Six Months to Get a Life

by Ben Adams

  ‘How are you doing, Graham?’ Sarah asked me at one point when Debbie had gone off to the loo.

  ‘Oh, I am doing really well. Life is good at the moment. I never seem to have a minute to myself. I don’t know why we didn’t divorce sooner.’ I hate to think what I would have said had I been trying to impress Sarah.

  ‘Have you thought what you would do if she ends up moving back to Exeter?’ she asked from leftfield.

  When I looked surprised, Sarah tried to backtrack but I wouldn’t let her. It turns out that my ex’s dad is ill and my ex has talked about pulling up sticks and moving to Exeter to be nearer him.

  I told you that the ex and I didn’t argue much. We might not have done when we were married, but we seem to be arguing more now we are divorced. When I dropped Sean back off at my old family home, I could barely wait for Sean to go inside the house before I confronted her on the doorstep.

  ‘What’s this I hear about you thinking about moving to Exeter?’

  ‘What? Oh, I have thought about it,’ My ex replied. ‘Dad is ill and mum could do with some support.’

  ‘Well feel free to go but if you think you are taking my kids with you, you’ve got another think coming.’

  Diplomacy was never my strong point, particularly after a few beers. Unfortunately the direct approach rarely worked with my ex. In fact it probably pushed her closer towards moving than she previously was.

  ‘If I decide to go to Exeter then I will take the kids with me,’ she said. ‘And there is nothing you could do to stop me.’

  As if her words weren’t clear enough, my ex’s response was accompanied by a few vicious finger jabs to my chest to help emphasise her point.

  ‘I don’t want to go to Exeter,’ Jack said from somewhere inside the house.

  Responsible parents wouldn’t have been rowing in front of their kids. I confess, though, that Jack’s intervention on my side made the row almost worthwhile. Now that I have left them to it, I am sure that my ex will be smoothing things out with the kids. They would hate to move to Exeter though. There is nothing wrong with Exeter itself, but all the boys’ friends are here. And I am here. I would like to think that this would count for something in their minds.

  Thinking selfishly for a minute, I don’t know what I would do if Jack and Sean moved to Exeter. It’s hard enough to deal with them living down the road.

  Saturday 20th April

  Hot on the heels of Sean’s first cricket practice came Jack’s first cricket match.

  Jack plays for a club that has links to his school. Most of the team are Jack’s classmates. My boys don’t play for the same club because Sean got fed up with everyone comparing his performances with those of his older brother.

  We had an early hiccup when Jack was getting ready for the game and realised he had left his cricket box at his mum’s. He refused point blank to wear his brother’s.

  ‘Dad, there is no way I am wearing that thing, I know where it’s been,’ he said emphatically.

  ‘Just put it on and stop being an arse,’ I told him.

  ‘No way, it smells. And besides, Sean’s got a chode. His box won’t fit me.’

  I had to look up the meaning of the word ‘chode’. Apparently it means a short, fat penis that’s wider than it is long. I am now thankful that no one has called me a chode yet in my life.

  Because secondary school children are more independent and don’t need to be taken to school, or maybe because my ex isn’t around to organise me, I haven’t got to know many of the parents of the other boys at Jack and Sean’s school. I took pot luck and stood on the boundary next to a dad who I vaguely recognised. We got chatting about the game and at one point when I clapped Jack for a diving stop on the boundary, the guy asked if I was Jack’s dad. I nodded. He introduced himself as Geoff, the wicket keeper’s dad.

  Apparently Jack and Geoff’s son Joe have been spending a lot of time together at school. Joe’s parents got divorced last year and Joe splits his time between his mum and his dad. Jack got to hear about Joe’s arrangement and has been asking Joe about it.

  ‘My Joe is a good kid,’ Geoff said. ‘I am sure he has been helping your Jack through his situation.’

  It is a bit disconcerting to have other people know your business but I am glad Jack has found someone to talk to about things if that’s what he needs. We all need someone to talk to, I guess.

  I asked Jack about it after his team had reached their victory target and the various groups of parents and players had gone their separate ways.

  ‘Joe’s OK,’ he confirmed. ‘His situation is a bit different from ours though.’

  ‘How so?’ I asked.

  ‘His mum has moved in with another man. Joe hates him and wants to live with his dad.’

  ‘What would you do if your mum decided to move in with that man she went out to dinner with a couple of weeks ago?’ I asked Jack. I still can’t quite get that thought out of my mind.

  ‘Oh she won’t, dad,’ Jack told me. ‘I heard her moaning to someone on the phone the other night that she had phoned him three times and he hadn’t returned her calls.’

  Shame.

  Monday 21st April

  It would seem that working all day, nearly having two kids, trying to get fit, having the occasional few beers with your mates, walking the dog and writing this diary are not enough to fill my days. Or so I am told by my dad, who thinks I need to get a hobby. True, despite it being a bank holiday I didn’t do a lot today other than hang around the house listening to Bruce Springsteen but who is my dad to talk? All he does is trawl through the set top box catching up with daytime telly every evening. I sometimes wonder what he watches in the daytime.

  As the afternoon turned to evening, Dave put me out of my misery and suggested we have a few down the Brook. I accepted willingly, thinking I might as well wallow in self-pity with Dave and a few pints as sit on my own in my room listening to depressing 80s music.

  The ‘Morden Brook’ is our local boozer. It is an oasis in the desert that is the 1930s-built Morden suburbia. As an added bonus, the clientele won’t normally punch you unless they have had one too many on a Saturday night.

  As soon as our first pints were in front of us, I started on my litany of woes. I was working my way through my current living arrangements when Dave stopped me in my tracks.

  ‘Mate, give it a break. Life isn’t that bad.’

  ‘What do you mean life isn’t that bad?’ I replied. ‘I am over 40 and living with my parents. Every night I have to come home from work and listen to them bang on about what a complete balls-up I have made of my life. I have to eat fucking kippers for tea and I can’t even turn the stereo up without being moaned at.’

  ‘At least your mum’s not dying of cancer,’ Dave said.

  He wasn’t joking. Dave’s mum has apparently got less than six months to live. She has been ill for a while but I didn’t realise it was quite that bad.

  I used to go to Dave’s house after school. His family were richer than ours. They got a video and a computer before us and Dave and I would play Chuckie Egg or Elite until his mum called us down for tea. They ate earlier than we did, so sometimes I would eat with them and then go home and get fed again by my mum. I went on holiday to North Wales with them a couple of times too.

  ‘I’m sorry Dave,’ I said, feeling like a right arse for monopolising the conversation all night. We left the pub before last orders and I came home with a real determination to stop being so introspective, to stop being such a miserable twat. To start treating my parents better than I have been.

  Wednesday 23rd April

  Dave’s news about his mum has really got to me. It has reminded me that life is finite. If you don’t live it while you can, it has a habit of stopping at some point.

  I have woken up today determined to cultivate a new, more positive attitude to life. I am renewing my focus on achieving my goals. I have only got five months to go until my birthday bash. I haven’t achieved much so far by
way of progress. I have probably drunk more in the last month than I have since I was a student. I have had the grand total of exactly three conversations with women who aren’t either my ex or my mum, and I have done absolutely nothing to get a new job or a place of my own to live in. My kids and I are getting on OK but there is still a long way to go before I can confidently claim to have cracked the full-time dad with part-time access situation.

  In my quest to be more positive, I phoned Andy and persuaded him to come out for a beer. This may have been my second night in the Morden Brook in the last three nights but I had an ulterior motive that, in my mind at least, outweighs the added alcohol consumption.

  I am taking my dad’s advice and am trying to find a hobby. Andy has got some interesting hobbies. Living on his own, he has to find something to do with his time I suppose. Andy loves growing his own vegetables and spends half his life on his allotment. A couple of times a year he goes on weekend cookery courses, presumably to discover new and interesting things to do with his vegetables. He also paints. Believe it or not, he paints pictures of his vegetables.

  ‘Aren’t those hobbies a bit solitary?’ I asked him.

  ‘I guess they are, but the point is that I enjoy doing them,’ he told me.

  When Andy went up to get the next round in, I thought about his hobbies. Vegetable growing isn’t for me. I can just about cope with eating cabbage or a marrow or broad beans but spending hours crawling around amongst the worms and the mud trying to coax the vegetables to grow isn’t my scene. And as for painting, as any dad does, I gave it a go with my kids when they were young but that’s as far as it goes. I definitely wasn’t present when they were handing out the art genes.

  So what do I like doing? I drew up a mental list:

  Drinking with my mates

  Playing golf – I haven’t played for ages

  Er. Not sure.

  I played a bit of cricket in my youth. I thought about adding that to the list but cricket would eat into parts of my weekend that I try to keep free for seeing Jack and Sean. And besides, between you and me, a hobby that brings me into contact with women would be especially welcomed.

  I turned to Andy for inspiration.

  ‘If it’s meeting women you want, then take up knitting,’ he suggested.

  When I was less than enthusiastic about his knitting idea (I want to meet pre-menopausal women, not someone’s grandmother), Andy turned to the table of rather inebriated young lads sitting behind us and asked for their suggestions for a hobby for his newly divorced mate. Their suggestions ranged from wanking to glass-blowing (a bit random), from bowls to playing bridge or other things that old people do. Thanks lads, really useful.

  Andy and I did at least arrange to play golf on Friday. I texted Dave and invited him too. I hope he can make it.

  When I got home after pub chucking out time, I got more grief from my parents. They are feeling like ‘glorified dog-sitters’. Is this the first step towards having to give Albus to my ex too? I wonder. I didn’t rise to the bait though. In my newly found positive mindset, I offered to treat them to a meal out to thank them for looking after me and my dog over the last few months.

  Friday 25th April

  I took my parents to dinner in a little family-run Italian restaurant in Morden last night. With Frank Sinatra crooning away in the background and steam from our liqueur coffees rising gently in to the ether, I told my parents about Dave’s news and my resulting positivity push.

  ‘Does that mean you are going to try to unite your family under one roof again?’ mum asked with genuine hope in her voice.

  ‘No mum,’ I told her, ‘it just means I am sorry I have been an ungrateful git over the past few months and I will try harder in future to appreciate the things that you and dad are doing for me.’

  As I was paying the bill I told my parents of my intention to go and play golf with Dave and Andy today.

  ‘So I suppose we are left looking after your dog again while you swan around having a good time,’ my dad moaned.

  ‘Yes, but I am taking you up on your idea of getting a hobby, dad.’ That seemed to pacify him a bit.

  So today I picked up my golf clubs from my ex’s garage and headed off in to the Surrey countryside to play golf.

  Much to my ex’s chagrin I used to play a fair bit of golf. When things weren’t great at home I would escape to the sanctuary of the golf course and hit some balls, sometimes with Andy but at other times with the kids. The kids loved it for a year or two. They got to see their dad let his hair down (meaning they got to see me swear when I cocked a shot up). They tended to get chips too on the way home, which helped persuade them to come again.

  Last year I even took my now ex to golf on one fateful occasion. Our marriage guidance counsellor recommended that we (me and my wife, not me and the counsellor; god, I feel ill just thinking about that option) got a shared hobby. Like most of our marriage guidance counsellor’s theories, this idea was built on failed logic. It assumed we actually wanted to spend time together.

  I persuaded my ex to try golf because in my mind at least that was preferable to me having to go horse-riding, her hobby of choice. To make the experience bearable for her I booked an overnight family suite at a golfing hotel with a spa in Sussex. We ‘made love’ the evening we arrived with reconciliation in mind (I may have had Kylie Minogue in mind but let’s not go there).

  The following morning we were warming up on the driving range before an introductory family golf lesson. My then wife repeatedly missed the ball off the tee with her eight iron.

  ‘God mum, you’re rubbish,’ Sean said in that blunt way that only kids can get away with.

  He walked up behind her to show her how to hold the club but she didn’t see him coming and went for another big swing. At the height of her backswing she connected with Sean’s nose. Instead of strolling through the Sussex countryside hitting a few balls, we spent the afternoon strolling through the Royal Sussex County hospital trying to find the casualty department.

  Jack didn’t help the family mood when he pointed out on the way home that Sean’s nose was the only thing my ex had hit all day.

  Anyway, back to today. Dave has a lot in common with Tiger Woods. Unfortunately for him, golf isn’t one of those things. The saying ‘all the gear but no idea’ was written to describe Dave on the golf course. He looks good in his Ian Poulter (or should that be Rupert the Bear) trousers, but the image is ruined whenever he plays a shot. He’s only just better than my ex.

  Luckily for Dave, he didn’t actually play a shot today. We met up in the clubhouse for a pre-round bacon sandwich and Dave got talking to an attractive woman in the shortest and possibly tightest golf shorts you have ever seen. After hanging around for half an hour waiting for him to finish telling big Bertha about the range on his wood, we left them to it and our threesome became two twosomes. I got a text mid-way through our round from Dave.

  ‘Mark me down for a birdie at the 19th.’ His mum being ill obviously wasn’t putting Dave off his stride.

  How come Dave finds it so easy to meet women? Andy isn’t a stud like Dave but he has a certain quiet confidence that seems to attract women to him too. I asked him what I was doing wrong as we were walking through the rough on the second hole, trying to locate my ball.

  ‘With you it’s a confidence thing,’ Andy told me. ‘When I watched you in that night club the other night, you started physically sweating every time a woman so much as glanced in your direction. Why do you think that was?’

  Astute observation. Good question. ‘Because it was hot,’ I said unconvincingly.

  ‘Are you sure you are ready to meet someone? You are not long divorced,’ Andy pointed out.

  ‘Yes, I’m ready,’ I replied, feeling pleased that Andy had asked a question I could answer for a change.

  ‘You may be physically ready but are you mentally ready?’ my friend-come-amateur psychologist observed. ‘Is your awkwardness around women a result of you still feeling the
scars of your marriage?’

  And there was me thinking I was coming to play golf to get away from my troubles. Without overdoing the naval-gazing, Andy could have a point there though.

  After living with my ex for fifteen years, some of my nervousness around women probably emanates from my not being used to women who are interested in what I have to say. As a consequence, to make a woman take notice of what I have to say, I have probably been trying too hard to make a real impact. Basically, I have been talking shit in the hope that a woman will listen to me.

  Andy agreed. ‘Just be yourself more. If a woman doesn’t want to know when you are being yourself then you know she isn’t the right woman,’ he advised. ‘Just be yourself and let fate take its course. If you are meant to meet someone then you will meet someone. Don’t force the issue,’ he added.

  All I can say to that is that fate had better hurry up as it has been a while.

  Andy and I had a good day. He thrashed the pants off me, but despite losing I managed to forget my troubles for a few holes at least. I would even go as far as to say that I felt like a participating member of society rather than a divorced man for a couple of hours.

  Saturday 26th April

  In keeping with my new-found proactive state, I have taken my first steps towards finding somewhere to live. I registered with some local estate agents.

  I have also decided that I am going to take the children on holiday in the summer. Dave’s mum’s illness has made me realise that life is too short to waste. The three of us would really benefit from having a good holiday. We all deserve it.