A Friend of the Family (36 page)

And as he talked, Gervase just listened and nodded. He didn’t interrupt with questions, he didn’t even make eye-contact with Sean, just let him babble and babble – and it was one of the most liberating experiences of Sean’s life. He’d never been one for opening up to people – he liked to keep his thoughts and feelings to himself. It was safer that way. But there was something about Gervase, about his touch and his gaze and his presence, that made Sean feel like he could say anything. And he didn’t have any trouble finding the words – he was articulate and eloquent, expressing his emotions and feelings in a way that he could only dream about in his writing.

He stopped talking as suddenly as he’d started and was aware of the resonant silence of the toilets. A tap was dripping loudly and the sound of Mum singing outside was a distant, ghostly echo. Gervase let go of his hand and looked at him.

‘You boys…’ he said, shaking his head slowly from side to side.

‘What?’

‘Nothing,’ he said, ‘nothing. Look. Sean. I don’t often give advice – well, not specific advice anyway. Usually because I can’t really relate to other people’s problems – I can just
feel
them, you know. But you – Jees. I don’t know what to say to you. I want to say so much. But I don’t know where to start. It’s just – look, sorry about this, mate.’

‘What?’

‘This.’ Gervase picked up Sean’s hand again and suddenly forced it up against his chest. Sean could feel Gervase’s ribs, his nipple, the beating of his heart. And then he was overcome by the most intense, excruciating pain he’d ever experienced in his life. Not a physical pain but a sensation like all the sadness and misery in the world coming to rest in his soul, like hearing the worst news you’d ever heard, like losing everyone you love, like
hell.

Gervase stared into his eyes as he clamped his hand to his chest and Sean desperately tried to extricate himself from Gervase’s grasp, but he was paralysed. ‘Stop it,’ he managed to mutter through his gritted teeth. But Gervase just stared at him. And as he stared at him Sean felt tears again, not puny little soppy-song tears this time, but huge, painful tears that racked his whole body. And then he started sobbing like he hadn’t sobbed since he was four years old.

Gervase finally pulled his hand away from his chest and all the pain immediately dissipated, leaving Sean with just a nagging sense of sadness and emptiness.

He fell backwards against the wall and clutched his knees. ‘Fuck.’

‘Yeah. Sorry about that.’ Gervase pulled his Chesterfields out of his jeans pocket and lit one up.

‘What the fuck have you done to me?’

‘I was giving you an insight, mate.’

‘Insight? What the fuck are you talking about?’

‘I just gave you a glimpse into my soul.’

‘Your soul? But that was – that was
hell.’

‘Yup.’

‘Jesus.’ Sean stood up and stumbled towards the sink, where he splashed his tear-stained face with cold water.

‘It wasn’t my
whole
soul, though. Don’t feel too sorry for me. It was just a little corner of my soul.’ He took a big drag on his cigarette and looked at Sean. ‘The corner where my son lives.’

‘You have a son?’ Sean pulled another paper towel from the dispenser and dried his face off.

Yeah. Charlie. He’s sixteen years old.’

‘You’ve lost me, mate. One minute you’re talking about me, the next you’re… you’re… Jesus Christ,
whatever,
and now you’re telling me about your son. What’s he got to do with anything?’

‘Everything, Sean. Everything. Look. When I was eighteen I met this girl, right. Her name was Kim. She was beautiful.
Exquisite.
Tiny little hands, she had. Sweetest face – like a little angel. She was seventeen. And she
really
loved me, you know. She was the first person I’d ever known in my life who really loved me like that. I was a bit of a Jack the Lad, then. Strutting around, you know, thinking I was the business. She wasn’t my only girl – I had a couple of others. I was eighteen, you know? The world was full of beautiful women – I thought I owed it to them to keep myself available.

‘Now Kim – she didn’t know about the other girls. She was a sensitive little soul; it would have upset her. I think she thought I was all hers. So one day she comes
to me and she’s smiling and she says she’s pregnant. Well, I just fucking flipped out. Just lost it. Could not deal with that – no way. Seen too many of my mates going down that path, tying themselves down with wives and kids, old before their times. So I bailed out. Just walked. Left the area and everything. And then one day, three years later, I was standing outside this launderette in Eltham and I hear this little voice – “Gervase?”– and I look down and there’s my little Kim. She’s pushing a pram with this kid in it. The cutest-looking kid I have ever seen in my life – jet-black hair, big blue eyes, grinning at me. My son.

‘“This is Charlie,” she says. “Say hello to Gervase, Charlie.” And this little kid who can hardly speak, you know, he’s only little, says, “Hello, Giraffe, hello.”
Giraffe,’
He chuckled. ‘Well, I felt like I’d been kicked in the nuts, you know. I was magnetized by this little kid.
My
kid. But Kim was being, you know – cool. Not like she used to be. Lips all pursed-up, all efficient and busy-busy. Tells me she’s got to go. Her
husband’s
waiting for her at home. She’s only gone and married someone else. And my kid, this beautiful little kid, is being brought up by another man.
Mick.
What sort of a fucking stupid name is
Mick?
That killed me. So I says, “Look, Kim, any chance I could come and see you, you know? You and the kid?” She purses her lips up even tighter, like this, like a kitten’s arse. “No,” she says, “it’s not fair on the kid. Mick’s his dad now. Mick’s been his dad since he was six months old. You had your chance.” And then she walks off. And I’m left standing there
watching my kid being wheeled away down Eltham High Street. And as I’m watching this kid, he turns around in his pram, turns right round and he grins at me – this big, beautiful, shit-eating grin. And he waves. Then they turned the corner. And that was it. The last time I saw him.

‘And that pain you felt just now. That’s the pain I feel every time I think about that moment. Every time I think about Charlie. It’s like there’s this big hole in me and it lets in the cold and the rain and the wind. You know.

‘I thought I knew myself when I made the decision to ditch Kim – thought I knew what was important, what I wanted. But I knew jack shit. The baby didn’t seem real then. All I could see was a problem. I never thought what it actually meant to have a kid, you know –
a fucking kid.
It wasn’t real. I thought it was like she had the clap or something – her problem. Nothing to do with me. She had to deal with it. But I was only eighteen. You, though, Sean – I don’t want to be harsh, but Jesus Christ, you’re thirty years old. You’ve got fuckloads of money. Get a grip, man. Seriously. I don’t want you to feel how I feel, to walk round with this big empty void in you where your kid should be, your kid and your wife. To know that another man is bringing up your child. Because another man
will
bring up your child, mark my words. And you’d deserve it.

‘What is it you’re waiting for, exactly? Something better? Because if that’s what you’re waiting for you’re going to be sorely disappointed. This is it. Millie. Your
kid. Here. Now. Fucking get it together. Fucking go to the fucking scan, fucking let her read your fucking book and then fucking marry her. And stop fucking about. OK?’

Sean and Gervase stood and stared breathlessly at each other for a moment or two. And then the door opened and Ned burst in looking concerned and confused. ‘Where’ve you been?’ he said.

‘Just here,’ said Gervase, sucking calmly on his Chesterfield, ‘having a little chat.’

‘Christ – I thought something had happened. You’ve been gone ages. Everything all right?’

Gervase looked across at Sean. ‘Everything all right, Sean?’ he said.

Sean glanced up at him. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘everything’s cool.’

‘Good,’ said Gervase, extinguishing his cigarette under a tap and turning to preen his hair in the mirror. ‘Good. Now, let’s go back and watch the rest of your mum’s set. Yeah?’

Tea and Empathy

Tony’s golden reprieve from grinding human misery lasted less than a week. From the second that Ness walked out the door and he heard the electric gates closing behind her, it all came home to roost. All the self-doubt, the apathy, the sense of complete and utter futility. Except this time he recognized it. It had crept up on him so slowly before that he’d never really acknowledged its descent until it was too late. But this time he’d been thrown from the front row of harmony to the dark stalls of shittiness so fast it had knocked all the wind out of him.

Mum hadn’t helped. She’d phoned him first thing on Tuesday morning to lambaste him about Ness.

‘First Carly,’she’d said, ‘now Ness. It’s like losing children, Tony. What were you thinking?’

‘I don’t know, Mum, all right? It just wasn’t working out.’

‘But that girl
adores
you.’

‘Yes, Mum, I know she does. But she adores you, too. And Dad. And cab drivers. And anyone you care to mention. Adoring people is her speciality.’

‘I have no idea how you managed to make that sound
like a
fault,
Anthony. Most men would give their left eye for a girl like Ness. Someone that warm and loyal and attractive.’

‘I know, Mum, but I’m obviously not most men, am I? Look – I love Ness, very much, I really do. But she wasn’t the right girl for me. I’m thirty-five years old. I haven’t got time to fuck around. I let it drag on for far longer than I should have, as it is.’

‘Oh, Tony. I don’t understand. I really don’t. I thought you and Ness were going to… you know.’

Yes, Tony knew what she meant. She thought they were going to get married and provide her with adorable little ringleted grandchildren.

‘Yes, well, we’re not, OK? It’s not going to happen. I’m really sorry to let you down, but this is my future we’re talking about and it’s about time I took some sort of control over it.’

‘Well, I’m very disappointed, love. I really am. I don’t mean to sound selfish, but there you go…’

No surprise there, then, Tony had thought. He’d known all along how the maternal cookie would crumble if he and Ness ever split up.

There’d been more phone calls during the week, from Rob, from Trisha, from all his mates, one by one. And not one of them said, ‘How are you doing, are you OK?’ They all said the same thing: ‘Are you
mad?
What the fuck are you playing at? We thought you and Ness were going to be together
for ever.’

The only person who’d phoned him out of concern had been Ned. Good old Ned – God, he loved that
boy, he really did, more so now than ever. Not a word from Sean, of course, and there was no way he didn’t know. Tony knew how the familial grapevine worked – Mum would have been on the phone to Sean within seconds, probably asking him to come over and try and talk some sense into him. But Sean was obviously still sulking.

Tony had thought about phoning him, apologizing for the things he’d said the other night, but he just couldn’t muster up the enthusiasm to do it. He’d be seeing him soon enough anyway, at Mum’s party.

So it had been a bummer of a week – long, empty and lonely. There was no sense of euphoria about having finally cut his ties with Ness, no sense of joy about the future. For some bizarre reason he was only able to feel positive about the future when his life was playing itself out like an episode of
EastEnders.
Maybe he was a drama addict, he mused. The last time he’d felt as euphoric as he’d been last week was when he found out that Jo had been having an affair and they split up. He wished he could find a nice cosy home for himself somewhere in the middle ground between despondency and euphoria – that would be nice, he thought.

On Thursday afternoon he found himself at a meeting in Bond Street and decided to drop in on his dad at Grays. He hadn’t been to see his dad at work for ages and felt quite excited at the prospect as he strode up South Molton Street, past trendy shoe shops and glamorous girls in enormous sunglasses eating salads in
the sunshine. Dad wouldn’t judge or take sides. Dad would just get him a mug of tea and talk about the football.

He walked from the bright spring day outside into the shadowy dusk of Grays antique market and was immediately transported back to his childhood – the smell of old silver, aged paper, musty wood and powdery velvet, the glitter of crystal and gilt, the gleam of high-polished mahogany and rosewood, the glint of brass and antique copper. He strode through the narrow passageways between stands selling faded theatre bills, 100-year-old rocking horses and threadbare teddy bears, militaria, memorabilia, French horns and saxophones, deco glassware, nouveau silverware and crispy-skirted prom dresses.

He recognized a few old faces from his childhood, tweed-jacketed men, hand-knitted-jumpered women who’d been there since before he was born, all with the patinated pallor that comes from sitting indoors in poorly lit rabbit warrens for forty years.

None of them recognized him, though – he’d have been thin the last time they saw him, thin and sharp-suited with an air of purpose about him, not this lost, bumbling soul in too-small chinos and a straining shirt.

Dad was just sealing a roll-up when Tony turned the corner and saw him sitting inside his Aladdin’s cave of sparkling silver.

‘Hello, son,’ he said, leaping nimbly off his stool and giving him a big tobacco-scented hug. ‘What brings you here?’

‘Just come from a meeting. Had a spare hour. Just thought I’d…’And then he stopped when his eye was caught by a figure lurking in the corner.

Gervase.

‘All right, Tone,’ he said, ‘how’s it hanging?’

Tony mumbled some sort of response and Gervase sauntered off to get them all some tea.

‘What’s
he
doing here?’ hissed Tony immediately.