Man and Boy

by Tony Parsons

  “Here, let me take those,” Richard said.

  I gave him the box of toys and he set them on the table. We smiled at each other awkwardly. He was different from what I had expected—more self-effacing, more gentle, less of the brash suit than I had imagined.

  “This is a big day for Gina,” he said.

  “A big day for all of us,” I said.

  “Sure,” he said quickly. “But Gina—well, as you know, she’s a Libra. Home, family—it’s all central to her.”

  “Right.”

  He wasn’t quite what I had expected. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t a bit of a dickhead, of course.

  “How about Pat?” he said. “What sign is he?”

  “Please Clean Up My Room,” I said.

  Gina came out of Pat’s new bedroom and smiled at me.

  “Thanks for helping him move.”

  “No problem.”

  “And thanks for everything,” she said, and for just a second there I recognized the Gina who had loved me. “I know how much he means to you.”

  “Love means knowing when to let go,” I told her.

  ***

  I didn’t see it coming. I swung the MGF onto the main road and suddenly the black cab was swerving to avoid me, horn blaring, rubber burning, the driver’s face twisted with rage. Heads turned to look at the idiot in the sports car with the torn roof.

  I pulled over to the curb and sat there breathing deep, trying to get my heart under some kind of control as the traffic ebbed and flowed around me. My hands were shaking. I gripped the wheel until my knuckles were white and the shaking began to stop.

  Then I slowly started to make my way home, driving with exaggerated care because I knew that my mind was on some other road, that it kept wandering away to a black-and-white image of a father and son glimpsed once in a photograph album and the fragment of some old song about being a stranger in paradise.

  “Anyway, Dad,” I said out loud, really needing to talk to my old man, really needing to know what he thought. “Did I do the right thing?”

  forty

  We heard the church before we could see it.

  The big black Daimler swung left into Farringdon Road, and as we trundled down that long narrow channel to the river, the bells were ringing for Marty and Siobhan.

  We turned left again into the little Clerkenwell square and the church seemed to fill the big blue sky. In the backseat of the limo Marty shifted uneasily inside his morning suit, squinting out at the guests being handed buttonholes at the entrance to the church.

  “Should we go round a few times?” he said. “Keep them waiting a bit?”

  “That’s what the bride does, Marty. Not you.”

  “And are you sure you’ve got the—”

  I held out the two gold rings.

  He nodded.

  There was nothing else to do but to do it.

  We got out of the Daimler, the bells so loud now that they were all you could think about. Marty kept buttoning and unbuttoning his morning coat as we made our way up the steep stone steps to the church, smiling and nodding at the people we knew and even the people we didn’t know. We were halfway to the top when Marty tripped on something and I had to catch his arm as he stumbled.

  Marty picked up an eight-inch man made of molded plastic. He was sporting a lavender jacket, spangly silver trousers, and a white satin shirt. And he was either wearing a cummerbund or his stomach was heavily bandaged. He had lost one of his little white shoes.

  “Now who the fuck is that meant to be?” Marty said. “Liberace?”

  “Not Liberace,” I said, taking it from him. “That’s Disco Ken.”

  With the sun streaming through the stained-glass windows behind her, a small girl came flying down the aisle of the church, holding onto her hat, which was the same color as the yellow party dress she was wearing.

  “Peggy,” I said.

  “Disco Ken,” she said, taking him from me. “I’ve been looking for him.”

  Then Cyd was there, looking at me from under the rim of a big black hat. It was a little big for her. Maybe she bought it before she cut her hair.

  “I’ll be inside,” Marty said. “On the altar.”

  “At the altar,” I said.

  “I know where I’m going to be,” he said.

  “Good luck,” Cyd smiled at him.

  We watched him go and then we looked at each other for a long moment.

  “I didn’t expect to see you here,” I said.

  “I’m on the bride’s side.”

  “Of course. Siobhan really likes you. So—how’s it going?”

  “Okay, okay. Really okay. And how’s Pat?”

  “He’s living with Gina now. It seems to be working out. You’ll see him later.”

  “Pat’s coming?” Peggy said.

  “He’s a page boy.”

  “Good,” she said and ducked back inside the church.

  “And he’s happy?” Cyd said, and I knew it really mattered to her, and I wanted to hold her.

  “There’s a few teething problems with the boyfriend. He’s a bit alternative. He doesn’t like it when Pat hits him around the head with his light saber. I keep telling him—no, no, Pat—if you’re going to hit him, go for his eyes.”

  She shook her head and smiled.

  “Where would you be without your little jokes, Harry?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But you see him?”

  “All the time. Every weekend and once during the week. We haven’t worked out the school holidays yet.”

  “But you still miss him.”

  “It’s like he’s still there. I can’t explain it. Even though he’s gone, I feel him all around me. There’s just this big gap where he used to be. It’s like his absence is as strong as his presence.”

  “Even when they’re gone, they still hold your heart. That’s what being a parent is all about.”

  “I guess so. And Jim’s all right?”

  “I wouldn’t know. That didn’t work out. It was a mistake to even try.”

  “Well, you tried for Peggy.” At least I hoped she tried for Peggy. I hoped that she didn’t try because she still loved him now the way she had loved him once before. “It was worth trying for Peggy’s sake.”

  “You think so?”

  “Definitely.”

  She indicated a Daimler driving slowly past the church. In the backseat was a woman covered in white and a nervous middle-aged man. The car disappeared around the corner.

  “Siobhan and her father are circling the church,” Cyd said. “We better go inside.”

  “Well, see you later. We can share a vol-au-vent.”

  “Good-bye, Harry.”

  I watched her move off to take her place on the bride’s side of the church, holding the rim of her hat as if it might fly away. Then Pat was beside me, tugging at my sleeve, dressed in some sort of sailor suit. He looked dapper in a maritime sort of way. I put my arm around him as Gina and Richard came up the church steps.

  “I told you we wouldn’t be able to park so close to the church,” he said.

  “We did park, didn’t we?” she said. “Or did I miss something?”

  They stopped arguing when they saw me, silently collecting their buttonholes from one of the ushers and passing into the church. I smiled at Pat.

  “I like your new suit. How’s it feel?”

  “Scratchy.”

  “But you look great.”

  “I don’t like suits. They’re too much like school.”

  “I guess you’re right. Suits are far too much like school. You still on for the weekend?”

  He nodded.

  “What do you want to do?”

  He thought about it for a moment.

  “Something good.” />
  “Me too. Let’s do something good this weekend. But right now we’ve got a job to do, haven’t we?”

  “We’re page boys.”

  “You might be a page boy. But I’m the best man. Shall we go to a wedding?”

  He shrugged and grinned.

  My beautiful boy.

  We stepped inside the church—smelling of lilies, cool and dark apart from the shafts of honeyed light coming through the ancient windows, the women in their hats—and Pat ran ahead of me, the heels of his new shoes clicking against the flagstones.

  And watching him run to where Marty was waiting for us at the altar gave me a pang that was somehow very happy and very sad all at the same time.

  I don’t know. It sort of felt like he was already his own man.

  ***

  The vicar was tall, young, and nervous, one of those sweet-natured toffs from the Shires that the Church of England sends into the tower blocks of the inner city, and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he spoke of the Day of Judgment when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed.

  He was looking at Marty, fixing him with a stare, asking his questions as though he really expected honest answers—Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor and keep her in sickness and in health, and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto her, as long as ye both shall live?

  And I thought of Marty with his long line of opportunistic couplings that invariably ended up in the Sunday papers when the women he quickly humped and almost as quickly dumped realized that sleeping with him was not the first rung to a career in the entertainment industry.

  And I looked at Siobhan standing with her father by her side, her pale Irish face impassive behind all that white lace, and—although it wasn’t the time or the place—I couldn’t help thinking of her weakness for married men and dodgy boyfriends who chained themselves to trees. But none of it seemed to matter very much today. Not the stung former lovers who gossiped about Marty, or all the wives who had eventually beaten Siobhan into bitter second place. It was all behind them now.

  Both of them seemed redeemed today, renewed by these promises of love and devotion, by pledging their troth—even though I was pretty sure that Marty had absolutely no idea what a troth was or indeed how to pledge it. I felt an enormous affection for both of them.

  And I couldn’t find any cynicism left in me. Because this was what I wanted too. It was everything I wanted. To love and to cherish.

  I turned to steal a look at the congregation. Cyd was staring at the vicar from under the brim of her hat. I could just about make out the top of Peggy’s head. Pat caught my eye and smiled, and I thought again what a great little kid he was. I winked at him and turned back as the vicar talked about remaining in perfect love and peace.

  And as the vicar asked his questions, I was forced to ask some of myself. Such as—can I truly be a positive thing in Peggy’s life? And do I really think that I can make a good job of raising that little girl when I know for certain that we will never have the easy bonds of blood? Am I really man enough to bring up another man’s child?

  And what about Cyd? Can we stick by each other for more than the usual five, six, or seven years? Can we love and cherish as long as we both shall live? Will one of us—almost certainly me—eventually fuck up, fuck around, or fuck off? Do I really believe that our love is big enough and strong enough to survive in the lousy modern world? Well, do I? Do I? Do I?

  “I do,” I said out loud, and for the first time ever Marty looked at me as if I was the fruitcake.

  ***

  I tapped a silver spoon against the side of a champagne glass and rose to give my best man’s speech. As all those relatives and friends and business colleagues looked up at me, content after the wedding breakfast and ready to be tickled, I looked down at my notes.

  They were mostly jokes written by Eamon, scrawled on the back of postcards. They seemed quite useless now.

  I breathed in and began.

  “One of the great thinkers once said—you drift through the years and life seems tame, then a stranger appears and love is his name.” I paused dramatically. “Plato? Wittgenstein? Descartes? No, it was Nancy Sinatra. And she’s right, old Nancy. Life just seems so tame, so empty without the stranger. In fact, now I come to think about it, it’s worse than that.”

  They didn’t know what the fuck I was talking about. I don’t think I knew myself. I rubbed my throbbing temples. My mouth was dry. I gulped down some water but it was still dry.

  “Worse, much worse,” I muttered, trying to work out what I was trying to say. It was something about the importance of Marty and Siobhan always remembering how they felt today. It was something about never forgetting.

  I looked across the crowded room at Cyd, hoping for some sign of encouragement, but she was staring down at the remains of her dessert. Peggy and Pat were running among the tables. Someone coughed. A baby was grizzling. The crowd was getting restless. Someone went off to find the toilet. I quickly glanced down at my notes.

  “Wait, I’ve got some good stuff here,” I said. “There’s the one about love beginning when you sink into someone’s arms and ending when you put your arms in someone’s sink.”

  A couple of drunken uncles guffawed.

  “And there’s the one about the two inexperienced newlyweds who went to see their doctor for a demonstration of the sexual act,” I said.

  A tipsy auntie tittered.

  “The doctor made love to the woman and asked the groom if he had any questions. And the groom said—yes, how often do I have to bring her in?”

  It got a laugh. Eamon smiled proudly. But I felt the postcards slipping through my trembling fingers. I didn’t really need my notes anymore. I couldn’t use them.

  “But what I really want to say is that I hope—I know—that Siobhan and Marty will remember that a life without love is no life at all. Nancy Sinatra said that. And if you find someone to love then you should never let them slip away. I said that.”

  I raised a glass to Marty and Siobhan. Cyd looked up at me and then ducked backed down behind her hat.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, please raise your glasses and drink a toast to the gorgeous couple.”

  Eamon grabbed me as I came off stage.

  “That was really great,” he said. “But next time throw in a couple of jokes about the groom shagging sheep.”

  ***

  It wasn’t until the music started that I realized I had never seen her dancing.

  I had no idea if she was a brilliant dancer—like her namesake—or if she was completely yet endearingly crap.

  I didn’t know if she twirled and glided with infinite grace, or if she just stood there taking those embarrassed little half-steps and wondering what to do with her arms. I didn’t know if she danced like Cyd Charisse or Sid James. But I knew I didn’t care.

  Seeing Cyd dance badly would wrench my heart just as surely as seeing her dance brilliantly. I just wanted to dance with her.

  The DJ was playing “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go,” and there was something about the goofy euphoria of that old record that filled the floor.

  Marty and Siobhan were doing a dangerous-looking jitterbug, the groom’s face turning coronary red as he attempted to lift his bride off the ground. Eamon was standing rooted to the spot and throwing his arms around as if he was rat-faced on Ibiza instead of half-cut in Clerkenwell. Mem slunk around him, pouting and grinding and looking dirty, doing the only dance she knew.

  Gina was laughing with Pat and clapping her hands as he did this dance that he had just made up, which consisted of these strange little jumps that turned him completely around. Richard was slow dancing with one of the bridesmaids. My mother was waltzing with the vicar.

  And there was Sally, heavily pregnant now, shuffling from side to side in an ironic sort of way, because this was music to make old peopl
e feel young again.

  And there was Glenn, his eyes closed and waving his arms around as if he was freaking out in the mud at Woodstock. Suddenly it seemed like a perfect party. Because Glenn danced in exactly the same way as Eamon.

  But I couldn’t see Cyd and Peggy.

  When Marty put Siobhan down to take a breather, I touched her arm, shouting above George Michael’s voice.

  “Siobhan, where’s Cyd?”

  “They had to leave early to catch their plane. They’re going back to America.”

  “For how long?”

  “For good. Didn’t she tell you?”

  ***

  I abandoned the MGF on the hard shoulder of the motorway somewhere west of the green suburban sprawl of Osterley Park. A few days later I tried to find the place in the A to Z street finder, but it was too far out of the city to be included. It felt like I dumped my car at the end of the world. Or maybe the start.

  But it was clear that I wasn’t going to make it in time by car. The traffic on the road to Heathrow wasn’t moving. Yet every few seconds another jet as big as an ocean liner roared off into the heavens above my head. It was no good. The MGF couldn’t help me anymore.

  I got out of the car, realizing that I didn’t know what airline they were on. Virgin Atlantic left from Terminal 3, but British Airways was at Terminal 4. There wasn’t time to go to both. What was it to be? Did I go for Richard Branson or the world’s favorite airline?

  I ran by the side of the motorway, the planes screaming into the blue sky above me, the tails of my morning suit flying.

  ***

  In the end, it didn’t matter what flight they were on. The day’s planes to America had all left by the time I reached the departure hall.

  The crowds were thinning out now. Those traveling were in the air. Those seeing them off were on their way home. By the international departure gate, sweating heavily inside my morning suit, I hung my head and sighed. I had been too late.

  And then I saw him on the ground, a little lavender party man. Disco Ken. I picked him up. His silver trousers were filthy. He had lost his remaining shoe.

  And then Cyd and Peggy were standing in front of me, their boarding passes still in their hands, their suitcases at their feet. They were both still in their party dresses.