A Family Man

by Amanda Brookfield

  The head teacher had pressed her hands together as if in prayer, only the arching of her gingery eyebrows suggesting reactions of a more tumultuous kind. ‘Oh dear, Mr Webster, I am very sorry to hear that. We will of course be extra vigilant regarding Joshua’s needs at such a difficult time.’

  * * *

  ‘Thank you. Yes, indeed … it is extremely hard for him, of course.

  For all of us …’ Matt had broken off, inwardly despising the cowardly way he had labelled his situation, packaging it as something manageable and preconceived. ‘My wife has gone away for a short while, but we’re managing very well so far,’ he continued brightly. ‘Things will no doubt sort themselves out in the end, as things do. I just thought you ought to know.’

  ‘Oh yes, absolutely. Family situations are always very important.’ She had turned and led the way to an empty classroom, indicating for him to sit on one of the tiny seats. Talk about bead-arranging was followed by a rigorous analysis of paint-splattered pages and Joshua’s loopy renditions of the alphabet.

  ‘His pencil technique still needs a lot of work.’

  ‘Pencil technique. Right.’

  ‘Joshua’s tendency, like many children his age, boys in particular’ – she picked out a pencil from a cluster in a pot on the table – ‘is to use all four fingers, like this, instead of the thumb, third and index, like this. As I have said many times to your wife, anything you can do to discourage this habit at home will be most beneficial. Though I’m the last person to worry about pressurising the children, the more basic skills he can master now, the easier he will find his first term at primary level in September. Have you decided finally on where he is going? Your wife said it was between St Leonard’s and Broadlands – a really excellent state school given the constraints under which they work. But then St Leonard’s is tempting, a real example of what the private system has to offer. Quite tough to get into, of course, but then I have every confidence that Joshua will sail through the assessments. Next month, I believe. Have you been notified of a date yet?’

  ‘Not yet,’ murmured Matt, unwilling to reveal the shameful inadequacies of his knowledge on the subject. Like most aspects of family life, it was something Kath had been dealing with. He knew that she had looked at and registered Joshua at both the schools Miss Harris had mentioned, but had not progressed his own research beyond the vague notion that a free institution with a solid reputation had to be better than one that subjected four-year-olds to exams for the subsequent privilege of hoovering up the entire contents of his savings account.

  ‘If the St Leonard’s assessment means missing a morning of nursery then a little prior warning is all I need. I run a very relaxed ship, as I’m sure you know.’

  Matt nodded, inwardly cringing at the sugary spoon-feeding tone, wondering if it was especially for him or something ingrained into her speech, acquired perhaps through years of persuading infants to arrange beads into orderly piles.

  As he was leaving the church, he heard patchy treble voices launching into the familiar strains of ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’. A lump swelled in his throat, triggered by the innocent tunelessness of the music, but deriving, Matt knew, from deeper concerns. The silence from Kath, still absolute after a week, was worse than her absence. Not knowing where she was, what she was going through, what she was thinking, left him feeling like a mourner without a corpse, oscillating crazily between hope and angry despair. That he had managed any sort of self-control at all was due solely to the existence of his son, the need to fill him with food and package him in a manner suitable for delivery to Miss Harris. Apart from a few brief tearful episodes, Joshua himself had been remarkably accepting of their new circumstances, even when Matt confessed to being unsure as to when Kath would return. The awful truth was that he trusted him, Matt realised despairingly; that when a father said everything would be all right, a four-year-old had no reason to think otherwise.

  Back home, the emptiness of the house was so crushing that it was all Matt could do to drag himself to the kitchen and plug in the kettle. One and a half hours remained until he needed to make the return journey to the nursery school, so small a slit of time that it hardly seemed worth doing anything. He dropped a heaped teaspoon of coffee granules into the brown- stained mug he had used the night before and twice already that morning, and splashed boiling water over the top. A small shower of muddy droplets sprayed over the wall. He reached for a cloth to wipe it clean but then dropped it back into the sink. The kitchen was in such a mess anyway there didn’t seem any point. Every room in the house was in a state of mounting chaos; miniature pieces from various Lego and Playmobil sets were strewn across most of the ground floor, while upstairs the landing and bedrooms were awash with larger toys, books and soiled items of laundry that had failed to make it into the brimming basket behind the bathroom door.

  Looking about him now, Matt was aware that the mess went far beyond a reluctance to work the washing machine or the time-consuming distractions of caring for a young child, but related instead to a fundamental refusal to accept his new state of solitude.

  When the phone rang a moment later he almost punched the air with gratitude. Here she was at last, penitent, tremulous, loving, needing him.

  Resisting the urge to lunge for the receiver, he took several slow deep breaths. There might be negotiating games to play, and he had no desire to open proceedings sounding like the disadvantaged desperado. But it wasn’t Kath, it was a woman called Maria Schofield inviting Joshua to a birthday tea.

  ‘I meant to catch Kath this morning but my eldest was sick and we had to rush to the doctor’s. It’s only going to be a small party – more than a handful under the age of five and I find my stress levels shoot off the scale. Three o’clock next Friday. We’re at sixteen Avril Close – within walking distance from you, I think.’

  ‘Three o’clock Friday. I’ll make sure he’s there.’

  ‘And all parents are invited to stay as well.’

  ‘Thank you very much,’ said Matt, his heart sinking.

  ‘We should be through by six o’clock – that is if the entertainer lasts that long.’ There was a whoop of merriment before she hung up the phone.

  Matt looked at the kitchen clock. An hour left. Just time for a good trawl round Mr Patel’s neatly stacked narrow aisles with a mini-trolley. The freezer as well as the fridge were shamefully bare, especially of the breadcrumbed microwaveable nursery food on which both he and Joshua had been surviving all week. The last few of a packet of twenty fish-fingers had done for tea the previous night, together with the farting remains of a large plastic bottle of ketchup. Seeking the wherewithal to make a list, Matt went to the large pad Kath kept for such purposes, pinned out of obvious sight by the back door, above the ledge that housed the hamster cage.

  Reaching for a page, he saw that a list had already been composed, in the tidy alien hand that had penned his name on the letter of farewell. It was a sizable list too – including not only ketchup and fish-fingers but details about dry-cleaning items and milk bills. Matt scanned it several times, suspicion rising that this organised, precise composition had been intended as a prescriptive list for himself, left not by a person in the throes of emotional despair, but by someone most lucidly acquainted with the impulses of her own brain.

  He had been expecting her to return, he realised, staggering against the wall as a wave of panic broke inside. Every minute, every hour, he was expecting her to return. Now, for the first time, it dawned on him that she might not. Because all the imperfections he had imagined to be normal ingredients of a married life had not in fact been normal at all. They had been signs that he had either missed or misread. Signs of someone living a death.

  Matt slammed his hand against the pad, knocking it off its hook. It fell awkwardly, catching the edge of the hamster cage with one corner and knocking everything into the pile of muddied shoes and wellington boots below. Matt lifted his foot to punish the pad harder, wanting to kick the pages into
non-existence. As he did so he noticed that the pet cage had not only been knocked off its perch but that its small brown occupant had somehow been catapulted out of the wire door and was lying motionless next to the door mat.

  ‘I need a hamster.’ He tried to smile, to keep the panic out of his voice. The woman behind the counter, who had thick-lensed spectacles that magnified her eyes to the size of small saucers, and who had kept Matt waiting for almost ten minutes by discussing the merits of cat flaps with another customer, sighed deeply.

  ‘Do you, now?’

  ‘And it has to be brown.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think we’ve got any pink ones, love.’

  ‘I’ve been looking – I couldn’t see that you had any at all, unless I just didn’t —’

  ‘We’ve got these little ones, came in last week.’ She tapped a cage Matt had already scrutinised.

  ‘Only a few weeks old.’

  ‘No, it needs to be fully grown, sort of this size.’ He cupped his hands to demonstrate.

  ‘Does it, now?’ She eyed Matt with a look of amusement and suspicion to which he felt too wretched to respond. Not having a clue as to the whereabouts of a vet, and seriously doubting the prognosis of a creature who had failed to stir in spite of the tenderest encouragement and repeated heart massage with the balls of his thumbs, Matt had screeched round Kennington’s disparate shop parades in search of a replacement. He had finished up in Camberwell High Street with only half an hour until Joshua required picking up from school. Outside, his car was parked on a double yellow line, hazard lights flashing in the vague hope of eliciting sympathy from any prowling traffic wardens.

  ‘Hang on a minute. I’ll just see out the back.’ The woman disappeared through a doorway of brightly coloured tassels. Standing there, alone among cages of scrabbling creatures and tanks of technicolored fish, Matt became aware that he was praying, delivering a heartfelt inner monologue to an omniscient presence in whom he did not believe.

  ‘You’re in luck, mister.’ The woman reappeared through the curtains holding up a small wire cage, her smile revealing the hitherto concealed presence of two massive overlapping front teeth. ‘A brown male, six months old – we’re selling it on for a friend.’

  ‘Oh God, thank you – thank you so much. You’ve no idea how … I

  … How much is it?’ He fumbled for his wallet, aware that in his desperation he would have paid almost anything for so sweet a prize.

  ‘Thirty, including the cage. Cheeky-looking fella, isn’t he?’ She made a clucking noise at the wire bars.

  Matt hurriedly handed over the notes. Though it was extravagant, buying the cage made the thing easier to transport. He drove at speed, feeling like a criminal as his mind raced over the logistics of transferring the new hamster into the old cage, disposing of Spotty’s body and getting to Bright Sparks in time to avoid glowering looks from Miss Harris. It wasn’t until halted by some traffic lights that he turned to check on the welfare of his purchase, wedged on to the seat beside him. It dawned on him in the same instant that without being able to pinpoint exactly why, the creature did not look anything like the pet he was attempting to replace. Joshua, who knew every twitch of Spotty’s whiskers, every smudge of grey on his tail, would be not be fooled for long, if at all. There was nothing for it but the truth, he realised bleakly, gripping the steering wheel at the impossible prospect of finding a painless way in which to deliver it.

  7

  At 8.30 that night the doorbell rang. Matt, lying on the floor with a cushion under his head, next to an intricate Lego creation which had not only kept Joshua happy for two hours but also successfully absorbed every one of the tiny pieces that had been littering the carpet, felt little inclination to answer it. He rolled his head sideways, casting a sleepy eye at his son, who was conducting an intense fight between two members of what he had decided was an intergalactic space station. The only two members, as it happened, since their colleagues had already been lost to the far side of the room during the course of earlier, more violent bouts of warfare. When the doorbell sounded a second time, Joshua sat up and looked enquiringly at his father. ‘Is that Mummy?’

  ‘I doubt it, little man. More likely to be one of those men with trays selling gardening gloves.’ Matt struggled to his feet, seizing the corner of the sofa to counteract the dizzying effects of three glasses of wine on an empty stomach.

  ‘Do we want some gloves?’

  ‘No, we certainly don’t. Let’s go and tell him, shall we? And then it’s time for bed. Daddy’s very naughty for letting you stay up so late.’ He caught Joshua in his arms before he could scuttle out of reach, tickling him to ensure co-operation and whispering, ‘No gloves, no gloves, no gloves.’ Joshua took up the chant, with such enthusiasm that by the time they reached the front door Louise, alarmed first by the delay and then by the noise, took a step backwards to check she was on the right doorstep.

  ‘Louise, what a pleasant surprise.’

  Louise hovered uncertainly in the doorway. She could see at a glance that Matt was somewhat the worse for wear. There was an unnatural pink flush to his face and a gleam in his eye that suggested alcohol-assisted merriment. He was wearing a crumpled white shirt, three-quarters untucked, the panels hanging almost to the knees of his jeans. His feet were bare and looked faintly grubby. When he turned round, gesturing at her to follow him into the house, she saw that the hair on the back of his head was flattened and sticking out at the sides, like that of a child who has slept all night on his back. Joshua, in contrast, looked healthily pink and spruce, with his hair plastered flat across his forehead from a recent bath. Louise was faintly impressed to note that he was clad not only in pajamas but a dressing gown and slippers as well.

  ‘Come in,’ called Matt breezily, ‘I was just putting Josh to bed. Say goodnight, Josh.’

  Instead of complying, Josh wriggled round until he was facing Louise over Matt’s shoulder. The large brown eyes blinked at her slowly. ‘Is my Mummy at your house?’

  Matt, who had reached the foot of the staircase, stopped and stiffened. ‘No, my sweet, she isn’t.’

  ‘Where’s her holiday, then?’

  ‘Daddy’s not sure,’ interjected Matt in a muffled voice, his head still facing up the stairs.

  ‘Remember I told you we’re waiting for Mummy to tell us exactly where she has gone on holiday.’

  ‘I want Mummy.’ He started to sob, softly at first and then louder, arching his back in protest at his father’s efforts to calm him down. Flailing with both arms, his face now puce and screwed up with rage, he managed to hit Matt several times across the chest and once across the face. Matt flinched visibly at the pain. Louise, watching, took a step towards them before hurrying into the kitchen, shaking her head in despair.

  It was quite some while before Matt joined her. Time enough for Louise to note the lamentable dishevelment of the house. Toys, books and newspapers lay everywhere; in front of the old television and video machine were a heap of tapes, most divorced from their cases. Two of the sofa cushions were on the carpet next to a glass of red wine and a half- empty bottle. A crisp packet had spilled its crumbling remains next to a big square Lego contraption, sporting curious arched sides and precarious wings. Stepping carefully over it, Louise found a space for her bags on the kitchen table, next to a fruit bowl containing one black-speckled banana and a pile of old letters. Wanting, in however small a way, to be helpful, she began emptying the stack of crockery piled on to the drainer and exploring cupboards for likely places in which to stow everything away. At the sound of Matt’s footsteps on the stairs, however, she stopped, fearful suddenly that such efforts at assistance might be interpreted as criticism.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind my dropping round. I brought you some supper, a chicken salad – keep it for later if you’ve eaten.’ She delved into one of her bags and pulled out a plastic tub. ‘I haven’t put the dressing on yet.’ Producing a jar of home-made vinaigrette, she gave it a vigorous shake. ‘So it
will still be all right tomorrow. I just thought that you might have been too busy to do much cooking …’ She faltered, deterred by the look on Matt’s face, unsure whether she had overstepped the boundaries of neighbourliness into some dark forbidden territory of male pride. ‘Anthony’s not back until tomorrow and Gloria’s boyfriend has given her the heave-ho so she’s mooching in front of her television every night, so I just thought I —’

  ‘This is extremely kind, Louise. Extremely.’ Matt ran his hands over his face and through his hair.

  ‘How are you coping?’

  He managed a tired grin. ‘Badly. Today’s triumph was concussing the hamster. I rushed out and spent an extortionate sum on a replacement, only to find that the original had not died after all, but was merely sleeping off a sore head. Ergo, we now have two hamsters. Both males, thank God. Joshua was delighted, which was good. I opened a bottle of wine, which was not so good.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘I would love some real food. Supper so far has been … let me see now …’ He frowned in a show of deep thought, ‘one Jaffa cake and one – no, I lie – two packets of prawn cocktail crisps.’ He grimaced. ‘I don’t even like the fucking things, they were Kath’s favourite flavour – more of a cheese and onion man myself.’ He took the lid off the tub and peered at the salad approvingly. ‘Looks wonderful. I hope you’re going to join me?’

  ‘I’ve had a sandwich. I wasn’t going to stay —’

  ‘Why ever not? Have a drink. I’ll never eat all of this alone.’

  A few minutes later they were sitting at right angles to each other down one end of the kitchen table, their plates wedged into a small space Matt had swept free of clutter. Louise noted that he ate fast and methodically, clearly out of a compulsion that bore little relation to pleasure. Though she wanted to talk about Kath, it seemed right to wait to let him raise the subject, which he did quite quickly.