Man and Wife

by Tony Parsons

‘Can’t you? What am I supposed to do? Wait for Mr Right to come along? Not enough time, Harry, not enough energy. Sometimes this is what I think – the person you’re with is just the person you’re with. That’s all. End of story. It’s no more than that.’

  ‘You old romantic.’

  ‘It’s not so bad. You’re partners. You stick together. You support each other. So it’s not like one of the old songs – so what? A grown-up can’t go around falling in love all the time like some dumb-ass teenager. What kind of mess would that make of your life?’

  ‘You don’t choose who you fall in love with.’

  ‘How naïve you sound. Of course you choose, Harry. Of course you do.’

  I liked to think that we were friends. And I liked to think that I still cared about her. That I would always care about her. But this caring for my ex-wife, it only went so far. In the end, my thoughts always came back to the same place.

  ‘What about my boy?’

  ‘Your boy?’ she said. ‘Your boy, Harry? You should have thought of your boy before you banged some little slut from your office, shouldn’t you?’

  And all at once I saw that there’s no one on this planet more distant than someone you were once married to.

  twenty-six

  ‘Man gets on a crowded flight,’ said Eamon, roaming through the smoky gloaming. ‘Plane’s totally full. But the seat next to him, the seat next to him is empty.’ Hand to mouth, little Woody Allen cough. ‘Thinks – wonder who I’m going to be sitting next to? As you do, right? Then the most beautiful woman he ever saw in his life comes down the aisle. The face of an angel and legs up to her neck. Sure enough, she sits right down in the seat next to our man.’ Hunched in the spotlight. The crowd paying attention. ‘The guy finally works up the courage to talk to her. “Excuse me? Excuse me? Where are you headed?” “Oh,” says she, “I’m off to the Kilcarney Sex Convention. I lecture on the subject. Dispel some of the myths surrounding sex.” “Like what?” “Well, for example,” says she, “many people believe that black men are more generously endowed than other men. And in fact it is Native American men who are more likely to reveal that physiological trait. And then popular wisdom has it that French men make the best lovers. Whereas statistics show that Greek men are far more likely to give sexual pleasure to their partners.” Then she blushed. “But I’m telling you all this, and I don’t even know your name.” The guy reached out his hand. “Tonto,” he said. “Tonto Papadopolous.”’

  And as the crowd laughed, I could see myself in that man, and in that punch line.

  It had never been in my plans to become the kind of man who lies without even having to think about it. That had never been the kind of man I wanted to be. My father had never been that kind of man.

  But by now I found I needed to lie just to balance the demands on my time. It was madness.

  Just call me Tonto. Tonto Papadopolous.

  As Cyd helped Peggy into her bridesmaid’s dress upstairs, and Pat sat on the carpet watching the horse racing on Channel 4 – that kid would watch anything, I swear – I sneaked down to the bottom of the garden to call Kazumi on my mobile.

  We were meeting for dinner. That was the schedule. And this simple thing – a man having dinner with a woman – had to be planned in utmost secrecy, as though we were doing something illegal, or incredibly dangerous. And I was sick of it, to tell the truth. I would be glad when all the sneaking around was over. Not long now.

  When I went back into the house Peggy was standing at the top of the stairs, grinning from ear to ear, wearing her bridesmaid’s dress.

  ‘How do I look, Harry?’

  ‘Like an angel.’

  And she did. Just like a little angel. And I felt a stab of regret that this child who I had watched grow up would soon be out of my life forever.

  She ran back into the bedroom with some instructions for her mother about the flowers she was wearing in her hair while I went into the living room and sat next to my son. He was still staring blankly at the race meeting on the box. Sometimes I worried about this kid.

  ‘You want to see what else is on, Pat?’

  He grunted a negative, not looking at me.

  Pat had come home with me because his mother had things to discuss with his – what was Richard these days? His ex-stepfather? His future stepdad? The designated sperm donor to his half-siblings? I was finding it increasingly difficult to keep up with my ex-wife’s soap opera. But then who was I to feel superior?

  At least everything that Gina did was out in the open.

  ‘I didn’t know you were a gambling man, Pat,’ Cyd said, coming into the room.

  ‘Horses,’ Pat said, turning his face to look up at Cyd. ‘Horses are so beautiful.’

  I felt a stab of guilt. So he wasn’t gawping mindlessly at the box. The horses enchanted him. Why hadn’t he told me that? Why had he saved this revelation for Cyd? Was it perhaps because I hadn’t asked him?

  She smiled and sat down on the floor with him. ‘Horses are beautiful, aren’t they?’ she said. ‘There’s a – what would you call it? – nobility, I guess. Yes, there’s a nobility about horses.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Nobility.’ She turned to look at me. ‘How would you define nobility, Harry?’

  ‘Dignity,’ I said. ‘Decency. Goodness.’

  Like you, I thought, looking at the woman I had married. Dignity, decency and goodness. Just like you.

  Not that Cyd resembled a horse.

  She put her arm around my boy’s shoulder and watched the horses with him and I realised that she had always been good with him – kind, patient, loving even. So what had been the problem? The problem had been me, and not being satisfied with her kindness, patience and love.

  The problem had been me all along, and wanting Cyd to be something that she could never ever be.

  His mother.

  I had never seen Peggy so excited.

  She was in her bridesmaid’s outfit for hours before she was due to be picked up, posing and preening in front of every available reflecting surface in the house, then running to the window to check the street for her father.

  Finally we heard the sound of a bike revving its engine in the street.

  ‘He’s here!’ Peggy shouted, tearing herself away from the mirror in the hall.

  ‘Don’t forget your crash helmet,’ her mother called from upstairs.

  It was a themed wedding. The bride and groom were arriving at the registrar’s office on motorbikes. Even the priest who was giving their union a blessing at a nearby church was turning up on his Honda and conducting the service in his leathers. The reception was at the historic Ton Up Café on the Ml.

  Peggy was at the door waving to Jim when Cyd came down the stairs.

  And the sight of her stunned me.

  She was wearing a dress I hadn’t seen for years. Her old green silk cheongsam. The dress she had been wearing the night I fell in love with her.

  She saw me looking at her, but ignored me, as if it was perfectly natural to walk around in this special dress. She helped Peggy into her crash helmet. ‘Hold Daddy tight, okay?’

  Together we escorted Peggy to the kerb. There were two bikes, Jim on his Norton with Liberty, the happy bride, perched on the back in her wedding dress, and the best man on an ancient Triumph with a sidecar. Jim and his best man were both wearing leathers over their wedding tails. Liberty’s only concession to road safety was a snow-white helmet. I stiffly congratulated Jim. It was not an easy situation. His ex-wife’s estranged husband wishing her first husband well on his most recent wedding day. So we did what adults always do at a time like this – we concentrated on the child. Cyd fussed with Peggy’s frills as she placed her in the sidecar, and I made sure her crash helmet was secure.

  Then they were gone, roaring off down the street, wedding tails and bride’s dress flying.

  ‘You going out somewhere?’ I said.

  Cyd replied without looking at me. ‘Just doing some packing,’ she said.
‘Deciding what I want to take and what I want to throw away.’

  ‘And are you taking that dress with you?’

  ‘No. I just wanted to see if it still fits.’ The bikes were gone now. She looked at me. ‘Before I throw it away.’

  She had worn that dress on what was probably the happiest night of my life. That happiness just came upon me, the way true happiness does, and it was caused by the joy of simply standing by her side. We were at an awards ceremony at one of the big hotels on Park Lane, the kind of long, drunken, back-slapping shindig that I usually despised.

  But that night I was so glad to be alive as the soft blue light faded over Hyde Park, and I was so grateful to be with this incredible woman in her green silk dress that I honestly believed I would never be sad again.

  ‘It still fits,’ I told her.

  Cyd took herself upstairs to pack.

  I went into the living room and sat next to my son on the carpet. The beautiful horses had gone and he was channel-surfing through the mind-numbing doldrums of mid-afternoon television. The snatched images flashed before his blue eyes. Dude, Where’s My Trousers?, snowboarding, Six Pissed Students in a Flat, old music videos, Wicked World, Russian fashion models, Art? My Arse!, the baking channel, Sorry, I’m a Complete Git. I gently took the remote from his hot little hand, and switched off the TV.

  ‘Are you okay, Pat?’

  He nodded, noncommittal.

  ‘Didn’t Peggy look lovely in her bridesmaid’s dress?’

  He thought about it. ‘She looked like a lady.’

  ‘Didn’t she?’ I put my arm around him. He snuggled close to me. ‘And what about you? How are you feeling?’

  ‘I’m a little bit worried.’

  ‘What about, darling?’

  ‘Bernie Cooper,’ he said. ‘Bernie Cooper says that dogs need a passport.’

  ‘Well, I guess that’s true. If a dog is going to be moved from one country to another, it needs some form of ID. Bernie’s right there.’

  ‘Well, then, this is what I want to know – does Britney have a passport?’

  ‘Britney?’

  ‘My dog Britney. Because, if Britney doesn’t have a passport, then how is Richard going to get him into London, where we all live now?’

  ‘I’m sure Richard can work that one out. And what about Richard? How do you feel about seeing him again?’

  He shrugged. I believe he was genuinely more concerned about his dog than his stepfather. Britney meant infinitely more to Pat than Richard ever could. And of course a dog is for life, whereas a step-parent could be for any length of time.

  ‘Mummy and Richard – they might live together again.’

  My son nodded, biting his bottom lip thoughtfully as he eyed the remote control in my hand.

  ‘Are you happy about that, darling? It doesn’t just affect Mummy and Richard. It affects you too. I want you to – I don’t know – tell me if anything worries you. That’s what I’m here for, okay? You can always talk to me. Did Mummy talk to you about any of this stuff? About what she’s planning to do with Richard?’

  Another nod.

  ‘They’re going to try to make it work, Daddy.’ They’re going to try to make it work.

  When I was a kid, a seven-year-old talking about trying to make it work meant a wonky train set on your birthday or a new Scalextric on Christmas Day. We put the TV back on in silence.

  Now when a kid talked about making it work, he meant a marriage.

  There was a howl of motorbikes in the street.

  Peggy was back from her wedding.

  Cyd came downstairs, still in her green dress. I felt a surge of something that might have been hope, or maybe only nostalgia. But I was glad she hadn’t thrown the dress out yet.

  We went out to the street where a dozen bikes were idling. All these men in tails and women in party dresses, leathers and helmets on top of their wedding kit, sitting proudly astride their big BMWs and Nortons and Harleys and Triumphs. The bride was riding pillion on Jim’s bike while Peggy was sitting primly in the only sidecar in the convoy. Her mother fished her out.

  ‘Good wedding?’ Cyd said.

  Peggy began to babble with excitement. ‘I held the flowers and walked right behind Liberty as she walked up the aisle of the registration office.’

  Jim laughed. ‘That’s my girl. Come here, princess, give your daddy a big kiss.’

  Cyd and I watched awkwardly while father and daughter embraced. Peggy’s part in the celebrations was over. She wasn’t joining the happy couple for their wedding reception at the Ton Up Café. Then they would be off to Manila for their honeymoon. Jim placed his daughter on his lap, facing him, both of them wreathed in smiles.

  Pat had joined us on the pavement. He covered his ears against the noise of the bikes.

  ‘Well,’ Cyd said. ‘Congratulations.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Congratulations.’

  Jim just grinned and then they were gone. I couldn’t believe it. Jim’s bike roaring off down the street with his bride behind him and his daughter in front. You could hear the bride and the bridesmaid shrieking with delight. I thought it was a kidnapping. I thought he was stealing her.

  ‘She should have her helmet,’ Cyd said. ‘I know it’s just a bit of fun, but I don’t like this.’

  Jim turned at the end of the street and headed back towards us, his daughter laughing in his arms, his bride’s wedding dress streaming behind them. The bike flared up on its back wheel, and all three of them cried out with that sound of appalled pleasure you hear on a roller-coaster ride. Jim’s bike squealed to a halt. The other wedding guests applauded and revved their engines.

  ‘More,’ said Peggy.

  ‘Just once more,’ said Jim.

  ‘No more,’ said Cyd, lifting Peggy from the bike.

  ‘Oh, Mum !’

  Jim sighed elaborately. ‘Same old Cyd.’

  ‘Enough,’ I told him.

  The groom looked at me, his smile all gone, and I realised that it was the first time that day he had actually looked me in the eye.

  ‘Enough?’ he said. ‘Enough, did you say? Who are you to tell me enough, pal? She’s my daughter.’

  ‘I live with her,’ I said.

  He sneered at me. ‘Yeah, but not for much longer, right?’

  I looked at Cyd and she looked away. So she had told her ex-husband about us. And I suspected that this show of happiness – the themed wedding, the crowd of friends on our doorstep, the Evel Knievel routine with Peggy – had less to do with his daughter than with his first wife.

  We can resist every temptation with our old partners, apart from telling them how happy we are now.

  ‘I know about you, Harry,’ Jim said. ‘You’re no parent to Peggy. You’re not even a father to your own son, are you?’

  I looked at Pat. He was covering his ears. I didn’t know if it was because of the bikes or Jim.

  First Luke Moore, now Jim. The world was full of people who thought they had a better claim on my wife than me. And maybe what made me so angry was that I knew it was my own fault they felt that way.

  ‘You’re a jerk, Jim. You’ve always been a jerk and you always will be. You love your daughter, do you? You’re a good dad, are you? It takes more than inviting her to your latest wedding.’

  ‘Stop it, you two!’ Cyd shouted, putting Peggy on the ground. She began shoving Jim away. ‘Just go, will you? Just go. Liberty, tell him to go.’

  But Jim wouldn’t budge. He was acting all indignant, as if he had restrained himself with me for years, but was finally going to tell me what was on his mind.

  ‘I’ll be glad when you’re out of Peggy’s life,’ he told me.

  I pushed my face close to his. I could smell cheap champagne and Calvin Klein. ‘You think you’re in her life, do you? Coming round when you feel like it and then not a word for weeks? You call that being in a child’s life?’

  Cyd was screaming now. ‘Go! Go!’

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw
Peggy and Pat backing away. They were holding hands. Both of them were crying. A couple of the wedding guests were dismounting their bikes and giving me meaningful looks. It was getting nasty.

  And that was when Peggy stumbled from the pavement, let go of Pat’s hand and fell into the road.

  She was immediately hit by a car.

  The impact spun her around and dumped her back on the pavement, her legs still sprawling in the road. There was dirt all over the top of her bridesmaid’s dress. Christ no, not again, I thought, remembering Pat with his head split open at four years old, sprawled at the bottom of an empty swimming pool. I stood there stunned as Cyd rushed to her daughter. Somebody was screaming. Then Liberty was on her knees, pushing Cyd aside. A nurse, I thought. She’s a nurse.

  I looked at the white-faced driver of the car. He was about my age, but in a suit and tie, driving a brand-new BMW. He hadn’t been going fast – just crawling past the unbroken lines of cars, looking for a precious parking space – but he must have been doing something with his mobile phone, because it was still in his hand, playing a speeded-up version of ‘Waltzing Matilda’. Not watching the road well enough to avoid hitting a little girl who fell right in front of him without warning. There was a slight dent in his nearside bumper.

  ‘Cyd was screaming and crying, trying to hold her daughter while Liberty pushed her away with one hand, and cradled Peggy with the other. Jim was pulling at me – trying to get me out of the way, trying to hit me, I couldn’t tell. And Liberty was shouting at someone, but I couldn’t work out who, and then I got it. It seemed strange to me that, out of all the people she could be addressing, Liberty was talking to the BMW driver with the mobile playing Waltzing Matilda’.

  ‘Ambulance,’ she said. ‘Call an ambulance!’

  I wondered what had been so important. A text message from his girlfriend, I thought. He’s just like me.

  In his own little dream world, hurting everyone around him.

  Peggy fractured her leg.

  That was it. That was all. And that was bad enough – I hope I never see a child in that much pain again – but we sat in the back of the ambulance knowing that she could have been killed.