‘The theory is not right,’ Wilbur said. ‘With all due respect to Nicole.’
Nicole seemed pleased. ‘Thank you,’ she said, nodding, ‘for the due respect.’
Later, we stretched sleepily.
‘I like a good meditation,’ Frangipani announced, and Pete Aldridge said, ‘I thought you liked a tall man?’ which was another sort of joke from an unexpected source.
Wilbur said he’d have to cancel next Tuesday’s class, as something had come up, and he frowned vaguely towards his phone.
2.
On the way home, I replayed the line about myself excelling at dynamic soaring. My phone beeped with a text and I checked it at a traffic light.
It was from Niall.
No class next Tuesday night. I’ll miss you! Can I take you to dinner instead?
3.
Oscar outlined the activities he had undertaken at the play centre as we walked inside. Just your usual bouncy things and swimming among plastic balls (a concept I find both compelling and disturbing). I asked if Lynette had found his socks tonight, and Oscar looked startled. He sat on the bottom step, pulled up his trouser leg and pointed: ‘They’re on my foots!’
‘Of course they are!’ It was colder now, so he’d worn shoes and socks instead of sandals.
I decided to make a joke of my forgetfulness. ‘Where are your socks?’ I said. ‘Oh, here they are!’ Pointing to his feet. ‘And where is your backpack? Oh, here it is!’ Swinging it around from my own shoulder. ‘Where are your ears? Oh, here they are!’ And so on. He laughed along, relieved that I was back in control. ‘Where is your kiss?’ I said next. ‘Oh, here it is!’ And I kissed him on the cheek.
I hadn’t planned that, I just said it. He laughed so hard! We had to play the game the entire time I was putting him to bed, me enquiring as to the location of his kiss, and then kissing him. He wanted a turn: Where’s your kiss? Oh, here it is! Kissing my arm, my head, the wall, the pillow, the sheet.
Eventually, he fell asleep in a state of jubilation.
4.
After returning my self-help books to the library, I remembered there is more to self-help than a handful of relatively recent bestsellers.
There are entire movements, many of them rooted in the wisdom of the ancients, many stolen, westernised and simplified from the east. It’s all right, though, social media will reduce them to a pithy pair of lines.
I borrowed more books, followed trails on Facebook, and each new sphere set my heart pumping at how much I had missed. Never looking sideways from The Guidebook, I might have missed the answer: the whereabouts of Robert, the story of what happened to him, how to save my marriage, a cure for this bewildering sadness.
For example, with the right feng shui I might have lured Robert home, and kept Finnegan safe in a harmonious Montreal apartment.
I read about feng shui online: Don’t clutter the space around your doorway because the chi will be distracted and not enter.
Also: Do not have a flight of steps at your front door or the chi will head directly up the stairs, forgetting the ground floor.
It occurred to me that chi might share some characteristics with the universe: all-knowing, all-wise, all-magical, yet also a bit daft.
If you have a room in your house that you don’t use very much, you should put a living thing in there.
What, I thought, like a child? An old person you don’t have much use for anymore?
But the writer went on to explain that it could be a pot plant or a clock. With great respect to the internet, a clock is not in fact a living thing.
5.
Niall and I went to dinner at a Thai place in Newtown.
As I approached—as I walked along King Street in my clicking high-heeled boots, and my tight blue jeans, with my hair long and feathery so I felt it brush my skin as if it was excited too—I suddenly found myself too obvious. Transparent! Striding towards him with my hair loose!
Niall watched me approach and then I was standing beside him and it’s almost too much, isn’t it, when you both know it’s a date, and you’re smiling at each other in the street, your eyes sparkling, people moving around you, traffic going by, sun falling pale, and it’s about to begin, about to begin.
Then you turn towards the restaurant door. ‘Shall we go in?’
6.
It was a good night, is what I’m trying to say.
The shine kept up through dinner, and our eyes carried on sparkling. Anyway, his eyes sparkled, and I sensed that mine did too.
We talked about Wilbur and Flight School, of course, and the others in the class. Why had they agreed to attend?
Nicole wanted a break from her four children? I suggested.
‘So many better ways to have a break,’ Niall said. ‘She could see a movie or learn to surf.’
I liked that he didn’t suggest Nicole could get a facial or have her nails done—the sort of thing people always recommend for women taking breaks. A little free time? Get to work making yourself prettier! Also, I always have to curl my fingers under, hiding my torn and bitten nails, when people mention getting ‘nails done’. There’s nothing here to ‘do’.
We decided that kindness was Antony’s motivation, and that Sasha—I remembered to call her Sasha, not Frangipani—was still knotted up with The Guidebook, possibly even believing that she would learn to fly.
‘And Pete Aldridge wants to protect us,’ I finished. I was looking at the last curry puff. I love curry puffs. Why give us an odd number? Should I offer it to Niall? Ask if he wanted to share? Leave it there like a lost treasure?
Niall followed my eyes. He tipped the final curry puff onto my plate.
‘That’s not why Pete Aldridge is coming,’ he said. ‘I can tell you why.’
‘Why?’
‘He’s got a crush on Sasha.’
‘No chance,’ I said.
‘Trust me,’ he said.
We paused. We’d just disagreed on something of no particular consequence. I liked his certainty, and I liked that he’d mentioned a man having a crush, and I liked that he’d just read my mind and given me the curry puff.
‘Anyway, who else is there?’ Niall held up his hand, which was big, and each of his fingers seemed big and broad too. He murmured our classmates’ names, ticking them off. ‘You just wanted to see what would happen,’ he said, when he reached my name. ‘And I wanted to see you again.’
This time he didn’t look sideways at a tree. He leaned on his elbows, watching my face.
‘Thank you,’ I said. I couldn’t figure out what else to say.
We both drank from our wineglasses and picked up the conversation again.
Afterwards, Niall walked me to my car and there was a big notice flapping under the wiper. THIS CAR DOES NOT CONTAIN VALUABLES, the notice said, followed by a list of valuables ‘this car’ did not contain. Satnav, radio, CDs, purse and so on. Clipped to this was a little explanation from Newtown Police, suggesting that I place this notice on my windscreen every time I parked my car, as thieves had been operating in the neighbourhood.
Niall and I read all this under a streetlight.
‘So if I ever do have valuables in the car,’ I said, ‘I should cross out the not? Maybe put a checkmark next to the relevant valuables?’
‘And if it’s not listed, just write it in,’ Niall said. ‘Grandmother’s emerald ring. Check.’
‘It’s the only way the system can work,’ I agreed. ‘The thieves have to be able to trust us.’
Niall’s shoulders tipped sideways, as if a ship had tacked unexpectedly, and then he was kissing me.
It was the good kind of kiss, the right kind, gentle but not whispery, and it lasted a suitable length of time, so I wasn’t gasping for breath.
We smiled at each other again.
‘Better go and get the kid,’ I said.
7.
After that, winter got underway.
Niall and I went on five more dates while babysitters took care of Oscar. I st
ayed out later each time, and we spent longer kissing each other goodnight. We took turns paying for dinner, and the whole thing was costing me a goddamn fortune.
It turned out that Niall had been in a relationship with a woman named Rhami for thirteen years. They had lived together, but never seen a reason to get married. Last year, Rhami had said she needed to move on, to get to know herself, see other men.
Niall was very adult, very calm, in his narration. ‘It wasn’t a surprise,’ he said. ‘We were so young when we got together. It was always going to happen. Best thing for both of us.’
Rhami had moved out two days before Niall received the letter about the weekend retreat to the island.
‘Any other time,’ he said, ‘I’d have chucked it, but now I thought, Why not just go? It was great. Like a reminder that things ending with Rhami meant freedom. She was a contemporary dancer, and used to perform most weekends. I’d help her set up the stage. But this time I could just pack up and go.’
We smiled at each other.
I told him about Finnegan and Tia, and laughed—because it’s funny, the way Tia had been part of our relationship all along—and Niall said, ‘I’m glad you find it funny. Because I don’t! He’s a prick!’ Then: ‘I hope it’s okay for me to say that.’
I said it was fine. He should say whatever he liked.
*
On the fifth date, while we were making out under a streetlight, leaning up against my car—and that’s what it was, making out; I recommend it—he invited me back to his place. It was the point of all this, surely.
But I couldn’t figure out what to do. I declined the invitation and began to spend most of my time trying to solve this puzzle. Should I ask the babysitter to stay until morning? Am I made out of money? Plus, how would it work when Oscar crept into my room, as he sometimes does, and found the sitter in my bed? Maybe he’d just slink back to his own room, but he is capable of howling until he makes himself sick.
You’re thinking: What! Oscar? No way! He’s cute!
But he can slap me hard across the face while I’m strapping him into his car seat. He can throw himself against a door screaming. He once reached up and pulled out a handful of my hair, then pushed his face close to mine and said, ‘That’s what you get’. Because I had told him to eat his vegetables.
I took Oscar to the zoo once—I’ve taken him many times, we have annual passes—but on this day, he threw a book out of the open car window, told me I was a fat monster, refused to get out of the car when we arrived, burst into tears when I said, ‘Okay, we’re going back home’—‘But I wanna go to the zoo!’ ‘Then you have to get out of the car!’ ‘I don’t want to get out of the car!’ And so on.
I knew I should punish him by taking him home. But I wanted to go to the zoo, I needed to go the zoo, he needed to go the zoo because it wears him out and he sleeps all afternoon. So we went to the zoo, where he begged for an ice-cream, until I gave in and bought him an ice-cream, which he immediately threw onto the road screaming that it was ‘wrong! The wrong ice-cream!’
Here, I lost my mind and shouted, ‘That’s it! We are going home right now! We are not going to see the lions! That’s what happens! You miss out on the lions!’ while Oscar sobbed, broken-hearted—he loves the lions! He wants to be a lion!—and a young couple walked by, arms linked, and glanced at each other—and there went time, it was Finnegan and me, the year 2000. ‘These are the memories,’ Finn had said.
I was wiping Oscar’s face roughly, cleaning off the ice-cream, and those stupid, self-righteous idiots, Finnegan and Abigail, they didn’t have a clue.
Of course, you’ll purse your lips: ‘Don’t let him get away with it!’ Or: ‘My child would never behave like that! Try DIS-CI-PLINE!’
As if I hadn’t thought of that. Brilliant! Punish his misbehaviour! Let him know his conduct is unacceptable!
Don’t you think I’ve tried that? Points systems, star charts, naughty stairs! Long, stern discussions. Removal of special treats.
You think because you’ve raised a child, you know how children work?
Children are as various as people.
Same with marriages.
Anyway, I was keen to figure out how to spend a night with Niall. I considered asking Lynette and Dad to keep Oscar overnight. But the very day I was considering this, Lynette said to me, ‘You know, when Oscar is seven or eight, he could have a sleepover with us!’
Pre-emptive strike. She had seen my plan in my eyes.
I can’t wait until he’s seven or eight, I thought in a small, forlorn voice.
Around this time, I watched an episode of a TV show in which the single mother of a teenage daughter says: In all the years that my daughter was growing up, I’ve never spent a night with a man. Now she could do this because the teenager was going away to college.
On the couch, I wept.
Never? I sobbed. Never? In all that time, she has never spent a night with a man?
I could see that we, the viewers, were supposed to approve—yes, that’s correct, the morality, the purity, child protection—while, meanwhile I rocked back and forth in my anguish. Dizzy with it, ice-cold with it, the idea that I would not spend a night with a man until Oscar grew up and left home.
You think that I exaggerate. I don’t.
8.
In my café, there is a noticeboard where people can pin their happy thoughts. I have stacks of cards printed with: Happiness is . . .
That’s the prompt. Customers can use it to specify what makes them happy right now, or define what happiness means to them.
Turns out people seem to think that happiness is love, or a holiday by the sea, or family, or my new nail colour!!! or a Maserati. I like it when they refer to menu items: Happiness is this Spinach, Red Pepper, Strawberry and Candied Walnut Salad! Although sometimes that seems a little ingratiating. Also, too literal, because spinach and red peppers are full of vitamin B6, which boosts serotonin, and strawberries contain vitamin C, which reduces the stress hormone cortisone, and walnuts contain omega-3 fatty acids, which keep nerve cell membranes healthy. So yes, happiness is that salad. That’s why it’s on the menu.
Around this time, I read the noticeboard every day. I was waiting for somebody to write Happiness is a Child-free Night with my New Lover. Nobody did. A couple of interesting ones I saw included: Happiness is my kid eating healthy food without screaming or throwing it across the room (i.e. elusive). Also: Happiness is . . . not available. I just want the world to be all right. Just, everyone be all right. I can’t stand it anymore.
I took that last one down; it struck me as likely to lower the mood. Then I pinned it back up, because what if the person returned and saw that his/her voice had been silenced?
Luckily it was quickly covered by a teenage boy who wrote, Happiness is . . . my new gaming mouse.
9.
We did another Meditation session at Flight School.
Wilbur took us soaring into the sky (with his voice), ‘without the trappings of machinery or wings’, through clouds and fog, dodging peaks and doing loop-the-loops under rainbows and suchlike. We all enjoyed that one. Pete Aldridge said it reminded him of a ride he’d been on at Universal Studios. A dimple appeared in Wilbur’s left cheek when Pete said that, but then he resumed his grave expression and nodded. ‘Thank you, Pete.’ I was always surprised by Wilbur’s dimple; his face was defined by its cheekbones, a strong nose, a scar on his chin like a chipped piece of wood.
In Flight Immersion, Wilbur taught us the language of pilots. From now on, he suggested, we should say negative for no and affirmative for yes; also say again if we didn’t hear something properly, copy that if we did, and disregard if we changed our minds.
We learned that skyclr means good weather for flying, and cavok means cloud and visibility okay.
Cumulonimbus is thunderclouds; cumulous is the little, white, fluffy clouds; stratus is the low blankets of cloud.
‘The ones you don’t want,’ Wilbur told us, ‘are cumu
lo-granulous.’
We waited.
‘That means you’ve run into a mountain.’
Funny. We all laughed.
We’re all in a peppermint mood, I thought, and that sent a twirl through my heart. Peppermint mood is something Robert used to say, when he was about six years old. I think it came from a picture book his teacher had read to his class. Until that moment, in Wilbur’s living room, I had completely forgotten.
Also in Flight Immersion, we had to recite the aviation alphabet until we all had it memorised (Antony already did)—Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo and so on—and we learned that UK and US flyers used to have different alphabets (Apple, Beer, Charlie; Abel, Baker, Charlie), until a universal language was agreed upon.
Frangipani interrupted to say that she had met a man named Abel online.
‘What’s that got to do with the universal language of flight?’ Pete Aldridge barked.
‘Sex is a universal language,’ Nicole put in.
‘Wilbur just said Abel,’ Frangipani explained. ‘Abel, Baker, Charlie.’
‘Is his name Abel Baker?’ Antony enquired.
Frangipani admitted that she did not know her new man’s last name, at which Pete Aldridge tched, and Nicole sighed, ‘I miss the days of having sex with men whose name I don’t know. I like sex.’ Her arms stretched languorously, and I loved how open she could be. But then her eyes darted around the group. ‘Is that wrong? That I just said that?’
‘No!’ I said. ‘It’s not wrong to say that!’
Then Nicole, Frangipani and I had an intense discussion about how a woman’s sex drive is considered unseemly, or laughable; how a woman frustrated, especially an older woman, is an object to be mocked. A cranky woman must need to get laid! Funny! But if a man wants sex, nobody says, Oho, he wants sex! Funny! Of course he does. It’s biological.
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