The Learning Curve

by Melissa Nathan

  Ally promised not to discuss death until she’d finished her brioche. To keep her mind off it, Nicky told her her news: she was to be Joint Deputy with Rob. Ally stopped stuffing brioche into her mouth and stared at her. Just as she was about to say something through it, Nicky went on. Rob had confided to her that he’d never intended to finish their relationship. He’d just assumed Nicky would cave in and pretend she didn’t want children to keep going out with him. Ally’s jawline flabbed. Since they had split up and no children had appeared, Rob had made the assumption that Nicky had changed her mind about having babies. Ally’s eyes doubled in size. After Nicky had told him she hadn’t changed her mind about babies, Rob had finally confided that he was now seriously contemplating becoming a father.

  There was a pause. Ally started to say something, but a bit of brioche went the wrong way and she coughed so violently that most of it came up again.

  ‘Dramatic, huh?’ concluded Nicky.

  ‘Can’t you let a girl just enjoy her food?’ breathed Ally, her eyes watering.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Nicky. ‘I just had to get it all out. I was dying to tell you yesterday, but Miss James swore us to secrecy and someone might have overheard.’

  Ally stared at her again. ‘So let me get this straight,’ she said.

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘You’re now Joint Deputy and Rob basically wants to go out with you again?’

  Nicky’s stomach flip-flopped. She started giggling. She couldn’t stop.

  ‘Well,’ said Ally. ‘There you go.

  ‘What?’ snorted Nicky.

  ‘Now you know.’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘How you’d react if he asked you out again.’

  ‘How?’

  Ally gave her a warm smile. ‘Like a fourteen-year-old convent girl.’

  Oscar woke at six, got out of bed, padded through the hall and nudged his dad. Mark, eyes closed, went, ‘Ugh.’

  ‘Da-ad,’ said Oscar. ‘Can I go on the computer?’

  ‘What time is it?’ managed Mark.

  ‘Six.’

  The pause that followed told Oscar that his father was not best pleased. Then, after a while, it told him that his father was asleep.

  ‘Da-ad. Can I go on the computer?’

  Mark surfaced slowly from his dream. He wanted to say no. He wanted to say that they had a deal not to go on the computer until at least eight o’clock, as Oscar well knew. He wanted to suggest reading a book until then. He wanted to suggest they go and play a board game together until then. He wanted to sleep.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  Two hours later, Oscar was back.

  ‘Da-ad.’

  ‘Ughmn.’

  ‘Can I watch TV?’

  ‘Mm.’

  Four hours later the best TV was over. Oscar flicked through the Sky channels again, then went into his playroom and looked at his toys. He plodded upstairs, his pyjama bottoms trailing, got into his own cold bed, and started reading his book.

  At one, he went into his dad’s room. He sat on the bed. Nothing. He got up and sat down again, harder. Still nothing. He bounced on it. Nothing. He started whining. Mark opened one eye.

  ‘What’s that revolting noise?’ he growled.

  ‘I’m bo-ored.’

  Mark turned over so he was lying on his back. He opened his arm and Oscar lay down next to him.

  ‘On a scale of one to ten,’ started Mark, ‘how bored are you?’

  ‘Ten.’

  ‘Don’t hold back now,’ said Mark.

  ‘Ten.’

  ‘Be completely honest.’

  ‘Ten.’

  ‘I can take it.’

  ‘TEN!’

  ‘Goodness me! Ten!’ said Mark. ‘We’ll have to do something about that.’

  Five minutes later, Oscar jabbed him in the ribs and Mark woke with a start. He jabbed Oscar back. Then he started tickling him. Oscar leapt away and shouted ‘TEN!’ in his ear.

  Mark hefted his body up a bit and leant against the headboard, the skin round his eyes aching.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘I’ve got about an hour’s work to do, then I’m all yours. What shall we do today?’

  ‘Go to the park and play football.’

  ‘Excellent. I was worried you’d say watch more TV. Bagsie in goal. Just . . . give me ten more minutes in bed –’

  The pillow landed on his head.

  ‘Good shot!’ he muffled from under the pillow. ‘You’re getting better at that.’

  His duvet was pulled off him, leaving the rest of him naked to the elements.

  Working at the dining-room table wasn’t ideal, but Mark wanted to be in the same room as Oscar. Oscar wanted Mark to be in the same room as him too, but he also wanted to watch his James Bond video at top volume. After half an hour, Mark looked up from his work and watched his boy staring contentedly at the television. Eventually, he picked up the phone. Lilith answered.

  ‘Hi, it’s me,’ he said.

  There was the slightest pause. ‘Hmm?’ she said.

  He sighed. ‘I’ve got this stupid deadline –’

  ‘How long?’ Her tone was dull.

  ‘One hour. Max.’

  ‘Which means two. And don’t call me Max.’

  ‘Fantastic. What time can you pick him up?’

  Lilith exploded into laughter at the other end of the phone. ‘You can drop him off here within the next ten minutes or we’ll have gone to Brent Cross.’

  ‘Oh God,’ moaned Mark, ‘he hates Brent Cross.’

  Lilith sighed. ‘So does Daisy. But I’ve got to go. It’s the only time I get all week.’

  ‘OK,’ said Mark, ‘how about Daisy comes here to play with Oscar and I work upstairs?’

  ‘Perfect. Thought you’d never ask. I’ll bring her round in ten.’

  Mark rang off and found Oscar looking at him from across the living room.

  ‘Are we going to the park?’ asked Oscar, his voice brittle. Mark’s heart clenched.

  ‘If I can get my work finished, sweetheart, yes,’ he told him. ‘But I’m going to have to work upstairs in my office. Daisy’s going to come and play.’ He looked at his boy. ‘Give your daddy a hug.’

  Oscar turned his head and stared out of the window. When he looked back, his dad was already halfway out of the room.

  Daisy always won Monopoly and Oscar always won Risk. So they played Frustration and after just twenty minutes it had thoroughly lived up to its name. Oscar won two out of the three games.

  ‘Yes! Hooray!’ he cried, jumping up and punching the air with his hand. ‘That means we get to play football in the garden and you’re in goal.’

  ‘OK,’ conceded Daisy. ‘But don’t kick it at me.’

  Fifty-six goals later, he and Daisy sat in the treehouse, Oscar holding the ball in his hands, Daisy holding her thumb which had been throbbing since goal 23 deflected off it before going in.

  ‘What do you think of Miss Hobbs?’ she asked.

  Oscar thought about it. ‘She’s all right,’ he said slowly.

  ‘Mm,’ agreed Daisy.

  ‘I mean, she’s nice, but . . .’ He thought about it. ‘A bit scary.’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘She hasn’t got a mum.’

  Daisy looked at him. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘She told me. She asked where mine was so I told her I didn’t have one, and she told me neither did she.’

  Daisy gasped. ‘She confided in you. She must like you.’

  Oscar shrugged.

  ‘And you’ve got something in common.’ Her tone was hushed.

  When they heard Mark climbing the ladder, they screamed excitedly that no adults were allowed in.

  ‘What’s all this then?’ asked Mark, from halfway up.

  ‘I scored fifty-six goals!’ Oscar cried out.

  ‘Oh!’ laughed Mark. ‘I bet Daisy’s had a wonderful afternoon!’

  They joined in the laughter. He reached the tree house and beamed at them. ‘Who w
ants to come inside, drink hot chocolate and watch a video?’ asked Mark. ‘Daisy, your mum’s here and she’s going to stay all evening. She’s brought Johnny English.’

  Oscar and Daisy were down in minutes.

  Oscar and Mark shared a giant pizza with extra tuna and pineapple which no one else wanted, Daisy had mushroom pizza and Lilith had salad. They sat on boy and girl sofas, Mark’s arm round Oscar, Lilith’s round Daisy. Within moments, both parents were asleep. Daisy went to the playroom to find a puzzle, but Oscar didn’t move.

  Meanwhile, Nicky was trying to piece together what the hell she was doing with her life.

  Here she was, an attractive, if rather fuzzy-headed woman entering what could be the most exciting decade of her life. And how had she spent her Saturday? An idyllic morning, followed by an entire afternoon of marking essays, all of which had been written in the style of J.K. Rowling, and some preparation work for next week plus more work she’d been given by Miss James. The latter had sounded like a quick nothing when Miss James had asked her to ‘run it off’, but she’d wanted to do it properly. It had taken her three hours and had for the first time made her wonder if she would be up to the job of Deputy. And how was her day ending? With the blind date from hell. She wondered what Rob was up to tonight.

  She looked at Whatever-His-Name-Was across the restaurant table. She must stop trusting her sister’s enthusiasm for her husband’s colleagues. What made Claire think that just because Nicky was single she was desperate? Why didn’t people understand that the chances were single people were more discerning, not less, than couples? Take her sister, for example. Nicky was absolutely convinced that one of the main reasons her big sister had married so young was not because she flukily happened to meet the man of her dreams so early, but because she was not fussy. Never had been. It was just her nature. You only had to look at her clothes to see that. Nicky felt sure that if someone else had proposed to Claire first, Claire would now be married to him. It just so happened that Derek got there first. And Derek was not what Nicky would call a catch. If he’d been a fish, no fisherman would be boasting about him in the pub afterwards, put it that way. Derek had no social graces, no sense of humour and no hair. Mind you, the man did have sperm that could fly. Claire had once said she only had to look at him to get pregnant. Which was lucky, thought Nicky.

  ‘But the penalty,’ Whatever-His-Name-Was said, ‘was outrageous.’

  ‘Really,’ remarked Nicky.

  Encouraged, Whatever-His-Name-Was continued. ‘We should go to a match sometime. I’ve got great tickets. I bet you’d like it if you tried. You’ve got to be open to new experiences.’

  ‘You’re absolutely right,’ said Nicky. ‘And then I’ll take you to one of my knitting fayres. I can tell you’d be a great knitter.’

  He snorted. ‘Fuck off.’

  The worst bit of a blind date was knowing that you had to get through all the social niceties that delayed getting your make-up off, undoing your tight jeans (by yourself) and climbing into bed. So Nicky didn’t bother with niceties any more. She stood up, put out her hand for a confident handshake, and said her usual line.

  ‘It’s been nice. But I don’t think it’s going to work.’

  And then she put a twenty-pound note on the table and walked out, leaving him staring at the money. Only half an hour later, she snuggled down in her bed and closed her eyes. And, to her surprise, saw Oscar getting into the car with his au pair. She turned over and snuggled down again.

  If she’d known that Oscar was, at that moment, held fast against a warm heart, being carried upstairs, she might have fallen asleep more quickly than she did.

  4

  THE PHONE WOKE Nicky early on Sunday morning. She picked it up and put it to her ear; two fruitless activities because she couldn’t yet speak. She tried to make a grunting noise and was rewarded with some phlegm lodging in her throat.

  ‘Auntie Nicky?’ asked Sarah-Jane into the silence.

  Nicky’s mouth said, ‘Hello, darling,’ but no sound came out. There was a considerable pause.

  ‘Aunty Nicky?’

  Nicky gave a cough and her voice woke with a start. ‘Yes, sweetheart,’ she bellowed.

  ‘Gosh, are you all right?’ asked Sarah-Jane. ‘You sound awful.’

  Nicky smiled. Her eldest niece was taking after her mother more and more each day.

  ‘That’s nothing,’ Nicky said, feeling her hair. ‘You should see me. I look like a badger’s bottom. And not in a good way.’

  Sarah-Jane snorted with laughter. ‘Mummy says can you bring your swimming costume today?’ she asked eventually.

  ‘Why? Are we having a bathing beauties competition?’

  ‘No. We’re going swimming.’

  ‘Phew. For a minute there I’d thought I’d have to wax my legs.’

  Sarah-Jane had hysterics. Nicky did enjoy making her ten-year-old niece laugh. All you had to do was be honest.

  ‘What’s the time?’ she asked.

  ‘Nine o’clock.’

  It was Nicky’s turn to pause. ‘Are you trying to tell me,’ she asked slowly and clearly, ‘that you woke me at nine o’clock on a Sunday?’

  ‘Yes.’ Increasingly hysterical laughter.

  ‘Say bye bye.’

  ‘Badger’s bottom,’ came the giggled response.

  ‘That’s good enough for me,’ mumbled Nicky, and rang off.

  She pressed the off button on her phone and dropped it to the floor. She tried to leave it there, but it was no good. She hung out of her bed to put it back in its holder, her body half in, half out of the bed, her hair skimming the floor. She found to her surprise that this was a spectacularly comfortable position, stretching her back out like a cat. She lay there for a while, eyes shut, smile on her face, before extracting the other half of her body out of bed. She scrunched her neat, pink feet into the beaded, embroidered slippers which lay, ever ready, under the bed, and flip-flopped to the kitchen.

  Radio on, kettle on, toaster on. Sunday was on.

  After she’d finished a thorough clean of her house, she drove to her sister Claire’s house to the Desert Island Discs theme tune, wondering idly why none of the radio guests had ever asked for a five-star hotel as their luxury item. This guest – the latest lad-lit novelist to have written a startlingly honest book about contemporary masculine alienation – had just asked for a football, so he could practise ‘keepie-uppie’.

  ‘Twat,’ muttered Nicky as she parked outside her sister’s house.

  Nicky often asked the girls to come and visit her at her flat, and when they did, they loved it there, but Claire always found it so much easier for Nicky to come to her place. On the few occasions when Nicky had insisted, Claire had either turned up late or phoned at the last minute to explain why one of the girls was refusing to get into the car. Eventually Nicky just accepted that this was the way it was. She was the free-and-single Mohammed, Claire the mother-of-three mountain.

  She opened the wrought-iron gate and walked down the path to her sister’s front garden, waving at niece number two, Isabel, at the window. Niece number three, Abigail, answered the door.

  ‘You came!’ she jumped on the spot.

  ‘No I didn’t!’ cried Nicky, mirroring her tone. ‘I left him in the restaurant.’

  Abigail laughed without knowing why.

  Isabel leapt out of the front room into the hall, Sarah-Jane appeared at the top of the stairs and their mother, Nicky’s older sister by six years, appeared at the kitchen doorway, tea-towel in hand.

  ‘Please don’t teach them new words,’ she said with a weary smile.

  ‘And a hello to you too!’

  Nicky turned back to her nieces. ‘Right!’ she cried. ‘I want kisses from everyone.’

  The girls rushed forward and Nicky kissed her nieces in turn, hung up her coat, took off her shoes and then approached her sister. They went into the kitchen.

  ‘You don’t mind taking them swimming, do you?’ asked Claire. ‘They love
d it so much last time.’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Can we go to the cinema afterwards?’ asked Sarah-Jane.

  Claire made the unique sound of an unimpressed mother, a cross between ‘Um’ and ‘Up’. A sort of ‘Uhgpt’ the hgpt silent.

  ‘Please,’ added Sarah-Jane quickly. ‘If you’ve got time.’

  ‘Hmm, we’ll see,’ said Nicky. ‘But what film would a ten-year-old, an eight-year-old and a six-year-old all want to watch?’

  They were happy to tell her and she found that her Sunday was mapped out.

  Eight hours later, Oscar was having dinner with his dad, and he was not going to eat the Brussels sprouts.

  ‘They look like bogeys,’ he told his dad.

  ‘Crikey.’ Mark grimaced. ‘I don’t want to see your bogeys.’

  Oscar laughed and then scowled. He did not want to find his dad funny tonight. He was angry, and determined to stay angry. Being the last one to be picked up from a friend’s birthday party was one thing, but when he’d specifically asked his dad to be on time because his friend was a dork was well annoying. His dad had never been on time. But half an hour late! He’d had to sit with the family while his schoolmate had opened all his presents. His schoolmate’s mum had made ridiculous clucking noises of worry for him which had made him want to hit her. And then, when it got to half an hour, she’d actually come over to give him a cuddle. He’d thought he was being buried alive. Then finally his dad had arrived.

  ‘God,’ he’d heard Mark say to the mum in the hall, ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘No, don’t worry! We’ve been having fun.’

  ‘I just had to get something finished –’

  ‘Yes of course you did. I don’t know how you manage.’

  Why did they always say that? fumed Oscar. What did he have to manage? Most of the kids in his school only had one parent, so why was his dad the only one who was crap at it? Was he a more difficult child to manage than all the other kids at school? He was definitely not more difficult to manage than Stan Smith who could spit from the sandpit to the back of the swings and kept showing you his willy in the playground. He bet no one ever told Stan Smith’s mum that they didn’t know how she coped. So his dad just must be the most crap parent ever.