Lessons for a Sunday Father

by Claire Calman

  “Nathan!”

  “—doctor bloke about me? Three, that’s just crap, that is—how can getting tall make you not know where the stupid table is? He must be bonkers. And four—”

  She looked at her watch, then back at me. God, that really gets to me. Every time.

  “Is this going on much longer, Nathan? Only I’ve got to get off to church to confess to being a bad mother. They let you off with only three Hail Marys if you get there before ten.”

  “Oh ha, ha. Excuse me while I pick myself up off the floor, I’m laughing so hard. And four—you’re always saying it’s rude to interrupt—”

  “Is that number four …?”

  “You did it again! You did it again! I don’t believe this.”

  “You’ve forgotten what number four is, haven’t you, Nathan?”

  “No, I haven’t. I haven’t. It’s just you interrupting me all the time. It’s a miracle I can speak at all having grown up with you lot and Rosie squealing all the time and you being all smart-arsy and Dad being—well—”

  I saw her blink when I mentioned Dad. Good. Serves her right for being so mean and talking about me to a doctor as if I’m some kind of loony or something.

  “Anyway, I didn’t forget. Number four is, I am not awkward and don’t go round telling everyone I’m some kind of dribbling retard who drops things all the time.” My foot slipped on the table leg then so my chair suddenly rocked forward again with a thunk. Mum rolled her eyes in that “Kids, eh!” way she does, so I kicked the table leg and got up and shoved the chair in until it hit the table. Then I walked out and nearly knocked myself out on the stupid doorframe. So I kicked that as well and went up to my room, digging my toes in to make semicircles on the stair carpet just to annoy her.

  She came and knocked on my door when tea was ready but I said I didn’t want any. What’s the point? If I’m not there, she and Rosie can eat on their own and be all giggly and girlie. I’m not listening to all that. So I waited till they’d done, then I went down and put mine in the microwave and had it in front of the TV. I’d rather eat on my own anyhow.

  Scott

  Harry’s taken to asking me if I’m all right practically every half an hour. He’s not clueless, he knows something’s up. If Gail had been sensible and taken me back by now, I’d never have had to tell him. It’s weird though, aside from my kids, Harry’s the last person in the world I’d want to know how badly I’ve loused up—but at the same time, it’d be a real load off my mind to tell him. I don’t like hiding stuff from him. He’s always been straight with me. Maybe it won’t be so bad. I just don’t want to feel like I’ve let him down, you know? Harry wouldn’t cheat on Maureen in a thousand years. It’s not that he’s blind to other women, he’s got an eye for a short skirt same as any man, but he’d never act on it, never. Harry couldn’t tell a lie to save his life.

  I feel worse about telling him than my parents. I’ll get round to notifying them at some point, but it’s not like they’re ringing up morning, noon and night enquiring after my welfare, you know? They’re quite fond of Rosie, I guess, in their own way, but I once heard my dad say to Nat, “You’re just like your father was at your age,” and, no, it wasn’t meant as a compliment. Luckily, Nat thought it was—he looked up to me then—and he went round with a big smile on his face. I’ve never forgotten it. I looked at my dad and I didn’t say a word, but inside I was thinking, “See, you miserable git, not everyone thinks I’m a waste of space. My son loves me—and that’s all that matters.” Dad looked away and poured himself some more beer without offering me any.

  The only reason I’ll have to tell them at all, the parents, I mean—yeah, that’s how I think of them, the parents, like the Browns or the Smiths, like someone else’s family. We happen to be related but I figure it was just down to a glitch in the universe or a mix-up at the hospital. If it wasn’t for the fact I look practically like a replica of Himself when he was younger, I’d swear for sure I’d been adopted. Though why anyone who doesn’t like kids would take the trouble to adopt them I’ve no idea. Oh yeah, I’ll have to let them know—and suffer the barrage of I-told-you-so and marriage-is-for-life and but-it’s-no-surprise-to-us stuff and other tokens of parental love and support—I’ll have to tell them I’m not at home just now in case one of them croaks, ‘cause they’ll need someone to pay the undertaker.

  Anyway. Telling Harry.

  Friday. It’s ten to eight in the morning and I’m sitting in the office. One good thing about staying with Jeff is I’m getting in to work earlier and earlier every day to spend as little time as possible in his house. I hear Harry come in. The lads aren’t here yet, but I’ve not got long so I know I’d better get on with it.

  “Harry?”

  “Yup.” He sits down and looks at me over the tops of his glasses. This is hard. I want to tell him, but I don’t know what to say. Maybe I’ll do it later.

  “Coffee?” Just tell him for God’s sake, just say it.

  “Oh, go on then.” He nods and stretches up for the green invoice file. “And Scott?”

  I’m on my feet, heading for the kettle.

  “Fill me in some time about what’s up with you, will you? The suspense is doing me in.”

  I stand behind him, so I can’t see his face. “You’ve not got a terminal whatsit, illness, or anything?” he says.

  Weirdly, the thought makes me laugh. Life would be a whole lot better, a whole lot simpler if I was dying. I’d be so brave, struggling to speak as Gail lovingly tips a glass of water to my lips, tears pouring down her cheeks as she whispers how much she loves me, how she can’t imagine life without me. Sheila would rush down from Scotland to be by my bedside. Russ might even fly over from Canada, you never know. And the kids—ah, no. No. At least I’m not dying. Things could be worse. (If you’re listening, God, that’s not a request, that last statement; this is plenty bad enough, thanks.)

  “No, no.” I pat him on the shoulder. “I might look as though I’m at death’s door. And, yeah, I feel like it too, but physically I am A-OK and—”

  We both jump as the bell dings—someone’s come in the main door.

  “Aww-right?” Lee’s face appears round the edge of the doorway. He comes barging right in and starts telling us how smashed he got last night, then the phone starts going, Gary arrives, blinking and bleary-eyed, and Denise comes in and starts fussing round my desk.

  Finally, I get off the phone and Harry looks across at me.

  “We’ve not been fishing for ages,” he says. “Fancy going down the coast one night?”

  I nod. Fishing. Fresh air. Sound of the sea. Clear my head a bit.

  “Yeah, good one. When?”

  “I’m easy. Tonight?”

  “Why not? You check the tides, I’ll get the bait.”

  Even though I’ve got the keys to home now, I’m not going to chance zipping in and whipping away my fishing gear. I reckon Gail would be bound to notice. We could just take Harry’s tilley lamp and windbreak, but I still need my rods and stool. I’ll have to call Gail. Oh joy, oh joy.

  “Hi, it’s me, but you can keep your hair on, I’m not ringing to get up your nose. I just want to pick up my fishing stuff.”

  “Good. I’ve been meaning to clear out that cupboard for ages.”

  “Well, there you are then. This’ll give you a head start.”

  I go over at three, before Gail has to go fetch Rosie from school.

  She doesn’t say a word when she opens the door, just gestures to the cupboard.

  “I don’t need to take it all now …” I start selecting the stuff I need just for tonight.

  “I’d rather you didn’t leave anything.”

  It takes me three trips, backwards and forwards to the car.

  “Well, that’s that then.” I stand on the front step. “Gail, I—”

  She’s not looking at me, but she shakes her head, her mouth pinched tight shut.

  “Sorry,” she says, “I can’t—it’s—I have to go. Rosie �
��” “Course.” I want to hold her, I want to stroke her hair and hold her close as I can, tell her I can make everything all right again. I try to gulp down the lump in my throat. The door starts to close. “Tell her I’ll see her Sunday!”

  We pull up by the promenade just after 9.30 p.m. Harry gets out and looks up at the sky. It’s a clear night, cold but not raining at least, and the stars are sharp and bright as pins. There’s already a line of blokes dotted along the shore. Fathers and sons mostly, I reckon, but maybe some are just mates like me and Harry. We lug all the stuff down onto the beach and set up.

  And now we’re done fiddling with the rods and the bait and the tripods and the shelter and the lamp. There’s just me and Harry and the sound of the sea sucking at the shingle and the sky dark and huge above us.

  “Um …” I start promisingly. Why is this so hard? “Might even land a bit of cod tonight.”

  “Only if we go down the chip shop.” Harry laughs and lights up one of those funny slim cigars. God, I’d love a smoke. I haven’t touched one for nearly seven years, but I could murder a fag right now. I mustn’t. I promised Nat I wouldn’t. “So, what’s occurring then?”

  “Thing is …” I get up and start fiddling with my reel. “… I’m not exactly living at home right now …” Firm in the tripod a bit more with the edge of my foot “… See, Gail and me—well, she sort of threw me out and she doesn’t seem in a tearing hurry to have me back.”

  Harry doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t make any crass jokes. He nods and passes me a Kit-Kat.

  “Hm-mm. Another woman, was it?”

  “Well, yes—and no. Yes, there was, but it was very brief and it really didn’t count, and no, there isn’t now and it didn’t mean anything anyway. But Gail won’t believe me or, even if she does, she’s using it as an excuse to get shot of me. She looks at me like I’m a bit of dogshit on her shoe.”

  Harry laughs at that, but not in a snide way, and he turns to face me.

  “So, where’ve you been staying?”

  “At my mate Jeff’s. He lives like a student, only without the books or the brains. He’s forty-two but still believes in the washing-up fairy—just thinks it keeps missing his house by accident. I spend every night clearing up. I’ve never done so much cleaning. Still, stops me thinking. About everything.”

  “Stay with us.” It’s somewhere between an invitation and a command and his tone takes me by surprise. I wonder if he’s just saying it because he feels sorry for me.

  “It’s decent of you, mate, but I—”

  “I mean it. We’ve got a spare room. We’d love to have you, give Maureen someone to fuss over again.”

  “No, Harry.” I poke another finger of Kit-Kat into my mouth for something to do but it feels thick and sticky on my tongue. “I wouldn’t want to put you out.” I look down at my feet.

  Harry picks up the Thermos and pours us both some coffee.

  “You wouldn’t be, you daft bugger. Not at all. It’d mean a lot to us, in fact. You know, since Chris went away …” That’s his son, who went off for a trip Down Under years ago, met this Aussie woman and settled down, never came back, ‘cept about once every three or four years “You’ve been—well. You know what I mean.” He gets out his hankie and vigorously wipes his nose with it. It’s a white cotton one, the sort no-one has any more, ‘cept old guys like Harry. “You’re more than welcome’s all I’m saying.”

  * * *

  “It should only be for a couple of nights,” I assure Maureen as I stand on her front step the next evening, having told Jeff I couldn’t impose on his generous hospitality a moment longer (if I stayed another night there, I’d be tempted to do away with myself—eat the contents of his fridge for a guaranteed death by salmonella). Maureen flutters round me, trying to take off my jacket while I’m still holding my bag plus some chocolates I picked up for her on the way. “I’m sure Gail and I can straighten things out.” My voice sounds confident, the voice of a man barely disturbed by a minor temporary setback. I have resolved to be positive. She can’t really mean it’s all over, can she? She’s just having me on, trying to put the wind up me.

  “You stay as long as you like.” Harry claps me on the shoulder and takes my bag.

  “It’s nice for us to have a bit of comp’ny.” Maureen toddles off into the kitchen. “Nice cup of tea, Scott?”

  I fancy a nice beer actually. Or a nice several beers. Or a double Scotch and soda.

  “Tea would be lovely, Maureen. Thank you.” See, I do have manners when I need to. Gail says I’m beyond help, but then everything I do or say is wrong to her, so what can you expect?

  The spare room is bright and cheerful enough and the bed feels comfy when I sit on it.

  “This was Chris’s room.” Maureen says it with rever- ence, as if he’d died or something, but I resist the urge to bow my head. “You’ve not much with you.” She nods at my bag.

  “No.” The back of my car is chock-a-block with my stuff in bags and boxes covered over with that old check blanket, and Harry’s stowed my fishing things in his shed. “There’s a bit more in the car.”

  “Fine!” Harry opens the wardrobe doors wide. “Plenty of space in here. Plenty of space!”

  I feel like a kid who’s been allowed to go and stay with his favourite aunt. Not that I ever did, ‘cept for one time when Mum was ill with some “trouble in the downstairs department,” as she put it. I don’t know what was wrong with her because everyone stopped speaking any time us kids came in. She had to go into hospital for a few days, though, and because there were three of us—Russ and Sheil and me—and obviously my dad couldn’t take care of a hamster for half an hour, never mind three children, we were palmed off to three different houses. I went and stayed with Jessie, Mum’s younger sister. I don’t know why we never saw her the rest of the time, I think maybe there’d been a bit of a falling-out. Well, for me, it was like being treated like royalty. When I got there with my pyjamas and that in a carrier bag, I didn’t have anything so grand as a suitcase, Aunt Jessie gave me a hug and a kiss then told me to sit by the fire while she made the tea. Then she called me through to the kitchen and I had lamb chops (two!) with crinkle-cut chips and there were peas and tomatoes and mushrooms. And fizzy limeade to drink. It was bright green. Then I had a big deep bath, deep enough to practise holding my breath underwater, and they let me stay up and watch a film on telly with them. Then Aunt Jessie said, “Off to bed with you now, Dennis.” I know, it’s before I decided to call myself Scott. “You pop up and I’ll come and tuck you in in five minutes. Don’t forget to brush your teeth.”

  And she did! She came up and tucked me in! Like in a storybook. She sat on the edge of the bed and told me not to worry about my mum (I wasn’t), and she’d be better soon and I said, “If she doesn’t get better, can I come and live here?”

  She laughed and said I was a little angel, but that I wasn’t to upset myself, of course Mum would get better.

  Then she bent over and kissed me—right here on my forehead. She tiptoed to the door.

  “Shall I leave the landing light on, or do you not mind the dark now you’re a big boy?”

  At home, we barely had the lights on at all—"I’m not burning money leaving lights on day and night.”

  And then I did something I’ve never done since, something we used to have to do at school, something I’d stopped bothering with once I’d realized it didn’t work.

  I prayed.

  I prayed that I could live there for ever with Aunt Jessie and Uncle Mikey, I prayed that they’d like me so much that they wouldn’t let Mum and Dad have me back. Worse, I prayed that Mum wouldn’t get better so they’d have to keep me. Then I prayed that, if I couldn’t stay, then would God at least let me die in the night so that the last thing I’d know was the smell of chops coming up the stairs, the murmur of my aunt and uncle talking in the front room, the sheets and blankets tucked so tight around me I could barely move and the spot on my forehead where I’d been kissed good night.
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  Rosie

  Dad has gone to stay at Harry and Maureen’s. He says it is only going to be for a few days most probably but that’s what he said when he went to his friend Jeff’s and he was there for weeks. I said is it like being on a sleep-over like if I go round Kira’s or she comes to stay and we talk in the dark till her mum or my mum comes in and tells us to shut up and go to sleep. Dad said it wasn’t quite the same because he sleeps in a different room, so he has nobody to talk to when they turn the light off. I wanted to know if him and Mum talked in the dark when he was still at home, but I thought maybe it would make him go all sad again so I never asked. I think mostly grown-ups don’t talk much when they have a sleepover because that means they are doing IT. Nat says grown-ups are always shagging and even when they’re not they’re thinking about it or wanting to do it. He says he thinks about it the whole time, but I bet he doesn’t because he won’t even be fourteen for ages and ages, not till next year, and he’s never done more than have a snog. Anyway, I think he’s lying about them doing it all the time because when you listen to grownups they’re always going on about how tired they are and what wouldn’t they give to have more sleep. Dad says when you’re a kid you spend your whole life wanting to stay up late but then when you’re grown-up and can stay up as late as you like, all you want is to go to bed early. But when I’m a grown-up I will stay up till 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning most nights probably and I won’t get tired at all. And I’ll eat sweets in bed, I’m going to have this great big jar of them, pear drops and cola cubes and Fruitellas and sherbert lemons all mixed up together, right by the bed so I won’t even have to get up and I’ll never brush my teeth.

  My dad phones me every other day at the same time and I sit on the stairs to be ready for 7 o’clock. Nat shouts at me to hurry up.