Lessons for a Sunday Father

by Claire Calman

  Cassie asked me to find a vase and arrange the flowers. Then she said, well, that’s nice of your dad, isn’t it, and I said yes. He always used to get Mum flowers on her birthday but I thought maybe he wouldn’t this year because she never got him anything on his. But maybe he forgot that.

  Mum came back in wearing her jeans and clapped her hands and said she’d better get a move on with the cheesecake and she should have made it yesterday. Cassie gave her a funny look and Mum mouthed “Tell you later” at her, then Cassie said was it too early to open some wine and Mum said yes, it was, but what the hell, let’s live dangerously and she got some out of the fridge. Then Cassie let me have a sip from her glass, but it was horrid and made my mouth feel funny. I don’t know why grown-ups want to drink it the whole time when it tastes nasty and it only makes them go all silly in any case.

  Scott

  Stop me if I’m imagining things, but I do believe my wife is flirting with me. That dress is doing dangerous things to me. Not the kind of thing she normally wears. It leaves very little to the imagination, though that creepy doctor bloke looks like he’s imagining all sorts of things. If he puts his hand on her arm one more time, I’m going to go over there and—and what? Sort him out? Take him outside? Start a fight in the middle of Gail’s birthday party? That’ll win her over for sure. OK, but I can’t be held responsible if I have to accidentally tip my beer over his trousers.

  Look, look! I don’t believe this. Now he’s fiddling with one of her earrings, peering at it so he can get closer. He’s practically standing on her foot. Do you mind, that’s my wife. Oh please, come on—you’re going to have to do better than that, matey, pretending to admire her jewellery so you can get right up close and touch her. We’ve all been there, done that. But Gail’s no fool. She’s not going to fall for whatever old flannel you’re giving her.

  But she’s smiling at him! Oi! You’d think she’d move away a bit. Her nipples are practically poking him in the chest. Well, bollocks to that, I’m not letting him have a clear field. Specially not in this jacket. I’ve been told I look dead good in this jacket. I cross to the buffet table and pick at the food, edging closer to Gail.

  “All right there?” I feel Gail’s hand rest for a moment on my back. Hello. I’d say she’s a tad tiddly. More than a tad. Time to seize my advantage.

  “Mmm. Great nosh.” I bring my arm up and rest it ever so lightly round her waist. I resist the temptation to slide my hand down across her bum, though with that dress, this uses up almost all my powers of concentration. Man of Steel, that’s me. See, I can restrain myself when I try. “Did you do it all?” I ask, trying to keep her talking, but all I can think of is sliding those little thin straps down off her shoulders and watching that dress slither to the floor.

  “God, no. Cassie helped me. Rosie too—she’s been brilliant. And we cheated on the pizzas, of course.”

  On cue. Rosie comes across and nestles under my other arm. I try not to look too smug, but inside I’m crowing—see, you can have all this in one handy package: husband who still fancies you rotten, adorable daughter, and—I look round for Nat, who catches my eye then immediately, obviously turns away and mooches out of the room.

  I have a good feeling about tonight—if I can just handle it right. Time for another beer. I head for the kitchen.

  Nat is there, picking at the bits on a piece of pizza. He looks up when I come in but doesn’t speak. He sneaks a glance at the back door.

  “Natty.”

  I see his jaw clench.

  “I just want to talk to you.”

  He shakes his head no.

  “Please, Nat. Give me a chance, I need …” The words dry up in my throat. Why can’t I do this? I want to go over to him and hold him, tell him I love him, tell him how it really is. Is that so very hard? I don’t know how to do this stuff. I’ve never been good at it. Whenever I open my mouth, all I ever seem to do is put my foot in it.

  The door swings open then and Cassie breezes in with a stack of dirty plates.

  “Hi, boys! Having fun?” Her voice is bright, but her face looks guarded. We used to get on great, Cassie and me, but I reckon I’m no longer Flavour of the Month. I suspect she’s as puzzled by my presence here as everyone else is.

  “Mn,” says Nat.

  “Just popped in for another beer.” I open the fridge and clink about inside, taking my time.

  Cassie puts the plates down on the counter.

  “Your mum said, have you taken the quiche out?”

  “Yeah.” Nat grabs an oven glove. “Just doing it.”

  Then the two of them start fussing around the stove and poking at the quiche and looking for knives and another plate and what can I contribute to all this activity? Nothing. I slide back into the hall. There’s no-one else there, so I quickly slip upstairs. I can always say I’m just using the toilet, that the downstairs one had someone in it. So strange being back here again—officially, I mean, not like when I come for my, well, extra visits. It feels worse somehow this time. Before, when I’ve let myself in with the keys I’d had made it felt like I was playing at it a bit, having fun, knowing she didn’t know I was there. But this is different. I go into the bedroom. Our room. I want to lie down on the bed the way I do when I come here on my own. I want to climb under the covers and stretch out my arms and legs, clinging on like a starfish at the bottom of the ocean, clutching onto the mattress so that no-one can drag me away.

  I don’t lie down. If I do, I’ll never be able to get up again. I back out the door, watching the bed as if it might suddenly make a grab for me.

  Back downstairs, I re-enter the fray. In the front room, Dr Whatsit is singing some kind of stupid Polish folk song. Is he for real? I look across at Nat and, for a split second, we share a how-bonkers-is-he? look, then Nat remembers that it’s me who’s Public Enemy Number I and he turns his half-smile into a yawn and looks away.

  At least I don’t make an arse of myself in public. OK, let me correct that—at least I don’t make an arse of myself by singing folk songs in public. That should count for something, right? But, no, he comes to the end and people are actually clapping and smiling. Must just be being polite. I am not singing to seduce Gail, no way. But this calls for desperate measures. A full-on offensive. I go right up behind her and blow very gently on the back of her neck. She starts slightly and gives a little gasp, so quiet you’d have to be standing right up close to hear it, so close you can feel the warmth of her body and smell the lingering scent of shampoo on her hair. Then she leans back, until she’s just touching me. I squeeze her shoulders very softly and she doesn’t push my hands away. A cheap trick, breathing on the neck. But it works and all’s fair in love and war, right?

  Nat

  “What’s he doing here?” I nudged Rosie.

  “Why shouldn’t Dad be here?” Rosie said through a mouthful of pizza. She can be such a goody-goody.

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

  “You do. Natty, don’t spoil the party. Please, please. You’re not to. Mum’ll kill you if you do. She asked him. And it is her birthday.” Rosie was holding onto my arm, tugging at my sleeve. “I’ll never speak to you ever, ever again if you spoil it. Not ever.”

  “Leave off, Rozza. You’ll pull it out of shape. Look at him, sucking up.” He was leaning over Mum, filling her glass, standing really close to her, the sleeve of his jacket touching her arm. Yes. Exactly. He was wearing a jacket outside work. Told you he was sucking up. And she was smiling at him, touching his arm and doing all that stuff. And have you seen her hair? ‘Nuff said.

  He tried to come over, to talk to me, but I just grabbed this old dear’s plate and said I was on clearing duty, whizzed out to the kitchen. Well, she’d nearly finished.

  Saw Rosie standing next to him, leaning against him, putting on her sweet face. And Dad patting her on the head like she’s a dog, bending down, pretending to be interested in some stupid kid thing she was saying, and Rosie running to the table to fetch him
a cherry tomato ‘cause they’re his favourite but like she really was a puppy fetching his slippers. I’m going to start calling her Rover. Here, girl! Here, Rover! Daddy’s here! Sit up and beg! Do a new trick for Daddy. Bet she’s only sucking up ‘cause she wants a new bike. Makes me sick.

  Then I saw Mum flirting like really obviously with Dr Whatsit, from the surgery. The Polish guy with the funny name no-one can say. He was laughing then he crept in close like a cheetah going in for the kill, and he held one of her earrings between his fingers, touching it in a spooky way and he kept nodding as if it was like the most amazing thing he’d ever seen, yeah right. Like a doctor’s really interested in jewellery and stuff! And Mum was lapping it up, throwing her head back and giggling like the stupid girls you get in Our Price looking at the CDs. It made Dad cross though. His hand went all tight round his bottle of beer and his other hand was in his pocket jangling his keys.

  Mum went into the kitchen for more pizza, so I followed her in.

  “Hey!” she said, “Having a good time, Natty?” She danced across to the stove, trying to be cool or something. So embarrassing. “Come to give us a hand with the pizza? Chuck that oven glove over, will you?”

  “Mum!”

  “Why are you shouting, for heaven’s sake? What’s up?”

  “Don’t you think you should just, you know …”

  “Don’t you think I should just, you know, what, Nat?”

  I hate it when she does that.

  “Well. You’re knocking back the wine, Mum. We’ll be down the offie every two minutes the rate you’re going.”

  “Nathan, I’m not drunk. I’ve had a couple of glasses of wine—not that it’s any of your business. What on earth makes you imagine you can suddenly dictate how I behave?” She was cutting the pizza into wedges, but really hacking into it like she was chopping up a body or something, the knife going thunk-thunk into the board. “But—” she said, hack, hack, “—if I do want to get drunk on my fortieth birthday, I certainly can’t think of any good reason why I shouldn’t, can you?”

  “Fine. If you don’t mind embarrassing yourself …”

  “Meaning?” She stood with one hand on her hip, holding the pizza knife.

  I shrugged.

  “Nathan?”

  “Flirting with Dad after he left us. And that doctor. You’re just showing yourself up.”

  She put down the knife.

  “I’m putting the knife down so I don’t end up in prison for infanticide, Nathan. You really don’t know when you’ve crossed the line, do you? When I want advice on social behaviour from a thirteen-year-old boy not exactly famous for his poise and good sense, I’ll know where to come, all right? In the meantime, if you’re going to be a rotten little party-pooper, I think you’d better take yourself off to bed, don’t you?” She looked across at the kitchen clock. “Yes, it’s after eleven. Go to bed.”

  “You’re having me on, right? Rosie’s still up and she’s practically a baby.”

  “Yes, Nathan, but unlike you she isn’t behaving like one. Night-night. Say good night to your aunties and Nan and Grandad and Cassie before you go up, please, and no you can’t take pizza up to your room so don’t ask.”

  “I don’t believe this.”

  “Get out of my sight, Nathan, now—before I bite you.”

  I didn’t care. Who’d want to stay at a daft party like that anyhow, with crumblies everywhere spilling their drinks and little kids running round and creepy doctors and Mum making a twat of herself and him everywhere you looked.

  Rosie

  I wore my blue velvet dress with my glitter hairband for the party and Mum said I could put on my nail varnish only Cassie had to do it for me ‘cause when I did it it didn’t look like how it’s supposed to and we had to take it all off again. Then Cassie asked if she could borrow some too so we’d both be matching.

  You’ll never guess what—my dad came to the party. He said Mum invited him and he bought her a present as well as the flowers. She opened it and it was a silver bracelet to go with her dress and it was really pretty. Mum liked it a lot, you could tell, but she tried to give it back to him and said she really couldn’t accept it, it wouldn’t be right. But Dad wouldn’t take it back, he said he’d lost the receipt and she just might as well hang onto it because he had no use for it and couldn’t she just accept it as a gift, no strings attached. I think maybe he meant ribbon. Anyway, she liked it because she put it on straight away and normally when she says she likes something but she doesn’t really, she puts it back in the box and lays it on the side and then she hides it in the back of the cupboard.

  Dr Whatsit from the surgery was at the party and he sang a song and clapped his hands and stamped his feet and made everyone else clap as well. It was a nice tune and I clapped, but it wasn’t in English, so I don’t know what any of it meant. I think he likes my mum because he kept looking at her all the time and my dad didn’t like it one bit.

  Nat was really cross about Dad being there and he kept trying to spoil it, so Mum sent him to bed and I got to stay up later than him for the first time ever. It was brilliant.

  Scott

  7:42. Red numbers on the clock. The clock on my side of the bed. Our clock. Our bed. I think about last night, my hands slip-sliding over Gail’s dress, her front, the feel of her through the slippery material. Stroking her neck, fingers hooking under the straps of her dress, nudging them off her shoulders, the dress catching for a second on her breasts, her hips, then falling to the floor in a silvery pool. Gail standing there just in her knickers and sandals, suddenly embarrassed, awkward, laughing—and me edging her closer to the bed, kissing her, stroking her warm back, squeezing her bum, the two of us flopping onto the bed—"Wait, wait,” she says, sitting up again, fumbling with the straps on her sandals then kicking them off. I reach for her, pulling her closer, my hand in the dip of her waist, cupping her breasts, her tummy, tracing the scar of her Caesarean, her rosy scar, we call it though it was only pink at the beginning, Rosie scar—my fingers moving down, along the edge of her knickers, teasing her, walking over the soft cotton, a path over her thigh, rubbing her through the cotton now, feeling her press against me, hard, unexpectedly urgent, her hand pushing against the swell in my trousers—tugging at my belt, trying to undo the sodding buckle, both of us clumsy in our haste—me saying, “Christ, oh Christ,” yanking off my trousers, pulling off my shirt—one instant, hovering on the brink—Gail beneath me, her legs parted, open to me, her face tilted to mine looking up at me—and then—God, the relief of it—sliding into her—sinking—being enveloped, lost, nothing else. Moving now, familiar yet strange after all this time, mouth on mouth, hips colliding—her skin sticking to mine—God, that’s good—getting faster—o-o-o-o-h yes, yes indeedy, here we go, o-o-o-o-o-o-hhhh—and Gail’s saying “Don’t stop, don’t stop,” and I reach down with my hand, feeling her juices and mine all over me, and I rub her gently, then faster, working her up, watching her face, until I feel her shudder beneth me, her soft grunt, eyes closed. She murmurs into my shoulder, I kiss her hair and we slip into a hot and tangled sleep.

  This morning, now, waking up, I catch sight of the clock, then turn to see Gail, her head on the pillow next to mine where it should be. The last few months feel like no more than a horrible nightmare. Perhaps I did dream it. We can pick up exactly where we left off. A family again. Cover over the cracks so you’d never even know they’d been there.

  I lie on my back looking up at the ceiling and start telling myself how it’s going to be. I’ll fix the front gate for a start. Get window locks on that conservatory window at the back—I’m not having every sodding Tom, Dick and Harry come hopping in here any time they feel like it. We’ll go out as a couple more—snazzy restaurants, dancing, shows. And as a family. On the bikes. To the coast. Holidays. Cornwall. Greece. Swimming in clear seas. Windsurfing maybe. I’ve always fancied a go at that.

  All I need now is a cup of tea and a bacon sandwich and I’d be in Heaven. Nope. No
w that I plan to be a grade A husband, I will get the tea. I carefully slide out of bed so as not to wake Gail, put on my pants and tiptoe downstairs, quiet as a thief. Whistle chirpily as I wait for the kettle to boil. This is going to be so great. I sashay about the kitchen, singing to myself, and sliding the drawers out and bumping them shut with my bum. I even remember to wipe the tea rings off the worktop with a cloth. I’ve turned over a new leaf. Everything’s going to be fine. Everything’s hunky-dory.

  Gail

  I hear sounds of activity downstairs. The unfamiliar sounds of someone else up before me, the splashing of water in the sink, the banging of the fridge door, the clang of the breadbin lid. Maybe Nat’s sorry for being so foul last night, maybe he’s been transformed butterflylike into a wonderful adult human being? Maybe Rosie’s got up to get herself a glass of milk. I turn to look at the clock—7:51 a.m. I close my eyes again and tell myself I have had a peculiar dream. I drank too much last night, way too much, and that has given me strange dreams. Strange, rude dreams. There is an unmistakable stickiness between my thighs. Maybe I got lucky and seduced Dr Wojczek? Dear God, please tell me it was Dr Wojczek, I think, knowing it wasn’t, remembering him sweetly kissing my cheek as he left last night, squeezing my hand. I turn onto my side. There is a definite dent in the pillow next to mine. A Scott-shaped dent. Oh shit.

  Nat

  I come down this morning to get myself some juice and I’m halfway down the stairs when I hear singing coming from the kitchen. A man singing. And not just some man. My dad. He can’t sing to save his life, so there’s no way it could be anyone else. So I creep down the last few stairs and take a sneaky look round the doorway. It is him. What on earth’s he doing here? Oh no. I don’t believe this. I do not believe it. One minute Mum’s chucking all his stuff into bin bags and won’t even say his name, the next she’s letting him back and—you know. I’m not staying if he’s moving back in. How can she after what he did to us and everything?