by Fiona Gibson
‘Oh, if she passed, then it was on her own merit,’ I say quickly.
‘No, seriously. You’re my mum’s hero—’
‘Ha, well, just doing my job,’ I say, aware of the tension in my jaw building to critical levels as I bid her goodbye and pull away, trying to focus on the road ahead and what the heck I am supposed to be doing next.
Oh, yes – going to work. Despite everything that’s happened this morning I need to conduct seven driving tests today, virtually back to back, because life must go on, and most of these candidates will be in a severely nervous state. Today, I am working in Solworth, a bigger and scruffier town than Hesslevale, a twenty-minute drive away over the hills. Liv has replied to my text: No worries hope all okay, take care, Lx. People are extraordinarily kind – yes, even driving examiners. We are not heroes, as that woman suggested, and nor are we mean-spirited arseholes, trying to ‘catch people out’. We are just decent people, doing our job. Passive observers, is the way I tend to describe our role. Maybe I’ve been too bloody passive in my marriage too?
I drive on through open countryside on this bright and sunny May morning, then into the outskirts of Solworth, where I pull up at the test centre car park.
Okay, here goes. I climb out of my car, adjust my specs and smooth down the front of my trousers as if that’ll make me appear in control of my life. The centre is an unprepossessing, single-storey modern block with a motorway-service-centre vibe, minus the delights of cinnamon lattes and slot machines. People show up, do what they need to do and leave, with no desire to hang around. Well, of course they do. It hardly has a party atmosphere.
I stride into the office and greet Liv, the manager, and Eric, one of the other examiners, who’s also a good friend.
‘Hey, Nate. Everything all right?’ He peers expectantly over a chipped Liverpool FC mug.
‘Yeah, fine, thanks,’ I say briskly and turn to Liv. ‘Sorry about this morning …’
Concern flickers in her green eyes. Liv is a glamorous Canadian with big, bouncy chocolate-coloured hair and a youthful face that belies the fact that her fiftieth birthday is approaching. ‘Don’t worry,’ she says. ‘We had a cancellation, so Nadira’s taken your first candidate. They should be back any minute now.’ As she studies my face, I am conscious of Eric going through the motions of organising paperwork at his desk, all the while wondering what the hell’s wrong because I am never late for anything. That’s one thing Sinead could never accuse me of.
‘Nothing serious, was it?’ Eric asks.
‘No, not at all.’ I sit down to prepare my own paperwork, aware that an explanation is required. ‘Just a bit of a situation at home,’ I add. Liv frowns in my direction and gets up to click on the kettle. They are behaving as if I have come to work minus my trousers, and no one quite knows how to bring it up.
‘Is Flynn okay?’ Liv asks.
‘Yeah, he’s great, thanks,’ I reply.
‘Did he get on all right with that assessment the other day?’ Eric wants to know.
‘Yeah, everyone was really pleased …’ I catch him studying me whilst sipping his coffee. ‘Just one of those mornings,’ I add. ‘Annoying domestic stuff, y’know …’ I clear my throat and turn my attention back to my forms, hoping they’ll assume I’ve been delayed due to heroically attending to a blocked drain, or a malfunctioning hairdryer, rather than marital disaster.
‘Okay, well, your 9.45’s here,’ Liv remarks brightly.
‘Great. I’ll get to it, then.’
I catch her giving me another worried look as I stride towards our office door. ‘You know, Nate, if you’re feeling a bit off colour—’
‘No, honestly, I’m good, thanks,’ I say with exaggerated chirpiness. Apart from being a shabby excuse for a husband and father, I’m just dandy!
I pause for a moment, trying to gather myself together in order to exude calmness and capability. Through the glass panel in the door between our office and the waiting room, I can see my candidate, whom I have tested before. The weasly young man with straggly blond hair is sitting, deep in muttered conversation, with his instructor.
We know most of the instructors by name as we see them regularly. This one, Karl, looks as if he is trying to calm the lad down, but perhaps failing as, when I push open the door, my candidate barks, ‘Hope I’m not getting that lanky fucker with the glasses again. I know he’s got it in for me.’
*
In fact, he drives extremely competently this time, and remarks, ‘So, I did all right today, did I?’ with a distinct sneer as we part company (yes, and that’s why you damn well passed!). Somehow, I manage to cobble together a facade of normality and work my way through the rest of the morning’s tests. However, a particular point on Sinead’s list keeps pulsing away in my brain:
You don’t make me feel special.
Was she referring to a lack of meals out? I wonder, as my current candidate collides with the kerb whilst reversing around a corner. The way things appear at the moment, I suspect it’d take more than dinner for two on Steak Night at the Wheatsheaf to rectify my numerous shortcomings.
Having explained to my candidate why she failed, I make my way back to the office. At least Sinead has now texted – twice – which surely indicates that she still loves me? Okay, the first time was to say, Please stop bombarding me with calls, will phone when I can. The other one was equally devoid of sentiment: Don’t worry, will let dogs out at lunchtime as usual. But it did suggest she still cares, I decide, as I pace the shabby streets around the test centre in lieu of eating any lunch.
With just five minutes left of my break, I finally manage to get her on the phone.
‘Nate,’ she says distractedly, ‘I’m in the shop.’
‘I know, I know. But we need to talk—’
‘Excuse me,’ says a shrill voice in the background, ‘will you be stocking those pomegranate-scented candles again?’
‘I have a customer here,’ Sinead hisses, then clicks neatly into her shop lady voice: ‘Erm, they were just in for Christmas, but there’s a new bergamot and lime fragrance coming in next week. It’s lovely and fresh for early summer—’
‘Ah, yes, but I was really hoping for something fruitier …’
‘Sinead!’ I bark. ‘Could we please talk, just for a minute?’
‘I’m-at-work.’ There’s a pause, then the shop voice again: ‘Sorry about that. I could call our supplier, if you like?’
Sure – go ahead! Call the candle people and chat away to your customer as if you haven’t just pulled the plug on our marriage. I stomp past a car wash where two young men are hosing down a BMW, with tinny music blaring. Alarmingly, tears appear to be falling out of my eyes. I haven’t cried properly since I took Flynn to see Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, and that wasn’t because of the film; it was the fact that my dad had died a few days before.
‘Nate?’ Ah, she’s remembered I’m here, that I still exist.
‘Where are you staying?’ I ask, frowning. ‘I mean, where were you last night?’
‘At Abby’s …’
‘Cosy!’
‘Don’t be like that …’
‘Did that Rachel woman put you up to this?’
‘Nate, stop this, stop saying that-Rachel-woman …’
‘I need to see you,’ I exclaim. ‘You can’t just send me an email like that and then be unavailable—’
‘Yes, I know, and I’m sorry. But I can’t see you today, okay? I just need time—’
‘Why?’
‘Stop shouting—’
‘I’M NOT SHOUTING.’
‘You are! Look, I’ve got to go, okay?’ How can she sound so calm and neutral? How?
‘All right,’ I growl, stomping back towards the test centre now. ‘Can I just ask, what about Flynn? I mean, does he know anything about this?’
I hear her inhaling deeply. ‘No, I haven’t told him yet …’
‘Are you intending to?’
‘You’re shouting again. Yes, of co
urse I am. Look, I’m going now …’
‘I’m demented here! Can you imagine what it was like for me to find that note? I mean, a bloody note! Why couldn’t we just talk, like normal people?’
‘Hang on,’ she murmurs.
‘It really is the pomegranate fragrance I’d like,’ her customer explains, as if her world will crumble if she doesn’t get one.
‘Yes, it is a lovely homely scent,’ Sinead agrees. Then, back to me: ‘I’ll come over tomorrow evening, okay? But I want the three of us to sit down together and talk – not just you and me—’
‘But we need to talk things through on our own,’ I protest, despite being aware that arguing is futile right now.
‘Not tomorrow,’ she murmurs. ‘You’ll try to persuade me to come back, Nate, and I can’t handle that right now. I want Flynn to be there …’
‘But he’s only sixteen!’
‘Yes, and he’s a smart boy. He deserves to know everything. There’s nothing I’m going to say to you that I can’t say in front of him. So, I’ll see you at the house about eightish, okay?’ And with that, she’s gone.
So it’s already ‘the house’. Not our house anymore. But at least she’s agreed to see me, I remind myself over and over as the afternoon crawls on. Not today, but tomorrow – and I’ll just have to make do with that.
And now, as I drive home, I picture her sitting next to me on our sofa and explaining that she just lost her mind temporarily and, okay, I have been a bit crap, but I’ll try much harder and everything will be all right. In my vision of her, she is wearing one of her vintage frocks covered in spriggy patterns (‘you’re the only man I’ve ever known who calls them frocks,’ she once remarked with a smile), with a snug-fitting cardigan in perhaps light blue or pink. She is quirky, I suppose: delightfully unique. Sinead knows her own style, favouring flat shoes with a strap across the front – Mary Janes, I think they’re called – and wears her fair hair quite long and not especially groomed, just flowing and natural and soft to the touch. In short, she is a ravishing natural beauty – a blue-eyed blonde, with a strong nose, a wide, sensuous mouth and an absolutely knockout body.
God, I love her so much.
I park up and let myself into the house.
‘Dad?’ Flynn calls through from the living room. I stride in, fearing the worst: i.e., he knows already. His mum did call him after all – or he’s simply figured it out for himself.
‘Hi, son. How was your day?’ My heart is pounding as I take in the sight of him lying flat out on the sofa, phone in hand, schoolbag spewing books and crumpled papers all over the floor. His brown eyes fix on mine. He is growing up into such a handsome young man, his jaw more defined now, his boyish softness remoulding into sharper angles.
‘All right, I s’pose. Miss Beazley said to remind you not to park on the zigzags again?’
‘Oh!’ I almost laugh. ‘God, yes. I definitely won’t—’
‘So, when’s Mum coming home?’
Instinctively, I check my watch. It seems so old-fashioned to wear one, but I’m terribly attached to mine. It was left to me when my father died.
‘Erm, she won’t be around till tomorrow, actually,’ I mumble.
Flynn scowls. ‘Why not? What’s going on? She’s not answering her phone—’
‘She’s, um, staying at Abby’s,’ I reply quickly.
I fiddle awkwardly with my watch as he stares at me. Dad wore it for as long as I can remember: dependable and unflashy, like its owner. I always suspected that was why Mum divorced him when I reached my teens – because Dad was just too quiet, too normal, working for an accountancy firm and tinkering away in his shed. Perhaps he was ultimately disappointing to her. I’d never found him disappointing. As a shy kid, with a brother five years younger who was the apple of Mum’s eye, I could have been bored out of my brains in our bleak suburb of Huddersfield. However, while Joe commanded our mother’s attentions, I could always find plenty to discover in Dad’s shed. It was a grotto to me where dreams could be made from a few screws, some offcuts of timber and a tin of Humbrol enamel paint. I’d always assumed I inherited at least some of my father’s DIY talents – but Sinead clearly thinks otherwise.
‘Dad, are you listening to me?’
I flinch and look at Flynn. ‘Sorry? What were you saying?’
He sits up and regards me with the penetrating stare of a particularly astute lawyer. ‘Can you please just tell me what’s going on with you and Mum?’
I sense the blood surging to my cheeks, and feel rather sick as I perch gingerly on the sofa beside him. Both dogs are standing in the living room doorway and gazing at me, as if blocking my escape.
I clear my throat. ‘She, erm … wants some time away from me,’ I murmur. ‘She hasn’t been very happy, so we’re trying to sort things out. I’m sorry, Flynn, I really am. I don’t know what else to tell you …’
His expression is unreadable. ‘Why didn’t you say?’
‘I am. I’m saying now.’
‘Yeah, ’cause I asked,’ he says sharply. ‘’Cause I forced it out of you—’
I exhale slowly. ‘Look, I didn’t say anything this morning because, well, I didn’t know what was going to happen. I still don’t, really. Mum’s staying at Abby’s – that’s all I know. It’s all come as a total shock …’
Flynn gets up from the sofa, which I take as a signal that it’s okay to hug him – that he wants to be held. However, I must have misread the signs as, when I scramble up and try to pull him towards me, he stands there, rigid as an ironing board, arms jammed to his sides.
‘So, what’s going to happen now?’ He disentangles himself and peers at me as if I have gone quite mad.
‘I have no idea. All I know is, she’s coming over tomorrow evening so we can all have a chat.’
‘A chat?’ he repeats bitterly.
‘Well, yeah.’ I shrug. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t really know what else to call it.’
‘Huh,’ he grunts. We look at each other in silence. As I can’t fathom out what to say next, I call Scout to me, and ruffle his head. It’s almost a relief when Flynn slopes off to his room.
Normally, during any kind of tense situation involving our son, I have always tried to be resolutely – possibly irritatingly – cheerful:
Don’t worry, Flynn. It’s school policy to report any bullying, so I really have to go in …
There are loads of ways to play every chord. If that inversion of the G seventh is tricky, we can easily find another one …
It’s okay, son. Hopefully it’ll be Margot again, that nice physio lady with the sticker sheets …
Only he’s sixteen now, and this isn’t something that can be sorted with a Superman sticker or a Freddo bar. There’s no point in following him upstairs, as anything I say will be deemed patronising. These days I seem to patronise him simply by inhabiting the same room. It’s a miracle he still allows me to teach him anything on guitar.
Should I be the one moving out?
Ridiculously, my brain fast-forwards to the weekend, when Mum is due back from her climbing expedition and is coming round to pick up Bella.
‘Has everything gone okay?’
‘Apart from Sinead leaving me, yes, it’s all been absolutely tickety-boo!’
Only, that’s not going to happen. This is just a blip, and somehow I’ll convince Sinead that I’m not the selfish, uncaring arsehole that she seems to think I am.
I simply love my wife too much to just let her go.
Chapter Five
Never before have I been so grateful to reach the end of a Friday afternoon. Although this has been one of the shittiest weeks of my life – up there along with Sinead’s miscarriage and Dad dying – I have somehow managed to muster a smudge of optimism, because tonight is my opportunity to put everything right.
‘Bye, then,’ I say, pulling on my jacket and already propelling myself towards the door.
‘See you, Nate,’ says Liv, still emitting an air of concern. ‘Try
and rest up this weekend, love, will you?’
‘Yeah – you look awfully tired and pale,’ Nadira remarks.
‘Just been a bit of a week …’
‘Sarah was saying we hadn’t seen you and Sinead for ages,’ remarks Eric. ‘You should come over for dinner sometime soon.’
‘Sounds great!’ My hand is clamped on the door handle now.
‘This weekend? Or maybe next?’
‘Um, this weekend’s not so good,’ I mutter. Something of an understatement …
‘And next Saturday’s my barbecue,’ Liv reminds us. ‘I hope you haven’t forgotten that!’
‘Oh, yeah, the big half-century!’ Eric beams at her, then turns back to me. ‘So you’ll check with the boss, will you?’
‘Huh?’
He frowns bemusedly. ‘Sinead. Your wife. So we can arrange a night?’
‘Oh yes, of course,’ I reply as I leave the building, flanked by Nadira, who’s by far the youngest examiner in our team.
‘Well, have a good weekend, Nate,’ she says with a smile.
‘Thanks. You too.’
‘Got much on?’
‘Just playing it by ear,’ I mutter, then turn and make straight for my car and climb straight in. When I glance back, Nadira is standing next to her own car, and giving me a worried look. We’re a friendly team, and usually there’s a bit of chat about our plans for the weekend ahead. Sometimes we even socialise together – Eric and I especially. We often go for a few beers, just the two of us, or get together as couples over dinner.
How am I going to explain that Sinead’s left me?
I won’t need to, I decide as I drive through the gently undulating hills. Somehow, I’ll convince her to give me – and our marriage – another chance. Hell, she has to, really. She can’t just throw in the towel on almost two decades together because she’s suddenly taken exception to my DIY efforts and I didn’t set the bloody mousetraps.
As I near Hesslevale, I make a few firm decisions. Whatever happens tonight, no matter how upset and defensive I feel, I must not let any of that out. I’ll listen to my wife, and show that I don’t intend to take her for granted ever again – not that I ever have! Why does she even think this when I love her madly? WHY? Maybe it’s sex: i.e., we’ve not been having enough lately. Perhaps she thinks I don’t fancy her anymore, which patently isn’t true. In fact, we actually did it a few nights ago, which seemed to surprise us both – and it was lovely, as it always is. But all too often, we’re too knackered to do anything other than fall asleep when we climb into bed. Should we just forget our ‘meeting’ this evening and go straight upstairs, tell Flynn we’re tired? Would that fix everything?