Thankfully, Riley wakes up in a good mood. She’s a cheerful little soul when she’s slept well. She’s pretty too, the same bright eyes as her mother.
‘Oh, look what you’re wearing, poppet,’ my mother says, scooping Riley up and smothering her in kisses. ‘What an adorable dress!’
‘I think she suits that colour,’ Esther says, kissing my mother on the cheek. Mum responds by holding Esther at a literal arm’s length.
Dad takes the bottle of wine from Esther and examines the label. A discerning alcoholic, who knew there was such a thing?
‘Not tried this one,’ he says, sceptically. ‘Great to see you both.’
Believe it or not, this is him making an effort. The baby has softened him. Mum must have had a word with him before we arrived.
Where did it all go wrong for me and him? Was it the whole business with Sarah, or was it before that, when he realised that I wasn’t any good at rugby? I hate that I even care.
I’m about to blow his tiny mind again. Part of me can’t wait. I feel a sick longing for it all: the shock and disgust on his sagging face, the angry rash that will spread from his neck to his cheeks, the shouting. Sometimes the drama is the only thing that makes me feel alive, like I matter.
I look over at Esther. Mum has handed Riley back to her, and she’s rummaging in the changing bag for the bottle of formula. I watch her for a few seconds, the way she deftly tucks Riley under one arm and leans down, pulling off the lid of the bottle with her chin, while excavating a muslin cloth from the pocket of her coat. She’s better at it all than I expected. I had thought she would struggle, that I’d maybe even catch her digging her fingernails into Riley’s soft skin in frustration, but there’s been none of that.
God, I’m tired. We go through to the dining room. The table is laid as though the bloody queen is visiting. Silver napkin rings strangle dark purple napkins; paisley placemats and coasters and large serving spoons wait for action. My father thinks it makes us look posh.
‘Nick’s had another promotion, you know,’ he says, as he uncorks the bottle we brought and lays it on the mahogany sideboard to rest. ‘They reckon he will make vice president next year.’
I hear a short cough behind me and glance over at Esther. She’s taken a seat in the bay window. Riley is glugging at the bottle happily, big eyes swivelling around, taking us all in. Her family. I wonder what she thinks of us all. Whether she would have picked us, if she had a choice in the matter.
Not a chance.
‘Vice president? Is that what they call them? Jesus Christ,’ I say, and Esther’s eyes meet mine for a second. Don’t do it, she is saying. Don’t rise to the bait.
‘Sit down, Rob,’ my dad says, gesturing at the chair in front of me.
I don’t want to upset Esther. She doesn’t deserve it.
So I’m a good boy and the lunch passes without incident. My mum asks Esther about Riley’s development, pointing out that the redness on her chin might mean she’s about to start teething.
‘Rob was an early teether,’ she says. I can see her about to ask Esther if she knows what she was like as a baby but she stops herself just in time. Esther doesn’t know those kind of things. Her mother died too suddenly to think to pass those memories on.
And now her father’s gone too. The unfairness of life quite often floors me.
Dad sits at the end of the table, watching us as he eats. I see the way his face screws up in distaste whenever Riley lets out a yelp for attention. I press my fingers into the sides of my legs to curb the frustration. At one point, Riley begins to cry. I stand up, but Esther puts a hand across the table at me.
‘It’s OK,’ she says, quietly. ‘I’ll go. Just a new nappy, I think.’
Dad flings his cutlery to his plate and makes a noise like he’s been winded.
‘I’m sorry, Dad, did we upset you?’ I say, my voice clipped. ‘Babies like to wee and poo. Shocker.’
‘Rob,’ Mum says, shooting me a look. ‘Not at the table, please.’
‘No talk of bodily functions when we’re eating,’ Dad barks. ‘Esther, please take her to the bathroom to do that.’
‘Of course,’ Esther says, meek as a church mouse. This is what he does to women, he silences them with his obvious disgust.
When they leave, the tension eases. My father continues to eat, his face bright red from years of alcohol, his once thick, curly hair now patchy and grey. He’s always been a big man. A big, hairy man, like me.
‘They’re looking into getting a place in France with his bonus,’ he says, as he puts his knife and fork together, pushing his plate away. ‘Somewhere in the mountains. Honor wants the children to learn to ski.’
I try not to snort in laughter at the thought of my brother on a pair of skis.
‘Nick, skiing?’ I say. I can’t stop myself. ‘Guess he’s really committed to his new-found role as a total wanker.’
‘Rob!’ Mum cries. ‘Please.’
‘Well,’ Dad says, draining his glass of red wine. His lip curls upwards as he sets the glass back down on the table. It seems the wine wasn’t to his taste, after all. ‘At least he’s an employed wanker.’
‘Oh Mike,’ Mum says, like a strangled cat. ‘Rob is employed.’
‘Self-employed,’ I correct her. I grip the edge of my seat. The moment I’ve been waiting for. Fuck you, Dad. ‘Or at least I was.’
I’ve caught his attention now. Dad looks at me, trying to mask the curiosity in his eyes. Busted, Dad! I see you; you do care. Ha!
He waits for me to continue.
‘I’ve given up work to look after Riley,’ I say.
Mum inhales sharply.
‘Esther’s been doing really well, and there’s the possibility of her being promoted in the next few months. And we all know how wonderfully useless I am at my Mickey Mouse “job”. So we decided I should be a stay-at-home dad.’
‘What does your brother think about this?’ Dad says, his eyes ablaze.
I frown.
‘No idea. I haven’t told him.’
Mum gives out a small moan. I feel a brief pang of sympathy for her.
She starts to clear the plates away, stacking them on top of one another, hands trembling.
‘Hopefully he’ll talk some sense into you,’ Dad says. ‘Heaven knows we’ve tried. You had so much potential, coming from our family, with everything we have to offer! I know you think this is funny, Rob, but it isn’t. It’s not funny at all.’
I snort my wine back into the glass.
‘Oh, I don’t know. Your reaction is pretty amusing.’
‘It didn’t have to be like this. I offered you a job!’ he roars, thumping his hand on the table. In the hallway beyond, I see Esther, standing by the foot of the stairs, jiggling Riley up and down. They are both staring transfixed at my father, like they’re watching a car about to crash. ‘A proper business! A proper man’s job!’
‘I know,’ I say, spitting the words. ‘But as I told you at the time: I think on the balance of it, I’d rather die than live my life as a car salesman.’
‘It was our family’s heritage,’ he shouts, and with pleasure I notice that he has gone almost purple in his rage. ‘But no, too good for that, aren’t you? Too funny? I’ll tell you what’s funny – what’s funny is a comedian who’s so unfunny that he can’t get anyone to come to his shows. A comedian so unfunny that his wife shows him up at every available opportunity. Call yourself a man!’
‘If being a man means loving and caring for your child and wife, then yes, I do call myself a man,’ I say. My fists are clenched.
‘You’re not a man,’ Dad hisses, his eyes narrowing. ‘Real men provide for their families. They don’t give up their jobs to play nanny.’
I hear Esther give a sob and I flick my eyes back towards her. I’ve let her down. Again. The dining table stretches l
ike an ocean between us and I want to reach out and take her in my arms. But she turns away from me, staring down at the floor in front of her, while Riley wriggles in her arms.
‘Fuck you,’ I say to my dad, under my breath.
But it’s not enough to win the fight. Whatever I do, it’s never enough. I throw the glass I’m holding across the room in frustration at my defeat.
Esther
I have never seen Robin behave like that with his parents. It’s only when we climb back into the car that I feel my heart rate return to normal. Family scenes are not my thing. We never had any; it was just me and my mild-mannered, softly spoken dad. We always got on.
It was horrible to watch them fighting like that. But at the same time, I’m actually quite pleased that it all kicked off. It means we get to leave earlier than planned, and Riley falls immediately asleep as we hit the motorway. She doesn’t even seem to mind Robin’s ranting.
‘That’s it,’ Robin says, gripping the steering wheel. He wouldn’t let me drive, even though he’s been drinking. He doesn’t like me driving since Riley was born. I don’t mind, really. Finding a parking space on our street is always stressful. And reverse parking has been painful ever since I cracked my rib.
‘We are never going to visit them again,’ he says. ‘I’ll see Mum if she comes up. But they can forget Christmas, birthdays, whatever. See how they like sitting there alone in their time warp of a house, passing each other the presents they both bought for themselves, because neither of them have any fucking imagination. They’re dead behind the eyes, both of them. Puppets. What is the point of them? What legacy are they leaving? How exactly do they think they are changing the world? Or having any impact on it at all?’
I let him rant, and when he stops to draw breath I lean over and squeeze him on the knee. I am proud of him for standing up to his father, but at the same time I am so tired of the noise and drama. Since Riley was conceived my life has been non-stop drama. It’s hard to remember a time when things were simple. When the most taxing decision Robin and I had to make was which bit of the Sunday supplements to read first.
I pull out my iPhone, opening the Facebook app. I rarely log in these days. I shared a few photos when Riley was born, but I didn’t get the same reaction that other new mothers got, and I found myself burning with humiliation, imagining what they were all thinking. Even though they only knew a fraction of it.
She stayed with him, even after he snogged that girl in front of everyone when she was pregnant?
Robin is on Facebook all the time, of course, and I tap to view his page. It’s flooded with images of Riley. Riley in her car seat, Riley having her first bath, Riley asleep on Robin’s chest, as he sleeps on our sofa. I took that one myself. I frown. It’s a private moment, not something I really wanted him to share.
‘I love you,’ he says, unexpectedly, and I look back at him. He looks emotional now, as though he might burst into tears. ‘You know that, don’t you? I love you and respect you. You’re my whole world, Esther Morgan. You and Riley. You’re my family now.’
‘I know,’ I say, swallowing. ‘You’re my family too.’
It’s more true for me than it is for him. He really is my only family. My father died of emphysema despite the fact he never smoked a day in his life. He was only sixty-six. My mother was just thirty-seven.
Losing them at such young ages has taught me that life isn’t fair. And protesting about that makes absolutely no difference. You have to make the most of what you get. There’s always some good to be found in every situation.
My therapist, Claudia, is suspicious of my feelings. She’s obsessed with the five stages of grief, says I haven’t worked through them all yet. Claims that pushing away bad feelings only leads to stress. But I don’t have the energy to take them on right now. Keeping busy is the best therapy.
‘You’re all that matters,’ Robin continues. ‘You and Riley. That’s it. That’s how small my world is now. It’s a privilege to be able to look after you both. An honour.’
I feel myself tensing.
‘I know,’ I say, and although I know it should be lovely to hear all this, part of me wishes he would stop. Sometimes the intensity of his love is too much. It overwhelms me, his emotions flooding the room and leaving no space for mine.
When we first started dating, he used to handwrite me letters and leave them hidden around my room. They were short but sweet, and often included poems he’d written about me too. I showed my friend Catherine one of them, once.
‘It’s a good job you like him too,’ she said, handing it back to me. ‘Because if not you could do him for stalking.’
She was only joking, but her words stung a bit.
‘Isn’t it a bit bloody exhausting?’ Vivienne used to say after Robin left our flat, having kissed me full on the lips in front of her. ‘Having someone love you that much?’
But she was just jealous.
Viv. My stomach turns over at the thought of her. We haven’t spoken for the longest time.
But I am a mother now, and that’s all that matters.
I glance back down at my phone, scrolling through the album of photographs on Robin’s page, entitled ‘Riley Madison Morgan’.
I hated the name Madison, but it had been a concession, something Robin spent hours persuading me of, and one of the only ones I’d accepted.
My finger pauses on a photo that Robin must have uploaded before we left to go to his parents’ house. It’s a picture of Riley this morning. She’s sitting propped up on our bed, in her Sunday best, the little silver booties still attached to her feet. The bed is made, at least, but in one corner you can see my greying bra hanging off the side. I’m not usually messy and I cringe that Robin hasn’t thought to crop the photo before uploading it.
But it’s not the unwelcome sight of my bra that stops me in my tracks. It’s the comment below the photo. Just one little word, but it sends an icy chill through me.
Beautiful x
And just before the comment is the name of the person who left it.
Kim.
Robin
He’s nothing if not predictable, my father. As I lean down to kiss Esther goodbye at the front door, I hear my phone start to ring in the living room.
I know it will be Nick. Dad will have told him to call me, to talk some ‘sense’ into me.
‘Here,’ I say, pulling Esther back towards me. ‘Your lunch.’ I hand her a Tupperware filled with salad. Quinoa, feta and beetroot. Her favourite. I’m getting good at this housewife stuff.
‘Oh, thanks!’ she says. ‘Bye bye, you two.’ She kisses Riley on the top of her head and then runs a finger across the stubble on my face.
‘Maybe shave if you get time?’ she says, and before I have the chance to try to kiss her again, she’s hurried off down the street. Back to the other love of her life: her work. She’s determined that no one else should ever have to die from diabetes. It’s a noble cause, if a little naive.
I pace back to the living room and find my phone underneath the sofa. I can’t remember how it got there. Riley had another bad night. I gave up at half four and took her into the living room and lay on the sofa, one foot rocking her Moses basket for what felt like hours.
To kill the time I had scrolled back through Sarah’s Instagram until I got to her first ever post, from three years ago. It was a blurry pair of shoes, definitely not worth the effort.
Now I look down at my phone. Shocker; the missed call is from my brother. We’re not close. We’re a different species, so different that it’s hard to believe we came from the same gene pool. Despite everything that’s happened, despite the fact he knows what an arse our father is, he’s still firmly Team Dad.
The two of them have always been on the same team. When I was about eight, I put together my first ever routine of jokes. Spent ages practising it in my room, like a proper dork
. Once it was ready, I summoned Mum and Nick to the living room for the grand performance. They laughed. A lot. Especially Nick. I remember that.
Then Dad came home. Mum had tears streaming down her face and she pulled him into the room.
‘Go on, do it again for your dad, love,’ she said. ‘It was really good.’
I didn’t dare look up at Dad as I performed the last few minutes of the routine. But at the end, I raised my eyes. He wasn’t laughing. He wasn’t even smiling.
He was frowning, staring at me like I was some kind of alien.
‘I don’t get it,’ he said, nostrils flaring. ‘It wasn’t funny. He was just being stupid.’
‘Oh, but . . .’ Mum began.
‘Yeah, Dad,’ Nick said. ‘I thought it was stupid too.’
And then they left the room.
‘Never mind, eh, love,’ Mum said, reaching out to squeeze my shoulder. ‘Better get on upstairs and do your homework. Tea’ll be ready soon.’
I never quite forgave Nick for that treachery.
And now I look at his life and wouldn’t swap with him for all the world.
He was really good at cricket as a teenager. Wouldn’t that have been so much more interesting as a career? Instead he’s obsessed with making as much money as possible. Proving himself to Dad. A life chained to a desk, spent ticking off the days until your next expensive holiday. What’s the point of that? Why not create a life you don’t need a holiday from in the first place?
I lean in and sniff Riley’s soft head, and wonder if he has any idea what he’s missed.
I call him back. Partly because I’m nosy, mostly because he’ll only call again if I don’t.
‘Bro,’ he says as he picks up. I don’t know where he got that from.
‘Good morning,’ I say, keeping my voice jovial. ‘Let me guess, mein Vater rang you and gave you the whole story, and now you’re calling me to try to persuade me not to throw away my life doing something as pathetic as raising another human being, so that you feel you’ve done your duty by him as a son and me as a brother. Well, let me save you the time: message received loud and clear; you can go now.’
The Perfect Father: the most gripping and twisty thriller you'll read in 2020 Page 7