Jake
‘Look, Dad, I need a favour.’
We are sitting at the dining-room table drinking tea. Alfie keeps popping in and out to look for things for his latest ‘project’. He is trying to build some kind of contraption to allow him to reach and open the loft door. I’ve told him he’s not allowed up there over and over again but he won’t let it go. I know he’ll never achieve it and it’s keeping him quiet, so I let him try. So far, cushions and a small bin have been taken upstairs. I’ve had to wrestle a chair off him. Now he appears to be attaching straws together to create some kind of stick to loop into the hole and pull the hatch down. When I’m not caught up in the middle of a battle with Alfie, I have to marvel at his determination and creativity. I’m envious. Mine disappeared a long time ago. Six years ago, in fact. Funny, that.
‘I’ve had to get a job. We need the money.’
I see the realization the moment it appears on Dad’s face, like he’s just seen an army of flesh-eating zombies march past the window. ‘You want me to look after Alfie?’
‘I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate.’
He sips his tea, probably buying himself time to think up an excuse. ‘How long for? Would it be every day?’
‘It hopefully won’t be for long. I’m sure Jemma and I will sort things out soon and, if not, I can get something more permanent arranged. Please, Dad.’
I hate having to beg. Jemma always said I should just ask my dad for help when I need it. He has the time. He has the money. I’m an only child so he hasn’t got anyone else to deal with. But I’ve always felt that if he doesn’t offer, I’m not going to ask. This time, I have no alternative.
‘Why can’t you just send him to a childminder? I’ll pay, if you’re worried about the money.’
Coming from the stingiest man on earth, this would be funny – if it didn’t hurt so much.
‘Wow, you really don’t want to spend time with my son, do you?’
‘Come on, Jake, that’s not fair. I love that boy. Of course I do. But I’m too old. I haven’t got the energy he requires. When I looked after him the other day while you went to your class, it nearly killed me. Can’t Jemma’s parents help out? She’s the one that landed you in this mess. Plus there are two of them. I’d be doing it on my own.’
Even before ‘the incident’, I hated taking Alfie to Jemma’s parents’ house. It always felt like he was a ticking time bomb and I was just waiting for the moment he was going to explode. They have hardly any toys there (they don’t understand why he won’t just sit and colour like Jemma and her sister always did) so he gets bored, and Bored Alfie is a disaster waiting to happen. Anyway, about five months ago, we went there for Sunday lunch. Alfie spent the entire meal climbing both under the table and on top of it while Richard and Wendy stared at him fearfully like he was an escaped chimpanzee. And, to be fair, that’s exactly how he looked, surrounded by their pristine china. Trying to do the decent thing, I decided to remove him from the room, but when I went to grab him off the table, he dodged and bashed his head on their glass chandelier, which probably cost more than my car. With the most horrendous smash, it fell right into the dish of roast potatoes, shattering into a thousand pieces. Needless to say, they’ve not invited us over since. Instead, they conveniently choose to meet us when we’re going to some sort of wide-open space.
‘I can’t do that to Alfie. And I can’t leave him with a childminder. He wouldn’t cope.’
Dad sniffs.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ He circles his watch around his wrist. ‘Just that all the other children these days have to do it and they don’t seem mentally scarred. It’s the norm now. It wasn’t when you were little.’
‘So you think Mum would’ve put me in childcare, do you? If it had been the norm then?’
‘I’m not saying that, Jake. I’m saying that just because your mum had strong views about it, she wouldn’t be disappointed in you. Cut yourself some slack. You do what you have to do. And actually, all my friends’ grandchildren who are in nurseries seem very happy, very well adjusted and very well behaved.’
‘Unlike Alfie?’
‘That’s not what I said.’
As if to make the point, there’s a loud crash from upstairs and, a few seconds later, an anguished scream. I run upstairs to find Alfie’s created a gigantic tower of sofa cushions, quilts, pillows, a beanbag chair, an upturned plastic bin and his little stool, and has gone flying off the top of it all and bashed into the wall.
I pick him up and rub his head, which he is holding in both hands. ‘I told you not to try to get in the loft. This is why. You need to listen, Alfie. You need to start understanding no.’
I say it loudly, mostly for Dad’s benefit, to show him I’m not just letting my child run amok. So what that he nearly committed accidental suicide – at least I’m reprimanding him for it.
Alfie wriggles away from me. ‘If you’d just let me go up, I wouldn’t have hurt myself.’
He storms into his room and slams the door. I go back down to Dad, who is putting on his coat.
‘I’m sorry, son. I hope you sort something out. If you need me for a few days while you get sorted, I’ll do it, but I can’t commit to longer. It wouldn’t be fair on Alfie. He needs someone who can run around with him and stuff, not an old man like me. I am sorry.’
I nod. There’s no use trying to persuade him. When Dad’s made up his mind about something, there’s no budging him. A family trait. And besides, he’s probably right. Alfie would be too much for him.
‘Your mum would be really proud of you, you know?’
It seems to come out of the blue and I look away, suddenly scared I might cry. We’re men. We don’t do emotion. Dad didn’t even cry when Mum died, well, at least not in front of me. But then I never cried in front of him either.
‘It’s not easy in this day and age to go against the grain. The decision you made to give up your career and look after your boy, it was a noble one. I just don’t want to see you killing yourself in the process.’
He pats me on the back, the closest we’ve ever got to a hug. In contrast, Mum was so physically demonstrative I’d often have to pull away. Her motto was ‘you can’t leave a room without a cuddle’, even if I was just going from the lounge into the kitchen. As a teenager, I’d slink away from her affection, embarrassed, as if accepting it made me less of a man. I wish I hadn’t. I wish I’d cherished it. I wish, instead of moving away, I’d held her tighter and longer. But I was too young to even consider that her cuddles and kisses might not be infinite. That one day, far too soon, they would run out.
‘Thanks, Dad.’
He swats my words away with his hand, as if to stop them piercing his carefully constructed exterior. ‘Cheerio then, son. Let me know if you need me to have Alfie for a few days until you find someone else.’
‘Thanks. Bye.’ I watch him walk up the path to his car, his body showing the gradual signs of age, that bit slower, that bit more hunched, but still far stronger than I’ll ever be.
* * *
Alfie repeatedly bashes his head against the wall.
‘Alfie, please don’t do that.’ I put my hand in between his head and the plaster.
‘I don’t want to go to the childminder,’ he says, each word staccato and accompanied by a backwards thrust of the head.
‘I’ve got no choice. We have to have money to pay for this house and for food and toys.’
‘I don’t mind not having the house or food or toys. We could sleep in the tent.’
I pull him towards me and put my arm around him. ‘Look, little man, hopefully it won’t be for long. Just while Mummy is away.’
Alfie shuffles away from me, takes a cup off the windowsill and throws it across the room. Luckily, it’s empty. ‘No. I am not going and that’s that.’
I understand this is hard for him, but all the other kids have to do it and my patience is rapidly deteriorating.
‘It’s not my fault,
Alfie. If you want someone to blame, blame your mum. She’s the one who walked out.’
I regret it as soon as the words leave my mouth. Since Jemma left, I’ve vowed to myself that I will never become one of those people who bad-mouths the other parent. But I didn’t realize how hard it would be to be the parent left behind, getting all the grief for what the other one has done.
‘Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. Mummy loves you.’
Alfie looks distracted and then, suddenly, his face brightens. ‘I’ve got an idea.’
Relief washes over me like a hot shower. ‘What’s that, kiddo?’
‘Emily can look after me.’
The hot shower of relief is sucked away again, like water down a plughole. ‘Emily?’
Alfie looks like one of those nodding dogs you used to get in the backs of cars. ‘Emily would love to look after me. That would be OK. I wouldn’t mind you going to work then.’
He looks very pleased with himself for finding a solution to my problem and I feel the familiar rise of dread in my stomach, as I know I have to tell him that she can’t.
‘I’m sorry, Alfie, but we barely know Emily. I can’t ask her to do that.’
‘We do know her. She’s my friend. We don’t know the childminder, do we? I’ve never even seen her.’
Alfie has an uncanny ability to always find a fair and reasonable counterargument.
‘But it’s the childminder’s job to look after children. She knows what she’s doing.’
‘But I can teach Emily. Like I did with washing my hair.’
I look at his face, full of innocence, his eyes pleading with me. I want to put his life back together and I can’t.
‘OK, I’ll ask her. But she will say no, Alfie, so please don’t get your hopes up.’
Asking her is win-win. She’ll refuse, I’ll look like the good guy and the blame will be pushed her way.
‘She won’t say no.’
‘She will.’
‘She won’t.’
Just as I think we are going to be trapped in this panto-esque exchange for the rest of the evening, he skips out of his room and into the playroom, singing the Peter Rabbit theme tune (with his own unique version of the lyrics) as he goes.
* * *
After school the following day, we meet Emily at Starbucks. When we arrive, she’s sitting at a table in the corner and already has a drink, so I order myself a coffee and a gigantic piece of chocolate fudge cake for Alfie in the hope that it might keep him quiet for five minutes.
We join Emily and start with the usual social niceties before falling into an awkward silence. Alfie’s so engrossed in his cake that even he doesn’t offer the usual distraction.
‘Look, I might as well cut to the chase.’ I search my brain for some way to say it that doesn’t sound ridiculous and decide on the direct approach. ‘I need someone to look after Alfie and I wondered if you might be interested?’
Emily scrunches up her face like a bulldog. ‘Tonight?’
‘No, I mean because Jemma’s decided to take a sabbatical and swan around Paris, I’ve got to get a job. It’s just a maternity cover so it’s not permanent.’
‘And you want me to look after Alfie?’
She gives me an am-I-hearing-this-correctly look and, alongside feeling stupid, I’m surprised to realize that I was hoping she’d say yes. I’m fast running out of options and anything that makes Alfie happy ultimately makes my life a lot easier.
‘I’d pay you, of course. It would just be looking after him for an hour or so in the morning before taking him to school and then a few hours after picking him up. I’ll be home about six. There might be a few days in the holidays when I need to go into school. I can’t pay you tons but I’d beat what you get in the café.’
‘But I’ve got no experience of working with children. Why don’t you just pay a childminder?’
It’s the question on everybody’s lips. ‘Because he asked for you.’
An unreadable emotion flickers in Emily’s eyes, but she doesn’t respond. Alfie scrapes the last fleck of cake off the bottom of his plate and then looks up at Emily, chocolate smudges covering his face. Somehow, he’s even managed to get crumbs on his eyebrows.
‘So are you going to look after me, Emily?’
Emily studies him for a minute. ‘I don’t know. I mean …’
‘Please, Emily,’ Alfie says, his eyes imploring.
‘Come on, Alfie. I told you Emily would probably say no. It’s not fair to put pressure on her.’
Alfie sticks out his bottom lip and drops his chin to his chest. He looks so utterly dejected even I’d find it hard to say no to him.
‘OK. I’ll look after you, buddy.’ Emily ruffles Alfie’s hair.
I feel like a ventriloquist’s dummy, my mouth falling open.
‘Yay!’ Alfie throws his arms around Emily with such force that she falls back in the chair.
Looking at them together – Emily’s pale skin looking even more ghostly against her black leather jacket, her harsh shaved head – I just don’t get it. When you picture an adult who will appeal to children, it’s the candyfloss-and-rainbows type of person you see on CBeebies, all over-exaggerated facial expressions and Technicolor clothes. And yet I’ve never seen Alfie hug anyone other than Jemma or me like that.
‘Seriously?’ I ask.
Emily sits back up and Alfie climbs down on to the floor and starts tying his napkin around the table leg.
‘I’m not sure I’ll be any good, but I’ll give it a shot. Has to beat working in the café.’
‘You have met my son, haven’t you?’
Emily smiles. ‘So when do you need me to start?’
‘I start in a fortnight.’
‘OK. I’ll hand my notice in tomorrow.’
‘Wow. Thank you so much. You’re a lifesaver.’
It all feels too simple, too easy, and I have a sudden panic that I’ve just asked a relative stranger with no experience of working with children, no CRB check and no qualifications to take care of my only child. And don’t even get me started on the unknown reason she’s been forced into anger management.
As if reading my mind, she says, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of him.’
‘Yeah, I know you will. You’ll do a great job. Better than me, that’s for sure.’
‘Do I still have to go to school? I want to stay home with Emily.’ Alfie emerges from under the table.
‘I’m sorry, little man. You still have to go to school.’
I prepare myself for battle but luckily Emily steps in first. ‘We’ll have loads of time to play after school though, Alfie.’
‘And in the morning?’
‘Oh yeah, I forgot about the mornings. Loads of time to play then.’
Alfie seems satisfied with this and returns to his position under the table. He has managed to find several more napkins and adds them to the table leg, like a row of garters on a bride’s thigh.
‘So is there anything in particular I need to know?’
I think about the past six years of looking after Alfie and how to condense it all into a conversation over coffee. How you need to tell Alfie something a minimum of seven times before he’ll take it in. To talk through every aspect of the itinerary for the day until it’s engrained in his head and give him a serious heads-up if you plan on changing anything, although even that probably wouldn’t prevent the meltdown, just perhaps reduce the ferocity of it. To be prepared to negotiate everything, to answer a thousand questions a day, to justify your every move. There’s so much about my little boy you need to know just to survive the day with him, but I’ve got a funny feeling that Emily will figure it out on her own. She might not be the type of person I want to spend an hour in the pub with, but she seems to instinctively know what to say when it comes to Alfie.
‘Well, I’ll put you together a schedule with times, places and stuff. We have certain rules. Only healthy snacks after school, thinking step for five minutes if you h
ave to give him more than one warning, no screens in the morning, that sort of thing, but I’ll write all those down too.’
As I’m saying it, I feel like a fraud – remembering all the times I hand him his tablet the second he wakes up just to keep him quiet and get five minutes more sleep. When we first had Alfie, we had all these principles. No dummies, no screens of any description before the age of three, no E-numbers, no tablet until he started secondary school. And then, after ten days of solid screaming, survival mode took hold: we shoved a dummy in his mouth, plonked him in front of CBeebies and, from that point on, all our embarrassingly naive ideals went out the window.
‘OK. No problem. I’m sure we’ll be fine.’
If I’m not mistaken, a glimmer of doubt streaks across her face, but I try to ignore it and the slight panicky feeling in the pit of my stomach. How bad can it be?
* * *
At about ten o’ clock, Jemma rings. It’s odd because our conversations so far have been limited to a few words before I pass the phone over to Alfie, but she knows he’ll be in bed at this time so she must be calling to speak to me. I can’t help hoping it’s to say she’s coming home.
‘What’s up?’
‘Nothing’s up. We’ve been married nearly fourteen years. Does something have to be up for me to want to talk to you?’
She sounds like she’s outside and walking, her breath uneven.
‘I guess not. It’s just the last time I checked, this whole marriage thing we’ve got going on wasn’t going too swimmingly.’
There’s the sound of a siren in the background.
‘I just wanted to ask you how Alfie is. Is he doing OK with all this?’
‘Yeah. He’s good. He misses you, of course, but we’re getting by.’
I’m not sure if he misses Jemma or not. I’m guessing he must do, but he hardly mentions her. I can’t tell her that, though.
‘Good.’
As soon as I think about the fact she’s abandoned our son, I can’t help but feel my animosity towards her building. Though I spend the majority of my days longing for escape, I know that, if I left, after the initial intense feeling of calm, the ache would start. Just like it did when I dropped him off on his first day at school, and, inexplicably, intensely missed him.
Saturdays at Noon Page 14
