by Fiona Gibson
From the dance floor, Tanzie gesticulates for me to join her. I grin and pull my phone from my pocket, indicating that I must make a call. It’s not just a dance-floor-avoidance tactic. I called Flynn earlier, but he didn’t pick up. Now, at a quarter to nine, I am aware that I should make contact, in the rare event that he might have started to wonder where I am.
I step into the dingy foyer and scroll for his number.
‘Hey, Dad,’ he says. ‘Where are you?’
‘Still out in York. I’ve tried to call you a couple of times. Everything okay? You at home?’
‘Yeah. I’m fine. Did you find a present for Mum?’
‘Er, not yet,’ I reply.
He pauses, and I can sense him tuning into the Bucks Fizz track that’s playing. I remember it now: Making Your Mind Up. I can even recall the ripping-off-skirts part of their routine; Christ, how does that sort of thing embed itself in your brain?
‘Where are you?’ Flynn asks. ‘What’s that awful music?’
‘Bucks Fizz.’
‘Are you … drunk, Dad?’
‘No! Of course I’m not. But I’m, er, at a club …’
‘A what?’
I sip my Coke. ‘Um, d’you remember I said Tanzie was going to help me find a present for—’
‘You’re shopping for Mum’s birthday in a club?’
‘Er, not exactly. Tanzie wanted to come … you do remember Tanzie from Burger Bill’s?’
‘Uh, yeah?’ I can sense his bewilderment radiating across the forty-odd miles from our house.
‘Well, it’s her friend’s event,’ I prattle on. ‘I’ll be home very soon.’
‘Oh, don’t rush, Dad,’ he says, his voice laced with amusement now.
‘No, seriously – I’m leaving in a minute. So, are you okay?’
‘Yeah – you’ve already asked that …’
I step back as a woman swishes into the club wearing a black dress of cobwebby lace and a cascading dark wig. Kate Bush, I decide. Clever. ‘Just don’t do anything daft,’ I say over the thumping intro to Ultravox’s Vienna.
‘Don’t worry, Dad. I’m just sticking knives into the toaster – stuff like that. See you later. And have fun at the club!’
He ends our call with a snort, and by the time I’ve rejoined the throng in the main room, a band are setting up on the stage. I’m aware of a twinge of nostalgia as I watch them chatting and joking, the camaraderie of a bunch of musicians of a certain age. Realising the drummer looks familiar, I try to figure out where I’ve seen that well-worn face.
Now he’s peering over at me, this man in jeans and a black shirt with an embroidered collar. With his clearly dyed hair combed into some semblance of a quiff, he doesn’t quite fit in with the other, shaven-headed men – and nor does he seem to match the eighties vibe. It dawns on me, as the record ends, that it’s Stan, purveyor of second-hand vinyl.
I fetch myself another Coke, and a second cocktail for Tanzie, which she accepts with enthusiasm as the band starts to play. While eighties cover bands aren’t my sort of thing, this one is remarkably tight and energetic. We listen, and Tanzie flits off to dance again, seemingly accepting now that I won’t be persuaded to join her. They play track after track, and the atmosphere is one of sheer enjoyment. There’s nothing like live music to grab you, as far as I’m concerned. Instead of itching to leave, I’m now quite happy to enjoy the performance – not for the song choices particularly, but their proficiency as musicians.
Tanzie returns to my side.
‘See the drummer?’ I shout over the music. ‘He’s the one who made off with my records.’
‘Made off with them?’ Tanzie says, laughing. ‘I thought there was money involved. I assumed it was consensual …’
I chuckle at her turn of phrase, and she darts off to fetch us more drinks. As she returns, the singer – a tall, narrow man with angular cheekbones and sideburns – announces they’ll be back after a break.
‘Hey – I thought it was you.’ Now Stan has appeared in front of us.
‘Hi Stan,’ I say brightly. ‘Great band you have there.’
‘Cheers, buddy.’ His gaze flicks to Tanzie. ‘So, I’m guessing you’re the one who finally put your foot down about all those records of his!’
‘Oh, Tanzie’s not my wife,’ I say quickly.
‘Ah, right.’ He waggles a brow.
‘She’s just a friend,’ I add, at which Stan smirks, clearly of the opinion that a man and a woman couldn’t possibly socialise platonically. ‘So, d’you fancy doing a number with us, Nate?’ he asks.
‘Maybe sometime,’ I say vaguely, having no intention of ever doing so.
‘No, I mean right now, or at least after our break. C’mon, I was telling the guys about you. They all remember you from way back when …’ From way back when. Like one of those old, dead guys. Like Chuck-fucking-Berry. ‘This kind of stuff,’ Stan continues, slapping an arm around my shoulders, ‘you could play with your eyes shut. It doesn’t have to be cheesy, though. How about we do a Cure track? Bit of variety for the punters?’
‘Thanks for asking me, but I really don’t think so,’ I say firmly.
‘Aw, just the one number. Why not?’
Because … Hell, what could I say? That I haven’t performed in over a decade, and no longer have the nerve? Or that my own son won’t even deign to play music with me and, right now, the thought of performing in public – even to a middle-aged crowd in mullet wigs – is bringing me out in a light sweat? Yet, as I glance around at the other band members, all of whom look as if they’ve thoroughly enjoyed themselves so far, I’m also aware of wanting to be part of something again. It’s that urge to belong, to be part of a collective endeavour: the very opposite of being a driving examiner, when it’s just you and some bloke who wants to daub snot on your food.
I thought my urge to play with a band had left me years ago. Yet now here it is, rearing its head – at an eighties night, of all places.
‘You can play Norm’s Gibson,’ Stan continues, indicating a tall, skinny man sipping a pint at the bar. ‘I’ve already okayed it with him. He’s talking about leaving. Work commitments mean he can’t put in the rehearsal time. So we’re keeping our eyes open for someone new …’
‘But I work full-time,’ I say quickly.
‘Yeah – we all do. I mean, between manning the shop and running about all over the place, picking up collections like yours – they’re selling fast, by the way …’ Stan tails off, as if he’s lost his thread. ‘Anyway,’ he adds quickly, ‘why not join us for one song? Come over and meet the guys. We’ll figure out what we can play. It’ll be like falling off a log to an old pro like you …’ He beams an encouraging smile, and saunters back to join his bandmates.
Tanzie grins at me, green eyes wide and sort of sparkling. ‘So, are you going to do it?’
I take a sip of my Coke. ‘Old pro, he said. Made me sound about eighty-seven.’
‘Stop dodging the issue,’ she chastises me.
I laugh, realising our one drink has stretched to three. Weirdly, though – even though I am unable to anaesthetise myself with booze against the strains of Club Tropicana – I am not averse to staying a little longer.
Tanzie tosses back her blonde wig. ‘You really should do it, Nate. Go on, let yourself go a bit. Live a little …’
I smile at her, still not entirely sure how a seemingly straightforward shopping trip has ended up like this. The DJ puts on Bowie’s Let’s Dance, a track I’m particularly fond of. People are dancing, arms waving, and a sense of exuberance fills the club as I am transported back to my own younger self, overcome with excitement on playing this record for the first time.
‘So, will you do it?’ Tanzie urges. ‘Go on, please!’
I look at her, jiggling enthusiastically on the spot, clutching a tall glass of brown liquid with a wedge of lime jammed over the rim. ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘I’ll do it.’
‘Brilliant! Oh my God, I’m in the company of a rock star
…’
‘Hardly,’ I splutter, but sensing my spirits soaring all the same. And that’s how I end up accepting the loan of Norm’s rather battered Gibson, and find myself in a hastily muttered discussion with the band. My heart quickens as I step up onto the stage.
We don’t play a Cure track, as originally suggested in order to lure me – but Haircut 100’s Fantastic Day. If my former bandmates could see me now. But then, it has been a fantastic day, in the weirdest sort of way. I have been to a cathedral – or an ‘over-the-top church’ – and examined dresses covered in guinea pigs. I have chatted and laughed and agreed that tapas come in rather small dishes, and – crucially – almost forgotten the terrible events of the past few weeks.
Christ, I’ve almost felt young again.
The song rings out in all its jangly glory, and I find myself smiling inanely despite not really knowing the track, but, heck, it’s hardly difficult. And when I look out across the dance floor, all I see are delighted faces; Michael Jackson flinging himself around with abandon, Clare Grogan jumping and Kate Bush punching the air. Then it’s over, and I almost wish I could stay up there for another song … but Norm has reappeared to reclaim his guitar.
‘That was excellent, mate,’ he says, slapping my back.
‘Ha, well, I did my best.’ I glance over at Stan, who gives me thumbs up from behind his drum kit, and step back down off the stage.
‘You were great,’ Tanzie says, squeezing my arm. ‘See, you were all nervous, but once you were up there it all came back.’ She gives me a warm, wide smile. ‘It was like riding a bike, wasn’t it? Or driving a car, even …’
I laugh, and we finish our drinks.
Although I can’t stomach another Coke, I can tell that Tanzie is enjoying her cocktails. ‘Like another?’ I suggest.
‘Yes please, if you’re sure?’
‘It’s fine,’ I say. ‘I’ll just nip to the loo first, okay?’ She nods, and I head off to find the dismal gents’ at the end of a graffitied corridor. I’d assumed I’d done my time in venues with lurid scribblings on the walls, but heck, this place isn’t so bad. Like in most divey clubs, once it fills with people and music you stop paying attention to the decor.
As I head back to the main room, my phone rings in my jeans back pocket. It’ll be Flynn, I decide, grabbing at it. Christ, I hope everything really is okay at home. Was the knives/toaster thing really a joke?
‘Nate?’ It’s not Flynn, but my wife.
‘Sinead! Hi, love. Is everything all right?’
A man of around my age, in faded jeans, a denim waistcoat and a bandana (Bruce Springsteen?) saunters past me.
‘I’m not sure,’ she replies hesitantly. ‘I, um, really don’t know how to say this …’
I lean against the scuffed wall, sensing my rush of elation ebbing away rapidly. So my earlier hunch was right: my wife is in love with someone else. Maybe it’s Brett O’Hara – or perhaps it’s some other guy I’ve never heard of. Was she telling the truth when she said she hadn’t been seeing someone when we were still together?
‘What is it?’ I murmur, looking down at the sticky floor.
‘I, er … look, Nate, I wanted to tell you face to face, at Elliot’s, but it all ended so badly that night …’
‘Why are you crying? Please just tell me.’ I glance to my left. Tanzie is standing there in her shiny red ensemble, wig askew.
‘You okay, Nate?’ she asks, frowning.
‘Yes, I’m fine,’ I say distractedly, and turn away.
‘Who was that?’ Sinead asks.
‘Oh, just someone. So, what’s wrong?’
I glance around and see Tanzie’s face. Gone is the exuberance of a woman who loves to dance, fuelled by cocktails. Her green eyes meet mine, and there’s a flicker of, well, I don’t know what – disappointment, perhaps. She turns and makes for the ladies’ loos.
‘I’m not sure if it is wrong,’ Sinead blurts out, ‘or what it is. But I’m … I’m pregnant, Nate. That time, a few days before I left – can you believe it actually happened?’
I stand there for a moment, gripping my phone, oblivious now to whatever track is booming out in the main room. At first, I wonder if I have heard her correctly, as it takes a moment or two for me to make sense of her words.
‘Nate?’ she prompts me. ‘Did you hear—’
‘We’re going to have a baby,’ is all I can say as tears stream down my face.
‘Yes,’ Sinead says, and she’s crying too. ‘Yes, Nate – we are.’
Chapter Thirty-Four
July turns hotter, and Sinead and I have started seeing each other again since her big announcement a week ago. I mean seeing as in simply seeing, meeting up for chats and coffee. Actually, she seems to prefer chamomile tea now, having ditched caffeine as she did during her other pregnancies. So, we are friends again – sort of.
‘Let’s just see what happens,’ she says, when I go over to Abby’s with a cake on her birthday on a blisteringly hot Saturday. It was all I could think of by way of a present, and I didn’t even bake it myself. Instead, I asked The Homemade Cake Company in Hesslevale to rustle up a carrot cake, Sinead’s favourite. No decoration or message on top: just richly swirled with creamy icing.
Luckily, she seems pleased as she cuts slices for me, Flynn and herself in Abby’s kitchen. The insistent rain of June has made way for warm, balmy days. On this sun-drenched afternoon, Abby is working at the pub. I haven’t seen her since Sinead moved in with her. I guess it’s kind of awkward.
I haven’t seen anything of Tanzie either, since the night at Rumours last week. Of course I was delighted with the news – wouldn’t this bring Sinead and I back together? – and I told her so. Tanzie had hugged me again (‘See, I told you everything would work out!’) but refused my offer of a lift home; she was having too good a time at the club. ‘I can stay at Andrea’s sister’s tonight,’ she’d said. ‘She lives in York. I’m not working tomorrow so no need to rush back.’ I’d driven home aware of not being wholly in control of my faculties, despite having stuck to Coke all night. She’s pregnant, was all I kept thinking. It’s some kind of miracle. This time, I’ll make sure I’m the very best husband and father I can possibly be.
And now Sinead, whilst perhaps not being quite as thrilled as when we conceived all those years ago, seems quietly happy about the prospect of us having another baby together.
We’ve also been speaking every day on the phone, mainly to talk about Flynn, about how he might be planning to fill the forthcoming summer holidays, as well as how she is feeling (pretty tired, and sick now and then – the heady scent at Little Owl tends to trigger a wave of nausea in her). Naturally, I have asked her about Brett, and she’s insisted she hasn’t met up with him again. However, there is no talk of Sinead moving back in with us.
‘How d’you feel about the baby, really?’ I ask Flynn, as the two of us walk home from Abby’s later that afternoon, having left Sinead settling down for a nap.
‘God, Dad,’ he retorts. ‘It’s fine. ’Course it is.’
‘You really mean that?’
He flashes me a quick look. ‘Okay, it is a bit weird … but it’s all right.’
Hmm. Weird-but-all-right. I guess, coming from a sixteen-year-old, this counts for wild enthusiasm.
‘I mean,’ he adds, ‘are you and Mum going to get back together, or what?’
‘I wish I could answer that,’ I murmur. ‘But honestly – I have no idea.’
‘So, what’ll happen when the baby’s born?’
‘I don’t know about that either at the moment.’
‘Have you asked her to move back?’ I glance at my son who looks like an adult; he’s adult-sized, certainly, with his light brown fringe perpetually flicking into his dark eyes, and a hint of beard growth smattering his angular chin.
‘Of course I have,’ I reply.
‘What did she say?’
‘She wants to see how things go.’
‘And what does—’
>
‘Look, Flynn,’ I cut in, picking up on his exasperation as we make our way through town, ‘I really can’t predict how things’ll turn out. I’m sorry, but this is the best I can do at the moment.’
He huffs and grunts, accelerating his walking speed now, as if trying to minimise the chance of being spotted in public with me. I’d assumed we’d left that phase behind – the horror at walking at my side. But then, at just gone five, the town is still busy, and of course it would be mortifying for him to be spotted by anyone. I’d only suggested walking over to Abby’s so we could pick up Sinead’s birthday cake en route. Plus, in the event that our visit was awkward, I’d thought Flynn and I could talk things over on the way back. However now, as he’s clearly unwilling to talk, the trek home seems interminable.
I had also thought we might stop off for a burger at Bill’s, but now it seems like less than a brilliant idea. I’m not sure what I’d say to Tanzie, if she’s even in there today. I haven’t seen her since our York day a week ago. Although she was perfectly lovely about it, the news of Sinead’s pregnancy kind of altered the mood somewhat. Suddenly, I felt foolish, being in a tawdry club surrounded by people in fluorescent netting and wigs. So I don’t glance into Bill’s as we pass. I just hope she’ll get around to sorting out the Gary stuff. It still baffles me why such a sparky and, I have to say, quite brilliant woman stays with a halfwit who’s blatantly putting it about.
Back home now, I let us into our house. The rest of Saturday evening seems to stretch like never-ending elastic, especially after Flynn has headed out to a gathering at his friend Luke’s. I know it’s normal, for a teenager to find friends’ homes more appealing than their own – just like Kayla does, virtually moving in with that other family by the sounds of it. Anyway, I don’t expect Flynn to stay home to keep me company. At least he has good friends, and an active social life, and Sinead and I are getting along.