When we finally get there, I unfold myself from the back seat, give him too big a tip, and concentrate on slotting my key into the lock, trying to do it silently which of course means I make fourteen times as much noise as normal.
Miraculously, some flowers have appeared in my room, with a card propped up against the vase, signed from Fiona and Dave. On the bed are another two cards and a package, plus a note from Fiona saying they were dropped off earlier in the day.
Three birthday cards. See, not everyone in the world hates me.
The first envelope says Dad in childish writing. I knew Rosie wouldn’t forget.
The card says “Happy Birthday Daddy! You are 41! [thanks] Lots of love from Rosie. XXX” The writing is in blue, with mauve kisses. She’s made it herself. On the front is a purple butterfly, made of cut-out bits of felt, with silver glitter on its wings. The package is also from Rosie. I tear off the paper, which is patterned with yellow teddy bears, and find a box. Inside is something heavy, wrapped in pink tissue.
It is a mug. White and hand-painted. On one side there is a man with dark hair and a blue shirt, I guess meant to be me, holding hands with a girl—Rosie—wearing a mauve dress. On the other side, it says, in shaky lettering, I LOVE MY DADDY.
The other card—amazingly, unbelievably—is from Nat. As I open it, I realize I’ve spent the whole day trying to tell myself there’ll be no card from him, preparing myself for the fact that my son wants nothing to do with me. But here, right here on this bed, is a card. Inside, Nat’s written “To Dad.” Then there’s one of those verses:
I hope this birthday is the best
That you have ever had
Because to me you are the tops,
The greatest living Dad.
I’ll spare you what happens next, but let’s just say I get a bit choked up and—well, it’s a pitiful sight and I’m just dead glad—for once—that I’m in that room all on my own. I’m a forty-one-year-old man sitting on a single bed in a rented room with no life and no future sobbing his guts out. So why is it that, suddenly, I feel like this is the best birthday I’ve ever had?
Lesson Three
Scott
I’m still in Limbo Land at the moment, a kind of elephants’ graveyard where the rootless ghosts of what used to be real men with wives, homes and families go to drift about until they get themselves Sorted. “Things’ll improve as soon as I’m Sorted,” we say. “It’ll be easier when I’m Sorted.” “Once I’m Sorted, I’ll have a proper place with a Jacuzzi and a snooker table and one of those Yank fridges as big as a Cadillac with that ice dispenser gadget on the front and I’ll leave empty lager cans all over the lounge floor if I want.” I’m beginning to suspect that Being Sorted isn’t something that automatically happens: you serve your misery and living-out-of-a-suitcase time and then you get your Sorted badge. I have a nasty feeling that it might involve having to Do Something. Even the thought makes me want to go and lie down (with a magazine under my shoes—I’ve had my feet lifted that many times to have a bloody Family Circle slid underneath it’s become a habit, even though it used to make me feel like a dish of peanuts being plonked down on a coaster).
I must, must, MUST get my own place soon. No two ways about it. A flat probably, just to rent. There’s no point buying somewhere—even if I could afford it—because Gail might still have me back. I’ve not given up on us yet. And maybe, if she sees that I’m behaving myself, got a flat, and I’m keeping it nice and clean and everything, well, she’ll see that I am responsible after all, that I’m not such a bad bloke. Plus then Rosie could come and stay on the weekend. And—. Well. Maybe in a while. See how we go. One thing at a time. Still, I could go and see a couple of letting agents. Rosie can come too. She likes helping her dad.
Then I’ll have somewhere proper to bring her when it rains. Couple of weeks ago it pissed down and we’d seen every kids’ movie going, so I ended up bringing her back to show her my room at the B&B. It’s all right, but it’s not the same as a real home, is it? I’ve put up the new wallpaper now, but it’s all a bit heavy on the rosebuds and frilly curtains for a bloke. There’s this kidney-shaped dressing-table with a glass top over some sort of pink cloth and a pink padded stool that’s so low it feels like you’re sitting on a potty. I’ve a kettle at least and a couple of cups, but the kettle lead’s so short I have to kneel down on the floor or balance on the potty-stool to make the tea—it’s like one of those effing pens in the bank on three inches of bloody chain, as if your whole life’s ambition is to nick a snidy plastic biro with some naff logo on the side and a nib that’s all gunged up with ink. Yeah, that’d be worth whipping out your lapel pocket with a flourish, impress your mates. Rosie was a total star about the room, of course, said it was lovely and she sat at the dressing-table and pretended to powder her nose and all that. And she’s promised to paint me a picture to put up on the wall. She’s good as gold, don’t know where she gets it from. And what was it she said last week? Oh, yeah, that’s it. I said I’d take her to this place that does these brilliant ice-cream sundaes. And like a berk I didn’t bother to check first and we get there and it’s shut—'cause it’s a Sunday, see. It’d have been better if she’d had a bit of a moan or demanded loads of sweets instead. But she didn’t. She just said, “Never mind, Daddy, we’ll get lollies from the sweet shop"—like that, as if she were consoling me. I felt gutted. I’m going daft in my old age.
Don’t get me wrong. Fiona and Dave’s place—the B&B—it’s OK, and I’ve enjoyed the decorating. I’ve been giving them a hand with the other rooms in lieu of rent. Gail would never believe it if she could see me now. I’m a changed man, honestly I am. At home it was always nag, nag, nag—when are you going to finish doing the bathroom?—you said you’d put up that shelf—what’re the chances of getting that door fixed before the next millennium? It felt like she was on my case the whole time, you know? Thing is, I actually like doing this stuff. I’m not bad at DIY and all that and, call me sad, but I get a bit of a kick when I’ve finished a project and you can see you’ve made a good job of it. But when you’re being nagged to do it, you somehow go off the whole idea. You feel like you’re right back at school and teacher’s giving you a flea in your ear about the homework you never handed in (again).
Come to think of it, a lot of the time I felt like I was a bit of a disappointment to Gail, like I was a snotty kid who was always coming in from playing with dirty knees and ruined shoes. Or a bad dog who kept getting under her feet and she’d have been a whole lot happier if I could have stayed in my basket and stopped bothering her. Well, I guess she’s got what she wanted now.
Maybe I could do some decorating jobs on the side to earn a bit more. Fiona and Dave said I was way better than some other guy they’d used. He was pricey, too, that’s why they started trying to do it all themselves and why it’s taking them for ever. I could have a business card done and everything, make it all pukka.
Reminds me, I said I’d go back to Harry’s and do their downstairs cloakroom as a thank-you. I owe them both big time. Maureen’s taking an age to decide on the colour. She’s keen on those not-quite-white shades, you know? Can’t see the point of them myself. I mean, have a colour or don’t have a colour, make your mind up. I can’t be fannying about with this white with a hint of pink bollocks. Harry’s been saying he’d do it for ages, but he’s not got round to it. Says when he gets home, he just flops into his armchair and falls asleep in front of the telly. Poor old stick, he’s looking his age. I keep telling him to cut down on his days, but you know what Harry’s like. Even when he’s on holiday, he phones in every day. I reckon he thinks of First Glass like it’s his baby or something. Must be nice to feel like that.
OK, OK, I knew you’d notice. I admit it, I was avoiding the subject deliberately because I don’t—I can’t. Well. What is there to say?
Nat. You’re wondering about Nat, aren’t you? Bet you’re thinking, has the man lost the plot completely? What happened with his son after the birthda
y card? I was kind of hoping you wouldn’t ask. It’s not that I’d forgotten about him. I’d sooner forget how to breathe. I think about him the whole time—when I’m at work or out on a job, driving along listening to the radio, having a quiet pint in the pub. I’m not being sentimental or any of that, it’s just that so many things remind me of him, see? Like, when I go into the paper shop in the morning and I see his favourite crisps and I think of how he used to make himself a crisp sandwich for a snack, standing there, leaning against the kitchen counter and seeing how big a burp he could do. I don’t know where he gets his manners from. Gail’s lot most probably. Or we’ll get some total goofball customer in and I’ll be thinking, “Can’t wait to tell Natty. Natty will crack up when I tell him that.”
But I can’t tell him. It’s well over a month since my birthday, and we’ve had Easter since, but I’ve not seen him once. I thought the card meant that things were OK, that we were cool again. The next morning, I was like a kid on Christmas Eve. I kept thinking of how it would be, all the stuff we could do together again—swimming, roller-blading, fishing off the beach, or just hanging out, computer games, surfing the Net, whatever. So I rang to say thanks for the card, left a message on the machine and said, “See you all Sunday?” Then when I turn up that Sunday, Gail says she’s sorry but he’s gone over to his new girlfriend’s house. I didn’t even know her name or anything and I didn’t want to ask Gail. Next thing you know he’ll be twenty years old and getting married and I won’t know a dicky bird about it until I see the announcement in the paper.
So much for thinking that I’d been taken off the blacklist. Serves me right for daring to believe I might be starting to have some kind of a life. I thought maybe he’d started to grow up a bit. Gail would say that’s rich, coming from me. I guess she’s right. Who am I to talk?
In the beginning, I was convinced Gail had somehow poisoned his mind against me. I told myself she must have done it to get back at me because she’d gone off the deep end about Angela. But even all the time I was trying to convince myself of it, I knew it wasn’t true. Whatever else you may say about Gail, she’d never use the kids that way. She just wouldn’t. I won’t say there haven’t been surprises and I still think she over-reacted ridiculously over one tiddly mistake. But she’s been pretty straight about the kids and, on the whole, she doesn’t do me down in front of Rosie. But I couldn’t figure out why Nat wouldn’t speak to me. OK, I slept with someone else—so that makes me a bad husband. Fair enough. I guess it makes me a cheat, a liar and a louse (feel free to disagree at any point). But I don’t see that it makes me a bad dad, does it? I mean, it was a bloody stupid thing to do, but it’s just between me and Gail, right? It’s nothing to do with Nat and Rosie. So how come I’m the Big Bad Wolf? It’s not like I walked out the door without a backwards glance and shot off to Mexico never to be seen again, is it? I mean, I’m here. I’m doing my best. What more can I do?
Nat
At Easter, I went on a school trip and we did rock climbing and abseiling and canoeing, loads of things. It was pretty cool and Rosie was dead jealous because she couldn’t come. Mum said I should send a postcard to my dad to thank him for paying for the trip, and she gave me some spending money and some stamps and wrote out his address, but I never had time and it’s not like he’d notice anyhow.
Steve wasn’t on the trip ‘cause his family has this ginormous big get-together thing at Easter, when they all go and camp in the fields on his uncle’s fruit farm. Steve says it’s brilliant and they have pillow fights and you get to drink cider and they do barbecues. But it was only his family, so I couldn’t go. I didn’t mind, it was pretty wet most of Easter. Jason came on the trip and he was OK, but when we snuck outside one night with Neil and Kieran ‘cause Neil had brought some fags with him, Jason had a massive great coughing fit when he inhaled so we nearly ended up getting caught.
Me and Joanne started going out. We see each other on the weekend and most days I walk home from school with her and sometimes I go round her house and we hang out there or she comes to mine, and we e-mail each other like the whole time practically. She’s pretty cool.:-) Turn it on its side, stupid. And she sends me this winking one;-)
Rosie keeps saying, “Do you snog? I know you do. What’s snogging like? Tell me, Natty. Tell me, ple-e-e-e-e-ase.” Then she goes, “Do you use your tongues and everything? Kira said snogging’s when you move your tongue all around in the other person’s mouth and that’s why they look like they’re chewing when you see them on TV. But I said then your spit would get all mixed up and that’s disgusting. I’m never going to snog, if I have a boyfriend and he says he wants to snog me I’m keeping my mouth closed the whole time.”
I’m not saying a word.
I’d been going to ask Joanne out for ages, but first she was seeing this other boy from school and then I found out that she’d chucked him, but I didn’t know if she liked me or not. I would have talked to Dad about it, but how are you supposed to ask someone something if they’re not even there? Then one night we were having our tea and Rosie goes, “Natty’s in lo-o-o-o-ve, Natty’s in love!”
“No, I’m not. Stupid.”
“Yes you are and I know who she is and she begins with J.” “Just shut up, all right?”
Then Mum joins in, “C’mon, Rosie love, behave. Don’t wind up your brother.”
Then when Rosie went up to her room, Mum goes, “I don’t want to be nosy, Nat, but I’m really pleased for you if you’ve met someone nice.”
“She’s OK.”
“And … have you asked her out?”
“Mn.”
“Do you know if she likes you?”
“Mn.”
She tops up my Coke then and puts some more ice in it just the way I like it. “You know,” she goes, “women, girls, always like to be asked out …”
“Yeah, but what if she says no, then I’ll feel like a right dipstick, won’t I?”
Mum wrinkles up her nose like this, then she goes,
“There’s worse things in life than feeling like a dipstick from time to time, Nat. Sometimes you have to take a risk, otherwise you might as well live your whole life in a box.”
I dunno. Was funny hearing Mum say dipstick, she never used to say things like that, it was more like the way my dad talks. I wonder what it would be like to live in a box. S’pose it depends how big it is and if it had windows and that. You’d have to have holes at least, for air, and maybe your food would be piped in through a tube or poked through the holes so you could only eat things that would fit—chips one at a time and hot dogs without even the bun. Spaghetti. Fish fingers. No pizza. Life without pizza. Nah, I couldn’t do that.
Sometimes I go round Joanne’s house for tea or on a Sunday and they all sit and eat together and it’s all proper and her mum cooks the tea only they call it supper and her dad’s there and her kid sister and they all talk all at the same time, while they’re eating and everything. Joanne’s dad asked me loads of questions about what I want to do when I grow up and about what I like and that. Then he goes, “And will you be able to keep our daughter in the style to which she’s become accustomed?”
Only his face is dead serious, right? Then Joanne nudges me and says, “Da-a-a-d, stop it!” and her mum’s laughing and she says, “Pay no attention, Nat. My husband has a peculiar sense of humour.”
“Yeah, he does.” I never meant to say it out loud. It just kind of slipped out.
And then they all started laughing again. But it was OK. It was kind of funny really.
Joanne says maybe I should go with Rosie and my dad one time. Like on a Sunday, yeah? Just to see what it’s like. And Jason says it’s not so bad, you get used to it pretty soon and then it seems like only normal and then after a while he says you can’t even remember what it was like before. But I don’t want that to be normal. I like it the way it was before. Otherwise, it’d just be like going to visit your aunty or something, and you’ve got to be on your best behaviour and say thank y
ou for having me and all the time you’re counting the minutes till it’s time to go back home. I reckon it’s probably best if I leave it for now. In any case, it’s not as if he’s missing me or anything. Rosie says they have an excellent time without me, so there’s no point me tagging along and being in the way.
Gail
This morning I stood in the shower and, as I started shampooing my hair, I suddenly noticed that I wasn’t crying, and, what’s more, I didn’t feel like crying. And it wasn’t the first time either. I don’t think I’ve cried for over a fortnight. I can’t believe I didn’t notice before. Maybe my body’s run out of tears. You know I’m not one to witter on about my feelings, but after I faced the fact that I didn’t love Scott any more and, worse, that I’d managed to hide it from myself for so long, I felt just appalling. Sick with shame. Every morning, I’d get out of bed and feel like a newborn foal, facing the shock of being alive on unsteady legs. Then I’d stand in the shower and cry. Like clockwork. Turn on shower, wait for it to get hot, step in, reach for soap, start crying. It felt allowed somehow because I was already wet, if that makes any sense, as if my tears were only so much water, washed down the drain as if they had never been. It felt safe in the bathroom, with the radio turned up and the shower on so the kids wouldn’t hear me. And I could tell myself that it was OK, that I was just getting it out of my system so I could be strong and calm for the day ahead. I had to hold myself together for Rosie and Nat. Nervous breakdowns are all very well if you’ve got the time and no-one else depending on you, but if you’re a mum, then it’s really not an option, is it? Besides, it’s not as if I was bottling it all up. Our phone bill will be through the roof this quarter. Cassie deserves a medal. But I’m OK. I survived. I’m still here.
Lessons for a Sunday Father Page 21
