Lessons for a Sunday Father

by Claire Calman

  What else? Oh yes. Now don’t laugh but I did go on another date. Well, more than one actually. I’ve been seeing Dr Wojczek. Greg, I mean. It’s short for Gregor. He doesn’t really look like a Greg, but I can’t quite bring myself to say Gregor because it sounds silly. I knew he had been married but I’d assumed he was divorced or separated, but actually he’s a widower. His wife died two years ago of cancer—just before he joined the practice. Poor man. It must have been awful.

  Anyway, we went out for dinner to that rather posh restaurant in Wye and I felt very nervous, which was silly because of course I’ve known him for nearly two years. It was strange though, being out with someone else. For the first hour or so, I was thinking, “I don’t know how to do this. Should I be laughing more? Should I be talking less? What if he finds me boring?” Then after a while and a couple of glasses of wine, I forgot to think about how I was and what impression I was making and I started to enjoy myself. And there were candles and we had wine and I ate far too much and it was all such a treat, I can’t tell you. When you’re cooking for a family day in and day out, desperately trying to think of something new that you can defrost or whip up in half an hour and that your children won’t push round their plates saying, “It tastes funny,” it is so wonderful to be taken out to dinner. Except all through the evening I couldn’t stop wondering what it would feel like to kiss a man with a beard—because I never have, not in my whole life. I was sitting there opposite him and I kept imagining it. I had to stop myself lunging across the table at him to have a quick stroke. I thought it might be really prickly.

  Course, Cassie was on the phone at crack of dawn the next day, when we were all in our usual chaos, tearing round trying to eat breakfast and find our games kits (you know what I mean). She said,

  “Sorry, I couldn’t wait. How was it? Did you do it?”

  “It was only dinner! Of course not!”

  Honestly, what does she think I am?

  * * *

  We didn’t do it till our fourth date. And, by the way, it’s not prickly. But it does tickle.

  Nat

  It was Rozza’s birthday. She had all her little friends round for a party and a disco, but it wasn’t a proper one, just dancing around to CDs in the front room. We pushed all the furniture against the walls and Mum changed the light bulbs in the lamps so there was a red one and a blue one and a green one. It was quite funky actually. Well, it was OK for little kids. And we had piles of fried chicken and jacket potatoes with different fillings and Mum did Coke floats with ice-cream. My dad came and goofed around for a while. Rosie liked it.

  In the holidays, I went with Jason and his family to Cornwall and we did windsurfing. You fall off a lot at the beginning, but it was still pretty cool. Jason’s stepdad tried to do it but he’s a bit of a noodle and he couldn’t balance right. I guess he’s too old. Bet my dad could do better than him. Yeah, well. Still, the stepdad—Mr Wonderful, that’s what they call him, only not to his face—he’s not so bad, he’s better than Jason’s real dad if you ask me. He got us loads of ice-creams and he doesn’t keep asking you stupid questions the whole time, he just lets you alone.

  Yeah, I went out with Rosie and my dad a couple of times, so what? It was only swimming and blading and that. It’s not like I had to talk to him much or anything, only to say what I wanted when we got something to eat. Big bloody deal. I wasn’t going to go, but Joanne said I must be a loony tune letting Rosie have all the treats by herself and she’d never let her little sister get away with it.

  Mum’s going out with someone, and Rosie and me wind her up about having a boyfriend. He’s like way too old to be a boyfriend, of course, he is majorly decrepit. Mum says he’s “only forty-five.” Yeah, like I said, a total crumbly. And he’s got a beard. Creepy. It’s that Dr Whatsit only we’re supposed to call him Greg as if he’s a mate or something, so mostly I don’t call him anything, ‘cept I call him Weirdy Beardy to Rosie. When he came to pick up Mum the first time, he shook my hand and said, “Hello, Nathan. How do you do. Or you prefer Nat, yes?”

  “Mn.”

  “Your mother tells me you are quite the hotshot with computers.”

  “I do OK.”

  “I really envy you. Gail is trying to teach me how to use mine properly at the surgery.” “Mum’s teaching you?!”

  He must be seriously crap.

  “Oh, yes.” Then he looks at her with this soppy face. Vomit time.

  Rosie says she bets they snog a lot, but I reckon they are getting a bit old for it. Anyway, he hasn’t stayed over yet—not unless he sneaks out at six o’clock in the morning. Next time he comes round, I’m not going to go to bed till I know he’s left. I asked Mum if he was moving in and she said,

  “No, course not! Do you really think I’d install some man without talking to you and Rosie first? Besides, I’m in no rush.”

  She can’t get married again yet anyhow, until she gets a divorce from Dad, and that’ll take ages and ages.

  We’re back at school this week. Thrillsville.

  Scott

  I guess you want to know if I ever had enough guts to phone up Ella, you know, the sandwich lady. Well, no I didn’t, but only because I didn’t need to in the end. I had to bide my time till after the weekend ‘cause I couldn’t track down her card and I didn’t know her surname so I couldn’t look her up. I’m no good on the phone anyhow. I’m better when I can see what I’m doing.

  But, come Monday morning, I’m ready to make my move.

  I hang back till after the small queue’s subsided and there’s only a couple of blokes lounging nearby, eating their rolls outside in the sun.

  “Hey there. So what treats have you got in store for me today?”

  She smiles.

  “Oh, mostly leftovers and a few stale crusts. Still, you just name what you want, then I can tell you I’m all out.”

  “Now that’s what I like—a woman who can satisfy my every need.”

  I was right. Definitely no wedding ring. But maybe she takes it off so it doesn’t get all covered in crumbs.

  “I’ve got that chicken in herby mayonnaise thing you like.” Ah-ha. See, she notices these things. “Or Spanish omelette? Roast beef? What do you fancy?”

  Don’t ask.

  I go for the chicken and while she’s doing it, I pounce, smooth and slick as a panther.

  “Um …” I say.

  “Ye-es?” She’s smiling at least. Come on, mate, get a move on. She’ll be off in a minute. Don’t you just hate working under pressure?

  “You do a great job, feeding us lot day in and day out.”

  “Thank you. It’s nice to feel appreciated. It makes getting up at six every morning to begin the day’s buttering while I’m barely conscious seem almost worthwhile.”

  “Maybe I could do the same for you some time?”

  She pauses, her knife poised mid-spread.

  “You’re volunteering to help me butter my rolls? Or you want to make me a sandwich?” Her face is straight, her voice deadpan.

  “Er, neither actually. Just wondered if you fancied going for a bite to eat some time.” Casual. Keep it casual, case she says no. “Or just a drink. Or a coffee.”

  “Oh. OK.”

  “That’s OK as in yes, right?”

  “I guess it is.” She bags up my chicken baguette and gives the bag a neat twirl, then she looks straight at me and gives me a grade A, full on, green light, bell-ringing, neck-tingling humdinger of a smile. “What took you so long?” she says.

  Anyways, we fix up a where and a when and we meet outside that nice old pub on the river and I get there early. And when this woman appears and smiles at me, I’m thinking, “Hmm, she’s a bit of all right” before I click that it’s her, the sandwich lady, Ella I mean. Only she’s wearing a dress and there’s not an apron in sight and her hair’s loose, falling around her shoulders and, yes, my God, the woman’s even got legs. Two of them. And not bad legs at that. For some reason, I seem to have forgotten how to br
eathe and I feel myself blushing like a sodding schoolboy and, dear God, does none of this ever get any easier? Then she waves and comes over and she says hi and I say hi and after a little bit of awkwardness we’re up and running and talking like there’s no tomorrow and no, I’m not telling you it all now, you’ll just have to wait.

  Gail’s seeing that doctor from the surgery. Dr Whatsit. Only Gail says it like this: Dr Vocheck. Yes, the one whose idea of being the life and soul of the party is to treat everyone to a rousing folk song in a foreign language. I’d rather listen to Rosie speaking in alien. Spridski zekroddok? Actually, sometimes it feels like we really know what we’re saying. I’d probably do better talking like that the whole time.

  Gail told me after she’d been out with him a couple of times. I can’t say I was overjoyed at the thought. I don’t know if she’s had sex with him yet and, frankly, I’d rather not think about it and if that makes me a miserable toerag with double standards then so be it. Anyhow, we had to work out how we’re going to handle the whole going out with other people thing. I’m not having someone moving straight into my house and putting their feet up on my settee and sleeping in my bed and living at my expense. Not a chance. I told Gail that and she said,

  “What sort of man would have so little pride that he’d sponge off another man like that? Don’t be ridiculous. Credit me with having some taste and sense at least, won’t you?”

  Anyway, so we agreed: what we get up to is our own business but no flaunting it in front of the kids. That means no overnight “guests” when Nat and Rosie are around until the person’s been introduced slowly and they get on OK with them. No snogging on the stairs, no strangers wandering round the house naked. I told Gail she can’t be trailing a whole string of different men through the house.

  “Yes, that does sound like me, doesn’t it? You can talk. And excuse me, I notice none of this will hold you back much.”

  We still have a bit of a ding-dong now and then, but we can’t keep it up any more, we’ve lost the heart for the battle.

  Rosie stays with me every other Saturday night now and sometimes one night mid-week if we can get ourselves organized and remember what she needs for the next day, but Nat still hasn’t set foot in my flat. He barely says a word to me, even if he comes out with me and Rosie, which he’s done all of four times I think. Not that I’m counting or anything. I don’t know what I have to do to square things with him. I hope he decides to make up with me before I’m on my deathbed. There’s probably a way to deal with this, but I’m buggered if I know what it is. I wish I knew how to talk to him. In the past, like before, him and me always got along, but it was just him being him and me being me, we never had to think about it, certainly never had to talk about it. But now—well—I’d like that back again and I don’t know how to get from where we are now to where I want us to be and I reckon Nat doesn’t know either. Or, worse, maybe he likes it this way, maybe he really doesn’t want me in his life any more. Shit. I know I have to find a way to talk to him, I do know that—but please won’t somebody tell me what the hell I’m supposed to say?

  Gail

  Scott’s seeing someone else. At first, I thought it must be her, that woman he slept with, and I wondered if he really had carried on seeing her all along. But he insists it isn’t and, for once, I believe him; he’s got no real reason to lie any more.

  Rosie tries not to talk about her, Ella, in front of me, which is sweet of her, but sometimes she can’t help it and she babbles away about what they’ve got up to together.

  “Ella and me made fairy cakes and she let me weigh all the sultanas and everything and put out the paper cases. We had to do forty-eight because she’s got lots of customers and they all like cakes and she’s going to show me how to make brownies.”

  And this domestic whiz turns out to have an artistic streak too. Rosie says she’s doing a painting on her bedroom wall. I’m pleased for Rosie, of course I am, it’s just I’m beginning to feel I’m just the boring old mummy who can’t compete with this creative girl who seems to know what bands are in and what colour nail polish is fashionable. OK, she’s not really a girl, Scott says she’s nearly thirty-seven so she’s no spring chicken either, but she sounds young. At least she’s not some eighteen-year-old bimbo, that would be much worse. But I think Rosie’s getting fond of her and it’s not that I’m jealous or anything, but I can’t say I’m overjoyed about it.

  Nat won’t even meet Ella. Since he found out Scott had a girlfriend, he’s retreated more into himself and he refuses to see him on even the occasional Sunday, so it feels like one step forward, two steps back at the moment. Scott says,

  “Of course I don’t have to see Ella on a Sunday if Nat’s not ready to meet her. Rosie and I always have part of the day on our own anyway. Just tell him, can’t you? I want him to see the flat.”

  “I’ll try.”

  Nat’s desperate to see Scott’s flat, too. I know he is. He’d die rather than admit it to anyone though, so I’ll have to make it sound like he’s doing Scott a favour. It would be nice not to have to go through all this, to play it straight, but Nat’s got so much pride and now I think he’s been angry for so long that he can’t see any way out of it without losing face. I wish I could make it easier for him.

  Nat asked me if I was going to let Greg move in. He said it almost as if he thought it was inevitable—as if I’d really just let someone waltz in here with his suitcases without even discussing it with my children. Anyway, I’m in no rush to become a one-woman support service for another man just yet. I enjoy Greg’s company and yes, thank you, things are very nice in the bed department too, but I’m happy with things as they are. He’s a lot more serious than Scott, which takes a little getting used to, and he’s much more thoughtful and sensitive too, which I like. Also, he listens when I’m talking. Cassie says we should have him cloned. It’s odd, but now I find myself being rather silly at times, and encouraging Greg to loosen up and live a little. The other Sunday, I had him dancing along the beach. He showed me how to do the polka. That’ll come in handy for all the balls I get invited to, won’t it? No, really, it was fun. Before, with Scott, I seemed to turn into this awful uptight Victorian-style governess, endlessly trying to keep him in line. It’s just terrific to have some time off from being the sensible one.

  Scott

  “It feels kind of strange to be looking down at you for once.” We’re standing outside Ella’s house, after that first date, and I’m wondering whether she’ll ask me in for coffee or if we can skip the coffee and cut straight to ripping each other’s clothes off. “I’m so used to gazing adoringly up at you in your van.”

  “As it should be, of course. Shall I stand on a box so you feel more at ease?”

  “Nah. Don’t do that.” I move a bit closer, leaning in towards her.

  “Why’s that then?” Her face is only a few inches from mine, her lips soft and smiling.

  “Because I don’t want to get neck-ache when I kiss you …”

  After a couple of minutes, or possibly a couple of weeks, she pulls away and starts burrowing in her bag for her keys.

  “Um …” she says.

  “Hey—that’s one of my best lines. Go get your own script.”

  God, that smile. I’d go without food to be on the receiving end of that smile—and you know what a one I am for my nosh.

  I pull her close again.

  “If you’re planning to drag me indoors and have your evil way with me, I want you to know that my resistance is really low at this time of year, so I can’t guarantee to put up much of a fight.”

  “Ah, that wasn’t it actually. Look, no big deal or anything but I have to tell you something—”

  I do not like the start of that sentence. It’s not got a lot of promise, has it? It’s the kind of sentence that finishes up with “I’m married and my husband’s about to come out with his shotgun.” I like sentences that begin more along the lines of, “This is the way to my bedroom” or “This bra’s u
ncomfortable, do you mind if I take it off …?”

  “It’s just, well, I don’t want to start liking you and then you find out and—whoosht!” She goes like this with her hand, like an object zipping by at speed.

  “Whoosht?” My hand does a repeat performance.

  “Yes, you know, out the door and I won’t see you for dust.”

  “I’m not that fit, believe me. There’s men of ninety run faster than me. So, what’s the big secret? Only if you want to warn me about your husband and he’s going to bust out the door any second, I’d better be getting a head start on him.” “Hardly. No. I’ve got a child, that’s all. A boy. He’s two and a half.”

  “Does he have a name, this small person?”

  “Jamie.”

  “Hang on—let me check my list …” I hold out my hand like a clipboard. “Alfred, Ben, Charlie—dum-dee-dah, here we go—Jamie. Yes, on my list of approved names. Shouldn’t present any problems. Why’s it a secret? Is he the result of a drunken fling with a politician?”

  She wrinkles her nose up at the thought. It’s a pretty nose, a nose I would like to kiss at this moment, so I do.

  “That’s nice. Believe me, a lot of men run a mile soon as they know you’ve got a kid.”

  “I told you about mine.”

  “Not the same. They don’t live with you full-time.”

  Too true, too true.

  She stretches up to kiss me.

  “You really OK with it?”

  “Sure. So long as he doesn’t insist on sleeping in the middle …”

  Cut to three weeks later if you will. It’s a Saturday afternoon. Jamie’s playing round at Cora’s house, that’s Ella’s sister, with his cousins. It’s raining, and not just a few light droplets either. This is rain that’s not going to give up and go home until you are seriously soaked, this is rain with attitude. We were planning on going for a bike ride along the old towpath by the canal, but as we’re not a couple of ducks it’s not looking like such a hot idea.