A Family Man

by Amanda Brookfield

He didn’t join the drinkers outside but stayed at the bar talking to a stringy Scotsman with a wispy moustache and watery eyes. After two pints and three whisky chasers he was pouring out the entire sorry tale, including the absurd role of the misguided Louise, whom he painted in such a viciously witty light that the Scotsman cackled in appreciation.

  ‘That’s women for you,’ he hissed, before proceeding to deliver an infinitely more heart-rending life story of his own, so full of tragic twists and turns that Matt felt quite humbled and then somewhat disbelieving. ‘But I’ve got six kids and I love them all,’ he concluded, his red eyes misty with sentiment, making a big show of waggling an empty glass which Matt had filled several times already. Reminded thus of his own responsibilities, he took his leave, almost tripping over the legs of the homeless man as he hurried into the street.

  It took so long to steer the key into the lock that Matt seriously began to wonder if he had picked up the Scotsman’s keys by mistake. When the lock finally gave way he fell rather than walked through the door, managing only to stay upright with the aid of the hall table. ‘Oh, bloody hell, it’s you,’ he said, as not Josie but Sophie emerged from the sitting room.

  ‘You’re very late.’

  He pushed past her into the kitchen and ran himself a glass of water, pressing it so hastily to his lips that at least half dribbled down his chin and on to his shirt front.

  ‘You should have called.’

  ‘I should have done a lot of things,’ he retorted, aware that his voice was badly slurred but unable to make the necessary adjustments to it. ‘But life does not always turn out the way one expects, does it, now? There are all those unexpected little things that bugger everything up —’

  ‘You’re drunk.’ There was distaste in her voice and some surprise.

  He blinked at her, grinning. ‘Yes. And you, as usual, are in a bad mood.’ He poured himself some more water, tried to drink it all, but gave up halfway through, messily tipping the remainder down the sink. ‘So what happened to my dear employee this time? A migraine, was it? Is she tucked up at your place with a hot-water bottle?’

  ‘A boyfriend, a really nice boy. They had arranged to go out together.

  She was expecting you back hours ago. Your mobile’s been switched off. She called me in desperation. I’m doing as much as I can to encourage the relationship, to help her towards some sort of real independence from me. I thought you would approve,’ she added, before shaking her head and muttering,

  ‘Although I can see that now is probably not the best time to talk about such things.’ She unhooked her handbag from the back of a kitchen chair. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll let myself out.’

  ‘You’re going? So soon? Oh, no, no, I won’t hear of it. All that tea and sympathy you dish out to everybody – I want some. I need some. And if Josie’s off your hands surely there’s room in the queue for me?’

  ‘Matt, don’t be —’

  ‘Hey, come on, you’re the Marjorie Proops of south-east London, aren’t you? And I think you’ll agree I’ve been patient, waiting my turn all these months … Now, let’s see, where to start?’ He rubbed the palms of his hands together. ‘Well, you know about my matrimonial difficulties, of course.’ He chuckled. ‘Who the fuck doesn’t? Less well known is that my dear wife, who incidentally made it to her father’s funeral this afternoon – rather touching of her to bother – has embarked on her new life not with a photographer, or a casting agent, or an old flame, but with my best friend. My best friend. And not only that – wait and listen to this – turns out they were screwing each other before that for two years. Amazing or what? I mean, you’ve got to take your hat off to them – such stealth, such perfectly accomplished deception for so long. And then to cap it all, Louise – Louise – chooses this afternoon to tell me that she thinks I’ve been leading her on, that just because I once kissed her cheek and invited her to a play about an unhappy housewife I want to get inside her knickers. I mean, for fuck’s sake… Now if I were to kiss you, that would be different, because you, as far as I know, are unattached and … well, to be frank, much prettier than Louise who’s got this terrible preserved look to her, like she’s been pickled in cosmetics. Where are you going? Wait here, I haven’t finished …’ He staggered after Sophie, who had backed into the hall during the course of this diatribe and was standing with one hand on the door latch.

  ‘Well, what do you think?’ pressed Matt, wishing he could make her understand that he really did want her help, that he was drowning in unhappiness. He walked to the door and put his hand on hers. ‘Say something, for God’s sake.’

  ‘I think you’ve had a bad time …’

  ‘Ah. Very good. Very insightful. Although I think, even in my sodden state, I might have been able to draw a similar —’

  ‘Look, Matt, you don’t have the monopoly on human suffering, you know.’ She glared up at him without any trace of intimidation. ‘Others of us have mucked up too and picked up the pieces. I might also add that as someone who was once so sure she’d found True Love she was prepared to break up a marriage for it, I’m hardly the person from whom you should be seeking advice.’

  ‘But you didn’t, did you … break up the marriage?’ He squinted down at her, noting suddenly that her pupils, seen close to, were not dark brown at all but flecked with intriguing dots of black and green.

  ‘No. He changed his mind. Decided I wasn’t his True Love after all, but a bit on the side. Can I go now?’

  ‘No.’ He could feel her fingers under his, trying to push the latch down.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Fair question.’ He could feel himself swaying, looking down at her as if from an enormous height. ‘I think … probably … because I want to kiss you.’

  ‘I’ll slap your face if you do.’ The hazel eyes held his, still unafraid and even, so it seemed to Matt’s befuddled senses, a little amused.

  ‘Maybe that’s a risk I’m prepared to take.’

  ‘I wouldn’t advise it. I’m strong. I work out. And I want to go home.’ She reached out with her free hand and lifted his fingers off hers. Matt did not resist. He felt suddenly drained, weak-kneed and exhausted.

  ‘Sorry, I don’t know what —’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Go to bed. If you’ve got any analgesics I should take them. Oh, and I left a note for you on the hall table, about a new primary school. Though you might digest it rather more effectively in the morning,’ she added wryly, tossing the words over her shoulder as she closed the door.

  Disinclined to test his powers of balance across the now heaving expanse of floorboard at his feet, Matt sank to his knees and crawled back towards the hall table. Between the telephone and a stack of mail was a small white card. Though tidily composed, the words kept jumping out of line, as if intent upon escaping the page.

  The Garden Primary School, opens September at 106 Doben Road. Two small reception classes for five year-olds. Excellent head teacher, Mrs Cherry, tel: 020 7483 2099.

  Unclenching his eyes from the effort of focusing, Matt curled up in a foetal position on the hall rug, the card clasped to his chest. Seeing Joshua’s Lion King slippers at the bottom of the stairs, he pulled them under his face by way of a pillow. An inner voice ranted for a while about hall floors being no substitute for beds, before the last threads of his consciousness succumbed and he slipped into a heavy sleep.

  35

  Matt did not stir until the early hours, when the combination of a noise in the street and a sandpaper throat propelled him up the stairs, via the bathroom, to his own bed. There, perhaps because his brain was already steeling itself for consciousness, or perhaps because of the monumental headache pulsing in his cranium, he dreamed vividly and unhappily until roused by his son and an assortment of furry animals.

  ‘I’m afraid Daddy’s not very well this morning, Josh, he needs to sleep a bit more,’ he croaked, removing the lion, now made grubby by love, from his face.

  ‘Have you got a bug?’

  �
��A bug, yes, most definitely a bug. A big bad bug.’

  ‘Will it fly into me?’ Joshua looked concerned.

  ‘No, it only likes daddies.’ Matt smiled, for a moment forgetting both the pain in his head and the tatters of his life. ‘But it will be gone soon. Do you mind watching telly downstairs, old fellow, just till it’s breakfast time?’

  Alone again, Matt pulled a pillow over his head, wishing he could smother both the pain of his hangover and the myriad images of his many failures. Kath, Graham, Louise, Sophie. He had cocked up on every front. And then there was Beth, perhaps the saddest indicator of all that instead of metamorphosing into a latter-day superman of a single father, complete with career and personal life, his entire existence had broken down irretrievably.

  Driven out of the house a little later in search of newspapers and fresh supplies of analgesics, Matt was almost unsurprised to find a policewoman and several yards of yellow ticker tape cordoning off the entrance to Mr Patel’s shop. It confirmed the indisputable fact that life was crap, a question of grim survival and little else. More unsettling was the news, gleaned from a neighbour, that Mr Patel, preparing for opening during the early hours, as was his wont, had been attacked and was in intensive care in Guy’s hospital. Recalling how he had awakened from his drunken stupor on the hall floor, with the dim sense of there having been a commotion in the street outside, Matt felt a twinge of guilt. Maybe, on another night, in another less fucked- up life, he could have done something; scared the thugs away, called an ambulance.

  ‘Ow, Daddy, you’re hugging too tight. I want to see the policeman – and I want my lolly.’

  After explaining, with some difficulty, the absence of both Mr Patel and the customary Sunday morning lollipop, Matt took Joshua’s hand and walked on to the newsagent’s in the high street. There he made his purchases, including a shamefully vast ice cream for Joshua and a can of Coca-Cola for himself. He took several swigs before they left the shop, relishing the cold sweetness in his dry throat and the rush of sugar in his veins. Emerging into the sunshine a few minutes later, he caught sight of the unmistakable figure of Sophie Contini in running shorts and a tight vest of a T-shirt jogging along the pavement on the opposite side of the road, her dark hair flying loose. Matt stared, his stomach tightening at the hazy recollections of his dissolute behaviour the previous night. The sports gear suited her well, revealing neat, tight muscles and strong shoulders – features hitherto concealed by her wardrobe of baggy clothes. As Matt watched she turned, checking both ways for traffic before sprinting across the road just a few yards ahead of them. His heart raced in preparation for the inevitable moment of recognition. As she glanced his way, he prepared a sheepish smile, only to find her gaze drift unseeingly across his face. There was no acknowledgment at all, not even disapproval. A moment later all that was visible were the heels of her trainers, kicking with each step as she flew up the road.

  On getting home he phoned Josie to apologise. ‘I realise I’ve not been the greatest … well, not the most reliable of people, mucking you around and so on, but all that is going to change. I mean I really am going to get my act together, for Josh anyway.’

  ‘Are you all right? You don’t sound great.’

  ‘Me? I’m fine. Just a little tired …’

  ‘You mean hungover, more like.’

  ‘I suppose Sophie has spoken to you,’ said Matt gloomily.

  ‘Sophie? No. But you’d been to a funeral, hadn’t you? And anyone late back from a funeral is bound to be getting pissed. Hope you didn’t mind her taking over. She’s great like that, always helping out … and by the way I’m sorry if I seemed rude to your friend yesterday – it’s just that me and her, we don’t …’

  ‘It’s quite all right, it doesn’t matter,’ Matt assured her wearily, Louise being the last subject he wanted to talk about. If Josie stole ten purses a week he couldn’t imagine minding so long as she was nice to Joshua.

  ‘Look, do you want me to come over?’

  He hesitated. The headache had eased, leaving a great lassitude which he knew reached far beyond the effects of the previous evening’s overindulgence.

  ‘You could go back to bed. Sleep it off,’ she added shyly.

  He gave a tired laugh. ‘If you could spare me a couple of hours or so that would be very helpful. Much as I would like to return to bed, there are other things I’ve got to do instead.’

  Enquiries about Mr Patel revealed the happy news that he had been moved from intensive care to a regular ward. In spite of having prepared himself for the worst, Matt was still deeply shocked to see the state of the old man’s face, puffed with crimson and yellow, so bad on one side that his entire eye was obscured from view. Evidently undeterred by this handicap, he was sitting up in bed reading a newspaper when Matt approached.

  ‘Oh, Mr Webster, is it? How kind, how kind of you to come. Very kind indeed.’

  ‘I hope you don’t mind. I just wanted to say how sorry I was …’ Matt set his bag of grapes down on the bedside table, wondering now he was there quite what to say. His presence in the hospital stemmed, he knew, not just from human compassion, but from a desire to be near someone else who had suffered a rain of blows; to seek comfort and solidarity among the ranks of the world’s defeated. ‘After that business with your window and now this – it’s just too bad.’

  ‘It’s a bloody outrage, isn’t it?’ Mr Patel’s one visible eye flashed with indignation. ‘The same youths, I’m sure of it, only I saw them this time, got a good look. And I’ve told the police inspector.’ He thumped the bedcovers, so lustily that Matt feared the tube coming out of his wrist might be wrenched from the vein. He leaned towards Matt, lowering his voice. ‘This time those buggers are going to jail and no mistake about it.’ He gently eased himself back against the pillows. ‘Four broken ribs and a knife in my back. I ask you, Mr Webster, what is this world of ours coming to?’

  ‘What will you do now? I mean, with the shop and so on … will you carry on?’

  ‘Oh, by Jove I will. With God’s will. My brother is coming from Birmingham to help for a few weeks. I have good insurance. We will all be right as rain in no time.’

  ‘You are very brave, Mr Patel,’ said Matt quietly, getting up to go.

  The bruised features twisted into a smile. ‘No, Mr Webster, I think I am just very cross, very cross indeed. And the police are good people, they are trying to help me. But how are you, Mr Webster? How was your funeral?’

  ‘Pretty bad.’

  ‘I thought so.’ Mr Patel nodded thoughtfully. ‘You are looking bad.’

  ‘Which is saying something coming from you,’ rejoined Matt, too weary either to consider the diplomacy of the remark or to check the involuntary burst of laughter which accompanied it. He was pleased to see the old man start to laugh as well, until he clutched his ribcage in agony.

  ‘Oh, God, Mr Patel, sorry. I … I didn’t mean to … Look, I’d better go.’

  ‘Oh yes, you go … back to your little boy,’ spluttered Mr Patel, managing, even through the effort of composing himself, to express enormous warmth. ‘A fine boy. And you a fine father.’

  Matt snorted dismissively. ‘Oh yes. Very fine. A diet of confectionery, frozen food and videos.’

  ‘You love him,’ said the shopkeeper quietly, ‘you care for him, you do what you can. In the end, that is all that matters.’

  Matt returned home feeling both humbled and fractionally less defeated. Josie had not only performed one of her miraculous whirlwind tidy-ups, but had also baked a huge carrot cake, dripping with white icing and drifts of shredded coconut. On the back of an envelope next to the cake was an arrow and the words Help yourself. Have taken Josh to meet Mick (boyfriend) in park. Back for tea.

  Taking a cup of coffee and a wedge of cake upstairs, Matt switched on his computer. There were two e-mails. One from Oliver about their weekly meeting the following day and one from Graham. Matt braced himself, his mind for a moment racing with wild hopes of explanations an
d apologies, of some reasoned, understandable narrative that he could forgive. Then he remembered that Louise’s indiscretion had been without Kath’s blessing and that unless Graham’s conscience had performed a miraculous volte-face, he would still be playing the role of loyal friend.

  Leave for Sydney tomorrow. Will get in touch in due course, when I get sorted. All the best, Graham.

  Staring at the message, Matt knew instinctively that he was looking at a cowardly farewell note. There would be no getting in touch on any level. Graham was tunnelling away to Australia with Kath, to be as far away from him as they could possibly manage. His finger hovered over the delete button, before sliding the cursor to the reply box instead. Silence might have been nobler, more dignified certainly. But he was too angry for that.

  He took his time composing his reply. Since words were the only weapons at his disposal he wanted to be sure they were as sharp as he could make them, to give them at least a chance of reverberating beyond the instant it took Graham’s eye to skim down the screen.

  This will be my last e-mail too, Graham. I know about you and Kath, you see. I know the whole sordid story. Truth, like poison, always surfaces in the end. And if you’re wondering how I’m feeling then I can tell you it’s not good, not the sort of feelings I’d wish on my worst enemy. But there we go. Crap happens. I may have been dim, but at least I am honest. You and Kath will tire of each other, and when you do you will lie about it, as you have lied to me. Next time the pain will be yours. Meanwhile, I have my integrity (sounds pious, I know, but I’ve every fucking right) and my son, whom I value more than life itself.

  Next, he emailed Oliver, explaining that he would be resigning from his recently negotiated contract, just as soon as a suitable replacement could be found. Moments after he had sent the message the telephone exploded into life.

  ‘Over my dead body. What has got into you, Matthew? Really, just when I thought everything had been sorted out so beautifully. Has Philip … has somebody said something?’