Lessons for a Sunday Father (14 page)

“See this?” Scott would say, holding up a bit of cauliflower on the end of his fork. “It’s a meteor fragment. Gives you supernatural powers if you eat it.”

Nat would sit there with his mouth open, eyes huge and serious, trying to decide if it could really be true. And then he’d eat it. But if I tried to get vegetables down him, he’d cross his arms and shake his head. I’d coax him or bribe him with the promise of something nice for sweet, but he’d sit there shaking his head at me until I gave up.

Scott’s own childhood was—well, short on fun, shall we say? I can’t imagine he ever played like that with
his
father. Not a man who’s over-fond of children, I’d say, ‘specially not his own. Scott doesn’t like to talk about it much, says the past’s the past and it’s best forgotten. But his face gets this thoughtful look—just like Nat’s when he was little and wondering whether a cauliflower floret could really have come off a meteor—as if he’s imagining an entirely different universe.

With Scott and Nat being so close, Nat never showed much sign of being jealous of Rosie. He’s always teased her, of course, but there was a gentleness to it; if anything, he was protective of her. One time, some older girl at school had had a go at Rosie. I was all for rushing straight down to the school and speaking to the teacher, but Scott wouldn’t let me—"You’ve got to let kids sort this stuff out on their own. She’s got to stand up for herself. You’re not going to be riding to the rescue when she’s twenty-five, are you? Or when she’s forty?” I suppose he was right, but I thought he was being callous at the time. Then, the next morning at breakfast, Nat said Rosie wouldn’t be needing a lift because he’d be walking her in. Rosie just smiled, swinging her legs to and fro, and chewing her toast. And he did. He walked her in and met her at the end of the day three days in a row. And we never heard another peep about this other girl.

But now, since Rosie’s been going off with Scott on their own, Nat’s changed. He’s always trying to get a rise out of her, saying she’s just a baby or that she’s being a goody-goody. So I end up defending her, of course, and telling him off—and that makes it seem like I’m always against him, and never on his side. With Scott gone, it must feel as though no-one’s on his side. I wish I was better at this, or that at least I could be more laid back about it.

Scott always had a way with Nat. If Nat was in a strop or had done something naughty, Scott would make it all right somehow. He’d go up to Nat’s room and the two of them would fool about on the computer for a while or they’d suddenly both appear in the hall and sit squashed side by side on the stairs, putting on their skates and saying they were going “for a blade round the block.” They’d be bumping each other’s arms, their heads bent, racing to see who could lace up their skates first. Then they’d sail off down the front path, leaving the door wide open, Scott taller of course, but looking like a young lad himself, racing Nat to the corner, the two of them, arms swinging, calling to each other. And then they’d come swooping back, banging on the front door and ringing the bell because neither of them had thought to take their keys with them. They’d skate into the hall and come right on into the kitchen till I told them to take their skates off. And they’d be laughing about something they’d seen or some neighbour they’d frightened the life of, whizzing past at 90 miles an hour, and to look at Nat you’d never know he’d even been in a strop.

And when Nat used to come back from swimming practice, Scott would cup his hand like this, as if he was holding up a stopwatch. He’d just look at Nat and Nat would say his fastest time that day and they’d do that high-five thing. Scott was always dead chuffed, bursting with pride. I am too, of course, but I never know what to ask. If I say, “So, how’s the diving going?” it’s the week he’s concentrating on his arm action or if I say, “Fast time today?” they’re doing stamina training and time’s not important. Scott just seemed to
know
somehow.

It’s not that I wish Scott was back. It’s not that. It’s just that he could handle Nat, you see. And I have to face it, I can’t. I don’t seem to be able even to have a two-minute chat with him without it escalating into a row. I don’t know how to talk to my own son.

Thank heavens for Rosie. If it wasn’t for her, I’d have to throw in the towel and resign from being a mother. It’s odd, if anything, I’d have thought Nat would be the more robust one of the two of them, but I think maybe we’ve underestimated our Rosie quite a bit. She gets this wistful look on her face sometimes, but otherwise she seems to be doing OK. Most of the time, she just seems to get on with it, whatever it is. Like with Sundays and seeing her dad. It must have been so strange for her at first, but now, after just a few weeks, it’s as if she’d never had her Sundays any other way. She has her bag sorted, she’s eaten her breakfast, cleared away her plate and cup, and is all ready and waiting for the second Scott comes walking up the path. I bet we could all learn a thing or two from Rosie.

Yesterday, I phoned Gail at work. No, I wasn’t looking for a repeat of our last civilized discussion, but I was sick of washing out the same four pairs of underpants in Jeff’s basin.

I reckon they have some kind of unwritten code of honour in GPs’ surgeries, like all the receptionists agree to never answer the phone before thirty-two rings, a sort of Customer’s Charter in reverse. Anyway, she answers the phone in her special singsong surgery voice: “Huntsham-Surgery-Good-Morning,” her voice going up at the end as if expecting you to applaud.

“Hi,” I say. “It’s me.”

“Yes? Why are you ringing me here?” Her voice dropping with each word, sounding less and less singsongy and more and more drop-dead-you-bastardy. “Don’t ring me at work.”

“Oh, take a chill pill for God’s sake. I just want to come and fetch a couple of shirts and things.”

“Good. I’ve nearly finished sorting out your rubbish. Come tomorrow morning, at 9.30, after the kids have gone to school.”

“But I—”

“So that’s 9.30 a.m. then, for your appointment.” Singsong again now. And she hangs up on me.

You won’t believe this. I get home about twenty past nine this morning, but I think well, hang on a sec here, let’s hold fire till half past and not give Gail another excuse to have an epi. So I’m sitting in the car around the corner so’s not to look like a complete prat in case one of the neighbours sees me waiting ten yards from my own house. It gets to nearly half past, so I lock up and stroll towards home. Now, get this, as I’m fiddling with the sodding latch on the gate—I always meant to fix that—I see that there’s a note on the front door, like for the milkman or whoever. Then I see that it says SCOTT on it. I mean, is she trying to make me look small deliberately or what? Well, clearly she is. What if someone saw it? So I open it and it says: S—
Stuff round the back.—
G.

Right. That’s it. Fifteen years of marriage and that’s the best she can manage. So I’m starting to get a bit cross by now, and thinking I’ve had it with being all Mr Calm and Reasonable and bending over backwards and waiting until the exact second just so’s not to annoy her.

So I go round the back and there on our patio is our big green suitcase, two bulging black bin bags and two cardboard boxes. Taped to the suitcase is another note. This one says:
You can have any other stuff I find once I’ve had time to sort it out. Don’t
[underlined three times, the pen lines gouged deep into the paper]
call me at work.

PS The dentist phoned to say you’d missed your appointment on Friday.

Shit. I’d forgotten the sodding dentist. Hardly surprising, given my whole life’s gone down the tubes. My teeth aren’t exactly top of my worries.

I take a look into the boxes, peeling back the carrier bags that Gail had taped on top like lids. I don’t get it. She can barely manage to say hello to me on a Sunday but she goes to the trouble of taping Safeway bags over my stuff so it won’t get wet if it rains. Maybe it means she still cares. Hoo-sodding-ray, she cares. In one of them there’s my waterproof radio, with the hook to hang it from the shower rail, and a weird mixture of stuff: my alarm clock with Superman on it that Nat got me for my birthday one year, two pairs of old trainers that I never wear any more, my mug that says “Shouldn’t you have left for work by now?” on it.

… And there’s my beach towel on top of the other one. I grab one end of it and go to flick it out, thinking huh, surprised Miss Prim and Tidy didn’t fold it properly, realizing the same second that it’s like that ‘cause she’s bundled it round something, something quite light but maybe a bit fragile and as I’m thinking that, the something,
somethings
it turns out, hit the sodding patio.

They’re face down, but I know what they are, know it straight away, like I’d know Rosie from the back anywhere, with her funny walk, doing a sort of skip every few steps, and her white socks all pulled up so neat and those funny things girls wear in their hair—like plastic ladybirds or bees or butterflies—bugs basically but in pink or, in Rosie’s case, mauve of course. And Natty, shuffling and scuffling along like he’s got astronaut boots on, and it takes too much energy to lift his feet properly, kicking at the paving stones, swaggering from side to side trying to look tough, his hair all over the shop, a stranger to the hairbrush, that’s what Gail says. Yup, I love that, a stranger to the hairbrush. Anyways, they were their school photos, the latest ones, only taken a couple of months ago. I know, I know—we’re sad suckers, aren’t we, we always say we won’t buy them, they’re overpriced, we’ll take our own, they’ll be much better, all that. Then Rosie brings back her envelope and Natty brings back his and they’re saying, “Don’t get them, Dad, Mum—they’re rubbish."—Actually, Nat says “They’re crap” but you get my drift. “Don’t waste your money,” they say, but Gail and me sitting there, looking at them as if they’re photos of the only two children on the entire planet and how could we possibly not buy them?

They’d fallen one half on top of the other. I felt—I don’t know—half scared even to pick them up. Even though I can see what they are, I don’t want to see them really, truly ‘cause I’ll know what it means, what Gail means by giving them to me: This is it. This is all you, Scott, are getting. I have the real thing. You can have the photographs.

The most recent ones, too, so I’ll be reminded every time I look at them that this is when I lost them, this is when they stopped being my kids, like they’d died or something.

I pick up the top one and turn it over. It’s the one of Rosie, unbroken thank God, looking back at me with a small shy smile, her hair in whatsits, bunches, sticking out either side of her head like handles, but all smooth and soft like Gail’s. She’s wearing a mauve top, her best top, specially for the photo. I remember Gail ironing it at the time.

“But Mu-um, I’ve
got
to have it. It’s the photos today.”

“Well, honestly, Rosie, why on earth didn’t you tell me before? It’s not even dry. You’ll catch pneumonia if you wear it.”

“But I
have
to. It’s my best one.”

“You’re a little nuisance sometimes, you really are. I’ve got better things to do than stand here all morning trying to iron this dry. Right—I’m putting it in a bag, Rosie, and you can change into it for your photo. It’s too damp to wear all day. No arguments, please.”

And Nat joining in: “Hey, Rozza. Act like you’re a model—Excuse me, Miss, I have to change now for my photographs. Is the make-up lady here yet?”

“Don’t put ideas in her head, Nat, and HURRY UP—you’ll be late.”

   *   *   *

The memory makes me smile. Then I pick up the other photo. Nat. There is a horrible noise as I pick it up. The sound of edges of broken glass grinding against each other. And there is Nat, my Natty, staring coolly back at me, his familiar half-smile covered by a crack, his face fractured by splintered glass. I sink to my knees then, there on the patio, holding this broken picture of my son, thinking what have I done, what have I done? I turn it over, scrabbling at the back, undoing the frame to pull out the picture, rescue him from the sharp shards of glass.

I shake out the pieces from the frame—leaving a sort of semicircle of fragments around me, like when I eat a bread roll in a restaurant, a fan of tell-tale crumbs—Scott was here. That’s it, I thought, that’s what it’ll be like—splinters wherever I go—work, home, in the street, me walking along, leaving a trail of shattered glass behind me, shattered people, lives, a swathe of destruction in my wake. What have I done? What have I done?

I kneel there on the patio, holding the photo in both hands, for what feels like an age but perhaps it’s only a few minutes. Then I get up and cast around for something to sweep up the glass, try to shove it to one side with the edge of my shoe. Ten seconds with a dustpan and brush would do it. What happens next, I don’t think about it, not really, what I’m doing. It just seems the obvious thing to do. I wrap the beach towel round my fist and I smash one of the small windows of the glass lean-to—conservatory, Gail calls it, but it’s not exactly all palms and tea tables, more of a back porch with ideas above its station—and reach down to open the catch on a big window. I clamber in and find the key to the back door Gail stuck under a plant pot after the time Rosie got locked out the back and was calling for ages and we couldn’t hear her over the TV. Too easy, far too easy. We really should have locks on all these windows, I think, as I come into the kitchen. Hunt about for the dustpan, where does she keep the sodding thing? Not in the broom cupboard. Under the sink. What’s she keep it there for? Let myself out the back door, sweep up and come back in. Then realize there’s now even more glass, on the floor of the lean-to and in the plant pots. I clear up as well as I can, picking out bits from the leaves and the soil and going at the floor with a cloth. There’s a whacking great size 10 footprint on the tiled floor near where I’d jumped down. I nearly left it there, like a message to Gail—don’t think you can keep me out.

I check the time. Gail usually finishes work at two and she often trots off to the shops instead of dragging back here and going out again to pick up Rosie from school. So that means that at most I’d have till about ten to four and at least until twenty past two if she comes straight back. Loads of time to get back to work, pick up a new pane of glass, come pack, putty it in, clean up and wah-boom, no sign of Scott on the premises. I begin to feel a bit pleased with myself. I picture myself doing it every week if I felt like it—come in, help myself to a coffee, biscuits, apple from the fruit bowl, have a poke round, see what everyone’s up to. After all, it’s my house. Still, I thought, better not get carried away now, as I’m pushed for time. As it is, the putty won’t dry in time and it’ll pong a bit, but she’s got no reason to be poking about out here this time of year so she’s not likely to notice. Besides, I’ve got no choice. I’ll have to risk it. Either that, or leave it broken and next thing I know I’ll have the police rolling up at work.