Closeted in the bathroom before bed, he found himself talking to the mirror, just to speak with another man, ‘It really is like two steps forward three steps back, this whole business, of relationships.’
‘These women are ’ard work, mate,’ he heard his father say.
‘And can’t they talk!’
When he looked in the mirror, in the keen light, he stood a moment, looking at the nose they shared, he and his father.
And then he remembered a very strange thing, how one Christmas Eve, just before the old man left home, Ken had insisted on walking over the fields, in the dark, over to the church for midnight mass. They’d never done it before, they’d never do it again. Dave hadn’t gone, nor had his mum, it was just the two of them. Coming home afterwards, in the near pitch-darkness of the lanes, they’d trudged over the field and at the high point, underneath the moon and stars, his father had faced him and said that he had to tell him something. He had to tell him that there was no such thing as death, that his own father had come back to him to tell him so, and that one day he’d be with his old dad again, just as Nick would be with him.
‘And your mum,’ he’d put in for the sake of fairness. ‘You’ll be starting out on your own life soon, son, and I want you to know this because it’s something that means a lot to me. He came to me to tell me it one night. It weren’t a dream. It was him, I promise you. I’m not daft. I know he was there because I could smell him . . .’
He could remember standing there, listening with baited breath, excited by the apprehension that this was something important, vital, memorable and secret.
And he did believe him, for a child will trust his parent long after he pretends not to.
‘He smelt good. I could smell the way his jacket smelt from the boozer and from the rain, tweed it was. Right in my nose it was. There ain’t no death, son. That’s what he said to me and now I’m telling it to you. I’m handing it on. He was there beside me like I’m standing ’ere with you now. Now you remember that. You remember what your dad told you one Christmas Day.’
Ken called just as they were dropping off to sleep.
‘How am I to get to Pearl’s Sund’y? Dave ain’t got the space in ’is car.’
‘Yes, he does.’
‘Oooh?’
‘Dave. Dave does.’
‘Dave? I’ll be dead before I get there if I have to go with ’im. Naargh.’
‘You’ll be OK.’
‘Oooh?’
‘YOU’LL BE OK.’
‘Yes. That’s right. You’ll have to fetch me, son. See you at nine sharp.’
‘What? Look, that’s too early. We don’t have to be there until lunchtime.’
‘Listen, son, I feel a bit down, to tell you the truth. I think I’ll check into an ’otel for the night tomorrow. Can’t bear it ’ere. I’m rattlin’ around in ’ere like old bones. Nothing on the telly. It’s giving me the willies. Anything to have a bit of youman comp’ny.’
Astrid opened an eye and murmured, ‘Let him come and stay with us for Saturday night. I’ll go and get him tomorrow when you take Laura to London.’
Nick put his hand over the receiver and looked at her. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Why not?’
After he hung up, he said, ‘Shit.’
‘What?’
‘We’ve got dinner with your parents tomorrow night.’
‘He’ll have to come too.’
‘That will be bad.’
‘They have to meet at some point.’
‘Why?’
She sighed.
Getting up first thing, Nick watched the sunrise, from his throne. The firmament was swollen, it was black and blue like a great bruise. The dark was in retreat and on the rim of the hill there was a rim of gold, the promise of a fair day. The noise from down below the window and across the valley was a hubbub of birds, some in tune, some tuning up, the noise one hears in a theatre before the curtains open: a buzz and mutter, some discordant notes, a few bars of real harmony emerging, the hum of anticipation.
A pale saintly Laura was up and at the cereal at first light. He and Laura were both washed, dressed and breakfasted by nine, and earnest and scrubbed when they went up the garden path to the car. Astrid watched them duck in and out of the elderflower trees, then she heard the engine start and the gravel snap. And when next she looked, the parking space was bare and the elderflower was nodding and reaching to shake hands with the cow parsley, bobbing in the car’s wake.
Inside, with Roy sitting on her feet, Astrid called Danny to tell him Laura would be with him at midday. Evidently she woke him. He sounded put out. He said he had plans and would have to cancel them. Tersely, she told him that Laura was worried about him.
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. Do you?’
‘No-o . . .’ he said, but he let the ‘o’ sound too long.
‘Well, she’s on her way to see that you’re still in one piece. It’s a lot for a little girl to handle, this kind of worry.’
As Nick observed, once parted, parents were locked in combat to claim their children’s hearts. There was a silly notion knocking about that love was like a bar of soap – not so good shared. Short of anything else, they resorted to cant about ‘values’. With parents together ‘values’ were unnecessary; no child ever knew they had any, until his parents divorced, then he must have them coming at him from every quarter, day and night.
‘No one ever wants a step-parent,’ Nick said to Laura as they came into Dulwich. ‘And that’s something that a step-parent just has to accept. But I hope you can think of me as a good friend, Laura.’
She shrugged and sucked noisily on the stripy straw to evacuate the remaining vanilla from the two-pint milkshake cup, then she rummaged through the fries to find the little cartoon character that groaned when you pressed its stomach and said in an American accent: ‘Oh, boy, I got gas.’ She pressed it once or twice and nibbled the batter off a cold chicken nugget.
Divorces were OK. Everyone knew there was an upside. It was called shopping. Step-parents were OK. Everyone knew there was an upside. It was called McDonald’s.