by Rachel Marks
I’m tempted to buy him his first car, just to make sure I get in there first.
‘You don’t get it, do you? Your first bike is a big deal. It’s a rite of passage.’
‘Look, give me some money and we can say it’s from both of us, OK?’
‘No, forget it. It’s too late now. It’s the principle.’
‘Stop being silly. Just bring me seventy pounds tomorrow. We’ll go halves.’
Seventy pounds? What’s this bike made out of? Gold? Is it diamond-encrusted?
‘No. I’m going to choose something myself. Something awesome. Something that blows your bike out the water.’
Kate laughs again. ‘I look forward to seeing it. I’ll see you after school tomorrow. Finn’s really excited you’re coming.’
‘Of course I’m coming. It’s my son’s fifth birthday.’
I can almost hear Kate’s exasperation. ‘See you tomorrow, Noah. Try to wake up in a better mood, yeah?’
Operation ‘Get Kate Back’ has not started well.
*
I’m late (again, not a great start but it’s because it took me ages to choose the perfect present) so I miss out on the party food, but get there just in time to see Finn blowing out the candles on his cake with gusto, showering the product of hours of Kate’s hard work and dedication with his germ-ridden spittle.
‘My baby is five.’ Kate picks Finn up and covers his face with kisses. ‘How did you get to be five?’
‘I growed,’ he says, matter-of-fact.
Everybody laughs. ‘That you did, my darling. You did grow.’
She puts him down and he runs off to the lounge to play with Gabe, leaving me stuck in the dining room with Kate, Jerry, and Kate’s parents for company.
I’m pretty sure Kate’s parents were delighted when we split up and she found good old dependable Jerry. I think they liked me at first. You never really know, I suppose. But after a few times of me going AWOL, their demeanour changed. Her dad no longer bothered to get me the beer I like when we went for Sunday lunch. The banter with her mum became a bit more pointed, a bit less affectionate. It’s fair enough. Their instinct is to protect their daughter. I just sometimes wish I’d had more of a chance to explain, not that I’m sure what I would’ve said.
‘Good to see you, Noah.’ Kate’s dad, Ted, shakes my hand firmly. ‘You’re looking well.’
‘Come on, Dad, don’t lie. He looks like crap,’ Kate says, ruffling my hair (which, to be fair to her, is in need of a cut).
I wonder if the ease and warmth with which we still tease each other pisses Jerry off. If it does, he doesn’t show it. Instead, he laughs in a carefree manner at his fiancée’s joke.
‘Hello, Noah.’ Sue, Kate’s mum, gives me a tentative kiss on the cheek.
‘Nice to see you, Sue. Now you really do look great.’
She smiles. ‘Always the charmer.’
‘I mean it.’
She takes my hand in hers and taps it. ‘Thank you.’
‘Right, shall we go and join the birthday boy?’ Jerry says and everyone picks up their drinks and follows him through.
In the lounge, the boys are fighting over the big helium balloon that Kate’s parents have bought for Finn.
‘Hey, it’s my birthday,’ Finn says, yanking the ribbon from Gabe’s hand.
‘But I had it first.’ Gabe pushes Finn over so that he bashes into the sofa and starts crying, holding his head as if he’s got concussion.
‘Too rough, Gabe,’ Jerry says, putting his hands on my eldest son’s shoulders.
And although he’s right, it was too rough and Gabe was out of line, it still makes me want to punch him in the face.
Kate picks Finn up and sits with him on the sofa, Finn snugly cradled in her lap. She wipes the tears from his cheeks and pushes his wild, curly hair off his face. ‘Shall we open some presents?’
Finn’s face changes immediately and Sue passes him their gift. He climbs down off Kate’s knee and takes his present to the carpet, ripping off the wrapping paper.
‘What is it?’ He holds up the box of brightly coloured modelling clay and wrinkles his nose.
‘It’s Fimo,’ Kate says. ‘You can use it to make things for your figures and then you put them in the oven and they go hard.’
‘Oh, cool,’ Finn says, but there’s more than a hint of disappointment on his face. ‘Can I have another one?’
Kate looks at me. ‘Noah, do you want to give him yours?’
It’s a tricky decision. If I go first, there’ll probably be a short spell of him loving it, but then when Kate reveals the bike, it’s highly likely my gift will be overshadowed and quickly forgotten. However, if Kate goes first, he might be so wrapped up in trying out his bike that he’s not even bothered about opening mine. I decide on option two. He can’t ride a bike without stabilizers yet so, once the initial excitement passes, he’ll soon tire of it and I’ll be able to sweep in, the awesome-present-yielding hero.
‘No, you go first. I’ll give him my present later.’
Kate eyes me suspiciously, like she suspects foul play. ‘OK then. Well, we need to go outside for ours, Finn. Do you want to come and see?’
Finn looks up at Kate expectantly. ‘Is it a bike?’
Jerry puts his hand on top of Finn’s head. ‘Why don’t you come and see?’
It takes all the willpower I’ve got to stop myself from reaching out and chopping off Jerry’s hand. Instead, we all follow Kate outside and there in the front garden, adorned with a huge bow, is Finn’s first proper bike. He and Gabe both run towards it and Finn jumps on, ready to pedal off down the drive.
Jerry races towards him and grabs the handlebars. ‘Hold on, buddy. We need to teach you to ride it first,’ he says, laughing.
And there it is again, like when you eat a piece of cake where you’ve burnt the chocolate, the bitter taste in my mouth.
‘Let’s put your helmet on,’ Jerry continues. ‘Then we can give it a go.’ Jerry looks over to me, as if he’s just remembered that I, the provider of the sperm that brought Finn into creation, am there. ‘Your dad will hold on to the back to keep you steady.’
‘Yeah, come on, mister. Let’s get you cycling,’ Kate says, putting Finn’s helmet on. Then he starts to pedal, me running along behind holding his saddle.
His feet keep slipping off the pedals and it’s hurting my back to keep stopping him from falling over, but we continue to do it because he wants to and it’s his birthday. Besides, I’m trying to prove to Kate that I’m not completely useless. So when I’m tiring and would usually have thrown in the towel, persuading Finn to come in with the promise of sugar or screens, I keep going, but I can’t help thinking that Jerry might have done a better job. That he would’ve been more proficient at teaching Finn the techniques to effectively ride a bike without falling off. More patient.
Finally, Finn gives up. I click my back into place and we go inside for my glory moment. Once we’re all sitting back down in the lounge, I hand Finn his present.
‘Well, it’s not quite a bike, but I hope you like it.’
Finn opens the present and immediately starts tearing at the box. ‘I love it !’ he shouts, jumping up and down, battling with the excessive packaging. You’d think it was a real gun, it’s that hard to get out. I take it off him and use the keys from my pocket to slice at the plastic fasteners.
‘A gun?’ Kate says, shooting me a look.
‘What? You let him have those mini ones.’
‘But look at it, Noah.’ Luckily, her expression is one more of amusement than anger and, after looking over at Finn’s outright joy, she gives me a smile that says ‘Touché’.
‘It’s awesome,’ Finn says, circling the room pointing it at everyone. ‘Let’s load the bullets.’
Kate’s parents stand up. ‘Right, well I think that’s enough excitement for one day. Nice to see you, Noah.’
I stay sitting on the sofa and accompany my wave with a weak smile.
Jerry
stands up, ever the gentleman, tapping Ted on the back and then embracing Sue in a hug. ‘Lovely to see you as always.’
‘You too, Jerry. See you on Sunday for lunch,’ Sue says, kissing him on the cheek.
‘Looking forward to it.’
I wonder if he’s really looking forward to it or if he moans to Kate about going like I used to. If he’s not being genuine, he’s a very good actor.
In turn, Sue and Ted give Finn a cuddle. ‘Happy birthday, handsome.’
‘Say thanks for your present, Finn,’ Kate says.
‘Thank you,’ Finn says, like a puppy in training, then returns his focus to loading the foam bullets into his gun.
Gabe stands up and gives each of his grandparents a hug and then races upstairs before charging back in to the lounge, his tiny Nerf gun held to his cheek like he’s seen on TV, and I can’t help but laugh at how ridiculously puny it looks next to Finn’s magnificent killing machine.
‘Blimey, Gabe. He’s got no chance against you with that,’ I tease.
‘Daaaad.’ Gabe wrinkles his nose and pouts his lip, but then he starts giggling, and I feel at once happy and sad that he’s reached an age where he gets the joke too.
*
I pick Kate’s glass of wine up off the bookshelf next to Finn’s bed and pass it to her. In honour of his birthday, he asked us both to read him stories and sit with him until he fell asleep, so we agreed. It still feels weird seeing his bedroom at Jerry’s house – the dinosaur wallpaper that I didn’t choose, the new toys I’ve not even seen yet, and maybe even worse, the stuff that used to be in our house, looking out of place in a new setting. When we sold our family home, I remember doing a last-minute hoover, the new owner waiting outside in her car desperate to get in, and suddenly noticing the lines on the wall where the kids had made us measure them over the years. I dropped the hoover and wept. With no one else there, I didn’t hold back, just let the tears fall until the sleeves of my jumper were wet from wiping them away.
Although I’m not about to break down into a whimpering mess, I feel something of the same emotion now, sitting next to my ex-wife at the end of our (not so) baby boy’s bed in a house that’s not my own.
I get the sense Kate’s quite tipsy because she puts her hand on my thigh. ‘Do you remember the night we had him and I kept trying to wake you up to tell you I was convinced he was on his way and you just kept rolling over and telling me to go back to sleep?’
‘I thought you were just being dramatic.’
‘We were lucky we got there in time.’
I finish my bottle of beer, but hold on to it, not wanting to move and lose this moment of close contact with Kate. ‘I remember you even managed to make that hospital gown look hot.’
Kate elbows me in the ribs. ‘Seriously, Noah, how could you have been thinking about sex when I was trying to push a baby out of my vagina?’
‘I wasn’t thinking about it during, just after, when you were all mellow and sexy from the gas and air and the new-baby euphoria.’
Kate shakes her head. ‘You’re insatiable.’
‘Only with you.’
‘Yeah, I suppose one thing our relationship did have going for it was passion.’
‘Certainly did.’ I pinch Kate’s thigh and she giggles. ‘Come on, though. It had more going for it than just that.’
Kate takes a deep breath before sitting up straight and turning to look at me. ‘You know, don’t take this the wrong way, but sometimes I wonder, if your mum hadn’t died … well … whether things would’ve turned out differently between us?’
I look away, her eyes suddenly feeling too intense. I’m sure she’s thought about it, but she’s never voiced it before. Despite us being so close, we never talked much about Mum. I think she was always too scared to say something that might send me running, and my childhood was a topic I just never felt able to open up about.
Kate puts her hand on top of mine. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you by mentioning your mum.’
Then suddenly, without thinking, I lean towards her and attempt to kiss her, Jerry entering the room just as my lips touch hers.
‘Is Finn asleep?’
I know exactly what he’s saying – ‘What the hell are you still doing here?’ – and I take the hint and push myself up off the bed, trying to slyly glance at Kate to see if I can read what she’s thinking, but she’s looking down at her hands.
‘He’s just gone down. I’ll call a taxi.’
‘No, it’s fine. I’ll give you a lift.’
‘Seriously, it’ll take ten minutes. It’s not a problem.’
‘I’ll drive you.’ I realize it’s not an offer. There’s no choice involved here.
‘Great. I’ll just get my stuff.’
*
I suddenly have a horrible feeling that Jerry is about to drive the car into a tree with the aim of killing me on impact. My only reassurance is that he doesn’t seem suicidal, and planning a car crash that only hurts me is probably a fairly challenging feat.
Either way, we’re going at quite some speed down narrow country lanes and he doesn’t look happy.
‘So Katie says you’re coming to the wedding?’
‘Yep.’ It comes out at a squeakier pitch than intended as he doesn’t slow on reaching a particularly sharp bend.
‘It means a lot to Katie for you to be there. You’re still a very important person in her life.’
I’m waiting for the ‘but’. Surely the aim of this slightly terrifying lift home isn’t to shower me with compliments?
‘Well, of course. We have two kids together. It’s only natural.’
‘So you realize she’d never forgive you if you messed up our special day?’
‘Uh, well, of course I wouldn’t mess it up. I mean, other than showing you both up with my awesome moves on the dance floor.’ I laugh in a slightly strained way, more like a cough.
Notably, Jerry doesn’t smile. ‘I was thinking more like a wild declaration of love during the service.’ Now he smiles, but ironically; it’s painfully apparent he’s deadly serious.
‘Why would I do that?’
At this point, terrifyingly, Jerry takes his eyes off the road and looks directly at me. ‘Because you’re still in love with her.’
I screw up my face and shake my head, as if this is the most absurd thing anyone in the world has ever said. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. What makes you think that? I love her as a friend, you know, as the mother of my children. But not like that.’
‘Is that why you were just trying to kiss her?’
The laugh-cough again. ‘No, you’ve got it all wrong. She was just showing me those new earrings you bought her. They’re lovely, by the way.’
‘Noah, I haven’t bought her any earrings.’
‘I mean the necklace.’
‘Look, I don’t think we need to continue this conversation any further. I think you know what I’m saying.’
‘I promise I’m not a threat to you, Jerry. You’re her fiancé. I’m just the lowly ex-husband.’
‘I know you’re not a threat, Noah. I just want you to know that.’
Who does he think he is? I am a threat. I’m North fucking Korea.
‘I do. Of course.’
Jerry pulls up outside my house. ‘Good.’
He holds out his hand. At first, I think he’s going to punch me, but then I realize he’s expecting me to shake it.
I do, weakly, and then release my seatbelt. ‘Right, well, thanks for the lift.’
‘Anytime.’
I search for my house keys in my pocket and then open the car door.
‘She’s really happy, Noah. I love her with all my heart. I take care of her. You might not get it. I know you think I’m not good enough for her. But she loves me. We’re happy.’
I open my mouth to speak even though I’m not sure what I’m going to say, but Jerry’s clearly not looking for a response, as he quickly shuts me down. ‘Take care, Noah.’
I nod.
And then get out of the car, my breathing taking some time to return to normal.
*
Lying on top of my quilt, I text Mimi.
I tried to kiss her x
Her reply is almost instantaneous.
WTF? ! How did she react?
I start to type but then realize that I don’t know. How did she react? It all happened so fast. If Jerry hadn’t walked in, would she have stopped me?
Jerry walked in.
OH.
Yes, oh indeed.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
We dip the newspaper into the bucket of gloop (which I can’t help noticing looks decidedly like semen). I don’t think I’ve got the ratio of glue to water quite right because the newspaper turns to mush and starts breaking into tiny pieces.
‘Do you think we need more glue, Dad?’ Gabe says, peering into the bucket with a face that suggests it contains rotten soup.
No shit, Sherlock.
‘Yes, I was just about to do it. I’ve got this thing under control.’
‘Why do we have to do it anyway?’ Gabe says, looking and sounding more and more like a teenager every day.
‘Your homework is about volcanoes so we’re making a volcano.’
‘Loads of the other kids just brought in books from the library. Can’t we just do that and go and play on the PlayStation? We’re nearly at the big baddy.’
‘No. Those children …’ – don’t have fathers on some insane crusade to win back their mother – ‘are just being lazy. We’re being creative. It’s fun, isn’t it, Finn?’
My youngest son stirs the mixture like he’s baking a cake and nods. I pour in more glue and he continues stirring.
‘I want to mix it,’ Gabe shouts, trying to wrench the spoon out of his brother’s hands.
‘No, I want to do it,’ Finn yells, grabbing on with both hands.
They have an animated tussle over the spoon until Gabe manages to release it from Finn’s hands and it flicks up, sending a glob of glue flying towards me. As if in slow motion, I watch it hurtling across the room before it lands right between my eyes, the texture of it sliding down my nose utterly repulsive.