.” Casual. Keep it casual, case she says no. “Or just a drink. Or a coffee.”
“Oh. OK.”
“That’s OK as in yes, right?”
“I guess it is.” She bags up my chicken baguette and gives the bag a neat twirl, then she looks straight at me and gives me a grade A, full on, green light, bell-ringing, neck-tingling humdinger of a smile. “What took you so long?” she says.
Anyways, we fix up a where and a when and we meet outside that nice old pub on the river and I get there early. And when this woman appears and smiles at me, I’m thinking, “Hmm, she’s a bit of all right” before I click that it’s her, the sandwich lady, Ella I mean. Only she’s wearing a dress and there’s not an apron in sight and her hair’s loose, falling around her shoulders and, yes, my God, the woman’s even got legs. Two of them. And not bad legs at that. For some reason, I seem to have forgotten how to breathe and I feel myself blushing like a sodding schoolboy and, dear God, does none of this ever get any easier? Then she waves and comes over and she says hi and I say hi and after a little bit of awkwardness we’re up and running and talking like there’s no tomorrow and no, I’m not telling you it all now, you’ll just have to wait.
Gail’s seeing that doctor from the surgery. Dr Whatsit. Only Gail says it like this: Dr Vocheck. Yes, the one whose idea of being the life and soul of the party is to treat everyone to a rousing folk song in a foreign language. I’d rather listen to Rosie speaking in alien. Spridski zekroddok? Actually, sometimes it feels like we really know what we’re saying. I’d probably do better talking like that the whole time.
Gail told me after she’d been out with him a couple of times. I can’t say I was overjoyed at the thought. I don’t know if she’s had sex with him yet and, frankly, I’d rather not think about it and if that makes me a miserable toerag with double standards then so be it. Anyhow, we had to work out how we’re going to handle the whole going out with other people thing. I’m not having someone moving straight into my house and putting their feet up on my settee and sleeping in my bed and living at my expense. Not a chance. I told Gail that and she said,
“What sort of man would have so little pride that he’d sponge off another man like that? Don’t be ridiculous. Credit me with having some taste and sense at least, won’t you?”
Anyway, so we agreed: what we get up to is our own business but no flaunting it in front of the kids. That means no overnight “guests” when Nat and Rosie are around until the person’s been introduced slowly and they get on OK with them. No snogging on the stairs, no strangers wandering round the house naked. I told Gail she can’t be trailing a whole string of different men through the house.
“Yes, that does sound like me, doesn’t it? You can talk. And excuse me, I notice none of this will hold you back much.”
We still have a bit of a ding-dong now and then, but we can’t keep it up any more, we’ve lost the heart for the battle.
Rosie stays with me every other Saturday night now and sometimes one night mid-week if we can get ourselves organized and remember what she needs for the next day, but Nat still hasn’t set foot in my flat. He barely says a word to me, even if he comes out with me and Rosie, which he’s done all of four times I think. Not that I’m counting or anything. I don’t know what I have to do to square things with him. I hope he decides to make up with me before I’m on my deathbed. There’s probably a way to deal with this, but I’m buggered if I know what it is. I wish I knew how to talk to him. In the past, like before, him and me always got along, but it was just him being him and me being me, we never had to think about it, certainly never had to talk about it. But now—well—I’d like that back again and I don’t know how to get from where we are now to where I want us to be and I reckon Nat doesn’t know either. Or, worse, maybe he likes it this way, maybe he really doesn’t want me in his life any more. Shit. I know I have to find a way to talk to him, I do know that—but please won’t somebody tell me what the hell I’m supposed to say?
Scott’s seeing someone else. At first, I thought it must be her, that woman he slept with, and I wondered if he really had carried on seeing her all along. But he insists it isn’t and, for once, I believe him; he’s got no real reason to lie any more.
Rosie tries not to talk about her, Ella, in front of me, which is sweet of her, but sometimes she can’t help it and she babbles away about what they’ve got up to together.
“Ella and me made fairy cakes and she let me weigh all the sultanas and everything and put out the paper cases. We had to do forty-eight because she’s got lots of customers and they all like cakes and she’s going to show me how to make brownies.”
And this domestic whiz turns out to have an artistic streak too. Rosie says she’s doing a painting on her bedroom wall. I’m pleased for Rosie, of course I am, it’s just I’m beginning to feel I’m just the boring old mummy who can’t compete with this creative girl who seems to know what bands are in and what colour nail polish is fashionable. OK, she’s not really a girl, Scott says she’s nearly thirty-seven so she’s no spring chicken either, but she sounds young. At least she’s not some eighteen-year-old bimbo, that would be much worse. But I think Rosie’s getting fond of her and it’s not that I’m jealous or anything, but I can’t say I’m overjoyed about it.
Nat won’t even meet Ella. Since he found out Scott had a girlfriend, he’s retreated more into himself and he refuses to see him on even the occasional Sunday, so it feels like one step forward, two steps back at the moment. Scott says,
“Of course I don’t have to see Ella on a Sunday if Nat’s not ready to meet her. Rosie and I always have part of the day on our own anyway. Just tell him, can’t you? I want him to see the flat.”
“I’ll try.”
Nat’s desperate to see Scott’s flat, too. I know he is. He’d die rather than admit it to anyone though, so I’ll have to make it sound like he’s doing Scott a favour. It would be nice not to have to go through all this, to play it straight, but Nat’s got so much pride and now I think he’s been angry for so long that he can’t see any way out of it without losing face. I wish I could make it easier for him.
Nat asked me if I was going to let Greg move in. He said it almost as if he thought it was inevitable—as if I’d really just let someone waltz in here with his suitcases without even discussing it with my children. Anyway, I’m in no rush to become a one-woman support service for another man just yet. I enjoy Greg’s company and yes, thank you, things are very nice in the bed department too, but I’m happy with things as they are. He’s a lot more serious than Scott, which takes a little getting used to, and he’s much more thoughtful and sensitive too, which I like. Also, he listens when I’m talking. Cassie says we should have him cloned. It’s odd, but now I find myself being rather silly at times, and encouraging Greg to loosen up and live a little. The other Sunday, I had him dancing along the beach. He showed me how to do the polka. That’ll come in handy for all the balls I get invited to, won’t it? No, really, it was fun. Before, with Scott, I seemed to turn into this awful uptight Victorian-style governess, endlessly trying to keep him in line. It’s just terrific to have some time off from being the sensible one.
“It feels kind of strange to be looking down at you for once.” We’re standing outside Ella’s house, after that first date, and I’m wondering whether she’ll ask me in for coffee or if we can skip the coffee and cut straight to ripping each other’s clothes off. “I’m so used to gazing adoringly up at you in your van.”
“As it should be, of course. Shall I stand on a box so you feel more at ease?”
“Nah. Don’t do that.” I move a bit closer, leaning in towards her.
“Why’s that then?” Her face is only a few inches from mine, her lips soft and smiling.
“Because I don’t want to get neck-ache when I kiss you …”
After a couple of minutes, or possibly a couple of weeks, she pulls away and starts burrowing in her bag for her keys.
“Um …” she says.
“Hey—that’s one of my best lines. Go get your own script.”
God, that smile. I’d go without food to be on the receiving end of that smile—and you know what a one I am for my nosh.
I pull her close again.
“If you’re planning to drag me indoors and have your evil way with me, I want you to know that my resistance is really low at this time of year, so I can’t guarantee to put up much of a fight.”
“Ah, that wasn’t it actually. Look, no big deal or anything but I have to tell you something—”
I do not like the start of that sentence. It’s not got a lot of promise, has it? It’s the kind of sentence that finishes up with “I’m married and my husband’s about to come out with his shotgun.” I like sentences that begin more along the lines of, “This is the way to my bedroom” or “This bra’s uncomfortable, do you mind if I take it off …?”
“It’s just, well, I don’t want to start liking you and then you find out and—whoosht!” She goes like this with her hand, like an object zipping by at speed.
“Whoosht?” My hand does a repeat performance.
“Yes, you know, out the door and I won’t see you for dust.”
“I’m not that fit, believe me. There’s men of ninety run faster than me. So, what’s the big secret? Only if you want to warn me about your husband and he’s going to bust out the door any second, I’d better be getting a head start on him.” “Hardly. No. I’ve got a child, that’s all. A boy. He’s two and a half.”
“Does he have a name, this small person?”
“Jamie.”
“Hang on—let me check my list …” I hold out my hand like a clipboard. “Alfred, Ben, Charlie—dum-dee-dah, here we go—Jamie. Yes, on my list of approved names. Shouldn’t present any problems. Why’s it a secret? Is he the result of a drunken fling with a politician?”
She wrinkles her nose up at the thought. It’s a pretty nose, a nose I would like to kiss at this moment, so I do.
“That’s nice. Believe me, a lot of men run a mile soon as they know you’ve got a kid.”
“I told you about mine.”
“Not the same. They don’t live with you full-time.”
Too true, too true.
She stretches up to kiss me.
“You really OK with it?”
“Sure. So long as he doesn’t insist on sleeping in the middle …”
Cut to three weeks later if you will. It’s a Saturday afternoon. Jamie’s playing round at Cora’s house, that’s Ella’s sister, with his cousins. It’s raining, and not just a few light droplets either. This is rain that’s not going to give up and go home until you are seriously soaked, this is rain with attitude. We were planning on going for a bike ride along the old towpath by the canal, but as we’re not a couple of ducks it’s not looking like such a hot idea.
“Might as well stay in really.” I nuzzle at her neck.
“I could carry on with the mural in Rosie’s room.” It’s a castle and hills she’s painted on the wall. She’s a bit of an artist, is Ella. She likes to do some every week so there’s something new each time Rosie comes to stay. “I was thinking of adding a lake and some swans.” She tips her head back and half leans against me.
“Swans, yes. Could do that …” I very gently start licking her earlobe.
“Or I could go back home and bake some cakes for the van next week.”
“Cakes, yes. You could …” Tucking her hair back so I can kiss the skin behind her ear.
“Or we could do a jigsaw puzzle?” Her breathing’s faster, more ragged now.
“Jigsaw. Hmm-mm …” My hand slips down, sliding between her jeaned thighs and she half crumples against me.
“Or you could take me to bed …” Her mouth open to mine, her hands roaming up under my T-shirt, stroking my skin.
“Um, jigsaw puzzle’s probably the best bet.” My words slur out between hot kisses. I try to sneak my hand down the front of her jeans but they’re a good, snug fit. Struggling with the button now, the zip, leading her to the bedroom. She opens her eyes.
“Let’s take it slowly,” she says.
“OK, we’ll start with the edges.”
* * *
Take it slowly! Take it slowly? Is she kidding? I’ve waited months for this. Well, all right, three weeks then, but I’ve fancied her for ages so it counts as longer.
But slowly it is.
First, she draws my T-shirt up and over my head. Starts kissing me all over my chest, spacing the kisses out like a row of seeds. Her fingers lightly skim my skin, driving me crazy. Actually, if this is taking it slowly, I reckon I could stand a little more of it. I’ve never had anyone pay me so much attention.
She helps me off with my trousers. Yeah, I know, I’m forty-one, I’ve been managing to undress on my own for years, but she offered so what can you do? It’d be rude to say no, right? My pants virtually have to be peeled off me by this point, though if she leaves them on a minute longer they’d probably burst right off me or spontaneously combust.
Oh, hello, this looks promising. Ay-ay-ay … my eyes are rolling into the back of my head. God, I’ve missed this. Gail was never all that keen, to be honest, so it became a bit of a twice-a-year, birthday and Christmas treat, and it’s one thing you can’t do for yourself. Ella’s mouth is strutting some majorly funky stuff here and her hands aren’t just loafing either. I have died and gone to Heaven, there’s no other explanation. You can put “At least he died happy” on my headstone.
She leans me back on the bed, then quickly strips down to her bra and pants and climbs astride me. Bends to kiss me, her tongue flicking over my lips, gently drawing my bottom lip between her teeth. God, that’s good.
“I want to be inside you.” It’s what I mean, but it sounds feeble. It doesn’t sound like enough. “I want to be inside you, around you, through you, over you, under you, filling every inch of you …”
“You’ll have to be pretty supple.”
“I’ll be down that gym first thing in the morning.” I reach round her to unhook her bra. Circle her left nipple with the tip of my tongue then open my mouth wider to suck. She shivers above me.
“Cold?”
“No,” she smiles, drowsy-eyed. “Just shivery.”
“Here. Come under the covers.”
She snuggles up close to me.
“Any chance of removing these knickers in the next—oh—two seconds or so?”
“I was planning to keep them on. Good old-fashioned form of contraception—the barrier method.”
“You think I can’t sneak my way round these? Dream on.” I start stroking her thighs, teasing her, tracing a path over and around with my finger, hearing her breath catch in her throat as I stray from the path. I press harder, feeling her through the damp lace.
“Funny. Seems to be some kind of moisture down here. Perhaps I should investigate?”
“Must be environmental humidity—but you’d better check.” “Ah, yes, that’ll be it.” I start to burrow down under the quilt. “Seems to be at pretty high levels in this part of the country.”
Her legs shudder and widen for me. “Oh, it is,” she says, “It is.”
I’d tell you the rest but Ella says it’s private and also too rude for general consumption. Sorry.
There’s this knocking at my bedroom door. I carry on with the game. Then Mum’s voice, sounding all concerned.
“Nat?”
“Mn.”
“Can I come in?”
“What? Can’t you reach the handle or something?”
Excellent. This teacher at school, Mr Perkins, does this thing, right. When someone says, “Sir, sir—can I go toilet?” Perky goes, “I don’t know. Does Granny have to take you?” First time he says it, none of us got what he meant. Whoosh, straight over our heads. Then he tells us it’s like can isn’t the same as may. Can’s what you say when you mean something’s possible, like you can manage to do it and may’s when you’re asking if you’re allowed, wanting permission or whatever. Anyway, I remember it ‘cause Andrew nearly wet himself while Perky was telling us. He won’t let you go unless you say, “Please, sir, may I go to the lavatory?” He says it’s common to say toilet, but everyone else on the entire planet says it ‘cept for him, so what does he know? And even when you remember to ask how he wants he says you should have gone at breaktime and can’t you wait till lunch.
It’s wasted on Mum. She opens the door.
“Nat? What are you on about? Can’t you—” She stops then and crosses her arms. “Good game?” Ah, the trying-to-be-nice strategy. She’s been doing a lot of that lately. Actually, she’s not so bad. Just don’t tell her I said that, OK?
“S’all right.”
“Natty?” She only calls me that when she’s trying to get round me or treat me like a baby. “I thought you might be doing your homework?”
“Mn.”
“Could you switch off the game please.”
I turn away from the screen for a nanosecond. Fatal error. Terminated by an android. Thanks, Mum.
“Now look what you made me do.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Nathan, is that how you plan to spend the rest of your life? How’s that going to help you get your GCSEs? You could be anything you wanted to be—a doctor, a lawyer, a—”
“Yeah, right. Don’t you watch the news? There’s no jobs anyway.”
“So we might as well all give up now, is that right?”
“I’m just saying, what’s the point?”
She plonks herself down on the bed. There’s a bit of a rustle ‘cause I still had a mag under my duvet from last night, but she doesn’t seem to twig. She starts looking round at the floor, like she’s about to tell me to tidy it up, but she gives it a miss for some reason.
“But Nathan, look at your dad, for example …”
I give her a look. Oh, puh-leese. Since when has he ever been an example of anything?
“I know you’re still angry at him, and—well, I hope you’ll come to see he’s not as bad as you think. But my point is—your dad never got the chance to do much with his life, you know? He’s bright, but he left school as soon as he could at sixteen, with no qualifications to speak of, and that was it. He had to take the first job that came along. And he’s gone on that way. He works hard, but he could have done so much more.”
“Yeah, like Dad could have been a doctor or a judge?”
“Well, maybe not a doctor.” She does this spooky kind of smile. Jeez, I bet she’s thinking of Weirdy Beardy, then she goes, “He’s not much of a one for studying. And definitely not a judge, no. But he could have done something. Something that really interested him, I mean, something that made him look forward to each day. He could do his job in his sleep. It’s a waste, Nat. Don’t make the same mistake.”
Another rustle as she stands up. I hold my breath. She comes over and rests her chin on my head, the way she does with Dad sometimes. Used to do. Actually, it was kind of OK.
“But you’re not a doctor either and I bet you did all your homework. I bet you were a right goody-goody—like Rosie.”
She gives me a shove.
“Was not.” She rests her chin back on my head again and puts her arms round me. “There’s nothing wrong about being like Rosie and you know it. But no, you’re right, Nat, who am I to talk? I’ve wasted a lot of time, too, because I didn’t have a clue about what I wanted.”
“Yeah, but I don’t know either.”
“That’s OK. The thing is, you don’t need to know exactly what you want in your whole life when you’re only thirteen. But don’t leave it as late as me, hmm? Learn from my mistakes. Start noticing what you really enjoy so you know what you’re aiming for in life. But you also have to be prepared to work hard to get it.”
“There you go then.” I reached for the mouse and selected “New Game” from the menu.
“There I go what?”
“I want to work in computers, so this counts as work, right?”
She laughs and kisses me on the top of my head, then she ruffles my hair like I’m a little kid or something. I shake her off but she keeps laughing.
“You’re beyond help. Tell you what, Nat?”
“Mn?”
“You work a bit harder at school and I’ll start thinking about getting myself some kind of training too. That’s a promise.”
“Sure.”
She stops outside on the landing and I hear her voice from the other side of the door.
“Supper’s in twenty minutes. Macaroni cheese. And Nat?”
Another android exploded to bits on the screen. 140 points. 160. 200. “What?”
“Do your homework.”
My dad’s got a girlfriend. She’s called Ella and she’s got freckles on her nose and she’s got a little boy whose name’s Jamie and he’s two and a half. On Sundays, when I go out with my dad, sometimes they come with us or they meet us in the afternoon so I still get Dad all on my own in the morning. If we have lunch with all of us, I try to get Jamie to eat up his vegetables because he says he doesn’t like them except for peas and he drops a lot of them. I told him that his carrots were really sweeties just made to look like carrots, so he ate some of them. One time, Dad said we should all go for a picnic on the beach and take a pack lunch. He turned to Ella and he said,
“How about whipping up a few rounds of sandwiches then? You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” He was laughing. And she put her hands round his neck as if she was going to strangle him, but she was only playing.
Dad likes her, you can tell, because he holds her hand when we’re walking along. I told Nat Dad’s got a girlfriend, but he said, “So? Tell me something I don’t know. I knew that. I told you in the first place.”
I tried to tell him that I don’t think it’s the same one but he wouldn’t listen.
Ella is painting a picture right on the wall in my bedroom at Dad’s. She said she is very rusty at painting but she is miles better than me. Dad is good at walls but he can’t do pictures. What she’s painting is a castle on a hill and there’s birds and clouds in the sky and it’ll be the only painting like it in the whole wide world. Dad said she went to art school and did painting when she was younger and then she made jewellery and used to sell it on a stall in a market but she had to give it up because she couldn’t make enough money. Ella doesn’t get any money in an envelope because Jamie hasn’t got a daddy, so she has to work really hard all by herself. I tried to tell Nat but he put his fingers in his ears and told me to shut up and stop talking about smelly Ella the whole time. But she is not smelly except for sometimes she has perfume on and she let me squirt it on my neck and my wrists like a lady and Dad said I smelt very nice and posh and now he’ll have to take us both out to a fancy restaurant and put on his best suit so as not to let the side down.
Hey—it’s not bad this talking lark, is it? I stay at Ella’s a couple of nights a week now and we do lots of it—talking, I mean. She can’t come to mine, ‘cept at the weekends of course, because she doesn’t want to unsettle Jamie plus she has to get things ready for the van. She’s up at the crack of dawn, buttering away against the clock, then she loads up, with all the spare fillings in plastic tubs, and the paper bags and everything. She’s a one-woman whirlwind. Sometimes I try to help her, but I can’t keep up so I just do the lifting things into the van bit. She gets Jamie up and breakfasted too, though he’s a self-reliant little fellow.
I’m teaching him to dress himself, but it’s a tricky business when you come to think of it and, frankly, at that time in the morning, I’m not all that hot at it myself. Jamie reminds me of Nat at that age, wanting to do everything himself and going mad with frustration when something’s just a bit beyond him. The first few times I stayed there, Ella bundled me out the house as soon as she got up. Then one time, I just could not lever myself upright from the bed until it was seven so I bumped into Jamie and he pointed at me very accusingly and shouted: “You were in my mummy’s bed!”
“She said I could because my bed’s broken.”
“I’m not allowed any more!”
He likes to shout does Jamie, but he’s a sweet kid. Anyway, when I’m there, me and him have a bit of a chat about manly matters over our cornflakes, then Ella’s sister Cora drops in, scoops up Jamie and whisks him off to nursery school which luckily is next to the junior school where her own twin girls go. In the afternoons, Ella sorts out the van and restocks, then she has the twins for an hour or two after school to give Cora a break. They’ve got it down to a fine art, so they tell me, and it mostly goes without a hitch, but they’re both completely knackered the whole time. Cora’s husband works a night shift in the mortuary at the hospital, and so far as I can see his sole contribution during the day seems to be nothing but a lot of snoring.
Anyhow, because of this hectic frenzy Ella calls a life, she has to be in bed by ten most nights, but if I’m there on a sleepover, as Rosie would say, we stay awake and talk for an hour. In the dark. Ella says she and Cora used to talk with the lights out when they were kids, they’d whisper to each other and make up stories. We never did that. We wouldn’t have had the nerve. The old man would have murdered us in our beds if he’d heard a peep out of us once we were supposed to be asleep.
“He sounds like a barrel of laughs, your dad.”
“Oh, he is. It’s like a non-stop pantomime, being in his company.” Her arm slides across me, her skin cool against my stomach.
“You seem amazingly un-bitter about it though. I mean, I know you joke about it, but it must be painful surely? Aren’t you angry?”
“What? Angry that he’s a foul, mean-minded, violent arsehole who wishes I’d never been born, you mean?”
“I’m sure he’s not that bad, but—well, yes.”
“Not really. I’ve given up thinking about it. I mean, yeah, it was crap at the time, but none of us knew any different, and—well—we all survived.”
“Yes.” Her hand strokes my cheek. “But much more than that, you’ve made something of yourself and you’re a great father to boot. Still, you must have missed having a dad you could look up to?”
“You don’t miss what you never had, do you? I’m OK.”
“It’s good that you’ve got Harry in your life,” she says. “Thank God for being a grown-up—at least you get to adopt some new relatives if you like. No reason why you should stay stuck with the ones you’re born with. He means a lot to you, Harry, doesn’t he?”
“Mmm, I guess so. He’s all right, is Harry.”
It’s nice, this, talking in the dark. You can say things you couldn’t say in the daytime. Ella’s body curves close into mine, our legs bent at the same angle. Sometimes I barely know which parts are her and which are me.
“My turn,” she says, as we turn together, facing the other way. “Your go to spoon me.” And she wriggles back onto my lap, sighs and settles into sleep.
While we’re on the subject of my wondrous family, did I ever mention that I was a mistake? I may have let it slip somewhere along the line. The Gruesome Twosome had decided to call it a day after they’d had Sheila and Russell. I guess they felt there was only so much happiness they could stand, you know? Yeah, right. More like they decided the carpet couldn’t take the extra wear and tear. Anyway, it wasn’t so much a decision, I think, as that they’d more or less stopped “having relations” as my mother puts it—which, to me, sounds like what you’d say if you asked your aunty and uncle over to tea. But my mother doesn’t like people speaking about the “S” word in front of her. It makes her wrinkle her nose up as though she’s just got wind of a nasty whiff.
Anyway, a brief lapse occurred. Either that or a lone brave sperm made a slither for it across the vast desert of the marital bed and managed to struggle on under the flannel marquee my mother favours as a nightie, elbowing its way bravely like a commando in hostile territory. That’s a horrible thought, I wish I’d never got started on this. Yeuch. However it happened by some happy accident—ha!—I came into the world. It’s no wonder half the time I feel unsettled, like I’m not really supposed to be here at all and any minute now they’ll discover my visa’s expired and boot me off the planet altogether. Still, it’s not my fault, is it? I didn’t ask to be here either. But now that I am here, you’d think the parents could at least put a brave face on it and act like they’re happy. To be fair to them, I can’t accuse them of favouritism, ‘cause they didn’t exactly smother Sheil or Russ with love either. They like them better now, but only because they live so far away and communication’s been reduced to Christmas and birthday cards. My mum’s especially proud of the fact that Russell lives in Canada—bit like the way Harry and Maureen are about their son Chris in Australia, now I come to think of it. My mum’s always saying, “My son Russell, who lives in Canada,” as if it’s her achievement, like it reflects well on her. Which it doesn’t. I mean, why’s she think he moved over there in the first place? Wasn’t for the beaches and the non-stop sunshine, was it? And Sheil up in Scotland. OK, it’s only 400 miles, but she knows they’re too mean to stump up the train or air fare to be dropping in on her every other weekend, and that’s the way she likes it. So how come I’m the only daft sod who still lives within spitting distance of the old dears? No, not literally—they’re a half-hour drive away. It’s not like my mum or dad have ever begged me to stay in the neighbourhood; my mother doesn’t turn to me with a twinkle in her aged eye and say, “Scott, dear, it’s such a comfort having you live close by"; my father’s not on the phone every morning, asking me if I fancy going for a round of golf.
Still, I’ve never really had the urge to move away. I did when I was a kid, I wanted to live on an island and spend my days shinnying up palm trees and swimming with dolphins. I imagined making a dugout canoe for myself and living off the fish I caught in the sea. I don’t know how I thought all this was going to happen, why I’d be chosen to live in some paradise but everyone else at school would end up working in the dog food factory or behind a till at Tesco’s. And then, the longer you’re in a place, the harder it gets to see yourself somewhere else, you know? Your mates are nearby, you’ve got your work, your house, then pretty soon, you’ve got a wife and kids, and the idea of living on an island seems like a stupid fantasy, a daft childhood dream so crazy you tell yourself you never even wanted it in the first place, it was just something you used to think about as a game, playing make-believe, no more than a silly kid’s game.
And it’s not so bad here, after all. I’ve got my kids, well—Rosie likes to see me. And I’ve got Ella. And even when everything went belly-up on me, at least I had my work to keep me together. So it might not look like much to you, but I’ve done worse. I know it can’t compete with being an astronaut, say, or an overpaid footballer—how many little kids say they want to be a glazier when they grow up?—but being a glazier was the first job I ever really liked. Once I started learning the trade, I found I was good at it, and then there was the managing side of things, bringing in new business and that, and I seemed to be all right at that, too. See, all my life I was told I’d never amount to anything and I know it’s not much, but I’ve got my own bit of turf now, you know? And it counts for something. It counts to me.
It was parents’ evening at Rosie’s school. Before, Scott used to try to wriggle out of going to that kind of thing. Not that he didn’t care about the children’s education or how they were doing, to be fair, but Scott has a big thing about school. He wasn’t exactly a star pupil himself, as you can imagine—he spent most of his school years messing about and getting in trouble with the teachers, and left as soon as he could. His mum was always keeping one or other of them off school so they could help out at home. He’d be kept off for just about any reason—to chop firewood, dig the garden, even go fruit-picking in season to bring in extra money. Scott said the Truant Officer was round at their house practically as often as the milkman. But his mum just lied, of course, said he’d been poorly or had a bit of a cough or a tummy-ache. I know, you’d think that kind of thing stopped centuries ago.
Scott and I are almost the same age, only a year and a bit apart, but you’d think we were born on different planets so far as our childhoods are concerned. He thinks it’s hilarious that people are always on about how much better it is to raise children in the countryside. He says it’s just as well they got plenty of fresh air because that’s all they had most of the time. Mind you, I’m not sure that his parents were quite as short of money as they made out. I think they’re just bloody mean. And it’s not just the money. They don’t even speak much, almost as if they’re too stingy to let any words out. His mum’ll offer you a cup of tea, but she’ll put the sugar in so she can control how much you have. She stands like this, all hunched over, clutching the sugar bowl in case you were going to make a grab for it. They don’t even open the curtains all the way, as if they’re scared the sunlight will come streaming in and steal away some of their hard-hoarded misery.
Oops, I’m getting like Scott, wandering off the point. Anyway, I rang him about the parents’ evening, and told him I’d be happy to go on my own and report back afterwards. But he said he wanted to come too and perhaps we could call a truce for the evening and go together.
“I’m not at war with you, Scott. I haven’t got the energy. I can manage to behave like a civilized adult—because I am one. But can you?”
Inside my head, even while I was speaking to him, I was thinking, “Oh, for goodness’ sakes, Gail, what do you sound like? You’re not a prefect now. Don’t be so fucking smug.”
“Probably not,” said Scott, laughing. “Still, what say I have a crack at it for half an hour and if I feel myself slipping, I can just nip out to the playground and have a run round, OK?”
Well, we saw Rosie’s form teacher and she said everything a parent could want to hear, so you’ll excuse me if I have a brief boast—she said that Rosie’s bright and keen and always tries her best and that she’s got a lively, enquiring mind and is a pleasure to teach. Scott and I were beaming away, hoping the other parents would overhear. She also said that sometimes Rosie seems rather quiet and thoughtful, but that was only to be expected under the circumstances. I gave her a rather thin smile at that point and I could see Scott champing at the bit, wanting to tell her to mind her own business, but I kicked him under the table and he managed to restrain himself for once.
Mum and Dad came to the parents’ evening at school. When dad was still living at home, he never used to come. And now he’s in his flat, he said he really wanted to come and wouldn’t miss it for the whole wide world. He picked Mum and me up and we all went together in his car, then he brought us home afterwards and we got chips on the way back. Dad bought some for Nat, too, and he put extra vinegar on them the way Nat likes, and got him a pickled onion, and he gave them to me to look after and told me to be sure to give them to Nat. I think Nat is still being stupid about Dad, but he can’t hate him all that much because he ate the chips and then he went and breathed all horrible pickled onion on me and did a big burp and Mum said he was disgusting, but she was laughing when she said it.
My room at my dad’s is nearly finished now. I’ve got a carpet and there’s a rug by my bed which has got fishes on it and we went and chose a special duvet cover for my bed when we were in the market. It’s all blue and it’s got a unicorn in the middle of it and all these clouds like the ones Ella painted on my wall. The unicorn is like a white horse with a twirly-whirly horn coming out of its head which looks like a long, pointy shell or a really tall ice-cream like the ones you get from the van in summer. Mrs Lewis said it’s supposed to be magic. I asked my dad if he believed in magic and he said he wasn’t sure but he could do with some if I knew of any that was going about. Mum says she doesn’t believe in magic, but she still makes out there’s a tooth fairy who puts the money under your pillow when you lose a tooth but everyone knows it’s your mum who puts it there really. Mum’s friend Cassie says there is magic, and she says she keeps it in her make-up bag and every morning it works a miracle for her.
Mum bought me a lamp to go in my room at Dad’s place and Dad put up a pinboard for me on my bedroom wall, so I could put up some postcards and pictures like I have at home. I’ve got a photo of Mum on my board and a photo of Nat but he’s covering half his face with his hands and sticking out his tongue so it doesn’t look all that much like him. I have a photo of my dad too, but I keep that one in my bedroom at home because when I’m at the flat he is there too so I don’t need a photo of him, I can just look up and there he is.
I had the mobile off half of yesterday because I was round at Ella’s doing something very important which couldn’t possibly be interrupted, and I didn’t get a chance to pick up my voicemail messages until lunchtime. And yes, it was very nice, thank you for asking. No, not the messages. What on earth’s the point of us all being slaves to mobile phones now? Far as I can see, it’s just to give you the illusion that you’ve got a buzzing, happening kind of life, the kind of life where people need to be able to reach you twenty-four hours a day when, as we all know, 99 per cent of the population uses them to say things that you wouldn’t waste your breath on if you were standing face to face. And for someone like me, all it means is you’re more stressed because customers and suppliers and every Tom, Dick and Harry can hassle you whenever they feel like it, so you end up switching the phone off, then telling people you were working in a basement and had no signal. Then half the time you forget to charge the sodding thing or you’re in some kind of dead zone and are stood there in the middle of a street like a total prat saying, “Hello? Hello? Are you there?” looking like you’ve just been let out for the day and your carer’ll be back for you any second now to wheel you away to the happy home.
Anyway, the posh voice comes on saying, “You have … six messages. To listen to the messages, press …” blah, blah. A couple are just boring things to do with work then there’s this one from Maureen, you know, Harry’s wife from First Glass, with a big pause first like she’s not sure whether to leave a message.
“Scott, dear. It’s Maureen. Sorry to ring you so late, but—well—it’s Harry, you see. Perhaps you could call—oh, but I won’t be there. Or you could—no—I don’t think—well—perhaps I’ll try you again later. Goodbye, dear.”
What do you do with people who leave messages like that? Still, it was timed at half-twelve at night, long past Maureen’s cocoa and bed time. Shit, I hoped like hell Harry was OK. It didn’t sound good. I’d better give him a call at home. The next message was Maureen again.
“We’re in the Roughton Hospital, Scott, but I’m not sure what—” her voice dropped as she obviously turned away to speak to someone and I pressed the phone right into my ear to try to hear her: “Oh—I’m not sure they’ll let you in—you see it’s family only—you better come—I’ll ask the—I’m sure they’ll—yes—Goodbye, dear.”
By now, I’m practically yelling at the phone.
“What? For chrissakes, what? What’s happened, you silly cow? Tell me what the fuck’s happened!” But as it was just her recorded message it didn’t have much effect.
Then there was one from Gail.
“Scott, now don’t panic but it seems Harry’s been taken into the Roughton. Maureen left a garbled message on the answerphone but she wasn’t very clear and I couldn’t really make head nor tail of what she was saying. I don’t want to worry you, but it sounds as though Harry may have had a heart attack. I don’t know anything else, I’m sorry. I hope he’s OK. Give him my best won’t you, when you see him? Take care. Let me know what’s happening if you get a moment.”
And a last message from Maureen.
“If you could just come and see him, Scott. He was asking for you, see. He’s in the …” It sounds as though she’s speaking through a gobful of cornflakes. Can’t hear a frigging word.
At the hospital, I finally make it to reception to ask for Harry’s whereabouts, having had to accost about fifteen strangers in the car park for change for parking. It can’t be right, can it, charging in a hospital car park. What if you’re in to see your dying mother or something? “Tell Ma to hang on just a few more minutes—I’ve got no pound coins.” Colin got clamped in there one time so I didn’t dare risk it. Risk it and go as a biscuit, that’s what Rosie says. God knows where she got that from. Anyway, they track him down on the computer for me and I spend another half-hour waiting for the lift and wandering round dead-end corridors that must have been laid out by the bloke who designed Hampton Court maze.
I’m sure I pass the same sign saying “Mortuary” at least three times. I wonder if Ella’s brother-in-law’s in, I could pop in and say hello. No, he works nights. Anyway, it gives me a shiver just to think about it, what a creepy place to work. Behind that door are actual dead bodies, you know, people who were once—well—people. I mean proper, real live people who had jobs and drove cars and had sex and traipsed round Safeway of a Saturday morning and taught their kids how to ride a bike and who drank too many lagers once a week and liked prawn won tons—or didn’t like prawn won tons but at least had an opinion one way or the other, you know? Only now all they are is cold dead things, with no more feelings or thoughts or opinions than if they were just outsize leftover won tons themselves. God, it’s depressing.
Eventually, with the aid of a compass and directions from a passing nurse, I find the ward and ask at the desk for Harry Wilcox.
“Oh, are you his son?”
I hesitate. Maybe Maureen’s told them that in case it’s family visiting only. There’s a lump in my throat and I’m finding it hard to swallow. “Are you his son?” I want to say yes. He’s been more of a dad to me than my own’s ever been, that’s for sure. God knows I wouldn’t be feeling this crap if it was my own dad. Yeah, I know that’s a horrible thing to say, but it’s true. Then suddenly that makes me think about Nat—all this tumbling through my head in a couple of seconds—hoping that one day he won’t be standing in a hospital ward wishing it was me lying there and not some other bloke he’d come to think of as his dad.
Maybe Harry had said it. He must be OK—awake and thinking of me as his son. I bite my lip and clear my throat, which sounds really loud like I’m standing next to a microphone.
The nurse smiles sympathetically. They must be used to grown men making complete fools of themselves in public.
“It’s all right,” she says. “Your dad’s out of intensive care. He’s doing really well. Next bay along on the right.” She turns away then back again. “You got here very fast. I thought Mrs Wilcox said you lived in Australia. Did you charter a Concorde then?”
The light dawns.
“Oh, no. That’s Chris.” Chris. Harry’s son. Harry’s real flesh-and-blood son. He lives in Melbourne, has a good job and a big house in the suburbs. Harry and Maureen have been over there twice, think the world of him, though I know Harry’s hurt that Chris ever went there in the first place, hurt his only kid has never showed the slightest interest in taking over the family business. Harry used to talk about retiring over there one day, said Chris was always asking him to come, but I knew it was just talk. I didn’t think he’d get a residency permit for a start and anyhow, Harry’s as English as they come. He might go on about loafing on the beach and watching the girls in their bikinis, but it’s just what blokes say, isn’t it? Harry couldn’t survive more than a week without his HP Sauce and his pint at the George and Dragon. He needs to be around lousy weather and customers changing their minds every three minutes—or what would he have to worry about? What else would keep him going?
So I walk to the next bay and there’s a bed with a mound in it that I guess must be Harry because next to the mound is Maureen sat in a chair and knitting away at top speed like she’s going against the clock at the Olympics. I say hello and bend down to kiss Maureen on the cheek.
“How is he?” I whisper. His skin’s got that greyish, waxy look people often have in hospitals—it’s all that crap food and fluorescent lighting, I suppose.
“Having a nap, love,” she whispers back. People always whisper in hospitals, don’t they? Like in a library. It’s creepy really, like what you’d do if someone was already dead. Though I can’t see the point of whispering round a corpse—what you gonna do, wake them up?
I cast around for another chair but Maureen gets up.
“Sit here a minute. I’m desperate anyway.” She stuffs her knitting into her bag and scuttles off in search of the toilet.
Harry’s eyes flicker open and he turns his head towards me. His voice is so quiet, I can barely hear him, so perhaps it’s only my imagination that I hear him say:
“Son?”
“I’m here, mate.”
“Glad you came.”
I pat his hand awkwardly and lean in closer to hear him.
“Been overdoing it on the squash court again, then?” Harry hasn’t done any kind of sport since 1972 as far as I know. He always says his only exercise is chasing late payments and, to be honest, he’s not much cop at that, I usually end up doing it. “Or were you having it away with a young floozie and she wore you out?”
A smile crosses his face.
“I should be so lucky.” He looks round vaguely. “Where is she?”
“Who—Maureen or your floozie?”
“Behave. Herself. Maureen.”
“Toilet. Why? Do you need something? I can get it, unless you want me to hold your bedpan.”
He shakes his head.
“Good just having you here … thought I was a goner for a while there.”
“No chance, mate. You’re tough as old boots—when’s the last time you even had a cut, for chrissakes?” Harry’s hands are like leather. “We’ll have to slip something nasty in your tea when we want rid of you. Anyway, never mind the chit-chat, what happened? Don’t skip any of the gory bits.”
So he tells me—as much as he remembers anyway. He’d been sitting in his armchair at home having coffee and a biscuit and watching the telly. It was one of those docusoap programmes about—get this—a sodding hospital, and it was kind of funny but dead depressing at the same time because there was no money and half the staff were walking zombies who got about five minutes’ kip a day and Harry said it made him think you really wouldn’t want to get ill because you might get a surgeon operating on you who’d not slept for a week. Then there was this bit where this man got brought into casualty. He’d been slashed across the face with a Stanley knife and there was blood pouring down his face. Harry said he was feeling a bit queasy and was reaching down for the remote which had fallen on the floor to change channels, find a quiz show or something, when he had this horrendous crushing pain in his chest, like as if someone had dropped a house on him. He couldn’t breathe properly and he felt sick. Maureen had got a hell of a fright, he said.
“I shouldn’t think it was a picnic for you either, by the sound of it.” He gives me a weak-looking smile and says he’s doing all right.
“It’s good to see you,” he says, patting my hand back. “I mean it.”
He seems a bit vague and I can’t tell if he’s just dopey from his nap or a bit out of it. God knows what drugs they pump into you after something like that. Wouldn’t be surprised if all the patients are coked to the gills as a matter of routine—keeps ‘em quiet, need less nurses and that, like they do in prisons. Bromine, is it? Bromide? Something like that. Mega-tranquies of some sort anyhow.
It’s weird visiting people in hospital. For a start, they’re in bed in their pyjamas only you’re supposed to chat away like everything’s normal and you’re surrounded by other blokes all in their pyjamas with their families all huddled round them. And you bring grapes and flowers and magazines and a card and so each patient’s got like a miniature house round them with their vase and their cards and their wife sat next to them—only really it’s just like playing house the way kids do when they’re little because it’s no more like being at home than having a picnic on the hard shoulder of the motorway is like having a relaxing barbie in your back garden. You can’t relax ‘cause there’s all this equipment bleeping away or—worse—not bleeping all of a sudden, and there’s tubes going in and coming out carrying God knows what, you’d rather not know thank you, and nurses bustling past and some poor sod mindlessly polishing the floor apparently twenty-four hours a day to make you think the place is clean as a whistle when we all know a hospital’s the last place you want to hang out when you’re ill because it’s full of germs and diseases. The only thing you almost never see, if you think about it, is a doctor. You’d think chaps in white coats with stethoscopes round their necks would be two a penny in a hospital, but God knows what they do with them ‘cause I didn’t see a single one fluttering round Harry that whole first time I was there.
Well, Maureen comes back from her exciting trip to the toilet—every tiny thing feels like an event in a hospital because it’s so sodding boring. I offer to go fetch her a cup of tea from the canteen because the trolley lady’s bringing one for Harry and gone are the good old days when the visitors got one as well. Maureen says she thinks she might just manage a biscuit, too, but not to get the ones with the raisins in because they get stuck in her dentures.
One minute, her husband’s at death’s door, the next she’s worrying about whether I might bring her the wrong kind of biscuit. But that’s the way it is, isn’t it? That’s what we do. Tell ourselves everything’s back to normal as fast as possible. Sweep it under the mat like it never happened if we can. Heart attack? What heart attack? Just a blip in our normal routine. Smooth it over. Right as rain again.
“Did Harry say …?” Maureen asks as I turn to go.
“Say what?”
“Chris is coming.” Her voice is proud, but her smile is shy, guilty-looking, like a kid who knows she’s been naughty, like she knows that of course all she should be thinking about is Harry but she’s so pleased her beloved son is coming from the other side of the world to be with them that she can’t hide her excitement. “Said he felt he should be with his dad. Nothing could have kept him away.” I bet. “Said he’d be on the first plane out. He’ll be here tomorrow.”
“Good. Of course he’d come. That’s great. Right. Biscuits—no raisins. Rightio. I’m pleased for you.”
I say it, because I know I should, but I’m not really pleased for her. I feel all tight inside, mean and sort of scrunched up and horrible. Chris will turn up and be welcomed with open arms and my presence will be unnoticed, unwanted even—I’ll just be some bloke from work who’s thoughtfully popped in for a few minutes. I tell myself I’m a sad, mean-spirited bastard and if I’m not careful I’ll end up like my sodding father, then I stomp down to the canteen in search of some sodding raisin-free biscuits.
I realize I haven’t had a bite to eat all day, so I splash out on a dodgy looking “all-day breakfast” sandwich, which is basically bacon and hard-boiled egg that’s been steamrollered then stuck between two bits of bread, and a murky-looking coffee. They have those chocolate muffins and seeing them makes me think of Ella. I really want to speak to someone. Actually, I really want to speak to her. The canteen’s practically the only place in the hospital where you can use a mobile, so I dial her number.
“Hello?”
“'s me.”
“Hello you. Wassup?”
So I tell her about Harry and about Maureen and her biscuits and her knitting and about the return of the prodigal son from Australia. I take a bite of my sandwich because I’m starving then find that I can’t seem to swallow. Gulp at the too-hot coffee to get it down.
“You OK?” Ella’s voice, soft and close in my ear.
“Guess so.” I pause, feeling myself start to well up. Stop it! I tell myself. Stop this right now! “I’m fine.”
“Oh, Scott. You’re not. I can hear you’re not. I wish I was there with you. This must be hard—I know Harry’s like a father to you. I’m so sorry. No wonder you feel a bit peculiar if this Chris is going to suddenly come back and be the golden boy for a while.”
“It’s OK. I’m OK. Chris is his real son, after all. I’m nobody. What’s it to me? I should be pleased he’s coming, pleased for Harry.”
“Never mind what you should be or shouldn’t be. You are allowed to be upset, you know. I don’t think any less of you.”
“I wish you were here.”
“Do you want to come over? Maybe I can get Cora to take Jamie for a while.”
I drop my voice.
“I could do with a cuddle.”
“So could I. And, besides, I’ve got bosoms here going to waste. They need to be nestled in, so why don’t you get your bod over here soon, hmm?”
“Oh, well, all right then. You talked me into it.”
I know, I bet you think I sound like a pathetic bastard, some stupid cry-baby in the playground whining that it’s not fair, that some bigger boy’s pinched my ball. But that’s about how I felt, like I was five years old and my best friend had gone off to play with someone else and I was left all alone, kicking at the tarmac and biting my lip so’s I wouldn’t cry.
Mum said Uncle Harry’s had to go to the hospital because he had a heart attack, but it is all right—he didn’t die or anything. I’m supposed to be specially nice to my dad because he is sad about Harry. I made a Get Well Soon card and Mum bought one and Dad came and picked them up to take them to the hospital. Mum had to sign hers from Nat too because he was at swimming, then Nat was cross when he came back because he said he wanted to sign it and he was always being left out of everything and it wasn’t fair and Mum should have waited for him.
Mum gave Dad a hug in the hall when he came round to make him feel better, but it does not mean that they are getting back together or anything because it was only a friendly hug. There was no snogging. Dad goes to see Harry every day at the hospital and some days he goes twice. He takes him a newspaper and tapes of old songs to listen to. I said he should get him a puzzle magazine because they are good when you are bored and they have the answers in the back for when you get stuck. And I told Dad he should buy some chocolates too because that’s what you take people in hospital, but he said no, he didn’t think it was a good idea because Harry was on a diet and was only allowed healthy things and no more cakes or doughnuts or chocolate or chips or anything and I said maybe he should take him a lettuce instead then and Dad said he thought it was a very good idea and it would give Harry a laugh and remind him of his allotment and that I was a genius. I’m not a genius actually in fact, but I’m glad I said about the lettuce.
We walk up and down the hospital corridors. Harry and me, arm in arm like a couple of old ladies taking the air along the seafront. You’d think that one good thing about being in hospital is you’d at least get plenty of rest. But not a chance—they say he’s not to lay in bed all day, it’s not good for him. Harry says he feels like a right wally walking about on his own in his dressing-gown, so I tag along.
“Here we go again,” I say. “Nice day for a stroll, eh, Grandpa?”
“Cheeky sod. I bet this is more exercise than you’ve taken in years ‘n’ all.”
As we walk, I tell him what’s occurring at First Glass, what jobs we’ve got on, what’s coming up, what birds Lee’s knocking off now. I do impressions so he can feel like he’s right there: Lee’s side-to-side swagger, his cocky greeting—"Awwright?” Gary, tongue poked out in concentration like a kid as he peers close at the measuring rule; Martin, trying to talk through a faceful of egg sandwich. Harry laughs and nods, says he can’t wait to get back to work.
“Hey—but no overdoing it, eh?” I tell him. “We can manage.”
“How’s that boy of yours doing?” Harry squeezes my arm.
“I don’t see him enough to know. I’m still not Mr Popular in his book. Have to get reports from the front via messenger. Gail says his moods are up and down like a fiddler’s elbow. I wish I could—well, you know.”
“They can be awkward so-and-sos at that age, eh? Bet you were a right little tearaway yourself.”
“You’re not wrong, Harry. But … I dunno. You reckon I should just let him alone, leave him to sort it out in his head—or what?”
Harry stops a minute, before we go back into the ward, rubs his unshaven chin.
“Talk to him. You don’t want to leave things unsorted. Unfinished business. See, fathers and sons …” his mouth tightens a sec and I know he’s thinking about Chris. “'s tricky. Well, I’m no expert either—but I’d say you give it your best shot, eh?”
I nod.
“Yeah, I should have a crack at it.”
“After all,” he says, “we’re all a long time dead. You want to get the good while you’re still here.”
He’s a cheery old soul sometimes.
The first three days, by dint of luck and by sneakily finding out from Maureen, I manage not to coincide with Chris at the hospital. I pop in to the hospital twice a day if I can. Harry says he’s glad to see me but not to stay long because while the cat’s away etcetera—and goodness knows what the little sods might get up to with only Denise to keep an eye. Maureen says she’s not up to going in to work just now.
Then there’s a conservatory to be done and it’s a right bugger, frankly, so I have to go give Lee a hand and I don’t make it to the hospital in the morning. It’s gone two by the time I get there. I’m walking along the corridor, with my hands full: Harry’s newspaper and a copy of Auto Express, a Nat King Cole tape—he’s a right old softy is Harry—a bottle of lemon barley water, and a bag of satsumas. He likes those ‘cause they’re easy for him to peel in bed and it helps take his mind off his cravings for crisps and nuts.
There’s two men walking ahead of me along the corridor. Suddenly, I click that the older one’s Harry. That’s his dressing-gown and I recognize his shuffle—it’s them backless slippers of his. The other one must be Chris. As I watch, he puts his arm round Harry, then they turn the corner to carry on with their walk.
I should catch them up and say hello.
Yes, that’s what I should do most probably.
* * *
I go in the ward and the nurse flashes me a smile and greets me, “Hello there, you’re late today. Harry’ll be back in a few minutes I should think if you want to wait.”
“It’s OK. I can’t stop now anyway. I’m, er—I’ve got—yeah—I’ll just stick this lot by his bed. Tell him I said hi.”
“I’m sure he won’t be that long if you—”
“Nah. I’d better go. I’ll come by tonight.”
Eight o’clock. He should be gone by now, right?
He isn’t.
Chris looks healthy and tanned and relaxed. I feel crap and pale and tense. Not a good start. I’ve met him twice before, when he came over with his wife and kids. Last time was about three years ago I think. You should have seen Harry, crawling about on the floor playing at being horsey for his little granddaughter. It was only the second time he’d seen her since she’d been born. He was gutted when they went back to Australia. I reckon in the back of his mind he kept hoping they’d decide to jack in their jobs and swanky house over there and come back here, that they’d see what they were missing. Problem was, they saw exactly what they were missing—mostly in the form of rain, rude service and lousy job prospects. Can’t say I blame them really. But it was hard on Harry and Maureen.
Chris is an OK kind of bloke, I suppose, but he’s got his own life and I don’t think his parents figure much in it. He sends them a couple of cards a year and each time, Harry brings the card in to the office. It’ll be a picture of a koala or a kangaroo or whatever and you can see Harry turning it over and over in his hands, looking at the picture, then reading the back, then looking at the picture again, before he says, ever so casually:
“Postcard from Chris. From Australia.”
He always adds that and it’s like he’s telling me but really he’s telling himself, like he’s saying: see, he’s sent a card from all that way away—as if Chris had strapped on a pair of wings and flown over with it personally instead of just whacking on a stamp and shoving it in a letterbox. I mean, to Harry’s generation, getting something from Australia is still a big deal. Course, now flights really don’t cost all that much, and Chris could come over three or four times a year if he wanted to. I guess he just doesn’t want to.
Maureen writes them every fortnight. Harry’s not big on letter writing. I told him he could e-mail them no sweat, but Harry’s a bit of a technophobe ever since he lost part of the database. It didn’t matter. Denise had a printout on file and she just keyed it back in again. Harry likes things he can pick up with his hands—like a sheet of glass or a piece of timber or a cutter—or a postcard.
* * *
Anyway. Chris. I’m here now and I don’t see why I should have to go sneaking off again. Bollocks to it. It’s fine. I’m cool with this, really I am. We shake hands and he says how’s it going and I say fine and he must be relieved to see Harry’s OK, but it must have been quite a shock when Maureen phoned him.
“Yeah, well I was due a trip over here anyhow.”
“Business going well?” He has one of those jobs that you have no idea what he actually does all day. He’s an Associate Executive Something-or-Other or an Executive Associate Director, something like that, for some food processing corporation. I don’t know, I asked him about it last time we met and he said, “It’s kinda dull, you wouldn’t want to hear about it.” And then proceeded to give me a minute-by-minute account of what felt like an entire year in the life of this mind-bogglingly tedious business—and, at the end, I still didn’t have a clue what he did.
Maureen comes sidling up to us and says Chris is keen to come in to First Glass, take a look, especially as Harry will be having some time off. And I’m thinking, “Well, you sure as hell don’t know how to cut a piece of glass, mate, so what use are you going to be?” Then it occurs to me that what he really wants is to have a good old snoop, probably find out what our turnover is, see how much his old man’s worth. Chris goes off to the toilet and Maureen leans close like she’s telling me a secret.
“Chris is such a love. Always takes such a keen interest in the business.”
Er, hello? Takes a keen interest from umpteen thousand miles away by sending two postcards a year. Is she kidding herself or what?
“Er, yeah, right. And you’re OK with him coming round work then?” Maureen looks puzzled and I feel like I’ve mishandled it.
“Of course. You’ll show him how it all works, won’t you, Scott? Whatever he wants to see.”
“Rightio. No probs. He’ll get the full guided tour.”
Next morning I’m in at five to eight, but he’s already there, sitting in Harry’s car, waiting for me. He probably got here at 6 a.m. just to make sure he was here first. I feel like I’m being watched by an inspector from the Rev, and I fumble with my keys and bump myself hard against the counter as I rush to do the alarm.
“Two—seven—three—nine,” he says out loud, watching over my shoulder.
Why don’t you just fuck off?
“So …” he nods slowly to himself. “You don’t have to have the alarm code written up somewhere to remember it?”
I can’t tell if he’s trying to take the piss or if he’s actually serious. Please can I punch him? Just the once?
“No, even though I’m a bit of a thicko, I never forget it because it’s Harry’s birth date.”
* * *
There is a pause. A definite pause.
“Hey—I know that.”
Yeah, but you’d forgotten, I think. I know it.
I’m worried about Nat. I try to tell myself he’s just being a teenager, but he seems so withdrawn and I can’t seem to communicate with him at all. I ask him how things are going with Joanne and he just grunts. She seems like a nice girl, so maybe it’s fine. And he’s barely at home—when he’s not at school or swimming practice, he’s over at Joanne’s or Steve’s.
“So what do you get up to?” I ask him.
“Just, you know, hanging out.”
“Oh. Right.”
It could mean anything. I tell myself it means sitting around chatting and listening to music, maybe even discussing their homework. Not every teenager is off his skull on crack and beating up old ladies for their pension money, I remind myself. The papers are chock full of rubbish. I wish he’d talk to Scott. Or at least just see him other than when Scott picks up Rosie.
Cassie comes round and tells me not to get in a stew about it.
“Nat’s basically a good kid,” she says. “You know he is and you’ve done a good job bringing him up. Don’t keep beating yourself up and telling yourself you’re a bad mother—you’re not.”
“I know, but he won’t talk to me.”
“Nat’s not the type to talk about how he feels anyway, is he? Takes after Scott. He’s a guy’s sort of guy. I think he must miss his dad an awful lot.”
“Yes, but I try to—”
The door opens and Nat lopes in.
“Yo,” he says to Cassie, but it’s a half-hearted sort of a “yo.”
“Hey, it’s my fave man.” Cassie raises her glass to him. “How’s it going?”
His face bobs up and down, like he’s listening to music.
“'s OK.”
I leap to my feet and say I’ll fetch some crisps for us to have a nibble. I start fiddling about in the cupboards as if I’m not listening to them. Cassie’s more likely to get him to talk if I’m not in his face being Nosy Mother.
“How’s things with that pretty girlfriend of yours? Spend your whole time snogging, I bet. Or worse. Just don’t get her up the duff. There’s enough teenage pregnancies in this country without you two adding to the statistics.”
“Get away!”
Cassie. For goodness’ sake. Honestly. I clutch the crisp packet to stop myself remonstrating with her. He can’t be having sex. Not at thirteen. Surely not. I mean, maybe they play around a little … I don’t want to think about it. This is my little boy we’re talking about. I hadn’t even had my first kiss at his age. I dive back into the cupboard again, looking for some of those mini cheese biscuity things.
I sneak a glance round. Nat’s leaning against the counter, his back to me. I clatter about, must just find a dish for these crisps, giving Cassie a bit more time.
“I hear your dad’s got himself a new pad.”
“Mn.”
“Thought I’d go take a look next week. Rosie says there’s a painting on her wall she wants me to see.”
“Yeah, she’s always on about it—'Natty, Natty—come and see-ee-ee!'—she drives me mad.”
“Aaah. Sweet. It’d mean a lot to her if you’d go.”
He shrugs.
“Go on. Humour your kid sister for once. She’ll be tickled pink. Let her show off a bit.”
“Mn.”
“You know, your dad’s not such a bad guy.”
Nat jerks his head up, but says nothing. I plunge into the fridge and stand there like an idiot, shuffling things pointlessly from shelf to shelf. I take out the Coke and pour a glass for Nat. Now, ice. Nat’s big on ice.
Cassie carries on.
“Still …” she says. “It’s nice you’re so happy to let Rosie have him all to herself. Pretty unselfish of you, I’d say. My big brother was always muscling in, but then he was my dad’s favourite.”
“Oh?”
“Yup.” She raises her voice: “Ask Scott if it’s OK for me to pop round and have a nose, next time you’re talking to him, will you, Gail?”
“Sure. He’ll probably phone tonight. I’ll ask him then.”
Nat is silent when I hand him the Coke but he has his thinking face on. He looks down at his drink and lowers two fingers in like tongs to pull out an ice cube, pops it into his mouth. Then, slowly, he crunches it, and very quietly I hear him start to hum.
You know how it is when your whole life is completely crap and you hit rock bottom? Maybe you don’t. Maybe you’re someone who’s living a fairly normal sort of a life; maybe you and your partner, spouse, whatever love each other to bits; maybe you’ve got some fab career and you earn loads of dosh. If so, be grateful, you fortunate bastard, and enjoy it while you can.
What’s my point, you’re wondering? I’ve no idea. This is another thing that always drove Gail crazy. My inability to stick to the point. Ella thinks it’s funny, though. She says I’ve got a butterfly-mind, she never knows what I’m going to say next, and she thinks I’m like a kid. Only she means it as a compliment. Maybe she’s right. Anyway. Oh, yeah, you hit rock bottom, but gradually, if you’re lucky, things start to improve: Your wife—ex-wife—stops looking at you as if you were something suspect on the bottom of her shoe. You start enjoying your Sundays. You even get yourself a girlfriend and you start to tell yourself maybe you’re not such a bad person after all. You wake up and you dare—fool that you are—to look forward to the day ahead.
This is a mistake, of course. A mega-serious mistake. You think, “It must be someone else’s turn by now. God’s got bored of me and has settled on a new plaything to torment.” So what do you do? You relax. Uh-huh. Bad move.
Because that’s when God comes back to give you another poke in the eye.
They’re selling First Glass.
I have worked at First Glass for over sixteen years. I know, you’re thinking “Sad git, it’s about time you moved on then.” It probably is, but that’s not the point. I’m not saying I’ve made a fortune or it’s stood me in good stead if I should ever apply for the position of Prime Minister—but I’ve done all right. Better than my parents or my teachers ever expected me to for a start. I’ve earned a not bad living, learned a trade, had a laugh. And there was always Harry. He taught me the business, trained me like an apprentice, like he would his—like he would have with Chris. If he’d been here.
Thing is, I know Maureen’s been wanting Harry to cut back on his days for the last couple of years in any case. I’ve even said it myself. And then his ticker went doolally on him, and it looked like he should definitely start taking it a bit easier. But not throw in the towel completely.
There’s bigger companies who’ve been sniffing round First Glass for ages, of course. We’ve got a list of loyal customers that would stretch up the High Street and back, a nice mix of trade and private business. It’s a good solid firm with a good reputation. It may not look much, but it turns a tidy profit, more than you’d think.
It’s that Chris. One minute he’s here, sporting a face the picture of worry for his old dad and a tan so even it looks like it’s come straight out of a spray can, the next he’s acting all concerned and saying Harry shouldn’t be getting too stressed out. Then two seconds later he’s snooping round the database and the invoices and poking his nose in where it’s not wanted. He doesn’t even know anything about the business. But Maureen thinks the sun shines out of his rear end. It’s all: “Chris is ever so clever when it comes to business matters” and “Chris has the experience when it comes to handling finances” and “Chris knows best.” It’s utter bollocks. The man knows diddly-squat about glazing. He knows less than Rosie does and she’s only ten.
Point is, I don’t want to work for some sodding big anonymous company, having to bow and scrape to head office the whole time and be all yes-sir, no-sir, three-bags-full-sir. It’s just not me and I’m not doing it.
Oh-oh, talk of the devil. Look who’s here, rolling up in Harry’s car. It’s Chris—dah-dah, Saviour of the Universe. What a treat.
I’ve seen him approach, but I stay at my desk and don’t look up when he comes in. The door’s open but he should still knock. Acting like he owns the place already.
“Scott? Can I have a word?”
“Sure, carry on. Why not? You’ve had everything else.”
“Hey, come on. There are no bad guys in this. I’m on your side.” I notice he doesn’t look at me when he says this. “I’m sure we can be adult about this.”
I don’t know if there’s something in the air at the moment, but all I seem to have been hearing this whole year is people telling me to be grown-up and adult and mature the whole time. Frankly, I think I’m done with being grown-up. I’m no good at it and it hasn’t got me anywhere. That’s it. I am now officially tendering my resignation. I no longer wish to be a grown-up. As far as I can see, there are only two advantages of being an adult. One is you get to stay up late and eat as many sweets as you like—but that’s out the window, because as soon as you hit about the age of twenty-five, all you can think of is what’s the earliest you can go to bed without looking like a sad fuck—and you don’t eat so many sweets because you spend your time worrying that your teeth are going to fall out and telling yourself that you really should be flossing every day and not just for one minute every six months while you’re sitting in the car just before you go in to see the dentist. Two is—in theory—that you get to have sex when you’re a grown-up. Personally, I reckon I used up my entire allowance, mostly when I was about seventeen, and that’s why I had, let’s call it something of a fallow period, shall we? Still, Ella’s helping me catch up again. She’s considerate that way.
I don’t feel very adult, sitting here, with Chris being all super-cool and casual, leaning in the doorway. I feel as if I’m about eight and he’s some snotty, smooth smart aleck boy in the playground. I want to jump on his foot and give him a good smack.
Chris slips his hands into his pockets and suppresses a yawn. His tan is really annoying me now. He looks like he’s leaning against the door of his cabin, out for a sail on his yacht. I don’t know if he actually has a yacht, but you get my drift.
“I wanted to talk to you face to face,” he says, still not meeting my eyes. “There’s something important …”
I open the invoice file and flick over the pages as loudly as I can, licking my finger at intervals and poring over the fascinating figures in front of me.
“Scotty?”
“Oi!” He’s got my attention now all right. “Only my close friends get to call me that. Don’t push it, mate.”
“Hey—sorry. OK, sorry. Look, I think we kind of got off on the wrong foot here …”
And then he starts talking about the new company and the sell-off and what would have happened to First Glass if we didn’t seize this dazzling opportunity and how it means better job security for the guys and a decent lump sum for Harry and Maureen (and for you too, matey, I bet), which is good news because he won’t have to worry about his retirement and Chris could invest some of the money just in case either of them get ill when they’re older and need nursing care. He’s got it all worked out. Probably had the whole thing planned for years and just took advantage of Harry’s heart attack as an excuse to jet over here and put it into action.
“And the lads’ jobs will be guaranteed?” I know for sure Harry wouldn’t have agreed to anything less, but I want to hear it from Chris’s own lips.
“Yes. Three full-time glaziers. With rotating shifts to cover Saturdays. And four days a week for the girl.”
“She’s not a girl. She’s Denise.”
“Yes. Denise. Four days.”
“Right. And the price will cover all the stock as well as the lease and the goodwill and—”
“Yes. It’s a fair price they’re offering. More than fair, I’d say. But there’s one—possible—sticking point …”
Why should I bother to ask him what it is when I know he’s going to tell me anyway? He’s desperate to tell me, you can see he is. And suddenly, seeing him there tilting forward, I know why he is. In that second, I know exactly what the sticking point is. It’s so bloody obvious, I must have been blind not to see it before. Now it’s as plain and clear to me as—as a sheet of glass.
But I want to make him say it. Why should I let him have it easy? I want to hear him say the words.
He coughs then and shifts from his casual-modelling-leisure-wear pose to something a bit more formal and upright.
“I’ll be straight with you, Scott. The way they see it, they’d be looking to put in one of their own people as manager. It’s standard practice.”
What a surprise.
“And that would make me what exactly? The world’s oldest tea boy?”
He looks shocked. Wrong-footed. He thinks maybe I’m serious, that I’d hang on for dear life and refuse to go. “Well, I …”
“Don’t worry. I won’t stand in between you and your pot of gold. Just tell me what the deal is.”
“Well, of course the overall terms of the negotiation are kind of confidential—family only—”
You bastard. You total and utter bastard. You know that’s not what I meant, you arsehole.
“Yeah, that’s not what I meant. I meant what deal am I being offered to trot off quietly into the wilderness without a fuss?”
“Um, your terms of agreement state—what? Are you on a one-month contract …”
“You’re kidding me, right?” Harry and me have never gone in for all that rubbish. We’ve never needed it.
“I’m sure we could push it to three months, seeing as you’ve been here a long time—how long is—?”
“Sixteen years. Sixteen sodding years, with more extra Saturdays and unpaid overtime than you’ll do in a lifetime. And you want to offer me three months’ pay? Well, bollocks to you. Keep the whole lot, why don’t you? Take it and buy yourself an extra case of fucking champagne for your fucking yacht.”
“Yacht? What yacht?”
“Does Harry know about this?”
“Now, I won’t have you bothering my dad about this. I’m sure you understand the doctors don’t want him having any extra anxiety right now.”
I want to call Harry. I want to call him now, this minute. I want to go knocking at his door, crying my eyes out and saying, “Dad, that big boy pushed me over—go and get him back.” I don’t want to deal with this on my own. I don’t want to deal with it, full stop. Then I think of Ella. I look at my watch. In twenty minutes or so, there’ll be the toot-toot of her horn and she’ll pull up outside. I wonder if she’d mind closing the hatch and cuddling me in the dark of the back of the van. We’d be surrounded by sandwiches and crisps and cakes and people would be banging on the hatch demanding their lunch. But we would just stand there, holding each other, her eyes shining in the half-dark, her cheek soft against mine. Twenty minutes. I don’t want that Chris still here when she comes.
* * *
I nod slowly.
“You’re right. Give the old man my best.”
I sense his surprise at my change of tone, but he’s still standing there not leaving.
“Bye then.” I smile and reach for the phone to show that our pleasant conversation is now terminated. “Great talking to you. Bye.”
Dad’s going to lose his job. Mum says it’s not his fault but the business is being sold and the new owners want to have someone else instead of him. She says that but none of the others are going except for Harry and he’s old anyway, so it’s only Dad who’s been sacked. He’s always messing things up. Now we won’t have any money for anything.
Mum says I should go round and see him, see his flat and everything, she says, “Go and see him, Nat, even if only for an hour or two. He’s had a tough time recently, what with Harry being so ill and First Glass being sold. You know it’d mean such a lot to him.”
Yeah, like he’s hardly managing to get along without me. Rosie says they have a brilliant time on Sundays and Dad’s girlfriend shows her how to do painting and make cakes and girl stuff like that. So they’ll really be wanting me along. I don’t want to make stupid cakes in any case. We have to in home economics class at school and that’s bad enough, I’m not doing it on the weekends as well. The other night, Cassie was round seeing Mum and she was saying about going to Dad’s flat as well. Cassie’s pretty cool though. So I dunno. Maybe I should check out Rosie’s room. See this stupid painting that his girlfriend did. And make sure he’s not spoiling Rosie or anything. He doesn’t know about stuff like that.
Anyway, I’ll only go if she’s not going to be there.
There’s a knock on my bedroom door. Rosie’s knock—three little taps—not Mum’s.
“What?”
“Natty?”
“Yeah?”
The door opens a tiny bit and her hand waves at me through the gap.
“Let me come in.”
“There’s not an elephant leaning against the door on this side, Rozza. No-one’s stopping you.”
She comes in and walks placing one foot really carefully just in front of the other, holding her arms out to balance like she’s on a tightrope.
“Don’t look down or you’ll fall off, kiddo.”
“I’m walking across the Grand Canyon,” she says. “It’s over one and a half kilometers to the bottom.”
“Then you definitely don’t want to look down.”
“Sssh! You’ll break my concentration.”
I blow a big raspberry at her.
“I never asked for the Grand Canyon to be in my room.”
She does the last few steps in a little run, then dives for my bed, and I clap like crazy.
“She’s done it! And this is extraordinary, ladies and gentlemen, the atmosphere here at the Grand Canyon has been nail-bitingly tense, but this young wire-walker from Ashford in England has wowed the world with her incredible feats of daring …” I hold my pen under her chin like a mic. “Tell us, Rosie, what is your secret? Is it true you owe it all to your big brother, your personal trainer and manager?”
She punches me on the arm.
“No, Natty!”
She lays back on the bed and points her feet at the ceiling then starts bicycling in the air.
“Rozza?”
“What?”
“You still going to Dad’s flat on Saturday night?”
“Yes. He said we could have pizza.”
“Is it just you and him? Like, I mean, is he having anyone else round?”
“He might be.”
“You don’t know, do you? You don’t know anything!”
“I do know. I do so. Ella and Jamie come most Saturdays and we all have breakfast on Sunday morning and Dad gets up and cooks it and I have mushrooms on toast. Or beans. Because I’m vegetarian.”
“Yeah? Like so not. You had chicken nuggets only last week and I saw you eating fish fingers yesterday.”
“Fish doesn’t count. And nor does nuggets.”
* * *
Who the hell is Jamie? I’m not asking Rosie. Bet I can get her to tell me though.
“Well, if you and Dad and Ella and Jamie are all going to be there, doesn’t sound like there’s a whole lot of room for anyone else. I mean, this Jamie—“
Rosie stops bicycling and stands up.
“You’re being horrible again. You said you’d come and see the painting on my bedroom wall and now you’re trying to sneak out of it, but I don’t care and I’m going to eat your share of the pizza as well as mine.”
She stomps across the room to the door.
“Oi, Rozza!”
“What?”
“You just fell down the Grand Canyon.”
There goes my mobile again. It’s been non-stop today.
“Yup?”
“Scotty?” It’s Harry.
“Hello, mate. Not ready for your deathbed yet then?”
“Still struggling on. They’ll have to knock me over the head with a mallet if they want to get rid of me. Thought you’d forgotten me. Been busy, has it?”
“Yeah, well, you know. That lot couldn’t tie their own shoelaces if I wasn’t there keeping an eye on them.”
“Maureen said you were probably up to your eyes, and that’s why you hadn’t been round.”
“Hang on a sec. That’s not it. I’ve phoned at least three times, but Maureen said you were having a nap or were out on your allotment. And I didn’t come to see you ‘cause Chris said you’d been ordered not even to think about work and you could do without the stress.”
“I see.”
“This sell-off, Harry? It is your idea, right?”
“Come off it. You know me—if it was up to me, they’d have to prise my cutter out my hand when I’m laying in my coffin.”
“Yeah, true—but your box will wait, you don’t have to rush.”
I knew it wasn’t his idea. Now what?
“Still, it’s probably best, eh? You don’t need the agg. of all that.” Why am I trying to talk him into it? Shut up, Scott. Just shut the fuck up. “And you’ve got your bowls to stop you getting up to mischief. And your allotment.”
“Scott. Do me a favour, will you?”
“Course. Anything. Name it.”
“Come and see me. Not at home. At the allotment.”
I’ve not been since last summer. Then Harry was falling over tomatoes—great fat ones that tasted of, well, tomato—which is something of a rarity nowadays. And courgettes. I took some home for Gail to cook. And runner beans, hundreds of them it looked like, hanging off these bamboo wigwams like dangly green earrings. Early potatoes, damp and sticky with soil. Lettuces with frilly leaves like the can-can petticoats in that awful show I saw in Margate one time. That was last summer, before my life became this thrilling rollercoaster ride, up and down, my stomach lurching into my mouth one minute, then down into my boots the next.
We fix on tomorrow morning. Harry’s to keep active, the consultant says. Easy on the stress but no becoming a couch potato. He’s been put on a diet and he’s to take exercise. Gardening gets the thumbs-up.
It is a fresh day, sunny but cold, with snapping gusts of wind from the east. I clang the metal gate closed and make my way in a succession of right angles across to where I see Harry stooping in among his beds. He is wearing a pair of old black gumboots and a brown jumper with holes in the elbows.
“Ooh-arr,” I do my daftest country accent. “'Ow goes it, ‘arry-lad?” He smiles and claps me on the back.
“Weeds and slugs. My two great enemies. Whatever I do, they just keep coming.”
“Need a hand?” Course, what I know about gardening could be written on the point of a toothpick. Can’t tell a weed from a prize cabbage.
“You could get the barrow from the shed. It’s open.” He points to a small shed at the far end of his patch. “And my other shovel. The old one.”
We begin moving a mound of soil from one corner of the allotment to another bed near the middle for some reason. It is the kind of pointless thing gardeners seem to like doing.
“Will you move it all back tomorrow?”
“Cheeky so-and-so.” He taps the side of his head. “It’s all in here, my son, all part of the plan.”
And, although it’s true I can barely tell one end of a rake from the other and I’m certainly not as fit as I once was, it’s kind of fun, pottering about on the allotment with old Harry. Like making mud pies or messing around in the woods or on the gravel heaps when I was a kid—getting grubby and being out in the fresh air and not feeling like you’re supposed to be somewhere else. I am supposed to be somewhere else, of course, but Lee and Martin and Gary and Denise are all in today and if they can’t handle most things by now between them then God help them when they come to be working for the new lot. They won’t know what’s hit them. A big company’s not going to be as easygoing as me and Harry, that’s for sure. Besides, it’s not my problem any more.
“I’m glad you came,” says Harry. “I wanted to have a word here—not at home, you know.”
He means away from Chris, away from Maureen even, but he won’t say it.
“Course.” I plunge the spade deep into the soil. “'bout time I did some real work for a change anyhow.”
He stands astride one of the narrow beds and bends down to pull up some carrots, one by one. I’m not sure exactly what he wants to say, but whatever it is, he’s finding it tricky. He’s as bad as I am. Worse even. I feel a sudden rush of—what?—something like, no, it sounds bloody daft. Well, don’t tell anyone, but sort of affection, as if, just for a second, our positions were reversed and he’s my son, standing there struggling, not knowing what to say. It’s so rare for me to be the one who’s not at a loss for words that I figure I should help him out a bit.
“Harry. About the business. It is OK, you know. Chris told me I’ll not be needed. I’ll manage. I can turn my hand to anything.” I’m not half as confident as I sound. I can’t just do anything—I need to earn decent dosh. Most of what I take home goes straight to Gail, aside from enough for rent and bills and to take Rosie out. It’s tight enough as it is. I want to take Ella on holiday—she says there’s a place in Ireland where you can even swim with a dolphin—or at least out to a fancy restaurant for dinner once in a blue moon, give her a chance to dress up a bit. She could do with a treat.
“If I’d had a whiff of that condition at the beginning, I’d never have let him go ahead with it.”
“It’s no sweat. Honestly. I should have been moving on anyhow. I can’t be a sad old bugger like you, stuck in the same firm for forty years, can I?” He laughs and looks down at the carrots in his hand, rubs the soil off with his finger and thumb.
“I’ve come to a decision,” he says. “About the money.”
“It’s OK. Chris told me. Three months’ pay. It’s all right.”
“Shut up a minute. It is not all right and it’s not up to him. He should never have said that, it was totally out of order!” He’s practically shouting now.
“Keep calm. Watch your blood pressure. Come on, sit down for a sec.”
He lowers himself onto one of the grass paths at the edge. I’m in my not-so-crap trousers because I’ve got customer calls to do later, so I squat next to him.
“If none of this had happened,” he strikes his chest, “I’d have gradually taken a back seat anyway and made you a proper partner in the business.”
“Harry, I—”
“No, hang on. I should have done it years ago. Let’s face it, you’ve been running the place for years. Yes, you have—I know you like to make out I’m still in charge but any fool could see through that in two minutes.”
“But I never—”
“Will you shut up?”
“Yes, Boss.”
“And then when I died—”
“Who’s talking about dying all of a sudden? The doctor said—”
“I’m saying when I went, you’d have got the business—with a share in the profits for Maureen, of course, and a bit to go to Chris too. But it would have been yours.”
There is a silence. I don’t know what to say. I never knew all this. I want to say thank you, thank you for thinking of it for even a second, even though it won’t happen now. I want to say these things but I can’t speak.
“But, because of this—” He strikes his chest again. It makes me think of King Kong in that old film, beating his chest, towering over the jungle. But this is Harry, a man old before his time, sitting on a grass path beside his patch, his beloved allotment with its funny little beds of fruit and vegetables. He’s still trying to be strong, though, proud—on his own territory now, in charge again. “Because of this, my family …” He pauses and I know he wishes he’d chosen different words, not the f-word, the one that excludes me. “Maureen and Chris have made me see I’ve got to have a decent nest egg for my retirement.”
“They’re right. You have.”
“Still, I may be old and getting feeble, but I’ll not be bullied. You’re to have a share of the money from the sale.”
“I don’t want it. You may need it. What if you get sick or something?”
“There’ll be enough. I’m not arguing with you, so save your breath. I’ve made up my mind.”
My dad says he’s going to be a company director. What he’s going to do is sell his car and have a van instead and it’s going to have his name painted on the side and he’ll be the boss. Only there won’t be anyone else for him to be the boss of because it’s just him, but he’ll still be the boss and that’s what matters. He says it was all Ella’s idea and if it doesn’t work out she’s going to be in big trouble and he’ll have to tickle her to death.
What it is is he’s going to do people’s painting for them and put up their wallpaper and their tiles in the bathroom, like he did in the flat. Ella says he’s really, really good at it and he shouldn’t be so modest. Actually, I think Ella is better than him because she can paint proper pictures and things on the walls, animals and butterflies or whatever you like, but Dad can only do plain.
Nat’s coming to Dad’s on Saturday. We’re going to get pizza, proper take-out ones, not just the sort you get in the freezer. Ella’s not going to be there though. Dad said she was seeing a friend. But Nat’s coming and he’s going to see my room and Dad said maybe we can both go with him to help him choose a van in a couple of weeks. I think he should have a blue one. I’ve gone off mauve.
OK, I did accept the money from Harry, but only once he showed me he’d have enough put by for himself. It’ll help me get set up with a van and ladders and all the gear I need and tide me over for a while until I’m up and running. I told Harry any time he’s bored and fancies a spot of work, he can come in with me because I’ll still take on the odd glazing job alongside the decorating.
When Ella first suggested it, I laughed. Me, run my own business?
“Why not? You’ve got the skills, the trade contacts, you’re used to managing things. You’re not afraid of hard work, you’re good with people, trustworthy …”
“Carry on, don’t stop now you’re getting up a head of steam.”
“… and you’re also getting big-headed—but with good reason because you’re lovely and sexy and funny and you’ve got this really gorgeous bit right here—” She lifts up my shirt and lays her cool hand on my back, just above my bum.
“It’s no good me being gorgeous where no-one can see it. What about the rest of me?”
She gets these little curves at the corners of her mouth when she smiles. Not dimples, curves—like mini-smiles laying on their sides.
“Oh, the rest of you is just about bearable, I guess.”
Nat’s coming over on Saturday night. I had to tell Ella, ask her, you know, if she’d mind … She was great about it.
“Don’t force him to meet me when it’s probably taking him all his courage to come at all. We’ll take it slowly. I don’t mind. Let him go at his own pace.”
I take her hand and rub it gently between my own.
“Yeah, you’re right. Thank you.”
She pulls me down to kiss her.
“Good luck.”
I’m going to need it.
He thought he’d make me come round. Like he used to when I was just a kid. When I was really small—littler than Rosie even—if I was being naughty or cross with him, Dad would pick me up and turn me upside-down, then he’d tickle me or make like he was about to chuck me across the room until I started laughing and then he’d laugh as well and Mum’d come in and say, “What are you two up to? It’s like running a zoo, this house. Come on, it’s feeding time for the animals. Chicken and chips!”
He must still think I’m only about four and he can just tease me out of it. But there’s nothing he can do this time. I don’t want to see him again. Not ever. Never, ever, ever. That’s what we used to say. Like if he was trying to get me to eat vegetables at dinner, he’d say, “Eat up your greens or you’ll never be big and strong” and I’d say, “What, never?” Then he’d go, “Never ever” and I’d go, “Never, ever, ever?” until Mum would say, “Oh, for goodness’ sake, give it a rest you two—you’re driving me crazy.” It was always “you two” then, like we were both her kids. Rosie was only little and she was never naughty all that much so she didn’t get told off even half as much as me. Then I’d say, “But I’ll never like greens. Never.” And Dad would say, “What, never ever?” And we’d be off again, laughing and making slurping noises with our drinks and playing tabletop football with our peas, flicking them between the knives and forks as goalposts when Mum wasn’t looking.
OK, what happened was this. First of all, you need to know that it’s not like I’d made up with him or anything because I hadn’t. You got that? But I kind of said I’d take a look at his flat, just a look right, mainly because Rosie was giving me earache going on and on about it, and Cassie said she was going to take a look, and Mum was nagging me, so I thought if I went maybe everyone would stop hassling me about it. Anyway, I said I’d go round, just to look. No big deal. For an hour or so. See Rosie’s room and that. Maybe have some pizza. And Dad said OK and she wouldn’t be there.
It’s not all that far and it wasn’t raining for once, so I roller-bladed round there. He’s got this flat on the first floor. I rang the bell and he buzzed me in and I went up the stairs still in my blades. It’s OK if you turn your feet sideways. I couldn’t be arsed to take them off ‘cause I wasn’t going to be there long and the laces take for ever to do, but I had my trainers in my bag, anyway.
Course, at home Mum never lets me keep my blades on indoors because she says it crucifies the carpets and she keeps saying I’m going to crash into things and knock them over—which I don’t. Anyway, I’m at the door and he opens it but he just stands there not saying anything and looking at me like he’s never seen me before. Then I clock that we’re looking at each other almost on a level, eye to eye, ‘cause with my blades on I’m like nearly as tall as he is. He gives me this funny smile, with his mouth all weird and pressed together like he’s scared to smile normally, then he goes,
“Hey!”
And I go,
“So, am I coming in or what?”
I’m waiting for him to tell me to take off my blades or something, but he doesn’t. He just opens the door wide as it’ll go, right back so it bangs against the wall. The hall’s like really minuscule and it’s got this funny matting stuff on the floor, not proper carpet. It’s really rough and hard and if you kneel down on it for more than about a minute it makes all patterns on your knees, even through your trousers. I know ‘cause this boy I used to hang out with, Ian, they had it all over the whole house. Point is, it’s not the best stuff if you’re wearing blades and what with that and trying to get round the door into the kitchen and round him all at the same time I kind of lose my balance and Dad grabs my arm. I don’t need his help. Jeez, you’d think I was an old lady trying to cross the road or something the way he holds onto me. Then he squeezes my arm and makes like he’s about to say something. So I give him a look, sideways on so’s he can’t really see and I’m not kidding, he looks just like Rosie does when she’s trying not to cry. ‘Cept this is my dad here, right? When Rosie does it, her eyes look all wet and she bites her lip on the inside. Mostly it works but you can see she’s doing it. So this freaks me out like only a major amount and I kind of push past him and stagger into the kitchen, which has a vinyl floor. Excellent. So I’m gliding round that smooth as you like, pushing off from one wall to the other, even though it’s only small. Dad gives me a Coke straight from the fridge and gets me a beer glass and puts about fifteen ice cubes in it, like you’d have in a restaurant. I love it like that, so cold it makes your teeth hurt.
Rosie shows me her room and I say, “Yeah, very nice.” She’s got loads of stuff there. She must be leaving things there each weekend. There’s a couple of posters and her scruffy old bear she’s had since she was about two years old and there’s a board up with pictures of her friends on it, bit like her room at home really, and there’s a picture of Mum and—Rosie!—a stupid one of me she took last year. It’s not even properly in focus. There’s an inflatable chair in the corner and she shows me some stickers she bought with her pocket money, little penguins and polar bears, and says how she’s going to put them on cards and do speech bubbles so they’re saying things and have I got any good jokes about the Arctic for her to use. Then she drags me over to the painting on the wall by whatserface. Actually, it’s not that bad. It’s got birds flying around and the clouds really look like clouds. The castle’s dark but there’s this one window lit up in one of the turrets and it really glows like there’s an actual light on in there.
I’ve still got my blades on, so Rosie tries to tow me around the flat. There’s two bedrooms, one for Rosie and one for Dad. No prizes for guessing where his girlfriend sleeps when she stays the night. I’m not stupid. In the lounge, there’s a round table to eat at and a settee and a telly, CD player and stuff. And a couple of whacking great pot plants, big jungly ones. We never have plants indoors at home ‘cause Mum says they always die on her and she can’t be spending her whole life picking up the dead bits off the carpet all the time.
I lay down on the settee with my blades hanging over the arm at one end and Dad says,
“Course, this opens out y’know, Nat. It’s a sofa-bed. I got it specially. Case you wanted to come and stay. Some time. Any time. Whenever.” He’s looking down at the carpet which is like normal carpet, not like in the hall, and I could see all these grooves where my skates had been. I reckon he’s about to say something about it, but then he says,
“I’d really like it if you came to stay. Your mum’s cool about it too. So it’s down to you now really.”
“Mn.”
“So, what do you think then? About coming to stay?” He’s fiddling with his ear now, like he does when he’s nervous.
“What, on this? How come I don’t get my own room with a proper bed and works of art all over the walls then?”
Dad jingles his change in his pocket.
“Oh, Nat. I’m sorry. Really. But what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t shell out for a three-bedroom house when you weren’t even talking to me. But, if you want to come and stay, I’ll get somewhere bigger, course I will. This new business is going to do well, I know it is, so I’ll have a bit more coming in I reckon. Look, we’ll do your room properly—however you like—with a hard floor so you can skate in there if you want. And you can put up your posters and stuff—we could take a look at some places this weekend—”
“Yeah, yeah, all right, keep your hair on. I haven’t said I’ll stay yet.” He goes back to jingling his coins.
“But think about it, OK?”
“Mn.”
“Anyway. Pizza-time I think. Pizza, pizza, pizza. You hungry?”
I nod. Course I’m hungry. Like, when am I ever not hungry? “Pepperoni Hot or have you switched allegiance?”
“No chance. Pepperoni Hot. Can I have a big one?”
“Rosie!” he calls through. Mum says you’re not supposed to shout from room to room. She says Dad’s got no manners, but it’s a lot easier than running backwards and forwards the whole time. “What kind of pizza do you want, sweetheart?”
Rosie comes in balancing on her tiptoes, she thinks she’s a ballet dancer. She gives us a little twirl, showing off.
“Cheese and tomato, please. No bits on it.”
“Come on, Rozza.” I stretch out one of my skates and give her a shove. “What’s the point of a pizza with no bits on it? It’s like macaroni cheese without the cheese.”
“It’s like a guitar with no strings,” says Dad, taking her hand and twirling her round.
“A Ferrari with no wheels,” I say.
“A ballerina with no tutu,” Rosie joins in. Well, she’s only ten, what do you expect?
“Shepherd’s pie without the shepherds,” says Dad, getting carried away.
“But there aren’t—” starts Rosie.
“A bowling alley with no balls!” I bellow.
Rosie’s giggling away like a mad thing by now and Dad goes off, laughing, to look for the number of the pizza delivery place. Rosie starts tugging at my arm.
“Come and see Dad’s room. You haven’t seen it yet.”
We can hear him talking to himself in the kitchen. I reckon he’s going a bit bonkers, it’s his age most probably.
“I’m sure it was in this drawer. Where did I put it? I bet she’s moved it. Women—they’re always tidying things away so you can’t find anything …”
* * *
Rosie pulls me into Dad’s bedroom. Big double bed with a swirly red bedspread on it, not at all like he and Mum used to have. There’s a chest of drawers with candles on top and a vase of flowers. Real ones, not plastic. On the shelves, there’s some books. My dad hasn’t got that many but there’s others as well, ones I haven’t seen before that I reckon must be hers.
And on the shelves, in front of the books, are two framed photos—one of Rosie and one of me. They’re the crappy ones they do at school. Total rip-off. I look a complete nerd in my one ‘cause they make you brush your hair so it’s all smooth like a total dork and they keep telling you to smile so you can see my teeth. They are majorly uncool pictures. Rosie’s is OK, I guess, because she’s still a kid and sort of cute. Then on the shelf below that there’s another two photos, but not in frames. Rosie points to one of them.
“That’s Ella. See? She’s pretty, isn’t she?”
I ignore her. The other picture is of Dad. He’s carrying a little kid on his shoulders. A boy with brown curly hair, wearing a bright yellow sweatshirt.
“That’s Dad with Jamie. He’s only two and a half.”
“And who the fuck is this Jamie kid anyhow?”
“Nat! You’re not s’posed to swear—”
“You can’t tell me what to do. I guess you’ll go running off to Daddy now.”
“I wasn’t! I’m just saying—”
“Yeah, yeah. Who is he? Don’t look like that. It’s pathetic.” She’s doing her little lost kitten face, biting her lip.
“Jamie’s Ella’s little boy. I tried to tell you before, but you wouldn’t listen. He’s two and—”
“You said that already.”
“OK! He’s really clever. He knows lots of different makes of cars, just from the badges. Dad taught him. And he can—”
I give a big yawn, really exaggerating it.
“Mn. So interesting …”
Rosie stomps back off to her room. She is so easy to wind up, it’s untrue.
I pick up the picture and look at it really hard, like if I look long enough I’ll know everything in it. Dad’s laughing and the kid is laughing too and he—Jamie’s—got his hands half over Dad’s eyes but you can tell they’re only playing and joking around and Dad’s holding both his legs. I guess she took the picture.
I can see it all now. It’s so obvious I feel totally stupid that I didn’t click before. He must think we’re so dumb. I can tell Rosie doesn’t know. But I know why he left now and all that stuff about him and Mum not getting on any more and needing to spend time apart is a load of crap. Everything he’s said is lies. Mum knows. She must do, she’s not stupid. So everything she said is lies too. She could have told me. I’m old enough. I could have kept it from Rosie. She should have trusted me.
But the more I think about it, and the more I stare at the picture, the worse I feel. My insides feel weird, like I might throw up, but my ears are burning like that time I had the flu and my legs are shaking as if it’s freezing cold. I shove the photo in my pocket and stagger out to the hall again. Pick up my bag. I can hear him on the phone.
“No, that’s one large Pepperoni Hot and one—”
I open the front door, click it closed quietly behind me, then clamber best as I can back down the stairs, practically breaking my neck in the process ‘cause of my blades. I hoik my bag onto my back, then I’m out on the street and pushing off. I don’t know where I’m heading, not back home, I know that much, but I don’t care. As long as it’s not back there, not with him. Anywhere else. Anywhere else in the whole wide world. I pick up speed, getting into a rhythm now, swerving round crumblies with their shopping as if they’re obstacles on a slalom run. The wind is cold, slapping my face in sudden gusts, making my eyes water, and my hands are freezing without gloves but I swing my arms to make me go faster, faster and faster, wishing they were wings that would lift me up above all the people and the cars and the houses and then there would just be me and the air, blading through the sky. I imagine him calling me, shouting “Nat! Nat!” over and over, but the wind is loud in my ears and I don’t want to hear him. A woman gives me a funny look, like as if I’m crying or something, but it’s only the wind. I rub my eyes roughly with my sleeve and I skate on, on and on, gliding, wheels spinning along the pavements, taking me further and further away.
He hasn’t come home. He left Scott’s place over two and a half hours ago and he’s still not back. It’s dark now. Scott thought he’d come straight here. He’s not at Joanne’s or Steve’s or Jason’s. Steve’s ringing round his other friends just in case. Joanne’s mother said she’ll call if they hear anything. I even tried his mobile but, of course, there’s just a message saying it’s out of service. I should have given him the money. He kept asking for the money and I didn’t give it to him.
I want to rush out and look for him. I want to run through the streets calling his name until I find him. Scott brought Rosie back so he could go out looking but he says I must stay here in case Nat comes back. He’s right. Greg has gone to the hospital to check the casualty department and he’s promised to phone from there. I wanted to call the police too but Scott says he’ll drop into the station in town, and I’m not to worry. He will find Nat. He’s promised to find him. Mari offered to pick up Rosie and look after her, but I want her here with me. She’s fallen asleep on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, so Cassie and I are speaking in whispers.
“Don’t worry,” Cassie says. “Nat’s no fool. He’s sharp as a razor. He’ll be OK.”
I nod shakily and try to drink my coffee.
Neither of us are saying it. I cannot say it out loud. If I do, maybe that’ll make it true. But I know she’s thinking it and I’m thinking it: What if someone’s taken him?
I wish to God she hadn’t used the word sharp, I don’t want to think about anything sharp. I mustn’t think it. I owe it to Natty not to think it. Not even for a second. I pray inside my head, “Please, God, let him be safe. I’ll do anything you want. Don’t let anything happen to him. Take me instead. Please let him be all right, please”—over and over in my head as I walk up and down, hugging myself with my own arms.
“I could go and look as well,” offers Cassie.
I shake my head.
“Please don’t leave me.”
She gives me a long, long hug.
“I’m phoning Derek—Scott can’t do the whole town by himself.”
Scott phones and says he’s spoken to his mate in the police, given him a photo so he can keep an eye out and they’ll put the word out to the police on the beat. I give him Derek’s mobile number so they can co-ordinate.
“Don’t worry,” says Scott. “I’ll bring him back. I swear. You can rely on me.”
I head for the station first, hoping like hell he hasn’t got himself on a train to London or I’d never find him. It made me think of those programmes you see about teenagers, no more than kids really, living on the streets, getting into drugs, thieving, prostitution. Knowing Natty, he wouldn’t have had enough money for the train fare on him, but he might have snuck on, hid in the toilet from the guard. I know a bloke who works there so I track him down and show him Nat’s photo. He asks around and says no-one’s seen a boy that age on his own and they probably would have noticed one—you did if it wasn’t regular school time because you reckoned they’d be up to no good, vandalizing the toilets and what have you. I quell an urge to punch him one. Not my Natty, he’s not like that. It’s nearly half-ten now. I give him my mobile number and he promises to keep an eye out.
Then I drive round and round town, hoping I might just suddenly spot him, trying to think—where would he go? What would he do? Where would I go if I was Nat? Derek’s covering the park, the snooker hall, and the bus station. I check out the bowling alley, because I took Natty there a few times, but it’s pretty much all families. Real families, you know, out together having a good time, not like the godawful mess I’ve managed to make of mine. The sports centre is just closing up—they have some late-night coaching and stuff going on on Saturday nights. I go up to the reception desk and show his photo to the two women there. The older one says, “Sorry, love. I don’t remember him, but we get so many lads in that age. The courts and pool are closed. Only the main hall’s still open—take a look if you like.”
The other one, the young one, says, “Ooh, it’s like on the telly. Are you a cop?”
What a moron. Normally, I’d have tried to come up with a cutting remark, something clever, but I don’t care any more. I just want Natty back.
“No, not a cop. I’m a dad. He’s my son.”
The security guard comes with me to check the hall and the gents’ toilets. Nothing.
Back into town and I park illegally to nip into McDonald’s, knowing Nat can’t keep away from food for long. The manager says no, he doesn’t think he’s seen him but they have so many kids in and they all look alike now, don’t they?
“He was wearing a black padded jacket, black combat trousers and roller-blades.”
“Exactly,” he says. “They all are. Could be anybody.”
It’s not anybody, I want to shout at him, It’s my son. He’s my son, you idiot.
Still, getting angry isn’t going to get me anywhere. I go back outside, shivering from the cold. I hope wherever he is that it’s somewhere warm and safe and that he has a portion of chips to keep the chill off his hands. I could do with some myself because I’m freezing but I’m not getting any. It sounds daft but I can’t stand the idea of me being warm in the car with chips and Natty being cold and chipless and alone. But it’s the best way to keep your hands warm, holding chips, that’s what I’ve always told him, that’s the way we used to do it when he was little and we went fishing off the beach.
The—way—we—used—to. When—he—was—little. Hang on a sec. Hang on a sec. Would he? Could he have gone there? He’d have to have got the bus or hitched a ride. Dear God, don’t let him have hitched with all these nutters out on the roads. I give Derek a call on his mobile, see if he’s checked the bus station yet, and he says he’ll go there straight away. It has to be worth a try—I’m going anyway, I’m all out of other ideas. I ring Gail to check if there’s any news her end and tell her where I plan to go next.
“What do you think? Is it a long shot?”
“Go. Just go, Scott. I can’t think of anywhere else.”
“I’ll call you when I get there.” “Thanks. Please find him. Promise you’ll bring him back safe.”
“I promise.”
The phone rings a minute later and I jump, thinking maybe it’s Nat. But it’s Ella, calling from the flat, to see if there’s any news. She’d offered to come round and stay in case he went back and turned up there. It’s good to hear her voice, concerned but calm.
“Take care of yourself,” she says. “And keep warm.”
“I will. Get into bed and warm it up.”
“It’s best if I stay up. In case he comes back here. But I’ll let you put your cold feet on me. Special treat.”
“Ella?”
“Yup?”
“You know I love you, don’t you?”
I can feel her smile shimmering through the phone.
“Yes. I love you too.”
It’s been a while since I’ve driven this road in the dark—not since I last went fishing with Harry. Years ago, when Nat was not much more than a tot really, that’s when I first started taking him fishing with me, from the beach. You get a lot of blokes along this particular stretch, the occasional woman too, but mostly blokes—in ones and twos, mates or dads with their boys. Fathers and sons. I had this little wind-shelter tent and a tilley lamp and two folding stools and we’d go at night. You get there a couple of hours before high tide, stay three, four hours sometimes. There’d be a flask of coffee for me and a small one of cocoa or soup for Nat and we’d take along some sandwiches but we’d always go to the chippie as well because holding chips is the best way to keep your hands warm. And there’s nothing like the smell of chips and vinegar and warm paper in your nose when the wind’s biting your face off and the sea is grey and the sky is dark. And all you can see are the stars, the lights of the power station across the bay, the lamps of the men fishing and the red-hot dots of their cigarettes floating against the dark.
I park right on the front and scrunch down onto the shingle. Start asking the blokes who are fishing,
“Seen a young lad on his own?”
Showing them the photo. From one to the next I go, working my way along the beach. After about ten or twelve there’s a bloke fishing by himself, with the same kind of tent that I’ve got.
“Yes, mate. I chatted to a lad. I’m not sure if it was this one, it’s hard to see. Hair going forwards over his face like this? Dark padded jacket?”
“Yes, yes. That sounds like him.” My heart’s racing. Please let it be Nat, please let it be Nat.
“Yeah. I gave him some tea. He looked half frozen to death, mate.”
“Did you see which way he went?”
“To get chips, he said. But it must have been over an hour ago.”
I run along the beach then, stumbling on the shingle in the dark, calling out his name. The wind snatches my words and makes my eyes water, tears running down my face. “Natty! Na-a-t!” Running by the small shelter there on the promenade, I turn—and see a figure, a dark, hunched figure, almost invisible crumpled as he is right into the very corner.
I clamber up the beach, slipping and sliding, like trying to run up the down escalator, pull myself up onto the edge of the promenade. Stand up. Face him.
He looks up. Natty. I breathe out. I feel as if I’ve been holding my breath for hours.
“Oh,” he says. “It’s you.”
“Natty.”
“Why are you here? What do you want?” He looks terrible. Even in the dim light, I can see he’s pale and cold, his eyes dark and bruised looking.
“Hang on,” I say, not moving, not wanting to make him run again, though he looks defeated somehow, and weak as a half-drowned kitten. “Have a go at me in a minute. I’m ringing Mum before she has a nervous breakdown.”
I phone Gail, tell her he’s safe and well and she bursts into tears. Cassie comes on the line and says to call back in a while. I sit down further along the bench. Nat’s holding a half-eaten portion of chips.
“Hands holding up OK?”
He shrugs.
“Chips have gone cold.”
I edge a bit closer.
“Fish biting tonight?”
The ghost of a smile comes to his face.
“Stupid. Haven’t got my rod, have I?”
“Natty?”
“Mn?”
“I—this is difficult—I don’t know how to—Thing is, I guess I’m not much of a dad.”
He shrugs again.
“Feel free to contradict me at any point.”
A small laugh. Then silence.
“This little boy.” He takes out a photo from his pocket, the one from my bedroom, with Jamie on my shoulders.
“What, Jamie?”
“Mn. Is he your kid?” He’s not looking at me. He’s facing dead ahead, staring out to sea.
God, is that what he thought? That all along I’d had another son hidden away?
“What? No, of course not. Where did you get that idea?”
“Thought that’s why you left. What d’you need us for when you’ve got a whole other family all along?”
I slide closer along the bench.
“Oh, Natty. Shit. I can’t bear it that you thought that. Not for a second. Listen he’s Ella’s son, that’s all. I was carrying him because he’s little and he was tired. You know what they’re like at that age. Remember Rosie, eh? ‘Lift me up, Daddy! Carry me, Daddy!'”
We laugh a bit at that.
“He’s a nice kid, Natty. But he’s not my son. You’re my son.”
“Mn.” He scrunches up what’s left of his chips and leans out to chuck them in the bin. “You going to have kids with her?”
“Nah. I’m too old and knackered.” Then I think of Ella. Her calm face close to mine, her laugh, the way she moves around the kitchen, her hand reaching up to tuck her hair behind her ear, singing to herself as she cooks. “I don’t know. We’re not at that stage yet. But—Nat—even if I did, no amount of kids could ever replace you. It’s not like getting a new battery and chucking the old one away ‘cause it’s no use any more. I mean, you’re Nat. My Nat. There’ll never, ever be another Nat.”
“What, never, ever, ever, ever?” We used to say that when he was little, you know, all that parent stuff … “Eat your greens or you’ll never get to be big.” “What?” Nat would say back, “Never, ever?” “Nope. Never, ever, ever” we’d go.
“Nope,” I say now. “Never, ever, ever, ever, ever … ever.”
“Why d’you leave us then?”
I shuffle right next to him and put my arm round him. Feel him stiffen, his body tense.
“I didn’t leave you, you dipstick. Jeez. How can I tell you? Grown-up stuff, it’s so difficult, Nat. I don’t understand it half the time. Mind you, your mum would say that’s ‘cause I’m not a proper grown-up—and she’s probably right. But it was nothing to do with Ella—I hardly even knew her then. The thing is, I messed up big time and it was all my fault and then—your mum and I—well, we just couldn’t be together any more. And, if I’d stayed, we’d have ended up rowing the whole time and maybe even hating each other—and that’d have been bad for us and bad for you and Rosie, too. Believe me, you and Rosie are the best things in my life, always have been. I’d do anything for you, you must know that.”
I feel him give a little, his weight heavy against me. I give him a squeeze and pull him closer.
“You’re my son. Nothing can ever change that or take it away—not from you and not from me. I love you, you big dipstick. I love you so much. You have to know that.”
And I sit there holding him a while, the two of us looking out to the dark sky, the sea, the lights across the bay, the tilley lamps of the men and the glow of their cigarettes. We sit there, watching them, clutching their cups of tea, huddling against the wind, fathers and sons.
“C’mon then. It’s cold.” I pull him to his feet and give him a final hug. We stay like that a minute, then he pulls away.
“Leave over, Dad. You can’t have blokes hugging along here. We’ll get arrested.”
One last squeeze then I let him go.
“All right. Fancy some fresh chips?”
He nods and we walk along the front together, just the two of us, father and son. Father and son.