Man of the Month Club

by Jackie Clune

  “Dad! Look at this wooden school bus! It’s, like, so adorable!”

  Amy flinched as one of the girls, the plumper of the two, darted toward her hidey-hole. She watched, holding her breath, as a pair of sticky hands grabbed at a red bus just in front of her nose.

  “Dad, look! How much is it? Can I get this?”

  “I doubt it, sweetheart—it’s probably about four hundred quid. Why don’t you go and have a look at the plastic rattles over there?”

  Yes, why don’t you, thought Amy. Her knees were beginning to buckle under the strain of crouching, and the back of her neck throbbed.

  “No, I want this, Daddy! It’ll look really cool on my bedroom shelf, and it’s got, like, little wooden children inside when you take off the top deck.”

  “Just piss off,” muttered Amy, a bit too loudly.

  “What?”

  Amy was staring straight at a pair of round, blue eyes. “Nothing,” said Amy to the eyes.

  The girl dipped out of view. Shit. Time to make a hasty retreat.

  “Daddy! There’s a lady hiding over there and guess what?”

  Amy stopped stock-still. Bugger. Did she have time to put enough distance between herself and the scene of the crime?

  “What?” asked the doctor wearily.

  “She said P-off.”

  “I’m sure she didn’t, Laura.”

  “She did! Look! Here.”

  Laura grabbed her dad’s hand and dragged him across the floor. Amy found herself involuntarily doing a comedy creep toward the exit.

  “Hello!”

  Bugger. He’d spotted her.

  Amy straightened up sharply. A shooting pain went from the base of her spine and down her right leg.

  “Piss!” she screamed.

  “She said it again!” Laura squealed with delight.

  “Are you all right? Here, come and sit down,” said Joe, pulling a chair from the wall next to the lift.

  Amy hobbled to the chair. What a time for her back to go.

  “Just ease down gently. There. Take your time.”

  He guided her slowly down onto the chair, and the pain began to subside. She kept her head down low until the last possible moment. When she could avoid it no longer, she lifted her eyes gingerly.

  “OK now?”

  Amy nodded. Could she pretend not to remember him? If she feigned surprise now, he would never suspect that he was the reason for her strange hunched demeanor.

  “I’m the doctor—the baby? The baby you found?”

  “Dad! Was it her? Did you find a baby?”

  Joe ignored the question, his gaze fixed on Amy.

  “Oh, yes,” Amy began weakly. “Oh, yes, sorry, I didn’t recognize you with your clothes on. I mean, with your normal clothes on. Oh, piss.”

  Joe raised his eyebrows in amusement and mock shock.

  “Sorry. Shouldn’t swear in front of your children.”

  “Or insinuate you’ve seen their dad naked.”

  “Has she, Dad? Urgh!” said Francesca.

  So he was their dad. Bummer. She’d been half hoping he was an uncle, a godparent, anything but their dad. It was one thing hopelessly fancying a married man (not that she’d ever do that again—been there, got the lingerie), but a married man with kids? That was totally out-of-bounds.

  Amy looked at the girls full-on now. One was taller and bigger than the other, about ten years old, although Amy was never very good at guessing ages. The other was willowy and about seven. Both had the most amazingly blond hair. Amy was reminded of that old black-and-white horror movie The Midwitch Cuckoos, where an entire village was rendered suddenly fecund and all the women, even the older and presumed barren ones, gave birth to spooky alien blond children with telekinetic powers. It seemed the only explanation for their total lack of resemblance to their father.

  They stared unabashedly back at her. The bigger one looked curious and friendly, but the smaller one had a mean look in her eyes.

  “Did you swear?”

  “Yes, I’m sorry I did.”

  “Did you swear at my sister?”

  “Er, no, I don’t think so. I may have said something that sounded like swearing.”

  “You said P-off. You said P twice.”

  “Then you said S blank blank T.”

  “All right, girls, that’s enough. Can’t you see Amy’s in pain?”

  He remembered her name. Amy felt quietly thrilled.

  “I’m all right now, thanks. I just get a bit of lower back pain now and again.”

  “What were you doing hiding behind those toys?” asked Francesca, who always had a nose for adult shame.

  “I wasn’t hiding, I was just . . . looking at something on the bottom shelf . . .”

  Both girls turned slowly and looked at the bottom shelf. It was spectacularly empty. They turned back with as much triumph as their years would allow.

  Joe smiled kindly.

  “Perhaps it’s gone now—the thing you were looking at.”

  “Oh, yes, so it has!”

  The girls stared at her with renewed interest. Maybe this was one of those crazy ladies Daddy sometimes told them about.

  “Thanks. I’m fine now, really,” said Amy, trying to raise herself off the chair. She winced, and Joe held out his arm for support.

  “I would get that seen to if I were you. Backs aren’t my thing, but it looks like sciatica to me.”

  “Yes, yes, I will. Thank you, Joe.”

  Now it was Joe’s turn to smile.

  “She’s fine, by the way.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Precious.”

  “Is she? What happened?” Amy felt grateful to have a deflection topic, but more than that, she wanted to know how things had turned out for the baby. It had been hard not to call the hospital and find out. Brendan had dissuaded her, saying that Social Services would not give information out to strangers, regardless of the unusual circumstances of her involvement. Nevertheless, Amy was itching to find out.

  “Yes. Her mother turned up at the police station three days later. Only fifteen. They’ve been reunited, and she’s living in a special mother-and-baby unit. They’re fine.”

  Amy was pleased. Fifteen. So young. When she was fifteen, she was still reading Cathy and Claire to find out how babies were made and to see if it was really true that sitting on a warm bus seat could make you pregnant.

  “Oh, that’s good. I think.”

  “They’ll be looked after.”

  “Why didn’t you keep it?” The Midwitch Cuckoos were at it again.

  “Well, because she wasn’t mine, and that would be like stealing, wouldn’t it?”

  “Finders keepers,” said the smaller alien.

  “Yeah, if the lady didn’t want it, maybe she gave it to you.”

  “You should have kept it. Or given it to Daddy.”

  “Cesca, we’ve been through this. Sorry, Amy. Oh, this is Francesca, and this is Laura.”

  “Hello!” said Amy as brightly as she could manage.

  Nothing. They stared glumly back at her from beneath their heavy, blond fringes.

  “Which one is the elder?” ventured Amy. She was damned if she was going to be blanked by a couple of pint-sized freaks.

  “We’re twins,” said Francesca.

  “Double trouble!” said Amy with a hollow laugh.

  Joe smiled and nodded his agreement.

  “Come on, Dad, let’s go now,” said the bigger one, pulling on his coat sleeve. Francesca had another idea and got down on the floor. Wrapping herself around his ankle, she started to pull his foot away. Laura quickly cottoned on and began doing the same with the other foot.

  “Girls, girls!” shouted Joe—but it was no use. It was clear who wore—or at least pulled—the trousers in his house. He raised his hands in a “Kids! What can you do?” gesture.

  “Bye,” said Amy, still sitting.

  “Good to see you again,” said Joe. “Such Precious Little Darlings!” And with that, he
disappeared, dragging the two giggling girls along the floor with each step.

  Amy laughed. He remembered the shop, too. He must have kept the bag. Such a good-looking guy. And he had definitely flirted a little. “Good to see you again,” he’d said. Perhaps he was just one of those guys who twinkled at every woman he met. The eternal bedside manner. Amy pulled herself up short and remembered the wedding ring, the no-doubt-gorgeous Swedish blonde wife waiting at home for the return of her dishy husband and her two revolting Milky Bar kids. She also remembered a joke she’d heard last week. Why are men like public toilets? Because all the best ones are engaged and the only ones left are full of shit.

  . 6 .

  The sun never shines in Stockwell. There may be blue sky above Regent’s Park, the beams glancing off a thousand buses inching up Oxford Street may blind the passing pedestrians and the pavements may be sticky with molten gum as near as Brixton, but Stockwell would remain resolutely gloomy. At least that’s the way it seemed to Stuart as he pulled the candlewick bedspread off the nail attaching it to the window frame. Another day, another dollar.

  “Bollocks,” he said out loud. His calves ached, and his back crunched as he stretched out, standing naked on the bed. A bored-looking young woman stared blankly back at him from her kitchen window in the opposite block. They’d built these flats so close to one another, you could virtually hear your neighbor’s thoughts. Not that he was complaining—a council sublet was like gold dust in London these days. And sharing with Will hadn’t turned out too badly, even if he hadn’t seen the sink in a fortnight and they never seemed to have loo roll. Will had gotten it from a Serbian couple, Ivan and Lakka, who were now living in Leicester with relatives. They’d doubled the rent, but it was still half the price of a private let, and they hadn’t had to fork out a huge deposit.

  Stu idly scratched his ass, farted, and stepped down onto the floor. The worn carpet was covered in dirty clothes, CDs, books, and bicycle parts. He remembered the flat tire and groaned. What a drag having to fix that before work. A bloody flat tire on the Elephant roundabout at six o’clock last night. He’d promised himself he’d do it before bed, but then Rob had called and said that there was a promotion on vodka at The Crown, so he’d gone straight out. Happy hour in Stockwell. What a joke—three old gits and an alcoholic old lady propping up the bar while Sky Sports blared out from the opposite wall. Of course, they’d gotten smashed anyway—well, you have to make your own fun, don’t you? Now the tire lay on the floor and his head felt like shit again. He began throwing bits and pieces from the floor onto the bed and set about mending the puncture. Why did he do it? Every night he swore he would stay in and start work on that book of short stories, but all it took was one call from Rob or Baz or Craig and he was out again, trying to forget the crap day—cycling round London delivering important documents to the proper people in their safe little jobs, being cut off by stupid truck drivers. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy these endless nights out—he loved his drink and his mates and the whole feeling of freedom London offered on a school night—but at thirty-seven he was beginning to feel as though he’d drifted a little too far, and for too long. He hated to concur with his Daily Mail-reading parents, but he was beginning to feel the urge to settle down. His sister had always done the right thing—university, then a great job, husband, and now Jake, born only last week—but Stu had always been the wild child. He’d been the one who’d done it all wrong, almost as though he’d set about being diametrically opposed to The Right Thing. The expulsion from school for drugs, the arrests at festivals, the endless string of pointless, no-hope jobs to finance his hedonistic lifestyle. His family had given up on him years ago and had long since ceased to ask about his “plans.” But seeing his first nephew had set something small and insistent off in Stu’s heart—a dull ache every time he saw a baby, and a twist of the stomach as he whizzed through a cloud of confetti at Marylebone registry office. Could it be that at last he was becoming normal? He shuddered at the thought. His dad had always told him one day he’d want to put down roots, find a nice girl, have children, and that he should be planning for that instead of tearing about on a one-man mission to drink London dry. Stu was beginning to think he might have been right. Glastonbury had been fun this year, but he’d had a bad acid trip and it had shaken him up. He’d dropped the tab and began to feel really, really old. Suddenly everyone around him looked youthful and full of hope, and their faces glowed with simple optimism, which only served to reinforce his sense of aging. It seemed to him as though each minute was a decade, and when he looked into the cocaine-dusted mirror, he saw the eyes of an ancient man staring back at him, the wrinkles submerging the eyeballs and the skin starting to fall off in rotten chunks. It was all he could do to stop himself from running screaming from the tent. But a nice goth girl had taken him under her batwing and looked after him until he came down, and he’d laughed about it the next day. But it had affected him deeply, and he wondered if he’d had his last trip. It wasn’t so much giving up the drugs or the drink that depressed him, but the relinquishing of the creative lifestyle. If he “settled down”—got himself a proper job with prospects, out of London, with a mortgage and a car and a suit (a real one from Burtons, not some joky seventies retro flared number with huge lapels from a charity shop)—wasn’t he then giving up on his writing? Not that he’d written much so far—a few stoned poems and half an idea (Did they call it a treatment?) for a screenplay—but the point was he had made the space in his life for the writing to happen at some point. You had to live a certain way in order to be creative. Those provincial types with their children and their Nissan Micras and their supermarket loyalty cards had effectively bricked off their brains so that their creative impulses wouldn’t trickle through and unsettle the foundations of their pointless lives.

  Stu didn’t want to fall into that trap. He thought not for the first time that what he really needed was a sugar mummy, someone to earn the money so that he could stay at home and concentrate on his writing. He might even do a course. And if babies came along, then great, he’d take care of them while she was out at work. He pictured himself living the London baby lifestyle—the baby-massage class, the cinema club exclusively for mums and babies called Screamers, the one o’clock clubs in the park. It would dovetail nicely with his work. He might even get a short story out of it. Trouble was, how could he meet such a woman with his lifestyle? The only girls he met were either the grungy couriers he worked with—all dirty locks and pierced noses—or the dosy office girls in city pubs who had pram faces and low expectations. He never went to the sort of places a well-off single woman would go, and even if he did, why would she choose him? True, he had a good enough body—he cycled more than a hundred miles a week—but he knew he wasn’t a head-turner, and he had nothing to offer materially. His bank balance was consistently in the red, and his household goods amounted to one pillow and no forks. He’d just have to get on with his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and then he’d be loaded. That was the plan.

  Out on the streets of London, the traffic was in a mean mood. Every road around Wardour Street was gridlocked, and it seemed to Stu that they were digging up the roads constantly. No sooner had one reopened than another was coned off. Two-way streets became one-way and thoroughfares became no-go areas day by day. London was like some weird maze designed by a vindictive bastard who kept changing the goalposts overnight. Not that it mattered to Stu. He went the way of all London cyclists, claiming the streets and the pavements as his own. It was pointless trying to cycle within the guidelines of the safe-cycling code—you’d never get anywhere. You had to jump red lights to avoid getting mashed by left-turners. You had to undertake as well as overtake or you’d be another dead-meat statistic within minutes. Car drivers hated cyclists, and cyclists hated the four-wheel road hogs who caused all the traffic chaos in the first place.

  It had been a heavy day, but he had only one more thing left to deliver—a small package to an advertising agency in Kensingt
on. He’d torn up the streets all day long. It was time to finish now. Get back to Stockwell. Give Baz a ring—maybe go back to the scene of the crime, get a few games of pool in, maybe score some whiz for the weekend. Stu chucked his knackered mountain bike in the direction of the railings outside his drop and took the steps three at a time. The reception blonde didn’t even look up.

  “Package for Josh Johnson.” He smiled, always ready in the unlikely event that any of these sleek, flat-haired door bitches would yield to his sweaty charm.

  “Not here,” she intoned.

  “Well can you give me your autograph instead then?”

  “What?” she said crossly, looking up from her state-of-the-art game of computer solitaire.

  “Can you sign for it?” said Stu, giving up on this one.

  “Nah. Not allowed.”

  “What? What do you mean you’re not allowed? It’s not a bomb, you know.”

  “New company policy. The last girl here lost a contract worth two million last week ’cause she forgot to pass on a package that came to reception. You have to get the addressee to sign for it.”

  “But he’s not here,” Stu said incredulously.

  “I know. I just told you that, didn’t I?” said the girl hotly. Clearly, she was at a crucial point in her card game.

  “Well . . . what shall I do with it, then?”

  “Take it back, I s’pose. . . .” she replied, turning back to her screen.

  “But that’s ridiculous!” said Stu, not keen on the idea of having to go back to base in Soho.

  “Surely he needs this today, or it wouldn’t have been biked round to him?”

  “Yeah. Probably. Oh, hang on. . . . Let me think. . . . He did say something about a parcel. . . . What was it?”

  Stu rapped his filthy nails lightly on the counter.

  “Oh, yeah. He said take it to The Wheelbarrow.”

  “What? What wheelbarrow?” Stu looked around for a farmyard installation. Nothing would surprise him about this place.

  “It’s the pub on the corner. He’ll be in there.”