Surely this wasn’t my life? I thought, plunging the mop into the sudsy water. My life was simple, busy but uncomplicated, a predictable juggling of kids, work, shopping, cooking and cleaning, with not enough treats such as meals out, drinks in the pub with Scott or my best friend Cassie, or girlie nights in with my sisters, Mari and Lynn. But this
thing
—this wasn’t my life. This was TV drama-land—people arguing in kitchens and lying and cheating and driving off at midnight. And I’m right in the middle of it, only I don’t know what’s going to happen next. I shoved the mop back and forth over the floor, the colour of it brightening at my feet. It’s supposed to look like real quarry tiles, sort of terracotta-ish, but it’s just vinyl of course, no more than a sham. A practical sham.
Back in the bedroom, the red figures of the clock said 2:13. Twenty-four hours ago, I was asleep in this very same bed, and Scott was right here next to me. Twenty-four hours ago, we were a normal family. Not perfect, not rich, just normal. But we were like children playing in a field where there’s a hidden landmine. Twenty-four hours ago, I was content, secure, my biggest worry no more than what to cook for supper, where Rosie’s gym kit had got to, and whether Nat might ever respond with anything other than “Mn?” I was still in one piece, twenty-four hours ago, the children were asleep in their beds, the house was still standing. But now nothing was the same. The landmine was already there, waiting to explode. I just didn’t know it.
So in the morning, I have my croissants and coffee with cream in bed, brought to me by my adoring harem of exotic maidens, sink into a deep bath, mosey around in my silk dressing-gown, speak to my stockbroker, then have the chauffeur pick me up in the limo to take me to my first meeting of the day.
I am seriously going to have to do something about this. I can tell, the more miserable I get the more I tend to daydream. Gail says it’s because I don’t know what it means to be a grown-up. But that’s crap—I earn a living to support my family, I pay my taxes and bills, I drive a car, so I’m a grown-up, right? Don’t answer that.
Looked at my watch. It was twenty to eight. Well, I’ve no idea how that happened because I absolutely, definitely, 100 per cent did not close my eyes for a single second. So I’m there, sat at my desk with a grade A crick in my neck, stiff back and generally feeling like a load of old shite frankly. The lads are supposed to get in at eight but Harry and me aren’t sticklers for timekeeping as long as everyone’s in and stopped arsing about by 8.30. Builders working out on sites often come in first thing, you see, and they usually wait and have their glass cut there and then. If there’s no lads in, Harry or I do it. I like to keep my hand in anyway. I’m always in by eight to do the alarm and let the others in, but Harry’s sometimes here first. It’s Harry’s company, well him and his wife’s. Maureen comes in two, three days a week to “oversee” the paperwork, i.e. check on everything Denise has done because she doesn’t trust her. Though, frankly Denise is too dull to be untrustworthy, you know? She hasn’t got the imagination and I don’t see how she could do anything dodgy anyhow—what’s she going to do, sneak out some stock sheets under her coat? I mean, they’re eight feet by four for chrissakes. And where would she sell them on—it’s not exactly like offloading snide sweatshirts down the pub, is it? “Fancy some cheap glass, mate? Got plain, reeded or frosted.” I don’t think so.
Anyway, although Harry’s the owner, he’s not much of a manager type. Well, obviously—that’s what he’s got me for, though I’m not sure I’m much of a one either. But I’m better at smooching the private customers and chatting up business clients, offices and that. I’m the one with the looks and the charm—OK, only when compared to Harry, but I get by. Harry’s been in the business since he was barely out of nappies, still carries round his grandad’s diamond glass cutters as well as his new tungsten ones. He’s sixty-one so I guess he might knock off for good soon, but I don’t know what he’d do with the business. Their son lives in Australia and I can’t see him being enough of a mug to leave behind the sun, sea and surfing to hide away on an industrial estate where the only excitement in our daily lives is the arrival of the sandwich van and wondering whether she’ll have chocolate muffins or lemon drizzle cake. I know, sad, isn’t it?
Still, the point is, twenty to eight didn’t leave me a whole lot of time to get myself a shave from somewhere and find a clean shirt. But I figured Gail would have calmed down by now and I could call Harry and tell him I’d be a bit late in. So first I rang home.
“Gail? It’s me. Look, I—” I was just going to go into how sorry I was and I’d make it up to her and all that, but I never got the chance, ‘cause she hung up on me.
I rang again.
“What do you want?” Her voice was dead cold. Scary. Like I was a double-glazing salesman she was trying to get shot of.
“Gail. Come on, love. I need to come home. Let’s not be silly about this.”
“Let’s not be silly? But ‘being silly’ as in sleeping with someone else is OK, is it? Perhaps you could draw up a sheet of rules, because I find your logic just a teensy bit difficult to follow.”
“Sweetheart, I can tell you’re still a bit upset—”
“A bit upset? Do you think you can just buy me a bunch of flowers and that’ll be the end of it?”
“No, course not!” She wasn’t all that far off actually, but I reckon there’s a time and a place for honesty and so far telling the truth had done nothing but land me in serious shit.
“Scott, as far as I’m concerned, you are—” Her voice suddenly dropped to a harsh whisper so the kids must have been around, “—
never
setting foot past this front door again.”
Bit over the top, don’t you think? Women like a bit of a to-do in their lives, don’t they? It’s watching all that stuff on the telly, soaps and costume dramas, they’re always chock full of women sobbing and fainting and generally getting their knickers in a twist. I was still pretty sure she’d settle down in a day or two—if I could just handle it right.
“Gail, at least let me fetch some things. I’ve not even had a shave …”
“Go to Boots if you want a razor. It’ll take me a while to pack up all your stuff.”
I knew she was just saying it to wind me up, so I bit my tongue and managed not to rise to the bait. I figured maybe it’d be best to lay low for a day or two, give her a chance to cool off. She got in a couple more digs but finally agreed to put a few things in a bag for me.
“Just my razor, a couple of shirts, pants and socks then. Maybe my light blue shirt and—”
“This isn’t a telephone shopping line, Scott. I’ll bring whatever’s clean, I can drop it off before I pick up Rosie.”
Rosie. What the hell had she told Rosie? “Your father’s a lousy, lying cheating bastard and I’ve told him he’s not allowed to see you ever again.” “We’ve had a minor misunderstanding, love, but don’t worry—every-thing’ll soon be back to normal.” I hadn’t a clue. I was beginning to think maybe I didn’t know my wife as well as I thought I did.
“And, and can you bring my mobile and the charger? And my thick jacket. I was sodding freezing last night.”
There was a short, smug laugh from the other end of the phone. Cheers, Gail. Nice to think that the woman who vowed she’d love you for ever would one day hate you so much that she’d be pleased to hear you nearly snuffed it due to hypothermia.
“And Gail?”
“What now, for heaven’s sake! I can’t stand here all day while you itemize every last shoelace you want delivered.”
“No, it’s not that. It’s just …”
“What?”
“Keep your knickers on—” Mistake. Big mistake. Not a good time to be mentioning knickers.
She laughed but it wasn’t a ha-ha-aren’t-we-having-fun kind of thing.
“What, like you, you mean?”
“OK, I deserved that. I’m just saying, keep it cool in front of the lads, eh? There’s no need for us to have a scene here, is there? Put it in my old sports bag or something, yeah?”
Another sigh.
“Scott?”
“Mmn?”
“You’re pathetic.”
Are parents like totally clueless or what? Jeez. Mum and Dad have had some kind of mega serious shit row—a no holds barred, six rounds fight with a capital “F,” but we’re not supposed to know. No-one ever tells you anything round here. I only know ‘cause I heard them arguing last night. I mean, how stupid is that? They could’ve woken up Rosie. I got up and crept out to the landing. I couldn’t hear properly, but then my mum went “—lying
bastard!”
really loud. And I mean, my mum never swears, like not ever, so I knew it wasn’t just a normal row. He must have done something really bad this time. I think it was to do with another woman. That’s what it always is on TV. Then she said, “Ssh! The kids’ll hear,” so I ducked back into my room and they went down to the kitchen and shut the door. Mum was just in her dressing-gown and didn’t have any slippers on, but she kind of thumped downstairs as if she was wearing DMs. I snuck down the stairs to listen, missing out the fifth step ‘cause it creaks. Mum says it’s bad manners to eavesdrop, but how else are you supposed to find out what’s going on? I was trying not to breathe so they wouldn’t hear me. I reckon I’d make an ace spy. I thought if they suddenly came out I could say I had a really bad stomach ache and had come down for some milk. I mean, I can’t help it if I’m sick, can I? But then I heard Mum say about putting the rubbish out, so I sprinted back up the stairs and into my room before the door opened.
When I came down this morning, Rosie’s at the kitchen table, spooning Rice Krispies into her gob and drivelling on about Henry the Eighth. Right. Is she sad or what? Get a life, Rosie. So I come in, whap a couple of slices in the toaster. No sign of Dad but he’s usually out the door before eight anyhow. I look at Mum and she looks at me and I’m wondering if she knows I know and if she’s going to say anything. I do my Man of Mystery look—you tilt your head forward then look up from under your eyebrows and you mustn’t smile, not even for one second. It’s pretty cool if you know how to do it right. Steve always starts laughing. Clueless. So I’m giving her the look, leaning casual like against the counter, then my toast springs up and makes me jump—which is not good for a Man of Mystery. Nothing should make you jump—not a police siren, not a gunshot, nothing.
I spread Marmite on one half of one bit of my toast and strawberry jam on the other. I could see Mum out the corner of my eye, watching me, biting her lip to stop herself saying anything. It was pretty revolting actually, the bit in the middle where the jam and Marmite met. It’s not going to be up there on my top ten list of favourite foods. Then she came closer and said “Nat” in a special creepy way and I thought here we go, she’s going to tell me about what happened last night in one of those I’m-going-to-treat-you-like-a-grown-up talks. No thank you. And I’m up and on my toes like a spring and heading for the door.
I went back for an apple, then I shouted up to Rosie as I left: “Oi, Rozza!”
“What?”
“You know Henry the Eighth?”
“Not personally.”
Rosie actually thinks she invented that joke. Still, she’s only nine.
“Did you know he had VD? Put it in your project.”
“He never! Did he really?”
“Yeah—Ask Miss Thing if you don’t believe me.”
Then Mum chimed in.
“Nathan! Please don’t always do that! It’s—”
“Bye, y’all.” And I was out the door and heading down the path, a man with a mission.
I know I ought to have said something. I ought to have told Nat and Rosie. I kept steeling myself to speak. I was getting breakfast and making sandwiches for Rosie’s packed lunch and all the time running things through my head, trying out what I could say:
Your dad’s had to go away for a few days. For work.
They’d never believe it. Scott’s only been away on business once in ten years and that was for all of two days at a trade fair and we all knew he was going weeks beforehand. He’s not exactly some jet-setting executive who has to fly off to New York at a moment’s notice.
Your dad’s been called away. There’s a family crisis.
Well, it could hardly be his parents, could it? What a tough pair—we call them the Gruesome Twosome. Granted, they’re terrible hypochondriacs, the both of them—we’ve always a few like that down at the surgery, whose only pleasure in life seems to be finding some new bit of their body to moan about. But Scott’s parents are never actually ill. Even if they were, like if someone had slipped rat poison into their tea or something—and just about everyone they know must have been tempted at some point—Nat would never believe that Scott had suddenly turned into the devoted, dutiful son. I thought of saying that Scott’s sister Sheila was ill and that he’d dashed up to Scotland but the kids love her and I didn’t want to upset them.
I even thought about just saying it straight out, as it really was:
Your dad’s left. He’s a cheating, lying snake and he’s not coming back.
I wanted to say it. I really did. But I stopped myself. I stood there, my hand shaking as I poured myself some coffee, the words running through my head again and again like an old scratched record. I couldn’t think of anything else, couldn’t focus for even a second. I kept opening the fridge then closing it again without taking anything out. I banged myself in the face with the cupboard door because I opened it so quickly. Knocked over the jam, saying, “Gosh, I’m being such a butterfingers this morning!” keeping my voice bright.
Rosie prattled away when I asked her what she’d be up to today at school, then she remembered she needed her gym kit and ran upstairs. Nat sat silently at the table, his legs stretched out awkwardly, so you’d have to step over them as you passed. Normally, I’d say, “Legs in, Nat!” Honestly, I get so sick of it sometimes, I feel like I’m a prison warder or a teacher, constantly trying to get him to behave like a normal human being. If he’s really going to carry on like this till he’s twenty I’ll have to resign from the post of being his mother. The awful thing is, I see Nat the way he is and I remember how he used to be, then I look at Rosie and I know it’s just a matter of time before she’s demanding a clothes allowance and trying to sneak out the door in a top that shows her navel.