Seeing Other People (30 page)

I’d been too lost in my own thoughts to pay much attention to what was going on but then Paul returned from a trip to the loo, glanced around the table and said, ‘Is this it? Is this the end of us? Is there no point in us hanging out together any more?’ He looked from me to Van. ‘You two have barely said a word all night. If you didn’t want to come out why did you bother? I turned down tickets to see a mate in
Oklahoma!
for this. You’re making me wish I’d gone and I cannot stand musicals. What’s wrong with you both?’

Van replied to Paul’s question before I’d even got my brain into gear: ‘I’m sorry mate, I’m just feeling a bit off my game tonight.’

There was something in Van’s voice that made us all sit up straight away. Even Paul stopped looking quite so annoyed. ‘What’s up, mate? Everything OK?’

‘It’s nothing,’ he shrugged. ‘I’m fine. It’s just, well, I’m getting my test results back tomorrow.’

‘I don’t get it,’ said Stewart. ‘When you had them done you said it was just a formality. What makes you think you’re not going to get the all clear?’

Van shrugged and drained the last of his beer. ‘I think I’ve found another lump,’ he said.

The following afternoon all three of us accompanied Van to his hospital appointment to get his results. This was yet another downside to being separated or divorced: having no one to hold your hand when you’re preparing for bad news. I had to cancel a couple of meetings and put off an interview I’d been chasing with a well-known actor but despite the earful I got from the actor’s PR it never once occurred to me not to go with them. To me Van was family now; in fact I felt the same about all the guys. They had proved themselves to be such good mates who always had my back that I was glad to have the opportunity to prove myself worthy of their friendship, no matter how small the gesture.

The nurses at the oncology department all appeared to know Van – or at the very least had failed to forget such a large personality – and laughed when he informed them that he’d brought his ‘crew’ along for emotional support before pointing us in the direction of the waiting room. His consultant was running late so his two o’clock appointment came and went without any relief from the tension of not knowing. While he didn’t say a great deal it was easy if you knew him like we did to see how worried he was. His bravado put on for the nurses disappeared the moment they were out of earshot and suddenly the big man we knew him to be seemed almost small. He’d told me one night after a visit to the pub that one of the best things about having cancer had been that it had made him appreciate life, the bad bits as well as the good, because that was what living was all about. He’d also told me that the worst thing about having cancer had been the thought that he might not see his kids grow up. As we all sat in silence in the waiting room I knew exactly what he was thinking.

Finally a nurse appeared and called Van’s name and as one we all rose to our feet.

‘You guys do know that you can’t actually come in the room with me, don’t you?’ chuckled Van. ‘I don’t think we’d all fit.’

Stewart spoke first. ‘We just . . .’ His voice trailed off but it didn’t matter. We all knew what it was he wanted to say.

Van nodded, acknowledging Stewart’s valiant effort at saying something meaningful in this most desperate of times, and then looked over at the nurse holding the door open for him.

‘I’ll see you guys on the other side,’ he said, and we watched as he crossed the floor and disappeared inside the room leaving us alone to silently contemplate the magnitude of what he must have been going through.

For thirty-five minutes none of us spoke. Instead we played about with our phones, flicked through long out-of-date magazines or simply stared into space but the longer we waited the more the guys and I began exchanging coded looks which at first simply asked: How long does it take for a doctor to say ‘Everything’s fine?’ but as the time went by became increasingly concerned. Surely he had been in there far too long for this to be anything other than the worst kind of bad news.

I’d just decided to go and ask the nurses what was going on when the consultant’s door opened and out came Van grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

‘All clear,’ said Van, wrapping his arms around Stewart and picking him up as though he weighed nothing. ‘Turns out the lump was just a blocked skin pore.’

‘So you’re fine?’ I asked. ‘Completely fine?’

‘Not a trace of anything dodgy in any of my tests. The consultant was so chuffed that he called in about half a dozen students to come and take a look at my results! That’s why it took so long.’

Paul patted Van on the back. ‘We should go and celebrate. News like this always tastes better with a pint.’

‘Mate, I’d love to,’ said Van. ‘But I can’t right now.’

Paul looked confused. It wasn’t like Van to turn down a pint when one was offered. ‘How come? Where are you going?’

‘Where do you think? I’m off to see my kids. Just me, them and all the chocolate chip ice cream they can eat.’

Once we’d had our celebration with Van a couple of days later, Paul revealed a problem he’d been wrestling with alone, not wanting to take the attention away from Van and all he had been going through. Paul’s ex was getting married. His kids wanted to go and he didn’t but no matter how many different alternatives his ex came up with the kids had made it clear that they were only going if Paul went too and so this was the compromise: Paul would go but only if he could bring three complete strangers with him. Paul’s ex told him that he could bring along a troupe of performing seals if he liked as long as the kids came and he warned her that although he probably wouldn’t be doing that one of the guys was a tall, bald New Zealander called Van Halen and there was a very good chance that if he got drunk he could cause some real fireworks. Later that day Paul pitched the idea to us over a series of group texts:

Paul:
Who wants to come to my ex’s wedding?

Me, Van and Stewart:
Not me.

Paul:
There’ll be free beer.

Van:
OK
.

Me and Stewart:
Still no
.

Paul:
I wouldn’t ask but I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be a tough day.

Me:
In that case count me in.

Stewart:
I’ll be there.

Van:
Dude, I don’t know what’s wrong with these guys, you had me at free beer!

It was just after midday as Stewart and Van and I arrived at the Royal Metropolitan in Knightsbridge. All three of us looked up at the plush, marble-clad building in front of us.

‘Paul’s ex-missus and her fiancé aren’t short of a few bob are they?’ commented Stewart, straightening his tie self-consciously.

‘You’re not wrong there, mate,’ replied Van, who although he was wearing a second-hand dinner jacket matched with a white vest top, jeans and cowboy boots couldn’t have been any more blissfully unaware of the looks he was attracting. ‘She must have really wound up Paulie for him to want to give up this kind of lifestyle. She’s obviously loaded.’

I shrugged, and thought back to my Father’s Day interview with Paul all that time ago. ‘Somewhere along the way,’ he’d said, ‘we just stopped loving each other and by the time we realised there just wasn’t anything anyone could do about it.’

We arrived late but the ushers were still busy getting everyone to sit down in time for the bride’s arrival. We tried to find somewhere to sit at the back of the room but then one of the ushers asked me who I was, checked my name against the list in his hands and then – with the whole room looking on – promptly marched us to a row of chairs at the front of the room where Paul was sitting with his kids.

‘Glad you could make it,’ said Paul in a stage whisper.

Once we’d all settled down I nudged Paul and gestured to the tall, fair-haired guy chatting at the front of the room. He looked nervous and excited.

‘Is that the groom?’

Paul nodded.

‘What’s he like?’

‘That’s the most galling thing about him: he’s actually OK.’

I stared hard at the groom and in spite of myself an image of Scott popped into my head. Would that be him one day in a room packed with friends and family waiting for Penny to walk up the aisle and promise to love and adore him for the rest of their lives? I couldn’t imagine any situation that would make me sit through that no matter what.

I leaned into Paul. ‘You know, if you want to slip out before she gets here no one will think any the worse of you. I’m happy to look after the kids until it’s all over.’

Paul shook his head. ‘It’s fine, really. This is something I need to do, not just for the kids but for me too.’

Later that night, after the food and the speeches had finished, Paul and I stood at the bar watching the bride and groom take to the floor for the first dance of the evening, Paul turned away and took a sip of his beer.

‘Are you all right mate?’

‘I’m fine, or I will be. It’s just been a weird day and I don’t quite know what I feel. They say that divorce is toughest on the kids, and it’s true, it’s really hard for them, but I’ll tell you what, it’s not easy on the parents either, not easy at all.’

A few weeks later, I was finishing off some work at home when I got a call from Stewart. ‘It’s the kids,’ said Stewart, barely able to get his words out. ‘I’ve just heard from my solicitor: my kids are coming home!’

For as long as I’d known Stewart he’d been trying to get his kids back from his ex-wife in Thailand without success. The battle to bring them home had taken its toll, financially and emotionally. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how he was feeling.

According to Stewart the news had come completely out of the blue. He’d got in from work to find an email from his ex saying she wanted to talk. Stewart had called the number she had given him straight away and she told him that the kids were homesick for the UK and she would send them back to him if he’d pay for the flights. We all told him to be careful in case she was just after his money but he wouldn’t listen. For him this was too good an opportunity for him not to hope to with all his strength that it was true. He’d told her he’d find the money and had so far managed to scrape together all but five hundred quid of it from family and friends.

I didn’t wait for him to ask. Broke as I was, this was a cause I could really get behind.

‘Give me your bank details and I’ll transfer it now.’

The following evening Stewart called to say he’d bought the tickets but added that there was one last favour he needed from me.

‘Name it.’

‘I could do with a bit of company while I wait to pick them up,’ he said. ‘I’ve asked Van and Paul already but they’re both working. I don’t suppose you could come with me could you?’

‘I’d be honoured,’ I replied. ‘Leave it with me and I’ll sort it out.’

Three days later I found myself in my car with Stewart in the passenger seat on our way to Heathrow’s Terminal Four. I still wasn’t quite sure how I’d been invited to witness the single most important day of his life but I was glad he wasn’t doing this alone.

Stewart was a bag of nerves as we waited in the arrivals lounge. He’d bought a coffee and let it go cold and then another and then let that go cold too. He’d pace the floor underneath the screen showing flight arrivals only stopping to check that he’d got the correct flight number even though I guessed he knew it off by heart. Finally however the news came through that he had been waiting for: his kids’ plane had landed.

‘What do you think I should say to them first?’ asked Stewart as we waited at the gate. ‘I haven’t seen them for so long, I want it to be right.’

‘It will be,’ I replied. ‘You’re their dad and throughout all this time you’ve never given up trying to see them. Your actions have said more than any words ever could. You just enjoy this moment and know that they’re going to be absolutely mad about you no matter what.’

As the first flurry of passengers from Bangkok began to filter through the sliding doors even I felt my heart beat that little bit faster but not even this could prepare me for the lurch I felt in my chest the moment Stewart locked eyes on his kids. The kids and their chaperone didn’t really know what had hit them when this chubby, dishevelled-looking bloke dressed in baggy jeans and a coat that was several sizes too big for him suddenly appeared in their line of vision with his arms outstretched ready to scoop them up and for a moment I feared that they might run away or, worse still, cry. But then the tallest of the two, a little girl no more than eight or nine at best, opened up her arms and hugged him and then her brother, who must have been around Jack’s age, ran forwards and hugged Stewart too. As life-affirming moments went I doubted that they got any better than this: hope fulfilled, a fractured family reunited, a hole in the heart sewn up for good.

Wiping away tears with the back of his hand while dozens of passengers looked on wondering at the story behind this emotional reunion, Stewart called me over.