Man and Boy (6 page)

Things hadn’t quite worked out how my dad had planned. Not with his home. And not with me.

When my parents had bought the place where I grew up, the area had been countryside. But the city had been creeping closer for thirty years. Fields where I had roamed with an air rifle were now covered with ugly new houses. The old High Street was full of real estate agents and lawyers’ offices. What my parents thought would always be a living, breathing episode of
The
Archers
started being swallowed by the suburbs from the moment we moved in.

My mom didn’t much mind the changes—she was a city girl, and I can remember her complaining about our little town’s lack of shops and a cinema when I was a kid—but I felt for my dad.

He didn’t like the army of commuters who clogged the railway station on weekdays and the golf courses at the weekend. He didn’t like the gangs of would-be yobs who drifted through the suburbs pretending they were getting down in South Central L.A. He hadn’t expected to be so close to crowds and crime this late in life. And then there was me.

My parents came to the door expecting to see the three of us arriving for dinner. But there was only their son. Bewildered, they watched me drive past their gate, looking for somewhere to park. They didn’t get it.

When I was a kid, there were no cars parked on this street—one garage for every family had been more than enough. Now you had to practically give yourself a double hernia looking for a parking place. Everything had changed.

I kissed my mom and shook my dad’s hand. They didn’t know what was happening. There was going to be too much food. They were expecting Gina and Pat. They were expecting happy families. And what they got was me.

“Mom. Dad. There’s something I have to tell you.”

The old songs were playing. Tony Bennett live at Carnegie Hall was on the stereo, although it could just have easily been Sinatra or Dean Martin or Sammy Davis Jr. In the home of my parents, the old songs had never stopped playing.

They sat in their favorite chairs staring up at me expectantly. Like a couple of kids. I swear to God they thought I was going to announce the imminent arrival of another grandchild. And I stood there feeling the way I so often felt in front of my parents—more like a soap opera than a son.

“Well, it looks like Gina’s left me,” I said.

The tone was all wrong—too casual, too glib, too uncaring. But the alternative was getting down on all fours and weeping all over their shag carpet. Because after yesterday’s trip to the park and a second sleepless night in a bed that was far too big for just me, I was finally starting to believe that she might not be coming back. Yet, I felt that I was too old to be bringing my parents bad news. And they were too old to have to hear it.

For a few moments they didn’t say a word.

“What?” said my father. “Left you where?”

“Where’s the baby?” my mother said. She got it immediately.

“Pat’s with Gina. At her dad’s place.”

“That punk rocker? Poor little thing.”

“What do you mean she’s left you?” the old man demanded.

“She’s walked out, Dad.”

“I don’t understand.”

He really didn’t get it. He loved her and he loved us and now all of that was finished.

“She’s buggered off,” I said. “Fled. Gone.”

“Language,” my mother said. She had her fingers to her mouth, as if she was praying. “Oh, Harry. I’m so sorry.”

She came across the room toward me and I sort of flinched. It would be okay if they weren’t kind to me. I could get through it if they didn’t put their arms around me and tell me that they understood. But if they were going to be kind, I didn’t think I could take it, I knew it would all get clogged up inside me. Luckily the old man came to the rescue. Good old dad.

“Walked out?” my dad said angrily. “What—you’re getting a divorce? Is that what you mean?”

I hadn’t really thought about that. Getting a divorce? Where do you start?

“I guess so. Yes. That’s what people do, isn’t it? When they split up.”

He stood up, the color draining from his face. His eyes were wet. He took off his glasses to wipe them. I couldn’t stand to look at him.

“You’ve ruined my life,” he said.

“What?”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My marriage falls apart and he becomes the victim? How did that happen? I was sorry that his precious daughter-in-law had walked out of his life. I was sorry if his grandson had seen his parents break up. And most of all, I was sorry that his son had turned out to be just another dumb schmuck bumbling toward the divorce courts. But I wasn’t going to let my father hog the starring role in our little tragedy.

“How have I managed to ruin your life, Dad? If anyone’s the victim here, it’s Pat. Not you.”

“You’ve ruined my life,” he said again.

My face burned with shame and resentment. What was he so bitter about? His wife had never left him.

“Your life is over,” I told him angrily.

We looked at each other with something approaching hatred and then he walked out. I could hear him shuffling around upstairs. I was already sorry about what I had said. But I felt that he had given me no choice.

“He doesn’t mean it,” my mom said. “He’s upset.”

“Me too,” I said. “Nothing bad ever happened to me before, Mom. I’ve had it easy. Nothing bad ever happened to me before now.”

“Don’t listen to your father. He just wants Pat to have what you had. Two parents. Somewhere settled and stable to build his life on. All that.”

“But it’s never going to be like that for him, Mom. Not if Gina’s really gone. I’m sorry, but it’s never going to be that simple.”

My dad came back down eventually and I tried to give them some background as we waded through dinner. There had been trouble at home, things hadn’t been too good for a while, we still cared about each other. There was hope.

I left out all the stuff about me fucking a colleague from work and Gina feeling that she had thrown her life away.

I thought that might make them choke on their lamb chops.

When I left, my mom gave me a big hug and told me that things would turn out all right. And my dad did his best too—he put his arm around me and told me to call if there was anything they could do. But I couldn’t look at him.

That’s the trouble with thinking that your father is a hero.

Without saying a word, he can make you feel that you are eight years old again, and you have just lost your first fight.

***

“Our guest next tonight no needs introduction,” Marty said for the third time in a row. “Fuck…fuck…fuck…what is wrong with this bloody teleprompter?”

There was nothing wrong with the teleprompter and he knew it.

Up in the gallery, the director murmured soothing words into his earpiece about going for the rehearsal again when he was ready. But Marty tore off his microphone and walked off the floor.

When we were live, Marty had always been fearless in front of a teleprompter. If he made a mistake, if he stumbled over the words rolling before him, he just grinned and kept going. Because he knew that he had to.

Recording was different. You know you can always stop and start again if you are taping. This should make things easier, of course. But it can paralyze you. It can do things to your breathing. It can make you start to sweat. And when the camera catches you sweating, you’re dead.

I caught up with him in the green room where he was ripping open a beer. This worried me more than the tantrum on set. Marty was a screamer but he wasn’t a drinker. A few beers and his nerves would be so steady that he wouldn’t be able to move.

“Recording a show is a different rhythm,” I told him. “When you’re live, the energy level is so high that you just zip through it from beginning to end. When you’re recording, the adrenaline has to be more controlled. But you can do it.”

“What the fuck do you know about it?” he asked me. “How many shows have you presented?”

“I know that you don’t make it easier by ranting about the teleprompter girl.”

“She’s moving that thing too fast!”

“Yes, to keep up with you,” I said. “If you slow down, so will she. Marty, it’s the same girl we’ve been using for a year.”

“You didn’t even try to keep the show live,” he sulked.

“As soon as you smacked Tarzan, all this was inevitable. The station can’t take a chance on that happening again. So we do it live on tape.”

“Live on fucking tape. That says it all. Whose side are you on, Harry?”

I was about to tell him when Siobhan stuck her head around the door of the green room.

“I’ve managed to find a replacement for the teleprompter girl,” she said. “Shall we try again?”

***

“We’re watching telly-vision,” Pat told me when I arrived at Glenn’s place.

I picked him up and kissed him. He wrapped his arms and legs around me like a little monkey as I carried him into the flat.

“You’re watching TV with Mommy?”

“No.”

“With Granddad Glenn?”

“No. With Sally and Steve.”

In the little living room there was a boy and girl in their midteens wrapped around each other on the sofa. They were wearing the kind of clothes that don’t look quite right without a snowboard.

The girl—thin, languid, blank—looked up at me as I came into the room. The boy—scornful and pockmarked—tapped the TV’s remote control against his lower teeth and didn’t take his eyes from a video of an angry man with no shirt on, a singer who looked like he should be helping police with their inquiries. Glenn would know who he was. Glenn would have all his records. But he made me wonder if music was getting crap or I was getting old. Or both.

“Hi,” the girl said.

“Hi. I’m Harry—Pat’s dad. Is Gina around?”

“Nah—she went to the airport.”

“The airport?”

“Yeah—she had to, you know, what do you call it? Catch a plane.”

I put Pat down. He settled himself among the
Star Wars
figures that were scattered over the floor, shooting admiring glances at the spotty youth watching MTV on the sofa. Pat really loved big boys. Even dumb, ugly big boys.

“Where did she go?”

The girl—Sally—frowned with concentration.

“To China. I think.”

“China? Really? Or Japan? It’s very important.”

Her face brightened.

“Yeah—maybe Japan.”

“There’s a big difference between China and Japan,” I said.

The boy—Steve—looked up for the first time.

“Not to me,” he said.

The girl laughed. So did Pat. He was only little. He didn’t know what he was laughing about. I realized that his face was dirty. Without a bit of encouragement, Pat had a very cavalier attitude to personal hygiene.

Steve turned back to the TV with a satisfied smirk, still tapping the remote control against his lower teeth. I could have cheerfully stuffed it down his throat.

“Do you know how long she’ll be gone?”

She grunted a negative, absentmindedly squeezing Steve’s beefy leg.

“Glenn not around?” I said.

“Nah—my dad’s at work,” said Sally.

So that was it. The girl was one of Glenn’s abandoned kids, from a marriage or two after Gina’s mother.

“You visiting?” I asked.

“Staying here for a while,” she said. “Been getting a lot of hassle from my mom. Whining about my friends, my clothes, the time I come home, the time I don’t come home.”

“Is that right?”

“‘You’re treating this place like a hotel,’” Sally screeched. “‘You’re too young to smoke that stuff.’ Blah blah blah.” She sighed with the weariness of the very young. “The usual. It’s not as though she didn’t do it all herself back in the dark ages, the hypocritical old bitch.”

“Bitch,” said Steve.

“She’s a bitch,” smiled Pat, a
Star Wars
figure in each tiny fist, and Steve and Sally laughed at him.

This is how it works, I thought. You break up and your child becomes a kind of castaway, set adrift in a sea of daytime television and ducked responsibilities. Welcome to the lousy modern world where the parent you live with is a distant, contemptible figure and the parent you don’t live with feels guilty enough to grant you asylum any time things get too tense at home.

But not my boy.

Not my Pat.

“Get your coat and your toys,” I told him.

His dirty little face brightened.

“Are we going to the park?”

“Darling,” I said, “we’re going home.”

We were meant to be celebrating.

Barry Twist had come up with the idea of a fifteen-minute delay system for the show, meaning we would go back to doing the thing live but with a short time lag before transmission as insurance against either the host or the guests going bananas.

The station was happy because it meant they still had time to edit out anything that was really going to give the advertisers the running squirts, and Marty was happy because it meant he no longer got paralysis of the lower teleprompter.

So Marty took me to lunch at his favorite restaurant, a fashionably spartan basement where well-fed people in television put authentic Italian peasant food on their expense accounts.

Like most of the places we went to, its bare floorboards and white walls made it look more like a gym than a restaurant, possibly to make us feel that we were doing ourselves some good in there. When we arrived just after two—I was running late after delivering Pat to my parents—the place was already crowded but the reception desk was empty.

A waitress approached us. She was clearly not having a good day. She was hot and flustered and there was a red wine stain on her white uniform. And she kept doing this thing with her hair, which was shiny and black and cut in one of those old-fashioned bell shapes that you imagine on women in an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel or on Hong Kong girls in the fifties. A bob. That’s what you call it. Her bangs kept flying up as she stuck out her bottom lip and blew some air through them.

“Can I help you?” she said.

“We have a table,” Marty said.

“Sure,” she said, picking up the book of reservations. “Name?”

“Marty Mann,” he said with that special little emphasis that indicated he expected her to recognize him now and practically faint with excitement. But Marty didn’t mean a thing to her. She was an American.

“Sorry,” she said, consulting her list of reservations. “Can’t see your name on the list, sir.”

Then she gave us a smile. She had a good smile—wide, white, and open. One of those smiles that just shines.

“Believe me,” Marty said, “we do have a table.”

“Not here, you don’t.”

She slammed the book shut and moved to walk away.

Marty blocked her path. She looked pissed off. She stuck out her bottom lip and blew some air through her bangs.

“Excuse me,” she said.

She was tall and thin with dancer’s legs and wide-set brown eyes. Good-looking but not a kid. Maybe a couple of years older than me. Most of the people working in this restaurant that looked like a gym were cool young things who clearly thought they were on their way to somewhere better. She wasn’t like that at all.

She looked at Marty and massaged the base of her spine as if it had been aching for a long time.

“Do you know how important I am?” Marty said.

“Do you know how busy I am?” she said.

“We might not be on the list,” Marty said very slowly, as if he were talking to someone who had just had part of their brain removed. “But one of my people called Paul—the manager? You do know Paul?”

“Sure,” she said evenly. “I know Paul.”

“Paul said it would be okay. It’s always okay.”

“I’m real glad that you and Paul have got such an understanding relationship. But if I don’t have a spare table, I can’t give you one, can I? Sorry again.”

This time she left us.

“This is fucking stupid,” Marty said.

But Paul had spotted us and quickly crossed the crowded restaurant to greet his celebrity client.

“Mr. Mann,” he said, “so good to see you. Is there a problem?”

“Apparently there’s no table.”

“Ah, we always have a table for you, Mr. Mann.” Paul’s Mediterranean smile flashed in his tanned face. He had a good smile too. But it was a completely different smile to the one she had. “This way, please.”

We walked into the restaurant and got the usual stares and murmurs and goofy grins that Marty’s entrance always provoked. Paul snapped his fingers, and a table was brought from the kitchen. It was quickly covered with a tablecloth, cutlery, a wedge of rough-hewn peasant bread, and a silver bowl of olive oil. A waitress appeared by our side. It was her.

“Hello again,” she said.

“Tell me this,” said Marty. “Whatever happened to the good old stereotype of the American waitress? The one who serves you with a smile?”

“It’s her day off,” the waitress said. “I’ll get you the menu.”

“I don’t need the menu,” Marty said. “Because I already know what I want.”

“I’ll get it anyway. For your friend here. We have some interesting specials today.”

“Shall we have this conversation again once you’ve turned on your hearing aid?” Marty said. “Read my lips—we eat here all the time. We don’t need the menu.”

“Give her a break, Marty,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said, looking at me for the first time. “Give me a break, Marty.”

“I’ll have the twirly sort of pasta with the red stuff on top and he’ll have the same,” Marty said.

“Twirly pasta,” she said, writing on her little pad. “Red stuff. Got it.”

“And bring us a bottle of champagne,” Marty said, patting the waitress on her bum. “There’s a good girl.”

“Get your sweaty hand off my butt before I break your arm,” she said. “There’s a good boy.”

“Just bring us a drink, will you?” Marty said, quickly removing his hand.

The waitress left us.

“Christ, we should have ordered a take away,” Marty said. “Or got here a bit earlier.”

“Sorry about the delay,” I said. “The traffic—”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said, raising a hand.

“I’m glad you agreed to the fifteen-minute delay system,” I told him. “I promise you that it’s not going to harm the show.”

“Well, that’s just one of the changes we’re making,” Marty said. That’s why I wanted to talk to you.”

I waited, at last registering that Marty was nervous. He had a set of breathing exercises that were meant to disguise when he had the shakes but they weren’t working now. And we weren’t celebrating after all.

“I also want Siobhan more involved with the booking of guests,” Marty said. “And I want her up in the gallery every week. And I want her to keep the station off my back.”

I let it sink in for a moment. The waitress brought our champagne. She poured two glasses. Marty took a long slug and stared at his glass, his lips parting as he released an inaudible little belch. “Pardon me,” he said.

I let my glass stand on the table.

“But all those things—that’s the producer’s job,” I said, trying on a smile. “That’s my job.”

“Well, those are the changes I want to make.”

“Wait a minute. I’m not getting a new contract?”

Marty spread his hands as if to say—what can I do? It’s a crazy world!

“Listen, Harry. You don’t want me to move you sideways into some little nothing job that you could do with your eyes closed. That would look terrible, wouldn’t it?”

“Marty,” I said. “Marty. Hold on. Hold on just a minute. I really need this job. Now more than ever. There’s the thing with Gina—I’ve got Pat living with me—and I don’t know what’s going to happen. You know all that. And I can’t lose my job. Not now.”

“I’m sorry, Harry. We need to make some changes.”

“What is this? Punishment for not being available twenty-four hours a day when my marriage is breaking up? I’m sorry I wasn’t in the office this morning, okay? I can’t leave my son alone. I had to—”

“Harry, there’s no need to raise your voice. We can do this in a civilized fashion.”

“Come on, Marty. You’re Mister Fucking Controversy. You’re not worried about a little scene, are you?”

“I’m sorry, Harry. Siobhan’s in. You’re out. And you’ll thank me for it one day. This could be the best thing that’s ever happened to you. No hard feelings?”

The little shit actually held out his hand. I ignored it, getting up as quickly as I could and smacking my thighs against the side of the table. He shook his head, all disappointed in me, and I left him alone at the table.

I walked out of the restaurant, my legs aching and my cheeks burning, only turning back when I heard Marty shriek with pain.

Somehow the waitress had spilled an entire plate of pasta in his lap.

“Boy, I’m sorry,” she said. “Would you like a little Parmesan on that?”

***

My parents drove Pat home. My mother went around turning on all the lights while my father asked me how work was going. I told him that it was going great.

They stayed with Pat while I did our shopping at the local supermarket. It was only a five-minute drive away, but I was gone for quite a while because I was secretly watching all the women I took to be single mothers. I had never even thought about them before, but now I saw that these women were heroes. Real heroes.

They were doing it all by themselves. Shopping, cooking, entertaining, everything. They were bringing up their children alone.

And I couldn’t even wash Pat’s hair.

“His hair’s filthy,” my mom said as my parents were leaving. “It needs a good old wash.”

I knew that already. But Pat didn’t want me to wash his hair. He had told me that when I had casually dropped hair-washing into the conversation after we came back from Glenn’s. Pat wanted his mother to wash his hair. The way she always did.

Yet we couldn’t put it off any longer. And soon he was standing in the middle of the soaking wet bathroom floor wearing just a pair of pants, his dirty blond hair hanging down over eyes that were red from tears and the baby shampoo that Gina still used on him.

It wasn’t working. I was doing something wrong.

I knelt by his side. He wouldn’t look at me.

“What’s wrong, Pat?” I asked him.

“Nothing.”

We both knew what was wrong.

“Mommy’s gone away for a little while. Would you like Daddy to wash your hair?”

Stupid question. He shook his head.

“What would a Jedi Knight do at a time like this?” I asked him.

He didn’t reply. Sometimes a four-year-old doesn’t bother to reply.

“Listen,” I said, fighting back the urge to scream. “Do you think that Luke Skywalker cries when he has his hair washed?”

“Don’t know, don’t care.”

I had tried to wash his hair with him leaning into the bath, but that hadn’t worked. So now I helped him out of his pants, scooped him up and placed him sitting down in the tub. He wiped snot from his little nose while I ran the water until it was the right temperature.

“This is fun, isn’t it?” I said. “We should do this together more often.”

He scowled at me. But he leaned forward and allowed me to run the water over his head. Then he felt my hands applying the shampoo and something snapped. He stood up, throwing one of his legs over the side of the bath in a pitiful attempt to escape.

“Pat!” I said. “Sit down, please.”

“I want Mommy to do it!”

“Mommy’s not here! Sit down!”

“Where is she? Where is she?”

“I don’t know!”

He blindly tried to climb out of the bath, howling as the suds dripped into his eyes. I pushed him back down and held him there, quickly hosing off the shampoo and trying to ignore his screams.

“This is not how a Jedi Knight acts,” I said. “This is how a baby acts.”

“I’m not a baby!” he said. “You are!”

I toweled him down, took him by the hand, and dragged him back to his bedroom, his little legs moving quickly to keep up with me. We glared at each other while I put him in his pajamas.

“Making such a fuss,” I said. “I’m really disappointed in you.”

“I want Mommy.”

“Mommy’s not here.”

“But when will I see her again?” he said, suddenly plaintive. “That’s what I want to know.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know, darling.”

“But what did I do?” he said, and it broke my heart. “I didn’t mean it; I didn’t mean it at all.”

“You didn’t do anything,” I said. “Mommy loves you very much. You’ll see her soon. I promise.”

Then I took him in my arms, smelling the shampoo that I had missed, holding him close for a long time, and wondering how two flawed adults had ever managed to make something so perfect.

***

I read him
Where the Wild Things Are
until he fell asleep. When I came out of his room there were three messages on the answering machine. All of them were from Gina.

“You’ll never know how much you hurt me. Never. It was supposed to be for life, Harry. Not until one of us got a bit bored. Forever—not until one of us decided that things were getting a bit dull in the old marital bed. It doesn’t work like that. It can never work like that. Do you think I could let you touch me when I know you’ve been touching someone else? Your hands, your mouth…I can’t stand all that. The lying, the sneaking around, the sound of someone crying themselves to sleep every night. I had enough of that when I was growing up. If you think—”

The machine cut her off. It only let you talk for a certain amount of time. There was a beep and then her second message. She was calmer now. Or trying to be.

“I just spoke to Glenn. He told me that you collected Pat. That really wasn’t necessary. He was perfectly happy there. And I know how busy you are at work. But if you are going to look after him until I get back then you need to know that he has his hair washed every Sunday. And don’t let him put sugar on his Coco Pops. He can go to the toilet by himself—you know that already—but sometimes he forgets to lift the lid. Makes sure he cleans his teeth. Don’t let him watch
Star
Wars
videos all the time. If he doesn’t sleep in the afternoon then make sure he’s in bed by no later than—”

Another beep. A final message. Not so calm anymore, the words tumbling out.

“Just tell Pat I love him, okay? Tell him I’ll see him very soon. Take good care of him until then. And don’t ever feel too sorry for yourself, Harry. You’re not Mr. Wonderful. Women all over the world look after children alone. Millions of them do it. Literally millions. What’s so special about you?”

***

Long after I had turned off all the lights, I stayed there watching our boy sleep. And I saw that I had let everyone down.

Gina. My mother and father. Even Marty. I hadn’t been strong enough; I hadn’t loved them enough; I hadn’t been the man they wanted me to be, or the man that I wanted myself to be. In different ways, I had betrayed them all.