‘Rob,’ he says, sighing. There’s a load of background noise.
‘Where are you?’ I ask.
‘On the DLR. The Jubilee line was down,’ he says.
I look at the clock. It’s 7.45am. He’s always at his desk in Canary Wharf by 8am.
‘Don’t tell me you’re going to be late?’
‘Are you sure about this?’ he says, ignoring my question. ‘Forget Dad. We both know what an arsehole he is to . . .’
He is about to say ‘to you’ but clearly thinks better of it.
‘But giving up your job, mate? Really?’
‘It’s not like it’s much to give up,’ I say, glad that no one except my accountant knows exactly how little I have given up. I try not to think of my credit card bill. I cleared the balance last year, but it’s creeping back up again. ‘I’m freelance, you know. It’s not like I’m walking away from a steady pay packet and generous bonus scheme. I’m just turning down work for a few months so I can focus on my daughter.’
‘Sure, but . . .’ Nick begins, but he stops himself again. I know what he wants to ask. Whether Esther’s pregnancy is the reason she doesn’t want to look after Riley. Whether she’s suffering with some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder from the puking that left her with internal bleeding and a cracked rib.
‘I thought Honor had got you reading the Guardian these days,’ I say, snappily. I lay Riley down on her play mat and hand her a soft book, which she immediately brings to her mouth. There’s some gel I need to get for her teething, I think. Dr Google said it was the best thing. ‘Isn’t being a stay-at-home dad incredibly in vogue at the moment?’
‘Don’t be flippant,’ Nick says. ‘Seriously. You’re only a few months down the line. We’ve got two kids. I know how hard it is. You really might regret this.’
I laugh loudly at this. Nick has no idea how hard it is. When the twins were born, he helpfully got seconded to a post in Singapore. Honor refused to go with him, and so he spent most of the twins’ early years abroad, in a time zone that made even Skyping a challenge.
I went to visit Honor when they were five months old and found her sitting at her enormous kitchen table crying into her glass of wine, telling me she hated Nick and wanted to leave him. She said she wished he was more like me. I liked the compliment, although she doesn’t really know me as well as she thinks, of course. Besides, it was just the end of her tether talking.
‘Nick,’ I say, keeping my voice steady. ‘Do me a favour. Don’t waste any more time worrying about me. Or Esther. We’re happy. Go back to Dad, tell him you tried your best, but I’m not worth saving. Job’s done.’
‘It’s not just because of Dad . . . I do care about you, mate,’ he says, and the nasally twang of the last word makes me roll my eyes. Who is this mate, who is this bro, and what happened to my brother? ‘After what happened, you know. I know it was tough. I know this is . . . it’s a big deal for you. Riley. Esther. I mean, is she even OK? Losing her dad like that too? I just want to help.’
‘I know you do,’ I say, tickling Riley on the tummy. Thank the Lord I didn’t end up with the brains in the family. ‘But we’re fine, Scout’s honour. And talking of which . . . how is the very lovely, very shiny Honor? Changed her mind about what a loser you are yet?’
I get eight minutes of Nick droning on about their plans for a last-minute ski trip before the season ends, and then he arrives at Canary Wharf and has to get off the phone. At the end of the call he thanks me for the chat.
He’s totally unaware that he has done all the chatting and all I have done is listen, have a piss and make Riley up a bottle (I washed my hands first, I’m not a complete animal). When I lay the phone down on the kitchen worktop after our call, the screen is illuminated, telling me I have a message from Kim.
I don’t read it yet.
I shake Riley’s bottle thoroughly again to mix the powder and the water. Then I go back through to the living room, where Riley is still transfixed by the animals dangling from her play gym. She’s half rolled on to her side and seems a little stuck, her eyes straining to look up.
‘Oh sausage,’ I say, crouching down to her. ‘Did you try to turn over? Such a clever girl.’
I stroke her head and gently adjust her position so that she’s lying flat on her back again. She stares at me with those big eyes.
I blink, scooping her up and settling her in the crook of my arm for her feed. She’s a good baby. Laid-back like her father, I used to joke to Esther, but the last time I said it she shot me a look that told me the joke was wearing thin. We’ve been lucky, haven’t had to deal with colic or reflux or all the other things the midwife warned me about. Of course, she’s not breastfed, but that was a small price to pay for our unusual set-up.
As usual, I flick the television on, mindlessly scanning the channels for something of interest. But all the television programmes are aimed at women, or the unemployed.
Project Sarah beckons me. No, not today.
Riley. I have to focus on Riley. But ever since she was born, the past has felt closer than ever. Part of me is just desperate for Sarah to know that I’ve done it. But I don’t understand why. I don’t know how to make it go away.
‘Homes Under the Hammer?’ I say to Riley, but she’s slurping away, and doesn’t even look at me. I think about all the Marvel films that Esther falls asleep in the middle of if I ever try to watch them with her. Would it be really wrong . . . ? People take their kids to baby cinema all the time, but I don’t have the cash for that.
Riley’s too young to understand any of it, but what if the violence on-screen somehow seeps into her subconscious, and she turns round at six and starts trying to stab her schoolmates with scissors?
Did Dad let me watch a Western when I was six months old? Is that why I’m such a weirdo?
Nah. Dad barely even looked at me when I was six months old.
I unlock the phone’s screen, and navigate to my messages, tapping on the one from Kim.
Hello!!! How’s you? How’s little one? Still on for this afternoon – I CAN’T WAIT XX
I look down at my daughter.
I’m not looking forward to this at all, but Kim’s become increasingly pushy lately. That Facebook comment was a shot across the bow. I need to keep her sweet.
‘Fancy a trip to see Auntie Kim?’ I ask her. Riley stares at me.
I should feel guilt, I know, but instead I feel nothing as my thumb taps out a reply. It’s self-preservation. I’m just trying to protect my family, like any good father would.
Indeed. Riley’s been practising her jazz hands all morning. See you there x
Esther
Kim’s Facebook comment about Riley feels like a grenade. A teeny tiny lethal grenade, just left there, waiting to explode.
As far as I knew, she would be away working on the cruise ship for the rest of the year. Robin told me that the internet onboard was patchy, that I didn’t need to worry about her.
I didn’t even know they were Facebook friends. I’ve never looked through his friends list; I wanted to trust him. I curse myself for taking my eye off the ball, for hardly ever using the site myself. It’s not really my scene, all that endless oversharing. Several times I’ve thought of deleting my account, but knowing that Robin is so active on it, I’ve never been quite able to.
The train I’m on pulls into London Bridge and I climb off. I have revisited Robin’s Facebook page endlessly since I saw Kim’s comment and there’s nothing else there to make me suspicious. Just that one little word.
Beautiful.
Of course Riley is beautiful. That’s all she meant. Nothing more.
It’s FINE.
I think about Kim, about who she is as a person. She’s not me. That’s the mistake people always make – assuming that other people think like them. But she doesn’t. Knowing her, she will just have seen th
at photo of Riley, thought how beautiful she looked, and thought to leave the comment. She won’t have realised how much it might hurt me. Then she would have moved on to the next friend’s photo and written something equally meaningless on theirs.
It means nothing.
Besides, she’s far away, sailing somewhere round the Caribbean. Her profile photograph is her with her arms around an overly tanned, handsome man, one of her legs artfully raised across his body to reveal a toned, browned leg beneath a dress that plunges low at the front. She has cleavage, unlike me, and he’s jokingly staring down at it, eyes popping in amusement.
It’s impossible to tell whether they’re a couple, or whether he’s gay. She has a lot of male friends, I realised, as I scanned her friends list last night. She’s popular. Of course she is: she’s fun, gregarious, doesn’t take life seriously.
I wonder how many men she has slept with. My own number is higher than I’d like to admit. Than I have admitted to anyone, least of all Robin. My teenage years were spent lost and searching for something to fill the void my mother left. All those boys . . . because they were just boys. And I was just a girl. A kid. It feels like a lifetime ago now. It was another me. The incomplete Esther. Robin fixed me. And my work did too. Doing something meaningful with my life, to ensure my mother didn’t die in vain.
In those early months after Riley was born, I thought of Kim often on that cruise ship, dressed up like a Vegas showgirl, prancing around on a tiny stage in front of a load of retirees. I wondered if that’s where she had seen herself ending up, when she first went off to study acting, or whether deep down she thought she’d be the next Keira Knightley.
I know a lot about Kim, now. In the month leading up to Riley’s birth I researched her to a shameful extent. She graduated from a decent enough drama school, and landed a pretty big TV role when she was only twenty-two, playing a slutty receptionist in that Channel 4 sitcom. She was ‘made for the part’, one review said, and they weren’t wrong.
But the series wasn’t the success it was meant to be, and the show was dropped. After that, her career was more chequered: guest parts in soaps, appearances in music videos, some musical theatre at the Edinburgh Festival. No serious theatre. Nothing that would mark her out as anything other than a background prop, a bit of set dressing.
And that’s how I have to think of her now. As a background prop in our lives.
In the office, I open the blinds to take in the view of London Bridge behind me. It’s spring, and although the air is still chilly, there’s that feeling of hope, that the new year is finally starting to begin, and that it will be better than the last. And for once, I have no doubt it will be.
I’m doing OK, considering. I worry about Riley, a lot. I worry about her dying suddenly, but surely that’s normal for a first-time mum?
‘Morning!’
I look up. My boss, Sarina, Director of Engagement, strolls up to my desk.
‘Listen, I’ve got a meeting at ten with the team from King’s College Hospital, as well as our research guys. I know you were particularly interested in the gestational diabetes screening project . . . it’s not technically your job, but I thought you might want to sit in and hear more about their findings? I think it’s been a really successful project.’
I swallow and nod my head. It’s not a research project I’ve been directly involved in but Sarina knows that ever since my own pregnancy, I’ve become even more obsessed with all gestational conditions.
She’s so good to me.
‘Yes, definitely,’ I say, surprised but pleased. ‘I would love to. Thanks.’
‘Great.’
I smooth down my blouse and chew on my lip. But I can’t focus. I keep thinking of Kim. Of her nerve.
I know Robin would never cheat on me again, and especially not with her, but even so. Why can’t she just do the right thing?
I push the feelings away and check my calendar for the day.
I can’t believe I’ve forgotten.
Today would have been Dad’s birthday.
It feels like I’ve been punched in the stomach. How could I?
Our last phone conversation comes to mind. I have replayed it endlessly in my head, wishing I could go back and say something different. Tell him how much I loved him, how much I appreciated everything he did for me.
He gave up his job as an engineer after my mother died, and took a part-time job in the planning department so that he would be at home more to look after me.
Money was always tight after that. He said he didn’t mind, that he enjoyed working at the council, but I could see how sad it made him inside. And it wasn’t just the money. He was so depressed to have left a career he loved.
There’s so much I would say to him, if only I could have another chance. But when we last spoke I was so sick, confined to hospital on a drip.
When he answered the phone he sounded breathless, as though he had raced to answer. A side effect of his condition. I felt breathless myself, could only speak quietly and softly, in case I was sick again.
‘Hi Dad,’ I said. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Well now,’ he replied. ‘Happy to hear from you. And the sun’s out today. Looking forward to seeing you, my love. What time does your train get in? I can book you a taxi.’
‘I’m . . . I’m sorry, Dad,’ I said, and a tear began to roll down my cheek. ‘I’m not very well myself, I’m afraid. I’m in hospital. I won’t be able to come tomorrow.’
I closed my eyes, imagining the disappointment on his face. I was always reliable. We were a team.
He gave a short breath.
‘Oh love, what’s happened?’ he said.
‘It’s nothing serious. Just a bad tummy bug, but I’m a bit dehydrated, so they put me on a drip. I’ll come and see you as soon as I’m better, I promise.’
‘I’m sorry, love,’ he said. ‘Now you don’t need to be worrying about me. I’m fine. You just concentrate on getting yourself well. Some nasty bugs around at this time of year. Gastroenteritis, is it?’
‘Yes. Something like that. I will. I’m really sorry.’
‘What are you apologising for? Don’t worry about me. I’ll miss you, but Susan’s coming over later, so that’ll be nice.’
I was shocked by that. ‘What?’ I said. Susan was his consultant. ‘Why didn’t you say? I thought you were waiting for the results of your latest scan?’
‘I think they’re going to give me the nasal tubes,’ he replied. ‘To help me if I want to walk for a bit longer, you know.’
I sniffed. If only there was a way to will myself better.
‘I’m so sorry I can’t be there, Dad.’
‘Oh, love, that’s all right. There’ll be other times,’ he replied, wheezing again. I pictured him standing in his cramped living room, arthritic fingers briefly touching his forehead.
That was the last time I ever spoke to him. He collapsed the next day, and wasn’t found for two days. The thought of my father, the man who had loved and nurtured me all my life, lying cold and alone on the floor of his bungalow, was too much to bear.
I pick up my phone and stare at it for several seconds.
‘Happy birthday, Dad,’ I whisper.
If only I could phone him now, bake him a cake, send him balloons. The photo of Riley from a couple of weeks ago blurs on my phone screen as I gaze at it. I squint to focus and I look at her, taking in those huge round eyes that always seem to be judging me silently. Asking why she’s at home with Daddy, and not at home with me like most babies. Asking why she never got to meet her grandad.
How can I ever explain it all to her?
Robin
I stuff Riley into a fluffy white snowsuit with a hood that has ears. I think it’s meant to make her look like a sheep. Or a bear. Personally I find the whole ‘dressing your baby as a tiny animal’ thing insane, but it�
��s the warmest thing she owns. Esther bought it on her lunch break one day. She offered it to me, nervously, when she got home. It’s upsetting that she still feels anxious about things like that.
Kim is ‘of no fixed address’ at the moment, as she jokingly told me when we last spoke. She gave up her place in her flat-share last year. She’s staying with friends in Tooting, just up the road. She swore it was a coincidence when she told me. I don’t believe her.
We arranged to meet on the common, anyway, and I push Riley in her buggy up the clogged high street, taking in the different sights and sounds. I’m never quite sure how I feel about Tooting. The open mic nights I tried when we first moved here didn’t exactly go well. Since then I’ve got used to feeling like I don’t belong.
But then, I’ve never belonged, anywhere. There were a few months when Sarah and I first got together that I thought perhaps finally I had found my nirvana, but it was just an illusion, like everything else.
There was a report out a few years ago, saying that stand-up comedians have high levels of psychotic personality traits. That they had to be able to see the world differently from others in order to be funny.
If that’s the case, it certainly explains Sarah. Perhaps it’s a good thing my comedy career hasn’t taken off.
I chat to Riley as we walk, pointing out the huge rows of brightly coloured vegetables on display outside the grocery shops, the trendy new restaurant that we haven’t yet had time to visit . . .
‘Not since you came along, little one,’ I say. ‘Mummy and I used to eat out all the time. When Daddy actually had some work and some money in his account. Did you know that once upon a time the Independent called Daddy “the best observational comic of his generation”?’
Like everyone else, she doesn’t give a shit.
The Perfect Father: the most gripping and twisty thriller you'll read in 2020 Page 8