I glare at her. ‘Painting. A painting,’ I say. ‘One of the ones for Exo?’ I ask him. He drains his coffee then nods. We made love three glorious times last night. I wish I could get his eyes to acknowledge it. They don’t.
‘But I’m sure I could help out on Sunday or something,’ he offers. ‘Anyway, must go. No lights with me.’
I follow him out into the hall while Del begins clearing the boys’ tea things. I had hoped he’d stay for a while, but evidently not. I feel responsible somehow.
‘Look,’ I say, while he shrugs on his jacket, ‘we don’t have to do this, you know. It’s not set in stone or anything. We can always say no. You can always say no.’
He loops his arms around my waist and nods towards the kitchen. ‘What? And have your big sister after me? I think not. Besides,’ his hands snake up under my jumper, ‘I’m quite looking forward to it. And I’m sorry about the stripping, but I do have rather a lot of commitments right now. I’ll do what I can. OK?’
The arms are gone again. And as he leans to kiss me goodbye I can smell something fragrant and flowery and vaguely familiar in his hair.
It is Tia Slater’s perfume.
11
Thursday 10 May
Have caved in, naturally, where Angharad is concerned. Not because I’m particularly happy with the situation, but because I don’t want to deny her the chance to see her father, however much of a truculent grouch he can be. And also, it has to be admitted, because I don’t want to be considered a person for whom making an issue about things is an issue. Though why I should worry, I don’t know. Issue, indeed.
Angharad looks smaller and less confident when I meet her outside school. Her toffee-coloured hair is tied in a neat plait down her back and she is wearing school uniform of a kind not seen in the public sector since about 1972, involving, as it does, both blazer and boater, the latter topped off with fat green ribbon.
The teacher, who has obviously been primed to expect me, shunts her towards me with an encouraging pat. Angharad looks tense and a little afraid of me. ‘Mummy says I’m not allowed to go to the park or anything because I’m still in my school clothes and I might get them dirty.’ It sounds as though she has been practising this speech for most of the day.
I smile in reply and steer her towards the car. ‘Don’t worry,’ I tell her, as I unlock the door. ‘We’re not going to the park. I thought we’d go and have some tea in McDonald’s and then we’d go straight to the hospital and see how Daddy’s getting on.’
Her eyes light up at this prospect, and once encased in the car’s familiar leathery embrace, she seems to relax a little. ‘I made him a card,’ she says. ‘At first break. It was wet play so we were allowed to get the colours out and use the paper in the scrap box.’ She fishes in her reading packet and produces a folded sheet of pale blue paper, which she places in her lap before putting on her seat belt.
‘I was going to bring him a present as well. I had a Bob the Builder Easter egg left because it’s white chocolate and I don’t like white chocolate and I know Daddy does - he loves it - but Mummy wouldn’t let me give it to him. She said I couldn’t take it because it might get squashed at school and they didn’t let you take Easter eggs into hospitals anyway, because of germs.’ She looks downcast. ‘I wish I did bring it now. I wish I did.’
Such a complicated and distressing business, this sharing of a loved one by people who can’t stand one another. So sad.
‘Tell you what,’ I suggest brightly. ‘There’s a shop at the hospital. We’ll get him some chocolate there. I’m sure it will be all right with Mummy,’ I add, seeing her doubtful expression, ‘because it’s hospital chocolate so it’s allowed. Anyway, do you like hamburgers?’
‘Nuggets, mostly. I like Happy Meals.’ She brightens. ‘And I could give Daddy the toy as well.’
As it’s getting late and the traffic is beginning to build up on Newport Road, we eat our Happy Meals and bring our dessert - two McFlurries - with us. Angharad, once again, looks worried. ‘What about the car?’ she says, as we cross the McDonald’s car-park. ‘I’m not allowed to eat in the car.’
I press the remote control and open the passenger door for her. ‘You are today,’ I tell her. ‘Special treat.’
Joe is on Pasteur Ward, on the second floor, and, having made a visit to the League of Friends shop and Angharad having decided that Joe would probably like the Happy Meal toy better than a box of Roses, we can’t find a stairwell, so we join a shuffling group of pensioners and take the lift instead.
Angharad, who has been gaining in confidence by the minute, wrinkles her nose. ‘Pooh-ee!’ she bellows, as the doors sigh shut behind us. ‘Someone in here smells of wee!’
Joe is in the far corner of a ward of four. The other three are at least double his age and snuffling gently, like hibernating voles. I shepherd Angharad past them before she has the opportunity to make any further observations and deposit her at the side of Joe’s bed. I feel a little uncomfortable with him, sitting up, as he is, in his green plaid pyjamas with a plastic identity bracelet on his wrist. He, on the other hand, looks completely unconcerned. If a little grey.
‘Bleurgh,’ he says, to me. ‘Bleurgh, Lu. Bleurgh. Hello, chicken.’ He lifts his good arm out towards her. ‘And how was school?’
Angharad pulls a face and throws her hat down on the chair beside the bed. I pick it up and sit with it in my lap. ‘Boring,’ she says. ‘Would you like some of my McFlurry?’
He pulls a face. ‘I don’t think so. What is it?’
‘It’s an ice-cream, silly. It’s the one with the smashed-up Smarties in. I was going to have the Crunchie one but they ran out. Would you like your present? It’s a Snoopy. And you can take his head off. And it has a typewriter and if you put the bit of paper in the back it really writes on it. Can you see? And I made you this
card. It says, “Get Well Soon Daddy”, and I got Sophie to sign it as well. But I did the kisses and most of the rainbow.’
‘It’s very good.’
‘I’m better at colouring than Sophie. She went over the lines a bit on the yellow but I did the blue and the orange without going over the lines at all. See? What’s that thing in your hand?’
He hands me the card and pats the bed. Angharad climbs up and sits beside him.
‘It’s called a drip. It’s got a painkiller in it. It’s so it doesn’t hurt too much.’
‘Will your arm stay bent like that when they take the plaster off?’
‘I hope not.’
‘Is there a hole in it?’
‘I think so. I think they’ve put a pin in it to help fix it.’
‘What, like a safety-pin?’
‘A bit like a safety-pin. Only different. More like a nail or a screw.’
‘Yuk!’
‘Oh, it’s all right. It’s a special one for arms. It fixes the two bits of bone together and holds them in place.’
‘Doesn’t the plaster do that?’
‘Well, sort of. But this is just to make sure.’
‘Doesn’t it hurt?’
‘A little bit. Not too much.’
‘Because of your drip.’
‘Because of my drip.’
‘Does it really drip? Or does it just pour stuff into your hand?’
‘I’m not sure. I think it’s called a drip because it only lets in a little bit at a time. So it’s not the same as it just pouring in.’ ‘What would happen if it just poured in, then?’
‘I’d have too much. They have to measure it.’
‘Why?’
‘Because if I had too much it would make me feel bad.’
‘Why? If you had more it would make you feel even better, wouldn’t it?’
‘It doesn’t work quite like that. You have to have just the right amount. If you have too much it makes you feel funny.’
‘Like beer?’
‘A bit.’
‘So it’s bad for you to have too much.’
‘Yes.’
> ‘Does it still hurt when you’re asleep?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’m asleep.’
‘Megan Williams in my class said that things do hurt sometimes when you’re asleep. She said her mum had to have the whole inside of her leg taken out and she was asleep when they did the operation and she still felt it. And it hurt her.’
‘I’m sure it didn’t.’
‘It did. She’s going to sue the hospital and get lots of money. You could do that. What’s that bottle under there?’
‘It’s for if I need the toilet. So I don’t have to get out of bed.’
‘Yuk! Why can’t you get out of bed?’
‘Because of my drip. It’s fixed on that stand there. See? And because I’ve just had an operation so I’m a little wobbly still. So it’s best if I stay here for a while in case I fall over or something.’
‘Why would you fall over?’
‘Because I’m still feeling a bit funny from the anaesthetic.’
‘What’s the anaesthetic?’
‘It makes you go to sleep.’
‘Like if you have too much of the painkiller drip?’
‘Not quite. It’s supposed to make you go to sleep. While they do the operation.’
‘So they have to measure it like the painkiller drip?’
‘Yes.’
‘So they probably measured Megan Williams’s mum’s one wrong, didn’t they?’
‘Um …’
‘I expect so. But yours was OK, wasn’t it? Because you didn’t hurt.’
‘Um …’
‘Is it hurting now?’
‘Ug …’
‘Oh, Daddy! What’s the matter? Oh, yuk! Oh, yuk!’
Oh, yuk.
He’s not hugely sick, but quite violently so, and there is fall-out all over my trousers. But the main thrust, as it were, is on Angharad’s tunic. I call for a nurse then scoot her off to the toilet, her wails of horror growing more voluble with every step.
‘It’s not a problem, Angharad. It will be just fine, really.’ I stand her on the step stool that’s in there, then flip the tunic front up into the sink and run the hot tap over it. ‘Look, it’s all coming off now, see? Come on, don’t worry. Don’t cry. Mummy will understand. It’s only wet now - there, see? And I’ll explain to her all about it. She won’t mind. She really won’t mind. And I’m sure you’ve got another school tunic, haven’t you?’
She is cheered somewhat by the novelty of drying her clothes under the hand-dryer, but is nevertheless a bit traumatized. As I would be if I were her. Once she’s only damp rather than dripping, I take her back to the ward, where a pair of nurses, bent with their mop pails and Marigolds, are finishing the cleaning before remaking the bed. Joe himself has been dispatched to the chair, where he is sitting, looking better now, and twirling Angharad’s school hat in his hand. It is twenty past six and I want to go home.
‘Well,’ he says brightly, as we shuffle up alongside him, ‘trust me! Fancy Daddy being sick all over you!’
Angharad brightens a little at his jocular tone but elects to keeps a prudent four feet from him. As do I. It will be half past six by the time we get outside. Twenty to seven before we’re out of the car-park. Five to seven, driving slowly, before we hit Cefn Melin. Seven by the time we reach Pontprennau, where Rhiannon lives. Half an hour still to kill, then.
‘Well,’ I say, ‘you’ve certainly got a bit of colour back. Daddy’s looking much better, isn’t he, Angharad?’
She nods. ‘Did they put too much painkiller drip in?’
One of the nurses pauses, plumped pillow in hand. ‘Your daddy,’ she tells her, ‘had a glass of Ribena. Told him not to - didn’t I? - but the thing is with daddies that mostly, my lovely, they simply won’t do as they’re told.’
‘Look at the state of you!’ barks Rhiannon, an hour later.
With a little directional assistance from Angharad I have pulled up in front of a neat modern semi, one of many of its kind, and very recently built, set high at the end of a rambling close. Because it’s been built on the side of the hill, some are set down from it, and others set up. This is of the latter kind, with a curled herringbone path that leads up through a rockery, and a flight of three steps leading up to the door. Which means that Rhiannon is looking down at me now, in an oyster-grey suit and a pair of excruciatingly pointy reptilian skin boots. There is a smile of sorts on her face but she is otherwise making little attempt to disguise her irritation. With Angharad, with me, but mainly, it seems, with Joe.
‘Daddy was sick.’
‘Sick! Dear God, is that what it is?’ She wrinkles her nose and takes Angharad’s hat from her. I hand over her school-bag as well.
‘One of those things,’ I suggest helpfully. ‘It couldn’t be helped.’ She shoots me a look to say that, far from it not being able to be helped, she is quite convinced that it has been carefully arranged and scheduled with her annoyance uppermost in mind. Right down to the lurid purple effect. ‘Some people don’t take anaesthetics very well, do they?’ I go on. ‘It’s all over my trousers too. Still, no matter. We got cleaned up as best we could, didn’t we, Angharad? No harm done. As I said, just one of those things. Well—’
‘Well. Well, thanks anyway. For bringing her home and everything. Say thank you, Angharad. Typical of him to cause all this fuss. And all of it entirely unnecessary. I don’t quite know what he was thinking of - which is nothing unusual, mind you. I told him he didn’t need to bother this week. My friend could just as easily have had her. It must have been a huge hassle for you.’ She scoops a hand around Angharad’s head and pulls her in over the doorstep. The hallway beyond is tastefully bare. ‘In and get that lot off and into the washing now, young lady - mind you, everything’s a huge hassle where he’s concerned, isn’t it?’ Her eyes flick up and make contact with mine. ‘Everything.’
She laughs. A conspiratorial laugh. I suppose (particularly now that I’m conversant with her version of the facts) that I should agree, and wholeheartedly so. But it doesn’t feel right somehow. So I shrug instead.
She shifts her weight on to one foot and crosses her arms. And how is the wonderful world of combustion these days? As scintillating as ever?’ She makes combustion sound like sewage. And I can’t help thinking there is a slur on me buried in there somewhere too. I wish I could tell her I’m actually an ex-teacher soon to be mature art student and so on. But that would be childish, so I can’t.
‘Oh, it’s not that bad. Not quite the same job I started with, but, well …’
She peers past me to the car and back. ‘How much longer have you got to cart that oversized slug around?’
I’m not sure if she means Joe or the car. ‘It’ll be another six weeks, I suppose. Longer, perhaps. I don’t really know. I’m only working for him temporarily anyway—’
She waves my long-term plans aside. ‘I must say, I think you’re incredibly tolerant. I would have thrown the book at him if it had been me. And no way would you catch me ferrying him around like you seem to. You’re supposed to be a secretary or something, aren’t you? But that’s him all over, isn’t it? Don’t worry about anyone else. As long as he’s all right. Are you from around here?’
Or something indeed. ‘Er .. . Cefn Melin. Not far. Anyway, I guess I’d better get back and pick up my son.’
‘Oh,’ she says. ‘You have a child too, do you?’
‘Yes, and one who I’m sure is beginning to think his mother has abandoned him. I’d better go. See you. ‘Bye.’
As I drive off I ponder, for a while, about Joe’s insistence on the necessity of my bringing Angharad to visit him. By rights, I should be very cross with him. It hadn’t been necessary at all. But then I think about Leo and how I would feel if I were in Joe’s shoes, were my parenting time apportioned and rationed in such a way. I recall what he said about Rhiannon in France. I wonder about their marriage. I wonder about his infidelity. I wonder about their divorce. She and I, it
would seem, share common ground where Joe is concerned. By rights, I should roll my eyes with her at him. But I’m glad I didn’t, somehow. Glad, in fact, that I went.
Sunday 13 May
Stefan arrived just after lunch and by early evening we had managed to strip all but the wall with the fireplace. Leo, who had spent the latter part of the afternoon, which had been rainy, holed up in his bedroom cataloguing his Gym Leader cards, appeared in the doorway. ‘Can I go out and ride my bike now?’
‘No, Leo,’ I said. ‘You have homework to do. In fact, why don’t you go up, get it done, have your bath, get your pyjamas on, and then we’ll be straight down here and you can watch TV for half an hour before bed? OK?’
He looked at me with exasperation. ‘But I don’t want to watch TV. I want to ride my bike.’
‘Then you should have done your homework this morning, when I asked you, shouldn’t you? Homework, bath and bed, young man. School in the morning.’
‘But it’s only ten past seven.’
‘No buts, Leo. Now, come along, scoot.’
He scooted, as instructed, closely followed by Stefan, who loped behind him as far as the door then closed it quietly.
‘Come here,’ he said, taking my hand.
‘What?’
‘Come and look at my creation.’
He pulled me over to the other side of the room, where he had contorted a couple of scraggy bits of wallpaper into some sort of raggedy free-standing sculpture. He stood them side by side on the window-sill. They looked vaguely bovine.
‘What are they supposed to be?’
‘Can’t you see? They’re representational. Look harder.’
‘Goats?’
‘Goats!’
‘Some rabbits, then.’
‘Rabbits?’ He separated the pieces and adjusted their position on the sill. ‘There. That help?’
‘Um - are they human?’ I asked him.
‘Humanoid. Of humanity. As I said, representational.’
I nodded. ‘What do they represent, then?’
He tutted. ‘Sloth, on the one hand. Lechery, on the other. See?’ He gestured. I considered making some jocular comment about him putting it up for the Turner or something, but with Stefan you could never be sure he wasn’t being serious, so I decided against it.
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