Lessons for a Sunday Father (17 page)

LOCAL LAD SAVES BEEF INDUSTRY SINGLE-HANDED

Go for a piss. Leave the seat up, thinking nyah-ner to you, Gail, Goddess of Nag, go out, then back in again to put it back down, reckoning she’d throw a wobbly at Nat. Into Gail’s room—sod it
—our
room. Perch on the edge of the bed for a minute as if sitting next to someone sick. Then I flop back and just lay there staring at the ceiling, looking at the lampshade and thinking how I didn’t like it all that much—it’s pretty horrible really, but I’d never thought about it before even though I must have looked at it—at least twice a day, say last thing at night and first thing when I wake up. We’ve been in the house bit over eight years, so what’s that make? Over 5,000 times? A lot anyway. Actually, no, it’s less than that because we redecorated in here only two years ago and got a new shade, so—oh, bollocks, who cares? The point is. I don’t know. Yes—the point is that I’m a bloody good husband—and the lampshade is proof. See, I’ve put up with this vile lampshade for over two years and never complained once. That ought to count for something. None of the things that ought to count ever do, do they? Why is it always up to the women to decide what matters? Like having one brief shag with someone else is everything—OK, two brief shags, whatever—but being nice day in, day out and putting up with the Lampshade from Hell means bugger all? Whoever said we’ve got a male-dominated society wants his head looking at.
Her
head probably.

I pull back the bedspread then and curl up under it, lay my head on Gail’s pillow, but she must have just changed the bed because there’s only a clean laundry kind of smell and not a Gail-smell at all. I slip my hand under the pillow and pull out a nightie of Gail’s, made of some slithery, shiny stuff. I press it to my face and there’s a trace of her on it. A definite whiff of Gail, that perfume she wears and some other smell that’s just her, her skin, her hair, whatever. I feel a bit choked up suddenly, tell myself I’m a daft bugger, rubbing the cloth against my cheek. It’s all soft and silky. I wonder if …? Sod it, why not? It’s not like I’ve got anything left to lose. I attempt to stuff the nightie inside my jacket but it just slides out again, so—I know this sounds a bit pervy but I can’t think what the hell else to do with it—I wind it round my waist, tucked into my trousers all the way round, then tuck my shirt back in over it. With my jacket on, you couldn’t see a thing. Then I carefully smooth the pillow and put the bedspread back so it’s all neat and peer at it from every angle.

I poke my head round Rosie’s door. She is
so
tidy. Funny kid. Take a quid out of my pocket and hide it in one of her shoes at the bottom of the wardrobe. I’m just leaving then when something catches my eye. A new poster. Before she used to have this poster of dolphins on the wall. But now I see it’s been bumped—demoted to the far end next to the window. Pride of place, where she’d see it when she woke up each morning is a pop poster, one of those bands where they all look about twelve and they’re all singers—well, allegedly anyway—and you can hear music but no-one seems to be playing any kind of instrument, you know? But she’s way too young to be into bands and stuff. Actually, maybe last Sunday she did say something about a band. But she’s only a little kid for chrissakes. Next thing she’ll be dolling herself up to the nines and rolling in at two o’clock in the morning off her head on E. I’ll ask her Sunday, about bands I mean, what she likes and that.

Still, the thought made me feel a bit weird, to be honest, like she was growing up without me—you know that playground game they used to play way back when I was alive—Grandma’s Footsteps, was it? You turn your back and the others try and slowly sneak up on you, but you turn round suddenly and try to catch them moving. Like that.

I come back home once or twice a week now, whenever I can fit it in. I come in the day of course, usually mid-morning, just to—I don’t know—have a look, I suppose. See what’s occurring. It’s not against the law or anything, is it? Couldn’t be—it’s my house after all, right? Our house. Besides, it’s not as if I’m breaking in or anything. I’m using a key—'cept for that first time and there were extenuating circumstances, i.e. I was very pissed off, so I really had no other option. Now, it’s no different than if I was a totally normal husband doing shift work, say, and coming home when the rest of the family were out. Completely normal and ordinary. The only difference is that I’m not on shift work, of course. Oh yeah—and the family have no idea that I’m even here. But it’s not as if they’d really mind. Aside from Gail, obviously.

Still. It’s good to be here. I don’t think I ever really appreciated having a nice home before. You don’t till you suddenly find yourself living out of a bin bag. Oh, you know what I mean, in someone else’s back bedroom then. Being at Harry’s is all right, and I’m not ungrateful, but it’s not the same as having your own place where you can just drop yourself onto the settee and put your feet up or wander round in your underpants. This is no palace, I grant you, we’ve not got gold taps or silk wallpaper, but it’s warm and comfy and got everything we need. Everything I need. Telly, video, music centre, all the gear. Decent power shower all tiled round by yours truly. Dishwasher. Wife. Children. Shame you can’t replace them out of a catalogue: “I seem to have lost my wife and kids, but I see you’ve a nice set there on page 72. Have you got them in stock, but with a less stroppy looking wife? Fine, I’ll take them. Deliver them on Tuesday. Thank you.”

It’s so quiet here now. Looking back, I think I was hardly ever in the house on my own, so you could always hear, well, just typical family noise really: the TV, Nat thundering up and down the stairs, music—Gail listening to the radio in the kitchen while she made the tea, Nat playing his CDs, the dishwasher humming away or the clothes washer or the ping of the microwave or the kettle coming to the boil. And Rosie, asking questions, the way she does: “Da-a-a-d, you know Mount Everest? Well, why do people keep climbing up it?” It’s a mystery to me, love, I can barely manage life down here. Mind you, Everest sounds kind of tempting after the last few weeks I’ve just had.

Just have a quick scout round, I’ve not got long today. Harry’d never say a word, bless him, but he must be wondering why my calls keep taking me so long. I go in the front room and stretch out on the settee to watch a bit of telly. God, it’s crap, daytime TV, isn’t it? No wonder people want to go out to work. I channel-hop every six seconds or so then give up on it. Tidy the cushions and shake them to plump them up again. See, I am a good husband. Admittedly, I never used to bother doing that, but I’m a changed man, really I am.

A nose round upstairs. No sign of male occupation, thank God, other than Nat’s spot cream in the bathroom. I wonder if Gail’ll start seeing someone. A boyfriend, I mean—you know, just to get back at me. It’s way too soon, of course, but she might as a sort of retaliation, revenge thing. Nah. She wouldn’t. She wants me back, I’m sure of it, it’s just she’s painted herself into a corner with all this playing the Outraged Innocent Victim crap and she doesn’t know how to get out of it.

Rosie’s room is shipshape as usual, but with hundreds of little bits and bobs everywhere—I don’t know, girlie stuff, her snow shakers, of course, and tiny glass animals and boxes with shells stuck on them and small soft toys with googly eyes and dishes filled with elastic thingies for her hair and grips or clips or whatever they are, and flowers carved out of wood and boxes with secret catches so you can’t open them and funny plastic rings with outsize jewels on them that she’s saved from Christmas crackers.

Inside the wardrobe, her clothes are all put away properly. Not like me, King of the Plastic Sacks. The dresses and skirts are neat and straight on hangers, the tops and trousers folded on the shelves. I walk my fingers along the line of hangers to find her favourite dress. It’s this one, see, with the light blue spots all over it? She loves this one, though it must be too small for her now. She wore it last summer when we went on her friend’s birthday picnic. There were three families in all and we just lazed around most of the day, having too much beer and stuffing our faces with chicken and cold meat loaf, snoozing in the sun while the kids played some game that seemed to involve lots of running and pushing and shouts of “You cheat!” I remember this one moment—I must have just woken up from a bit of a doze—and I half sat up. And there was Rosie in her spotty dress—running, picking her feet up high because of the long grass and literally shrieking with delight. She looked like a picture. The dots on her dress were exactly the same colour as the sky behind her—bang on they were, you couldn’t have got a better match if you’d been sat there all day with a paintbox.

I felt ridiculously proud. I know, she wasn’t doing anything especially clever or amazing, but she was my daughter and she looked so pretty and happy, running like the wind, and just bursting with life that I was dead chuffed. And then, just as suddenly, I came over all sad. How much longer would she be like this, I thought, leaping through the grass and without a worry in the world. All too soon she’ll be a teenager and she’ll be skulking in her room and throwing a strop every two minutes and slamming doors and wanting to be pierced all over the place. And then she’ll be like the rest of us, struggling to earn a living, pay the mortgage, find someone to settle down with, raise a family, trying to put a bit by for a holiday or a new kitchen or a new car, worrying about her tax or the latest food scare or whether her husband’s shagging someone else. Ahem. Whatever. And there’ll be no more running through the grass, shrieking with joy, outrunning the wind.

I guess I felt sad for myself, too, sad that I’ve become a pathetic old git, wasting my life worrying and moaning and going nowhere when I should be out there rushing through the long grass, whooping at the sky. No, not necessarily literally. You know what I mean.

I plucked out the dress and swung it round, the way I used to swing Rosie when she was little, remembering her laughing and bossing me, telling me to put her down, put her down right now, but knowing from her laughter and her eyes that she’s loving it. I held the little dress close for a minute till I thought, “Hang on a tick, you’re losing it, mate. You’ll start blubbing like a baby in a minute if you don’t pull yourself together.”

I didn’t think I could face Nat’s room after that. Not the untidiness, ‘cause I never gave a toss about that, not like Gail. Just—well, you know. I patted his door as I passed then went downstairs. Checked my watch. Gail’s not due back for hours. Easy-peasy. Shoes back on and I’m out the door and off back to my car with no-one any the wiser.

His rods are gone. Everything. The whole lot. The lamp. And the tent. And the big green umbrella. Now there’s just my rod in the cupboard, all on its own. I guess he’s really not coming back. See, I said he wasn’t, didn’t I? I always said it.

Tonight, the phone rang and I picked it up without thinking. It went all slow motion like an action replay, watching my hand lift the phone and suddenly knowing it was him but too late to let go. I didn’t say anything.

“Hi,” Dad said, “Gail? Who’s that? Rosie, is that you?”

I said nothing, holding the phone away as if it had germs. He phones Rosie like every day practically. She sits on the bottom step, twirling the ends of her hair round and round her finger and telling him what she’s done at school. I say, “That your boyfriend? C’mon, get off the phone—you’ve been on for hours.” It really winds her up.

“Nat? Nat. Come on, Natty, don’t be like this. It’s me—Dad.”

Uh-duh. Yeah, like who else would I refuse to speak to? He can be really thick sometimes. I wanted to speak, wanted to say, “Dad who?” in a snotty voice, “Not the dad who fucked up everything and is nothing to do with me any more? That dad?”

“Natty?” he said again. “Hey.” He didn’t say anything for what felt like ages. Well, two can play at that game. I could stand there all day. “Well. Get Rosie for me will you then?”

Rosie was out at a friend’s, but why should I tell him?

I put the phone on its side with a loud clunk and shouted up to Mum.

“Mu-um. Ph-o-o-o-ne.”

“Who is it?” She came running down the stairs.

I shrugged.

She gave me one of her looks. Like really scary—not. I went into the kitchen so I could still hear and opened the fridge. Stood in the cold eating a hunk of cheese, nibbling it like a rat, making ratty squeaks, ratty-Natty, and swigging some juice from the carton.

“… he doesn’t
want
to, Scott. I can’t make him.

“I’ll do what I can, but frankly you should have thought—hang on a sec—”

I saw her arm reach across to close the kitchen door. I snuck closer, just in time to hear her bang the phone down. The door opened immediately. She’s so suspicious all the time.

“What?” I said, sidling back towards the fridge.

“Nathan!” she was practically bellowing.

“I can hear, you know. I’m not deaf.”

“Nathan,” she said again, all quiet and scary—but really this time. “Don’t eavesdrop on other people’s conversations all the time.”

“I wasn’t—I’m just here having a small piece of cheese. I suppose you’d rather I starved to death?”

“Don’t interrupt when I’m cross, Nathan, or I’ll get a lot crosser. And don’t be melodramatic. I won’t have you snooping—it’s very rude for a start, and no-one ever heard good of themselves that way, so I—oh, for goodness’ sake—” Mum came towards me and I suddenly thought she was going to hit me. OK, I know she never has, well not for years, ‘cept about twice maybe—one time after I ran out in the road and nearly got run over and the other time I made a V-sign at an old lady but it wasn’t fair I got a smack—I only did it ‘cause she swore at me for no reason, shouted at me right in the street. She was a total loony. And she was smelly.

I dropped the cheese and Mum went even more ballistic.

“Whatever’s wrong with you, Nathan? Pick that up right now and cut off the bit where it’s touched the floor. Come out of there, you’re practically in the fridge. I must have told you a thousand times, don’t stand there with the fridge door open. It makes it over-rev. You’re as bad as—well. Please, please, Nat, just close the fridge door, OK?”