by R J Butler
Having bought them both, at not some inconsiderable cost, I suffered an interrogation: Dad, why did you buy both jackets?
Ah, in case one doesn’t fit. I’ll bring one back, you see?
And why did you pay for one with money and the other with your card?
You noticed that? Because I didn’t have enough cash on me.
Right. He thinks about this for a moment. Dad, why is that man waving at us?
What man? I followed his gaze, and sure enough there was the camp man in a Trilby that Dawn and I had met last night. Heck, I thought, I can’t have him speaking to Joshua and letting some filthy great big cat out of the bag. Fortunately, he was at some distance, waving at me like the Queen Mother over the clothes’ racks. What was he doing here again; did he live in the place? Perhaps he was asking the same question of me. Quickly, Joshua, let’s go before he speaks to us.
Safely away, we dodged the Christmas crowds in the shopping precinct but stopped to listen to a Salvation Army band playing Christmas favourites. I like a bit of brass occasionally. But then I spied someone coming round with a donations hat and I decided half a carol was enough.
In Argos we bought a kettle that claims it can boil from stone cold in three seconds flat (We’ll say that’s from you, Joshua) and from a record shop Blondie’s Greatest Hits (And that’ll be from Lola.) And that was it, Christmas shopping done. Sorted. Only a matter of buying three cards (from each of us) and a couple rolls of wrapping paper, and then we could head home.
Dad… He’s going to ask for something, years of training have attuned my ears to the tiniest inflection from the first ‘d’. Are you and Mum buying me the Green Day CD for Christmas; I mean you don’t have to say or anything…
No.
Can I buy it then?
How much pocket money have you got left?
No, I meant, erm, with your money?
No.
Please –
No.
Dad –
Joshua, I said no, and that’s final. Sometimes, as a parent, when you say no you have to mean it and stick by it.
The card shop was manic with happy shoppers so I didn’t see her until I’d virtually walked into her, letting out a shriek so loud that half the shop turned to see. Dawn!
Rob!
Dawn, hi.
Hello, Rob.
Hello.
Hi.
Somehow we had to get out of this loop. Dawn, this is my son Joshua.
Josh, he corrected.
Hi, Josh. So are you Christmas shopping with your dad then?
Yeah, we’ve been buying presents for my mum.
That’s nice, what did you get her?
We got –
No, I screeched. We can’t tell you. It’s a secret. She couldn’t know that I’d brought the jacket she’d found.
Well, I won’t tell her.
It’s not that, it’s just… you know. Josh, go and have a look for those cards. Nothing too soppy. And nothing to religious, I called as he ambled off. Turning to Dawn I added, We don’t want to overdo the religious bit at Christmas, now do we?
Good looking boy, said Dawn.
Yeah, takes after his mother.
I knew you were a dad but it’s still strange seeing you being a dad.
It started ten years ago.
Are you OK?
Yeah. You?
Yes. Wish I could hold you.
Me too. You alone then?
Yes but I’m meeting my mother in half an hour for lunch. Care to join us?
I’d love to but… you know.
I know. I was only teasing.
Are still going back west tomorrow?
Yes.
For a week?
Or longer.
Come to the pub on Friday.
I’ll see.
Dawn…
Here comes Josh.
That was too quick – go and choose some better ones.
But you haven’t even looked at them yet.
OK, I guess they’ll do. So er, see you Friday, Dawn. It still seemed a painfully long way away, assuming she even made it then. Nice to see you again.
And you. Goodbye, Josh.
As Joshua and I left, I glanced round. She winked at me. That was the point we got stopped by the security guard. By blaming Joshua, saying it was an accident and by pointing out that it was he holding the cards, we got let off with nothing more than a stern ticking off.
Thanks, Dad, thanks a lot, said an indignant Joshua shortly afterwards as we headed back towards the car.
Sorry, Josh. Listen, best not mention the incident to your mum.
What, how you almost got me arrested?
And er, perhaps best if you don’t mention Dawn either.
Why not?
Your mother doesn’t really like Dawn, I said choosing my words carefully.
Why, do they know each other?
Not yet, I muttered under my breath.
What?
You know, perhaps we’ll buy that Green Day album after all.
Sunday, 16th December
Sunday afternoon we put the Christmas tree up, a real one – naturally. I placed it in the bay window and Emily, usually such a stickler for having it just so, allows the children to decorate it as they see fit. So Joshua decorates the top half, and Lola the bottom. Christmas carols play in the background to add to the atmosphere, and I sit back in the armchair enjoying the fuggy warmth of our living room, reading a Sunday Times supplement, feeling like a Victorian father. Lola cries that she wants to put the fairy on. Joshua, all magnanimous, steps aside, and I lift Lola up, where after several attempts she places the fairy at the top. The final result is a mishmash of style and clash of colours, flung on as children do. Emily applauds whilst gnashing her teeth.
That evening, after the children have gone to bed, I noticed Emily rearranging the tree ever so subtly so not to be too noticeable to their unobservant eyes. After the fourth evening, the tree finally looks right in her opinion, and the children remain unaware that their handiwork has been tampered with beyond recognition. On the windowsill, our Christmas cards, including the one from Aunt Vera, which we received during the last week in November. It was so early I almost sent it back with the instruction that she send it to us at the appropriate time of year. Not for anything, do Emily and the children call me Scrooge.
Monday, 17th December
The last full week before Christmas, and it passes with excruciating slowness. Monday I decided not to text Dawn; I’d leave her in peace with her husband. But I still hoped she’d text me. But she didn’t. Ditto Tuesday but I was still cool about it. Up to about six o’clock. I’d stayed late, assessing someone’s application for an essential car users’ allowance. They were pushing it, of course; there was no way I could sanction such a pile of fiction. And then suddenly I felt as if someone had tied a huge weight to my heart and, whilst during Monday and Tuesday, they’d held it, bearing its weight, about six p.m. Tuesday, without warning, they let go, and suddenly my heart surges under the strain. Why hasn’t she been in contact? She’d warn me things might be different when she was back in Westminster but not this different. It’s as if I didn’t exist. I tried to read the words on the screen in front of me, the Essential car users’ allowance policy, but my breathing comes in short bursts. I’m new to this, forgot that people, women, can make you feel this bad, this wretched. I check my mobile continually, getting increasingly desperate to receive a text from her, or a ‘missing call’ message with her number. A couple of times over the week, my phone buzzed. Almost shaking with anticipation, I reached inside my pocket. Each time I let out an audible groan of disappointment when I’d been asked to buy a loaf of bread or a pint of milk on my return from work.
On Wednesday, Loretta asked me whether I was going out on Friday night. Yes, I said, and asked whether she knew who else was intending to go. She listed various names, the usual suspects, including Ernie and Karen, and then, as an afterthought, added Dawn.
&n
bsp; Loretta grinned, happy to be seen as the point of social contact. I texted her, she said.
You text Dawn? I hadn’t realised they were on such good terms. Just think, Dawn and our very own Olive Oil as friends. And she’s coming Friday?
She said maybe, so that probably means no. I wondered whether Loretta had any foundation whatsoever to jump to such a negative assumption, but the way I was feeling I guessed she was probably right anyway.
If you happen to text her again, send her my…
Yes?
Regards.
Loretta laughed. Will do, she says.
As Friday loomed I became more and more convinced Dawn would either not turn up or return feeling different about me. It shocked me how much I cared. I hassled Loretta into keeping in touch with Dawn, reminding her of the drink.
Friday, 21st December
The day is here and I wake up bad tempered and on edge. Emily asks whether I’m OK. Joshua, with an instinct for survival when he senses not all is well in Dad’s world, avoids me.
It is the last day before the holidays and Christmas is evident everywhere. The festive mood in the office permeates every corner, except, I notice, Heather’s office, where she sits studiously as ever. I suggest that she join us in the pub after work. Her withering look is no more than I’d expected. Everyone else, the few that haven’t taken the day off, celebrate behind a thin façade of work. Ernie’s sprig of mistletoe, now doubled in size, pokes out from his jacket pocket; Sean, a young chap in a wheelchair, has lined his wheels with purple tinsel; and Paul, my earnest co-worker, is wearing a tie that plays Jingle Bells at the push of a button.
I pester Loretta to see whether Dawn has texted her again. She’s amused by my interest but no, she hasn’t. Damn.
An hour before lunchtime, Paul approaches me at my desk. Rob, he says, fancy coming out for a drink at lunch?
I thought we were all meeting up tonight.
No, I mean just you and me.
Just you and…? Oh.
I hope you don’t mind but I need your advice on something.
You do?
But if you’re busy…
No, no, not at all. But advice on what?
He appears uncomfortable so I simply agree to meet him outside at one. Satisfied, he returns to his desk.
Paul is one of these people you don’t ask how he is, for fear he’ll tell you. A round-faced, 40 year-old with owl-like eyes, he’s an amenable chap but his personal life is that of a soap opera and broadcast so widely to anyone within earshot that it has higher listening figures than The Archers. Five years ago, Paul met a girl half his age at work; four years ago, they married; three years ago they had a child, a boy; two years ago, he and his wife split up; one year ago, they divorced; six months ago, a new man takes Paul’s place as husband and father. And now he’s angry. He hates his ex with a ferociousness bordering on psychotic; loses half his salary into her bank account, and only sees his son one weekend a fortnight. I like Paul but only at a distance; you can’t truly know him without becoming fully acquainted with his personal Greek tragedy. And now he’s asking me advice on a subject I know I’ll be ill-advised and ill-equipped to give. I had planned to spend a quiet lunch hour to myself, going through my head, for the umpteenth time, the various scenarios of seeing Dawn for the first time in a week.
One o’clock. Fearful that alcohol would only feed Paul’s moroseness, I steer him away from the pub and into De Niro’s, a small café round the corner. I’ve often wondered whether the great actor knows that there’s a small café in North London devoted to his image. The food is Italian with names like Spaghetti Bolognese De Niro or Taxi Driver Lasagne. Their devotion to their hero is either touching or disturbing, depending on one’s point of view. Having ordered our Cape Fear Panini and Good Fellas Salad Baguette, paid for by Paul, at his insistence, we sit down at a small table beneath a poster for Raging Bull. I’m feeling uneasy; my relationship with Paul has always been restricted to the office and now I find myself trapped in a tete-a-tete in a temple to De Niro burdened by the expectation of providing advice of, I presume, a confidential nature.
We start with our favourite De Niro films, which seems like an obvious icebreaker; then move onto father-talk and what we’ve bought for our sons for Christmas. I manage to pan this out for quite a while before our reason for being here starts:
Robin, I see you as a man of the world.
I wouldn’t go that far.
No but you’re what I’d call a level-headed kind of bloke, and a good barometer of how things are.
A barometer?
You see, this is where I need your advice.
These green peppers are nice, aren’t they? Sorry, Paul, what were you saying?
Your advice, Rob.
Well, to be frank, I may not –
There’s someone in the office I like.
Is there? What do you mean by ‘like’?
Fancy.
Oh God.
What? I know what you’re thinking; I’ve been there before –
A girl?
Well, it’s not you, if that’s what you’re worried about. Of course a girl. A woman even.
Just making sure.
But I think she may be out of my league; that’s why I need your advice.
Oh God. I know where this is heading.
Why do you keep saying that? He wipes a crumb of Panini off his tie and in doing so sets off the merry Christmas tune.
I wouldn’t do it.
“Jingle bells, jingle bells…”
Why not; you don’t know who I’m talking about yet.
I do. She’s married.
Who?
“Oh what fun it is to ride…”
Dawn.
How did you know? says Paul quickly. Has she mentioned me? His owl-like eyes try to see inside of me.
No but we all fancy Dawn.
“Hey! Jingle bells…”
Do we?
When I say fancy, I mean she’s quite attractive and all that –
“All the way…”
She’s beautiful.
Is she?
You just said you fancy her.
No, not me. I’m married.
So that excludes looking, does it?
“One horse open sleigh.”