by Rachel Marks
Ben gives me this look, like a doctor whose terminal cancer patient is arguing that they’re going to fight this evil disease despite having only weeks to live, and I wonder if actually he knows me a lot better than he’s letting on.
*
‘You’re late.’
I check my watch, as the kids rush past us and charge up the stairs without a backward glance. ‘It’s ten past. We were watching the end of Star Wars.’
‘I was getting worried.’
‘Oh come on, Kate. I know I messed up on Friday, but now I’m ten minutes late. You can’t be mad at me for that.’
Kate sighs and steps out of the porch, putting the front door on the latch and closing it. She sits on the front step and pats the concrete. Obediently, I sit beside her. She still smells the same, a mixture of Toni & Guy hairspray and Armani perfume. They say smell is the sense that’s most closely linked to memory and it certainly applies now, sitting here drinking in Kate’s scent, because it hurtles me right back to when we were still living together. Evenings reading a book or watching a film, Kate resting her head in my lap whilst I stroked her hair. Mornings watching Kate getting ready in our en suite, wondering why it took so long when she looked beautiful just as she was on waking up.
‘I hate being this person.’ Kate runs her hand through her hair, two small dents appearing above her nose. ‘But you make me like this.’
I reach out and put my hand on her knee, her skin warm underneath her joggers, and I’m glad when she doesn’t remove it. ‘I’m sorry. I’ll be better.’
Kate shrugs. ‘I hope so.’
I can tell how badly she wants to believe me and it makes me feel even worse than I already do. She deserves so much better than me. If I was more selfless, I’d be glad that she came to her senses and left.
‘London looked romantic.’
Kate crumples her face in confusion, moving her knee away from me so that my hand slips and drops to my side.
‘I see everything on Facebook, remember?’ I continue. ‘We’re still friends on there, even if we’re not in real life.’
Kate brushes some rogue gravel off the step. ‘It was nice, but I missed the boys. It’s ridiculous. They drive me mad half the time but it just doesn’t feel the same when I do stuff without them. I still can’t get used to not seeing them every other weekend. I thought it would get easier but it’s not. Well, not yet, anyway.’
Try only seeing them every other weekend.
‘Sorry, that’s really insensitive of me,’ she continues, as if reading my mind. ‘I know it’s much harder for you.’
For a short time, we sit in silence, looking out at their large, neatly manicured front garden, my mind busy. When we first discussed custody arrangements for the boys, Kate argued that it made sense for them to stay with her the majority of the time, as she was at home and Finn hadn’t started school so he needed full-time childcare, and we both felt it would be disruptive for them to keep changing houses all the time. And, although it wasn’t spoken, I think we could both see the state I was in, that the boys were better off with her.
I pull my sleeve over my hand, take off my glasses and wipe the lenses with my jumper. ‘I’m not going to let them down again, Kate.’
But even as I say it, I’m not sure if it’s true and I wonder for the thousandth time how I can allow myself to hurt them like that when I love them so entirely. As much as I’d love to see them more often, I know I still can’t be trusted, and I hate myself for that more than anything.
‘You need to stop drinking so much.’
‘I’m not drinking much any more. Friday night was a one-off,’ I lie.
‘It was not a one-off. We were together eleven years, Noah. Like it or not, I know you like the back of my hand.’
‘OK then, tell me, how many different freckles make up your birthmark?’
‘Very clever. You know what I mean.’
‘It’s seven – well, almost eight, but two parts of it are just about joined together so they only really count as one.’
Kate holds out her hand and studies her birthmark. I count each freckle, touching each one in turn.
‘See, told you. It’s seven.’
Kate looks at me, her eyes narrowing. ‘I can’t believe you know that.’
‘I can still surprise you. You don’t know everything about me after all.’
A gust of wind blows and, as Kate shivers audibly in her thin, long-sleeved top, I feel angry with it for breaking the moment. We have occasions like this sometimes, very rarely, when I wonder if perhaps there is still something on her side, whether she regrets asking for the divorce, but then the moment always passes too soon and I wonder if I’ve just imagined it.
‘I’d better be getting in. I’ll see you in a fortnight, OK?’
‘OK. Can you just call the boys down to say bye?’
‘Of course.’ Kate pushes herself up. ‘And, Noah, we are still friends, you know? Not just on Facebook. You drive me mad sometimes, but I’ll always be your friend. I’m always here if you need me.’
I know I should be comforted. That I should be glad that, despite our disagreements and my failures, we’re not the sort of divorced couple who can’t stand to be in the same room together. But it feels like a consolation prize.
I shrug and shake my head. ‘I’m fine. I’m great. Things are really good.’
‘Good.’ Kate smiles, but it’s the kind of smile she used to give me when she’d find me passed out on the pavement somewhere and I’d try to crack a joke. ‘I’ll just get the boys.’
CHAPTER FOUR
If someone were to film me trying to get my class changed out of their PE kits and back into their school uniforms, it would be the kind of thing that pops up on my Facebook timeline causing me to sit there creasing myself. But actually being in it – taking the leading role in the utter mayhem – it’s nothing short of insufferable.
‘Tommy, you need to put your trousers on before you do your shoes.’
‘Sam, you need to keep your pants on.’
‘Well, tell Jasmine that Mr Carlton says it’s not OK to lift up her vest and shove your head underneath.’
Lola rushes towards me holding up a pair of tights, crumpled up and inside out. I infer she wants me to turn them through the right way so I put my hands down through the legs. When I reach the toes and grasp them with my fingers, I stop abruptly. It’s a repulsive sensation. They’re wet. Why are kids’ socks and tights always wet? Surely four-year-olds’ feet should not sweat that much?
‘No, I’m sorry. I just can’t do it. Mr Carlton is now installing a firm no-handling rule for tights and socks. You are just going to have to learn to sort them out for yourselves, I’m afraid.’
Mrs Watson looks at me as if I’ve just announced I can’t do the washing-up without my Marigolds, and wearily comes over, grabs the tights and turns them through with the efficiency of a school nurse doling out injections. ‘Right, who’s next?’
‘Mr Carlton, I’m not sure which item to put on first?’
‘Well, surely it’s obvious, Olivia.’
But in her defence, when I turn around and look at the pile of clothes on the floor beside Olivia, it’s not obvious. She has come to school wearing a vest, a T-shirt, a long-sleeved top and a woollen cardigan underneath her school T-shirt and jumper. No wonder the poor girl’s always the last to finish getting changed. I accept our classroom is not the warmest of places but even so, she must be losing weight by the second. I hand her her vest then clap my hands.
‘OK, everyone, once you’re changed, please hang up your PE bags and then sit on the carpet with a book.’
The floor of clothes, kids and bags slowly starts to clear, like ants when the dropped cake crumb has been removed, until I’m left with the stragglers. Poor Olivia is on layer three, Darcy is pushing a peg back and forth along a mini washing line that’s used to display the ‘sounds of the week’, and Harley has put his trousers on his head and is standing in the corner of the
classroom in his pants doing the floss.
‘Harley, as wonderful as your flossing is, can you please stop now, take your trousers off your head and put them on properly?’
Harley’s face breaks into a huge grin and he takes his trousers off his head, stops flossing and starts dabbing instead. I’m unable to stop a smile creeping across my lips.
‘Very good. Come on, mister, trousers on, time for assembly.’
Harley gives me a mischievous look and I’m concerned for a moment that I’m going to have to manhandle him into his uniform, but then, surprisingly, he begins getting dressed at speed.
The same cannot be said, however, for Darcy.
‘Darcy, can you please get changed?’
She looks at me, directly in the eye, and then returns to pushing the peg along the line.
‘Darcy, we are going to celebration assembly in five minutes. You need to get changed now.’
She stares at me again and then takes her trainers out of her PE bag, pulls on the Velcro straps and sticks them back down before discarding the trainers on the floor.
I point to her school T-shirt and skirt. ‘Uniform, Darcy.’
No response. Sometimes it feels like I’ve landed on a different planet filled with strange alien life forms who have no idea what I’m saying. Like, to the children in my class, my voice is just a garbled radio signal or a repeating beep.
So I try a different tack and start singing ‘time to get your uniform on’ to the tune of ‘Time to Say Goodbye’ in true operatic style and the whole class start to giggle, even though they don’t get the Sarah Brightman reference. Even Mrs Watson’s face displays a flicker of amusement.
Darcy still doesn’t get dressed, however, poor Olivia has only just got to her school T-shirt and I’m sure I just spotted Ethan poking out of the sandpit in the outdoor area. I check the clock. Once again, I’m late.
‘Mrs Watson, I need to take the class to assembly. Could you please round up the remaining few?’
Her eyes unmistakably shout ‘fuck you’ so I add my most appreciative smile then herd my class into assembly. As the few switched-on ones stop as they reach the edge of the hall, the daydreamers walk straight into each other, tripping up before finally forming a wiggly caterpillar-like line in front of our bemused head teacher, Mrs Jackson. Just before I gesture for them to sit down, I notice that Tommy clearly has someone else’s trousers on (as they stop mid shin), Lola has her T-shirt on back to front and Annabelle has her shoes on the wrong feet. Not for the first time, I wonder how long it will be before someone realizes I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing and politely gives me the push.
*
‘So, do you have a job?’
‘Yes. I’m not a complete waster, thank you.’
Mimi holds up her hands. ‘I didn’t say you were. It’s just the regular week-night drinking, the late-night rendezvous, it doesn’t scream career man, that’s all. So, what is it that you do?’
‘I’m a primary school teacher.’
Mimi looks as if she’s choking on an invisible grape. ‘Yeah, right. Seriously, what do you do?’
‘Why is that so hard to believe?’
‘I don’t know. I suppose when I picture a male primary school teacher, I picture Mr Tumble, not …’ She moves her hand up and down to signal me in my entirety.
‘A hot young thing like me?’
‘That’s not quite what I was getting at. Someone more …’ she screws up her face whilst searching for the word. ‘Wholesome, I guess.’
Now it’s my turn to offer a spluttered laugh. ‘I’m wholesome. I’m an excellent role model.’
Mimi tucks her sweeping fringe behind her ear. She has a very striking face – strong cheekbones, large, surprisingly green eyes. Usually when people say they have green eyes, they’re more of a muddy grey, a slightly greeny blue, but Mimi’s eyes are really green, like emerald.
I seem to be spending many of my evenings here, chatting crap to her whilst drinking away my blues. She doesn’t give me any free drinks like Mandy did, but it turns out she’s actually quite funny when she’s not berating me for my alcohol consumption. And it’s better than sitting at home on my own.
‘Well, I’m impressed. At least you’re doing something worthwhile. Perhaps you’re not quite the dick I thought you were.’
‘Oh, no, I am. I only went into teaching because it seems to attract the ladies. Turns out nearly all women have some kind of hidden teacher fantasy.’
‘Nearly all.’
‘So what about you? Did you always want to be a barmaid?’
‘Oh, yeah. I remember as a four-year-old girl, sitting, dreaming of the day I’d get to pull pints for a living.’
‘Fair enough, but I couldn’t exactly say, “ So what do you really want to do rather than the crappy job you’re doing right now,” could I?’
‘Tact and a meaningful job. You really are blowing my mind tonight.’
‘You’re avoiding the question. So what did you dream about as a little girl?’
Mimi rolls her eyes, as if mortified by the memory of her childhood aspirations. ‘I wanted to be a singer.’
‘Wow. So can you sing? Go on, sing me something now.’
‘No way. Never going to happen.’
‘Go on. Just a few lines. I promise not to laugh.’
Momentarily, the usual amused glint that resides in Mimi’s eyes disappears and what’s left is something raw and almost melancholy. ‘I used to sing a lot, in pubs just like this, and then I looked around and realized that no one was listening. Not one person. In fact, the more I belted it out, the more they all shouted to be heard over me so, one day, I just stopped singing.’
‘Not even in the shower? Like Ariel after doing a deal with the Sea Witch, never to be heard again?’
Mimi reaches across the bar and pushes me in the chest. ‘Sod off.’
She surveys the pub. It’s pretty empty: a couple chatting over a bottle of wine in the corner, two blokes with eyes fixed on the football on the tiny screen on the wall and a group of twenty-something women, steadily getting louder as they get the drinks down them.
‘So who’s going to be your poor victim tonight?’ Mimi tilts her head towards the group of women.
I follow her line of sight. ‘You know what? I was having so much fun talking to you, I’d actually forgotten about sex for once. Unbelievable, I know.’
‘Nothing like chatting to me to quell all sexual desire.’
I put my hand on top of hers. ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself. If there was a zombie apocalypse and there was only you and me left on the planet, I’d do you.’
Mimi gives me a look of contempt.
‘And not just to procreate, you know, for the survival of the entire human race. I’d even do it just for pleasure.’
‘And just when I thought you couldn’t get any better, you shower me with such beautiful compliments. You’re just too good to be true.’
‘That’s what all the girls say.’
Mimi comes out from behind the bar and collects the empties from the unoccupied tables. She’s wearing skinny black jeans and a black-and-white-striped figure-hugging top. I try my best not to stare, but she has an unbelievable body. For someone so slim, she has a sizeable bum, but firm, like she spends all her spare time doing squats. It wouldn’t surprise me to find out she’d had one of those bum implant operations. I’ve never been much of a bum man before, but Mimi’s has the power to convert.
When she returns to the bar, I feel my face flushing at the thought that she might be able to read my mind, but although her eyes settle on me for a bit longer than normal, she doesn’t say anything. Then to detract from my self-consciousness, in typical man fashion, I decide to say something arrogant and stupid that makes me sound like a prick.
‘I was thinking I might just go for all of them.’
She takes a sip of her lemonade and raises her eyebrows. ‘Do you ever think that maybe less is more?’
I drink
the last of my JD and Coke and give her my glass to make me another. ‘Who are you? My wife?’
Mimi emits a spluttering noise from her lips. ‘God forbid. No, I was hoping for her sake there wasn’t “ a wife ”?’
She hands me my drink and I take a large swig. ‘Well, you’re right. There’s not. So doesn’t that mean I can sleep with whoever I want?’
‘I guess. But I still think one at a time would be more pleasurable.’
‘Had a lot of threesomes, have you?’
‘Nah, I don’t like sharing the limelight. Like to be star of the show.’ She smiles, her eyes full of mischief. ‘How about you? Had many?’
Although it would probably come as a surprise to her, my sexual past is about as vanilla as it gets. Kate and I got together when I was seventeen. She was the person I lost my virginity to. I never cheated on her, despite some of the lads at uni trying their best to persuade me to – Doesn’t it get boring? How do you know it’s any good if you’ve got nothing to compare it to? She’d never find out. Occasionally, when I compared myself to them, I’d wonder if I was settling down too young, if one day I’d regret it. But then I’d drive home to see Kate every weekend and, as soon as I was with her, I knew for sure that none of the girls at uni could come close. A few months after Mum died, I shocked everyone by proposing to her and a year later, me aged twenty and her only eighteen, and still living apart, we got married. Everyone told us not to rush into it, that there was plenty of time, but after what happened with Mum I didn’t want to wait.
For a year after Kate left, I couldn’t even look at another woman, so at age twenty-nine, I’d only slept with one person. And now I have crappy one-night stands where we only ever do it in the missionary position because (a) I’m too pissed to manage anything more adventurous and (b) I can bury my head in my poor companion’s shoulder and not have to look at her, or have her look at me. Where I spend the whole time lamenting how our bodies just don’t fit, whereas with Kate, it sounds ridiculous, but it’s as if we were made exactly for each other, as if every curve of her body fit every concave of mine and vice versa.