“If I could just come in a minute and—”
“No, you cannot just come in a minute and anything. I’ve got nothing to say to you other than I think you’re a pathetic little prick and the less I see of your stupid arrogant face the better.”
“Finished? Or shall I turn round so you can stab me in the back as well while you’re at it?”
“Don’t tempt me.”
“Fine. Can you get my son now, please? We should be making a move.”
“Oh,
your
son is he now?”
I sigh deliberately, childishly loudly. It’s ten past ten in the morning and I feel like I’ve already had a long, hard day.
“Our son. Give Nat a shout, will you?”
“I can if you insist, but I doubt if he’ll hear me.”
I puff out my cheeks. This is getting annoying now.
“Well, if he’s got his music up too loud, just—”
“He can’t hear me, because he’s not here.”
And this is when I lose my rag completely. What restraint I had left is out the window faster than a rat from a sinking ship and I’m going all out from a standing start: How could she?—she’s done it deliberately—I told her—we agreed—the time was her idea, to suit her—now she’d smuggled him out the way so I couldn’t see him—my own flesh-and-blood son—I could just see it—bet she’d lost no time in bad-mouthing me—telling him I’m a liar and a cheat—not fit to be a father—did she even say I was coming?—did she?—just wait till he finds out I was here—I’d never have thought she’d sink so low—keeping me from seeing Natty—doesn’t the past count for anything?—if not for me, then for him—he needs his dad like he always did, doesn’t he? Doesn’t he?
“Apparently not.” She shrugs and folds her arms, infuriatingly calm. “Of course I told him you were coming. I said it was all arranged. But he refused to see you—”
“Can I phone him at least?”
“—or speak to you. Though it’s nice to see how quickly you assumed it must be all my fault. How dare you try to blame me? I would never try to turn the children against you.” She looks away from me then and down at her feet, then adds quietly: “Though God knows you deserve it.”
I’m standing on my own front path, but it’s not really me standing here. This is just the husk of my body, swaying slightly in the wind. Inside, somewhere in the pit of my stomach is a very, very small person huddled into a tight, scrunched-up ball, covering his head with his arms and wishing the world would stop punching him in the guts. Outside, I bite my lip and square my shoulders. Gail stretches out a cautious hand towards me but I flinch from her.
“I’m fine!”
“Sorry. I—he had something he was supposed to do over at Steve’s. He’s just being a teenager, Scott. He’ll come round eventually.”
Eventually? When’s eventually? It’s not listed in my diary. I could be dead and buried by then. I need to see him now.
“Yeah. Fine. Whatever.”
Gail nods towards the car.
“You better go. Rosie’s waiting. And Scott?”
“What?”
“Don’t let her see how disappointed you are. About Nat not coming.”
“I’m fine, I’m cool with it. I don’t need lessons from you in how to be a good parent, thank you.”
And I’m walking back down the path, hearing her voice behind me, saying she’ll see me at six.
It’s cold and the car windows are misted up. Poor Rosie, I hope she’s been warm enough. I should have left the keys in so she could have the heater on. As I open the door, I see she must have leant over to draw on my window with her finger. It is one of those smiley faces kids are always doing. Only this one’s smile isn’t the perfect semicircle it’s supposed to be. It’s kind of a crooked line, the face of a smiley doing its best to smile—but not quite making it.
I feel like I’m a babysitter. Or a nanny. Someone who’s been given custody of a child and is supposed to be in charge of it for an entire day. Eight hours. How hard can it be? It’s—
she’s
—my own kid, for God’s sake. But when Rosie opens the door—I hear her calling out to Gail from the hall, “It’s Dad! I’ll get it!"—I am suddenly filled with panic. Eight hours. What the hell am I supposed to do with her for eight whole hours?
“Hiya!” I say brightly, bending down to give her a kiss. She throws her arms round my neck and plays with my ears, folding the tops and lobes together so they meet.
“Hello.” She gives me a shy smile, like I’m a new friend in the playground, and checks her watch. “You’re nearly two minutes late.”
“Hey! I was parking the car and combing my hair for my best girl.”
Gail appears in the doorway and drops to her knees, imploring me to come home, saying she can’t live without me.
* * *
OK, OK, fantasy time. Gail appears and composes her face into an expression of total contempt.
“Back by six o’clock.” No please, you notice. No hello, Scott, how have you been keeping, dossing down in other people’s back bedrooms?
“I’m fine, thanks for asking. And how’ve you been?”
And she says
I’ve
got no manners.
Last Sunday I made the mistake of being early—only by fifteen minutes, not enough to make the cover of the
Ashford Advertiser
(and God knows almost anything does—drop a gum wrapper on the High Street and it’s
FLOG THESE LITTER LOUTS SAYS TOWN
). When Gail comes to the door, she looks me up and down from my hairline (which is undergoing something of its own mini-recession at the moment, that’s stress that is, I should sue her for compensation) to my shoelaces (my second-best shoes—I remembered the look my old trainers got that first Sunday, I’m learning fast, see) and back again as if I were trying to sell her something at the door and no, she doesn’t want any thank you and could I not lower the tone and use up the oxygen by loitering there.
She doesn’t speak, just gives me the Braddon Look; they must get lessons in her family—her mum and sisters do it, too—if you had the four of them in a row looking at you, well, you might as well drop down dead on the spot and get it over with. That’s her maiden name, by the way, which I notice she took up pretty sharpish after I’d left that first night—can’t have reached the front gate before she was scraping off the gold-embossed Scott from her matching pen-and-pencil set.
So I’m stood there, getting the Look.
“Hello then,” I say.
“You’re early,” she says.
Well, I knew I was of course, but like a dope, I say,
“Am I?”
This only confirmed her belief that I’m irresponsible (high up on the list of Scott’s Crimes, about Number Three I reckon. You’re familiar with One and Two—I’m a cheat and a liar—and I can bring you up to speed on the other 437 later). Lesson One in Braddon Logic: Responsible fathers always know the exact time so that they aren’t late (ah-ha, I hear you say, but you
weren’t
late—but we are operating on Braddon rules here, so listen up and learn). If you’re early, you can’t be paying attention to the time so it’s as bad as being late. Now here’s the crowning cherry: except that it’s
worse
because it means you might be trying to sneak an extra ten minutes with your own flesh-and-blood child—even though you already have a more than generous allowance of all day Sunday plus a phone call every other day. What other woman would be so spectacularly fair and decent about the whole thing?
Gail crosses her arms.
“It’s important for you to turn up at the time when Rosalie’s expecting you.”
Nice, very nice. Blame the kiddy, why don’t you?
“At least I’m not late.” Mistake. Knew it as soon as I said it.
She snorted.
“Not like you were three weeks ago.”
“That was only ten minutes.”
“Fine. Be late if you like, if you don’t mind letting down your only daughter.”
“But I’m
early.”
“Oh, so you do know when you’re supposed to be here.”
You’re beginning to see that I might not be the only villain of the piece after all, aren’t you?
See, before this, before I left, it was easy. Being a dad, I mean. I didn’t think about it from one day to the next. Specially not with Nat—it was just like hanging out with a mate, we’d watch a vid, go out on the bikes, down to the coast, fishing sometimes, roller-blading, stuff like that. I’d get in from work, shout, “Hiya! I’m back!” and make myself a cup of tea. Natty’d be up in his room on his computer or in the kitchen leaning against the furniture, he’s always leaning against things or only half sitting on chairs so you think that he’s going to fall over any second now. Any second now.
If he’d been upstairs, he’d shamble down and stand half in the fridge drinking milk or Coke, gulping it down like he’s been in the desert for a month. And I say, “All right?” and nod and that’s the cue for him to tell me what’s occurring, what’s gone on at school. Only Nat never says what he’s learned, nothing like that, it’s all like what’s going down, what the teachers are up to, who’s got in the swimming team, who thinks they’re an ace diver but they’re not, who’s sucking up, who’s clueless and who’s cool. He does impressions, of the teachers mostly, but sometimes all the parts so it seems like you’ve suddenly got a whole class in the kitchen, with him doing the voices and the faces and the way they move, impersonating Miss Robson and the way she tugs at her pants when she thinks no-one’s watching and bangs the board rubber down on the desk to get everyone’s attention, and Mr Marks with the world’s worst ties which he’s always fiddling with, stroking the end, only when Natty does it, he puts on this creepy face like he’s a lech, molesting someone, and it’s dead funny.
Then I see Rosie’s getting all antsy, sitting on her hands to keep herself calm ‘cause she’s more polite than the rest of us and thinks it’s rude to interrupt. Which it is, of course. Even I know that. It’s just I forget. A lot. Anyway, Gail’s attempts to give the kids some manners seem to have rubbed off on Rosie at least. So I say, “And you, Rosie love? Good day at the office?” She likes that. Makes her feel grown up.
And so she tells me, well us, but Nat’s not one of the world’s greatest listeners and Gail’s in the utility room, putting in a wash or taking one out or foraging in the freezer. Rosie says what she did and what she learned and what Kira said and what Josie said and who got told off and if she got a gold star and who’s winning on the star chart, until Nat interrupts, teasing her, “Come on, Rozza, our ears are falling off, they’re worn out.”
Then Gail says we’re having chicken or chops or spaghetti or stir-fry or it’s only sausage, egg and chips because she’s sick of cooking and why doesn’t someone else take a turn, when was she ever appointed Official Family Chef, for goodness’ sake, but seeing as how we all love sausage, egg and chips we can’t see why she’s making so much fuss and at least it’s not pasta something-or-other
again,
we’ve got pasta coming out our ears. She says will someone
please
set the table, and we can fight it out among ourselves, she’s not interested, but will someone just make sure it’s done, straight away
please,
that means
now,
and don’t forget mats and glasses and God, you’d think we should know by now how to set a table without needing a list itemizing every knife, fork and salt pot. So I grab the cutlery and Rosie gets the mats and Nat tries to look as if he’s helping but mostly he’s slowly pulling out drawers and closing them again until Gail says, “Nathan! Glasses! In the cupboard!” And he gets out four tumblers and when we go to sit down Gail puts hers back and takes a wine glass to fill up from the wine box in the fridge and I swap mine for a bigger glass and get myself a beer and the kids have Coke or milk or squash depending, and we all sit down and sometimes we talk and sometimes we mostly just feed our faces and sometimes we squabble and sometimes we don’t, but any which way I didn’t mind. Because it was us, you see, our family, and I like it that way.
Liked
it that way.
And now, every second, I’m thinking, should I do this? Should I do that? What do I do now? Nat won’t see me, even speak to me, and I don’t know what to do with Rosie. I can’t bring her back to Jeff’s to watch TV because the place is too depressing and anyway there’s nothing on Sunday daytime.
See, there’s this whole huge day to fill and I feel like I’ve kind of borrowed her or like she’s been let out from prison or the zoo and I’ve got to give her the best treat day ever only I don’t have a clue where to start and what if it’s so awful she says she doesn’t want to come any more? I look at her little face, with her sweet cheeks and her serious straight eyebrows, and I have no idea what she’s thinking or what I should be doing, only I know whatever we do, Gail will hear about it and God knows I better get something right soon if I’m to have a hope in Hell—if we’re to, well, if I’m to have a chance.
I’m just making it up as I go along, hoping no-one will twig, no-one will say, “What are you doing? Don’t you know how to be a proper father? What on earth’s wrong with you?” And I’d have to admit I don’t know, I’ve no idea. And they’ll know I’m an impostor, and so will I, still desperately trying to bluff my way, hoping I’ll never have to show my real hand. Shit, there should be instructions for this, a manual or something: Lessons for a Sunday Father.
On Sundays, my dad comes to pick me up for our day out. Usually, we go for a bike ride by the sea or round the reservoir and Dad says soon we will both be fit as athletes and can enter the Olympics. Last time we had races and whoever won had to let go the handlebars and you put your hands up above your head like this because you know you’re going to get the gold medal. If we go on the road or the promenade, I have to wear my helmet, Mum says, but Dad says I can take it off at the reservoir or in the woods because it is a dirt track and Dad says it’ll be OK if I fall off because my head will bounce and not go splat. Dad doesn’t wear a helmet even on the road because he says it makes him look like a boiled egg. On the promenade, you get people roller-blading. It is boys mostly, like Nat. I’ve been three times with Nat and Dad, but that was before. Nat’s the best but he always said Dad is not bad for an old guy. Dad was the oldest person there. Mum came one time to watch but she hasn’t got skates and she said she hasn’t got the least interest in getting any because she’d be bound to fall over and break her neck and having three daredevil kids in the family’s more than enough to worry about and someone’s got to be the sensible one. But there aren’t three in any case—there is only Nat and me.
Nat doesn’t come with us on Sundays and he keeps getting all cross and kicking things and Mum sighs at him and tells him not to, he’ll damage the furniture and we can’t be buying new things at the drop of a hat now. He acts like it’s all my fault that he’s missing out on everything but no-one said he wasn’t allowed to go. I think he does want to come too, only now he’s said he doesn’t and he can’t take it back without looking stupid. And, anyway, it
is
fair for me to have Dad all to myself because Nat used to go fishing with Dad loads of times and I only went twice because Mum said it was too cold and I’d catch my death and wouldn’t I rather be all snuggly with her and stay up a bit past my bedtime than be huddled on a beach in the pitch black with the wind whistling through my bones? But Nat said he and Dad used to get chips and it was really brilliant and he caught loads of flatties but that it was right that I didn’t go because it was too tough and I’d only cry and spoil things. But I wouldn’t have.
Kira says I’m the same as her now, but I’m not. I’m different because my mum and dad are not divorced, only separated like Charlotte’s and William’s and Kelvin’s. And there’s Sara and Florence too, but they don’t have dads at all, so they don’t count. Kira said my mum and dad will get divorced because once your parents are living in two houses then it happens automatically she says and there is nothing you can do to stop it, everyone knows that. Only little kids think their parents will make it up and live happily ever after.
My mum has not said anything about a divorce and nor has my dad, but I ‘spect they are not saying because they think I am just a kid and too little to know anything. Parents are always doing that and it is just silly. But I think that they ought to try living in one house again. Mum always says if you can’t do something you should try, try again but they are not trying at all. For a start, it is cheaper because if you live in two places you have to get two loaves of bread and two jars of strawberry jam and two fridges and two cookers and two of everything. And if you only need one of something you’d have more money so you can get proper Nikes instead of lookalike ones from the market and your mum and dad can get you a mobile phone.
Another reason is, why my dad should come back and live with us is that we have four chairs in the kitchen and at mealtimes Mum used to sit on one, me on one, Nat sort of on one and Dad on one. And when Dad finished eating, he used to pick up his plate and pretend he was going to throw it right across the room like a frisbee but then he went over and put it in the dishwasher like Mum taught us to. And now there is an empty chair and Mum moved it away from the table and put it by the wall but it does not look right.
Nat makes sure he’s not at home when Scott calls for Rosie. Once or twice he has been in, but it must have made it that much harder for him—seeing her go skipping down the stairs off for treats with his dad. Usually he disappears to Steve’s for the day. God knows what they get up to; Nat says they do homework or go swimming and just “hang out"—whatever that means.
When he was little, Nat used to act as if Scott was exclusively his dad, and they were best of friends. I’d watch the pair of them chasing round the garden, rolling on the ground and yelling. And it wasn’t just Scott trying to humour Nat either—he was loving every minute of it himself. Then I’d call out, “Tea’s ready!” and tell them both to wash their hands, as if Scott was just another child.