There was something inherently sexy about the Valencian sun though, wasn’t there? Because Maggie and Craig weren’t the only two people burning midnight calories… We were so in love on that holiday. I felt like I was twenty all over again. I felt amazing.
April made friends with the gardener guy’s daughter, Marina or Marisa or something like that. They hung out together for the full two weeks without ever, I don’t think, exchanging a single word of conversation. Actually, they conversed plenty, they conversed constantly. It’s just that April was doing it in English and Marisa was doing it in Spanish. But somehow they got along fine.
Anyway, everyone was happy and relaxed and sunburnt. Craig, whom we hadn’t really known that well, turned out to be generous and easy-going and funny. And Maggie was so utterly, utterly relaxed that I finally convinced myself that I had made your whole affair thing up in my own head. And so I felt even more guilty about my own.
That said, I was never that comfortable about leaving you two alone together. It’s funny how our brains can hold multiple truths, isn’t it? Because, I mean, I really did believe both that you two had had a fling together and that you hadn’t.
I read a thing about Schrödinger's cat the other day. According to our cleverest scientists, this theoretical cat is neither dead nor alive until someone opens the box to check. It’s in a sort of suspended halfway state for some reason that I didn’t quite grasp. But I think your affair is a bit like Schrödinger's cat in that it neither existed nor didn’t exist, essentially because I decided to never look inside that box. That makes me, I suspect, something of a coward.
I actually intended to open the box while we were in Valencia – I fully intended to have a showdown with Maggie and find out once and for all. But we were having so much fun together that the moment never seemed right. And by the end of it, as I say, I’d pretty much convinced myself that it had never happened and that I would come over as an idiot if I asked her.
Do you remember that winery that Craig took us to on the final weekend? They had all of these bottles of fifty-euro Valencian wine lined up for us to try and Craig tried to tell us that we were meant to taste it and then spit it back out. We didn’t believe him at first – he was always joking about one thing or another, after all – but then they brought us a bowl to spit in and these little white towels to dab our lips on, and we realised that it was true.
“This is the best wine I’ve ever had,” you said. “I’m not spitting the bloody stuff out!”
Oh, we got so drunk, Sean, it was shameful. We even had to leave the hire car there and get a taxi back to the villa. You fell out of the taxi when we got home, too, and then I tripped over your legs and we ended up uncontrollably laughing in this writhing mass in the car park. That continued until Maggie arrived and yanked us upright and reminded us that we had a daughter to pick up from the gardener’s cottage down the way.
I felt so ill the next day. That journey to the airport was one of the worst experiences of my entire life.
The next morning, I woke up to drizzle in Cambridge and felt as miserable as I ever have. My chest and jaw seemed to hurt, too, and it wasn’t until you got home and said that you had the same symptoms that we worked out that it was from all that laughing. I don’t think I had ever ached from laughter before, nor have since.
Getting home was even worse for Maggie because her American went back to Los Angeles. I’m not sure if you ever knew this – she didn’t seem keen on anyone else knowing – but he asked her to go back with him, to live in America. He tried for ages to convince her – the phone calls went on for months. And I tried my best to convince her too, for both selfless and selfish reasons. But she just kept saying, “What the hell would I do in Los Angeles?” To which there was no simple answer other than, “Let yourself be happy, perhaps?”
But happiness, as they say, is an option. And I just don’t think Maggie was ever very good at choosing it.
• • •
When April arrives on Saturday morning, Sean is busy vacuuming the sofa. He jumps visibly when April, behind him, coughs loudly.
“Jesus!” he exhales, stomping on the power switch of the cleaner which whines slowly to a halt. “Are you trying to kill me? Do you want your inheritance right now or something?”
April pulls a cute face and shrugs. “I rang. I knocked… I don’t know what else I’m supposed to do. Send a telegram, maybe?”
Sean’s regard drops to April’s belly. “Oh, look!” he says. “You have a baby bump.”
“I know,” April says. “He’s huge, huh?”
“He is!” Sean agrees. “And you’re only…” Sean frowns, then adds, “He?”
April nods. “Twenty weeks. He’s big for his age. He’s going to be an American basketball player, I think.”
“You mean he’s going to be black?” Sean asks facetiously.
April nods with mock seriousness. “Of course. Ronan’s going to be thrilled.”
“Anyway, come in, come in!” Sean says, stomping repeatedly on another button until the cable starts to snake inside the cleaner. “I’ll put the kettle on. Um, sit down.”
April watches bemusedly as he puts the cleaner away in the cupboard under the stairs and then starts to fill the kettle. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you with the Hoover before. I’m surprised you know how it works.”
“Cheeky!” Sean says, glancing up at her. “You’ve seen me do the hoovering a thousand times more often than you ever saw your mother do it. And don’t even get me started on how many times you did it. I can count those on two fingers.” He joins finger and thumb to form a zero.
April frowns thoughtfully before saying, “Actually, that’s true. I don’t know why I even said that.”
“Sexism,” Sean says. “Just sexism. The river of sexism flows both ways Little Daughter. Actually, I’m going to have to stop calling you that, aren’t I?”
“I think so,” April says. “Try lardy daughter. Or roly-poly daughter.”
“So, how have you been? How are you feeling?”
“Fine really. Full of beans. All the tests and everything are good. I’m not sleeping too well. I can’t seem to sleep on my front anymore. But on my back, I snore. And then I wake myself up. So, that’s a bit of a pain.”
“And Ronan, you’re waking him up too, presumably?”
“Nah. Nothing wakes Ronan up.”
“And it’s a boy, then?”
“Yes. We’re thinking Jack or Jake or… What?”
Sean who is grimacing does his best to relax his facial muscles. “Just… not Jake. Preferably.”
“Why not?”
“Jakes are always arseholes, that’s all.”
April’s eyebrows twitch, and then she visibly decides not to pursue it. “OK, so, Jack, or Josh, or Jim.”
“What’s with all the Js, anyway?”
April shrugs. “I don’t know. We both just like them. That’s all.”
“Fair enough. As long as it’s not Jake.”
“But they sound joyful, I think. Joyful Jim. Joyful Jake. I mean, Jack. Sorry. Anyway, enough of baby names. How are you, Dad?”
Sean pulls cups from the cupboard and drops tea bags into them. “I’m – oh, can you drink normal tea? You can, can’t you?” April nods, so he continues, “I’m fine. Busy. But that’s good.”
“You know, you don’t talk about it much anymore,” April says. “The whole Mum thing, I mean.”
“No?”
“No. And I’ve been struggling to know whether I should mention it or if I shouldn’t mention it. I’m just, you know, putting it out there. So you can tell me. I hate worrying about stuff like that.”
Sean nods as he pours the water into the cups. “I think I’m better not talking about it at the moment. If that’s OK with you?”
He thinks he has managed to sound relaxed but that’s perhaps not the case because April replies, “That’s fine. But you sound angry. It’s not with me, is it?”
“Angry?” Sean sa
ys with surprise.
“Yes. Angry.”
“Oh…” Sean shrugs. “It's one of those phases, isn’t it? Denial, numbness, whatever, and anger.” He sighs. “I’m probably not doing them in the right order, though. I never was one for following instructions.”
“OK,” April says. “If that’s all it is.”
“But, really, I’m fine. And I’m better not talking about it right now. Really, I am. But I appreciate you asking.”
“Good. Well, that’s sorted, then.”
A silence falls over them, a silence during which the only sound in the kitchen is the gentle throb of the refrigerator and the noise of the teaspoon against the side of the cup as Sean squashes the teabag with it.
“Right. When are we seeing this amazing flat of yours?” April eventually asks.
“Three o’clock,” Sean replies, turning to look at his daughter and forcing a smile. “After I’ve bought you lunch down on the river.”
• • •
“So this is 4A,” Bonnie, the estate agent announces breathlessly. She is visibly overweight, yet has had to brave the staircase as the lift is in the process of being serviced.
“Oh, it’s gorgeous!” April says, stepping inside. “There’s so much light. And the sun’s not even out.”
Sean follows his daughter into the living area.
“Are those…? Those are the originals, aren’t they?” April asks, pointing towards the kitchen units.
“They are. And look at this.” Sean crosses to the worktop, fiddles with a catch and pulls out a long swivelling table. “Gosh, it’s as-new,” he says. “It looks like they never used it.”
“Maybe no one told them it was there.”
“Now, I didn’t know that was there,” Bonnie comments. “Have you been here before, then?”
“Not this unit,” Sean says. “But they’re all the same. At least they were, fifteen years ago.”
“How nice,” Bonnie says, as if she hasn’t really been listening at all. “Now, it’s only a one bedroom,” she continues as she starts to waddle towards the rear of the unit, “but you could perhaps put a partition in here if you wanted to make a box room for baby.”
Sean, who is suddenly feeling uncomfortable, opens his mouth to explain that April is his daughter and that she won’t be living here.
But he is beaten to it by April, who says, “Baby? What baby’s that then?”
Bonnie visibly pales. “Oh… I’m… Um…” She swallows. “I’m sorry… I just assumed.”
April runs one hand over her bump and shakes her head. “Doughnuts,” she says. “I can’t get enough of them.”
“Right,” Bonnie says. “Well, I… I certainly couldn’t fault you on that. Doughnuts are famously difficult to resist.”
Sean catches his daughter’s eye and has to bite his cheek to avoid laughing as April replies, “Yes. Well, too difficult for me, anyway.”
Other than showing them around the apartment, Bonnie is unable to answer any of Sean’s questions about the price, the availability, or who the seller might be. “I brought the wrong folder,” she says, waving said folder at Sean. “And I’ve a memory like a sieve. I’m so sorry. I’m rubbish today – honestly I am.”
Once they’re safely in Sean’s car with the doors firmly closed, he says, “Now, that was cruel. You completely threw poor Bonnie off her stride.”
“Oh, don’t be silly,” April says. “It was just a bit of fun.”
“It would have been. If she hadn’t so clearly been a doughnut fan.”
April sniggers and bites her lip. “Yeah. I didn’t think about that until I’d said it. You know me. Shoot first. Think afterwards. But I don’t think she thought I was getting at her, did she?”
“No,” Sean admits. “No, I think she thought she’d found a partner in crime. Someone to eat doughnuts with. Which is why it was so cruel.”
“Hey, I like doughnuts,” April says. “Actually, I could kill a doughnut right now. Is there a cake shop anywhere?”
“We could go for coffee at Clowns,” Sean offers. “But I don’t think they do doughnuts.”
“Ooh, Clowns,” April says. “I wonder if they still do that carrot cake with all the–”
“They do,” Sean interrupts, laughing. “It hasn’t changed in twenty years. Can you drink coffee though?”
“I’ll have decaf. Or tea. Or hot chocolate. I’ll have anything as long as I can have cake.”
As they are sitting down with their tray, Sean’s phone rings. “It’s Bonnie,” he says, flashing the screen at April so that she can see. “She wants to join us for cake, I expect. Hello?” He spends a few minutes saying, “Yes,” and, “No, I see,” and, “Really?” before finally hanging up.
“More info?” April asks through a mouthful of cake.
“Lots,” Sean says. “The sellers are German, apparently. And they’re moving back to Frankfurt because of Brexit. His job’s been moved there.”
“There’s a lot of that about,” April says, looking concerned. “I think Britain’s going to be like a big empty car park by the time they’ve finished with their Brexit bollocks.”
“Anyway, that’s good news for me, because Bonnie reckons they’re desperate for a quick sale. She says I should make an offer.”
“Gosh,” April says. “So, what do you think?”
“What do you think?” Sean asks, sipping his coffee.
“Oh, how would I know? I have no idea how much places cost in…”
“No,” Sean interrupts. “Do you think I should move? Do you mind me moving?”
April shakes her head, slowly but definitely. “No, I don’t mind. And yes, you should definitely move.”
“There’s no spare bedroom,” Sean reminds her.
“You’ll have to buy a sofa bed, then. One of those good ones with a proper mattress and springs and everything.”
Sean nods. “Plus, Bonnie was right. There really is room for a folding partition in the bedroom. So I could make a box room.”
“For my doughnut?”
Sean laughs. “Yes, for your doughnut.”
“So, you see,” April says. “It’s made for you. Hell, it’s almost like it was designed for you, Dad.”
“Hell,” Sean says, with a smile, “It’s almost like it was designed by me.”
Snapshot #26
35mm format, colour. A group of adults, perhaps fifteen people, are frozen in motion by the flash of the camera. Their faces are animated and joyous. A young woman to the right, behind the sofa, is throwing streamers.
So are we really doing this? Sean wonders. Am I really going to continue listening to these, one a week, as prescribed?
He feels like a stooge; he feels as if he has been conned into something by Catherine against his will. He should be stronger, he thinks. He should just say “no” surely? But the truth of the matter is that he likes these tapes. He enjoys them. He needs them.
Even after the pain of discovering Catherine’s infidelity, he needs them, perhaps even more than before. Because something has been broken, and who else has the power to fix it if it isn’t Catherine?
Today’s photo is of Sean’s fiftieth birthday party.
He had wanted to invite a few friends to the local pub but Catherine had pretended to be ill.
“Please,” she had said. “Can we do it in a week or so, once I’ve shaken this horrible flu thing?” Sean had acquiesced. He hadn’t been feeling particularly enthusiastic about being fifty anyway.
But when he had returned home from work on the Friday night to a dark, apparently empty house, he had regretted the decision. Because nothing, it seemed, could be more depressing than not celebrating his fiftieth birthday at all.
When he had turned on the light, they had screamed. April had released party poppers which had thrown streamers into the air.
He studies the faces. They had all been there: Catherine (who had taken the photo) and April, Maggie, Steve and Cheryl, Jim and Pete… There’s only one face in the
image that he can’t put a name to. A serious blonde woman, a German temp who had replaced their usual receptionist at Nicholson-Wallace. Petra, perhaps? Sean thinks.
There had been food and drink and Jim had brought a PA system and a pile of disco CDs. It had been a brilliant party, perhaps the best one ever.
The only negative, in fact, had been Maggie. For Maggie, still smarting no doubt from her separation from Craig, had bent his ear for almost an hour, beneath a streetlight, at the end of the road. She had been drunk and maudlin and uncharacteristically sombre about her future. “I’m going to get a cat,” Sean remembers her telling him with drunken insistence. “I’m going to get ten cats. I’m going to become a cat lady.” By the time she had finished, he had felt quite miserable.
Cassette #26
Hello Munchkin,
Here’s another memory for you: September, 2013. Your fiftieth.
Maggie, who was single and out of work at the time, offered to do all of the organising. And because it was so much easier for her to do it than it was for me to sneak around behind your back, I gave in. She made quiches and sandwiches and nibbles on sticks. She drove out to some cheap booze place in Luton and came back with enough alcohol to open a nightclub.
April was upset because Ronan, who she had just met, couldn’t make it, but she soon got over that when I gave her all the party poppers to pop. Even pushing thirty, she could never resist a party-popper. She actually let one off by accident just minutes before you arrived, and we had to scramble around to clean all the streamers up so that they wouldn’t be a giveaway when you walked in.
Jim supplied the music, and it was wonderful to dance again. I hadn’t really danced like that since Wolverhampton. In fact, even at college parties, I was always far too busy concentrating on looking cool to let myself go. But at that party, the music was brilliant and I was drunk and yet not a smidgen more drunk than required, and I danced, I think, from about eight until it ended.
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