Seeing Other People

by Gayle, Mike

  ‘Daddy, Daddy! I’ve missed you so much!’

  ‘And I’ve missed you too, little man,’ I said, blinking away tears.

  I called over to Rosie, who was sitting watching me as if waiting for her turn. Without speaking she came over and hugged me but it wasn’t until she stopped that I realised she was crying.

  ‘She misses you like I do, Daddy,’ explained Jack. ‘Sometimes she cries in her bedroom when she thinks no one can hear but I do.’

  Rosie glared at Jack, and he took a step backwards as though wanting to be sure that he was out of range of her fists. ‘No I don’t!’ she snapped. ‘I don’t cry, you take it back!’

  The last thing I needed when I had such little time with them was to have to get tough with them both. ‘He’s not teasing you darling, he’s worried about you. You need to look after each other, OK? These are tough times and we need to stick together.’

  At home the children took up residence with me in the kitchen while I prepared tea the ingredients for which Penny had labelled in the fridge. Rosie told me about an argument that she had had with Petra Goodman, a girl in her class who had accused her of saying things about her behind her back; while Jack’s lowlight of the day was having to hold Lettie Harrison’s hand in country dancing. As I tossed chicken and vegetables in the hot spitting oil of the wok I did my best to offer fatherly insight into both predicaments. To Rosie I advised ignoring the girl making the accusations, reasoning that she was probably only making them to get Rosie in trouble; and to Jack I suggested that the best way to deal with his situation was to imagine that he had a robotic hand, because everyone knows that there’s nothing romantic at all about a girl holding a robotic hand. Rosie thought that my advice wouldn’t work because the girl was too annoying; Jack however thought my robot hand idea was the best he’d ever heard.

  I turned off the flame under the wok and distributed the steaming hot food between three plates. It was hard not to be thoroughly pleased with myself to be doing something so obviously constructive for my children.

  ‘Grub’s up!’

  Jack ran to the kitchen sink and began washing his hands without being asked.

  ‘What are we having?’

  ‘Your favourite.’

  Jack’s eye’s widened in delight. ‘Chicken stir-fry? I love chicken stir-fry! You’re the best dad in the world!’

  I knew I wasn’t. I was far from it. But even so it was nice to think that Jack, however misguided, actually believed it was true.

  The kids had long since gone up to their rooms when I heard Penny come home. Guiltily I switched off the TV and snatched up a magazine from the coffee table as though reading as an activity might make me appear less like I was making myself at home than watching the BBC news channel.

  I called out to her and she came into the room. She was wearing her gym kit, and had her hair tied away from her face in a ponytail.

  ‘How did it go?’

  ‘Fine. Rosie’s up in her room tackling her homework and Jack’s asleep – that said, he’s been downstairs to see me about half a dozen times in the last half-hour.’

  Penny sat down in the chair opposite, her keys still in her hands. ‘Aches, pains, and strange noises in his room?’

  ‘You’ve guessed it.’

  ‘He’s been at this for weeks now. He’s going to be so shattered in the morning and on top of that he’s still having trouble settling at school.’

  This was news to me. ‘Still?’

  ‘It’s just the usual,’ replied Penny. ‘Tears in the morning, not wanting to go in . . . according to Miss Brown he seems to be calming down more quickly than last week but it’s still not great.’

  Not great. That was the understatement of the century. It killed me to know the separation was hurting Jack so much. I looked over at Penny. ‘Are you sure this is what you want?’

  ‘What I want?’

  I apologised immediately.

  ‘Look, I didn’t mean it like that . . . obviously I’m the one to blame here but—’

  ‘You’re absolutely right about that! Do you seriously think any of this is what I wanted? This is all you, Joe, and don’t you ever forget that. It wasn’t me who broke my vows. It wasn’t me who tossed away twenty years without a second thought. It was you, and only you, and don’t you dare forget that.’ Penny stood up. ‘I think you should go.’

  ‘But I need to talk to you about when I’ll next see the kids.’

  ‘Then we’ll have to talk tomorrow because do you know what? Now is not a good time.’

  I’d lived with Penny long enough to know when she could be talked round and when she couldn’t and this was definitely one of those situations when she wasn’t going to budge an inch. I left the room and grabbed my coat only to look up and see Jack in his Spiderman pyjamas sitting on the stairs.

  ‘What are you doing, Dad?’

  ‘It’s time for me to go.’

  ‘Can I come too? I won’t be any trouble.’

  ‘I know you won’t son, but you live here with Mum.’

  He stuck out his bottom lip, pouting. ‘I don’t want to live here any more. I want to live with you.’

  It took all the strength I had not to snatch Jack up in my arms and smuggle him out of the house. Thankfully Penny appeared in the doorway, and Jack and I both looked at her, and then back at each other. It was time to say our goodbyes. I kissed his head.

  ‘I promise I’ll see you soon.’

  Jack began sobbing, clutching on to my legs. ‘But I want to see you always, Daddy!’

  I picked him up and hugged him one last time but he was inconsolable. Finally I handed him over to Penny and without saying anything to me she whisked him upstairs leaving me alone in the hallway. I didn’t move. I just wanted his tears to stop. Grabbing my coat I headed out to my car, but as I opened the driver’s door I was hit by a waft of Poison.

  ‘Guess who’s back?’ said a voice from behind me.

  I turned around to see Fiona sitting cross-legged on the next-door neighbour’s wall. She was holding a packet of prawn cocktail crisps and every now and again she’d take out a handful and crunch down on them loudly.

  ‘You’re actually quite sweet when you’re upset, aren’t you?’ said Fiona between crisps. ‘Why did I never notice that before? You’re like a little boy . . . I almost want to hug you.’

  ‘Go away!’ I yelled, and then immediately regretted having done so. Nothing was going to drive Penny even further from me than she already was than reports that her husband was yelling to himself in the street.

  I got into the car and started up the engine but then Fiona opened the rear passenger door and climbed inside.

  ‘Nice motor.’

  I ignored her.

  ‘Could do with valeting though, eh?’

  I continued to ignore her.

  ‘That said, I’m guessing money is a bit tight at the moment.’

  I couldn’t ignore her any more. I turned off the engine.

  ‘You don’t exist.’

  Fiona laughed. ‘Says the man who’s just stopped to talk to me.’

  I wanted to scream but in the end I settled for scraping my fingernails over my scalp out of pure frustration. If this was what it felt like to lose your mind I didn’t like it at all.

  ‘Why won’t you just leave me alone?’

  ‘Because I’m not done with you.’

  ‘You’ve broken up my family – what more can you do to me?’

  Fiona smiled wryly. ‘Believe me, you’d be surprised.’

  ‘So that’s it?’ I replied. ‘You’re just going to carry on like this?’

  ‘I told you it’s for your own good,’ she replied.

  ‘How could this be for my own good? Have you seen how upset my kids are?’

  ‘I know,’ said Fiona. ‘It’s tragic and they’re dead cute too. But business is business and like I’m always telling you I’ve got a job to do.’

  ‘Which is what exactly? You’ve never once given me a p
roper explanation for why you’re doing any of this. What’s your motivation?’

  ‘I’ve got plenty of motivation thank you very much. But since we’re on the subject how about yours on the night you were texting Slag Face? Was it plain and simple lust or was your fragile ego in need of a bit of a boost?’

  Seemingly out of nowhere raw emotion worked its way into my voice. ‘I don’t know why you keep going on about that night. I’ve learned my lesson a million times over! If I could go back and have my time again I’d never even talk to Bella let alone think about sleeping with her!’

  Fiona rolled her eyes and yawned. ‘Are you quite finished with the histrionics because I’ll tell you what: your mawkishness is really making me gag.’ Fiona emptied the last of her crisps directly into her mouth and then discarded the packet on Jack’s car seat. ‘The thing is, Joe, as much as I’m sure that we’d all like to throw our hands up in the air when things get tough and say, “Please let me erase my own stupidity and get back to normal,” life doesn’t work like that. Do you want to know how life really works? It works like this: you do something stupid and that stupid thing comes back to bite you on the arse not just once or twice but again and again and again until you’ve got no arse left. And while you might be feeling a little tender at the moment you, Joe Clarke, have got a little way further to go until you’re arseless but I’ll make you a promise here and now – we’ll definitely get there.’ Fiona opened the car door and then stopped and looked at me. ‘Thirty seconds after I get out of the car you’re going to think to yourself that the only thing you can do is turn up at the local Accident and Emergency and tell them that you’re having hallucinations. So, word to the wise, here’s what will happen to you if you do that: they’ll do loads of tests but they’ll find nothing wrong with you but they’ll section you anyway because, well, you can’t be right in the head if you say you’re seeing dead people can you? And after that, well, maybe you’ll get released, maybe you won’t. Maybe the HR department at work will get involved and you’ll get pushed out of your job, or maybe it won’t. Maybe social services will get involved and you’ll have a plump middle-aged woman called Joanne supervising all your visits with your kids, or maybe you won’t. But what you’ve got to ask yourself is this: is it really worth the risk?’

  She was right. There was no way that telling anyone in authority about Fiona wouldn’t somehow impact upon me for the worst.

  ‘Fine,’ I replied. ‘You win.’

  Fiona grinned. ‘I always do in the end.’

  19

  This latest encounter with Fiona had really shaken me. For the few days until my next visit with the kids, I resolved to make more of an effort to take better care of myself. Fiona would only make another reappearance if I allowed my stress levels to get the better of me and so I tried to eat more healthily, get out of the office at lunchtimes for a bit of fresh air and even started drinking Holland & Barrett branded chamomile tea in a bid to calm my obviously frazzled nerves.

  By the time my next midweek visit to the kids came around, I was feeling a lot better. I picked them up from the childminder’s, took them home and spent a good few hours of real quality time with them. We played half an hour of Hungry Hippos followed by a couple of rounds of snap – at which Jack consistently cheated – then I prepared a tea of fish fingers, peas and potato waffles after which we watched TV for a while before bedtime. It was good having this time with them but I wanted more: each visit I noticed something about one of them had changed and I hated it. If I could see the changes then it meant I wasn’t close enough to them. I wanted their growing up to be as imperceptible to my naked eye as a field of daisies opening in the warmth of a summer’s day. And with the house ready I now had somewhere to take them that wasn’t our old family home or a fast food restaurant; so when Penny returned home that night I decided to broach the subject as she made the kids’ packed lunches.

  ‘I just thought I’d let you know that I’m off now,’ I said, popping my head around the kitchen door, ‘and Rosie has a maths test next week that she needs to revise for.’

  ‘I’ll make a note of it,’ she said chopping carrot sticks and dropping them into the lunch boxes. ‘Are you still available to do something with them on Saturday afternoon?’

  ‘Actually,’ I replied, ‘I was wondering how you’d feel about me having them overnight – you know, picking them up on Saturday morning and bringing them back on Sunday afternoon.’

  Penny stopped chopping. ‘Oh,’ she said as though it hadn’t occurred to her that this moment might ever happen. ‘So the house is ready then?’

  ‘As it’ll ever be.’

  ‘It’s not cold there though is it? Rosie’s been a bit snuffly all week and I don’t want it to develop into anything. Maybe we could do it when it gets a bit warmer?’

  ‘The house does have central heating. Admittedly it’s not the most efficient, but it’s there, plus I’ll make sure she’s wrapped up warm at all times.’

  ‘But Jack’s not been sleeping very well and he’ll miss his room too much. You know how he is, he likes to have his things around him.’

  ‘Then I’ll make sure he brings everything with him that will make him happy.’

  ‘But what if—’

  ‘They’ll be fine, Penny, I promise. I’ll have my phone on me all the time, I’ll make sure they call you to say goodnight and – I know you know this already – I won’t let anything bad happen to them.’

  ‘I know that, you’re their dad, it’s just that . . .’

  ‘You’ll miss them?’

  Penny nodded and started to cry. I went to put my arm around her but thought better of it.

  ‘I know you will,’ I replied. ‘Believe me, I know.’

  It was Rosie who answered the door when I went to collect the kids that weekend for their first sleepover at my new place. She kissed my cheek and told me how Jack had been packed and ready to go since five thirty that morning. I picked him up and gave him a kiss as he ran to greet me and as I set him down I noticed he was holding a medium-sized teddy bear under his arm that I’d never seen before.

  ‘Who’s this?’ I asked.

  ‘Oscar,’ he replied. ‘He’s my friend.’

  Jack had so many soft toys that fell in and out of favour at whim it was impossible to keep up with them.

  ‘Nice to meet you, Oscar,’ I replied and solemnly shook the bear’s paw. Keen to get the weekend off on the right note I was about to ask a few more bear-related questions when Penny appeared at the kitchen door.

  ‘They’re all packed,’ she said.

  I told Jack and Rosie to give their mum a big hug and say goodbye. Jack told Penny that he had packed a picture of her in his bag so he could look at it at night and Rosie told her that she would text her. I handed Rosie the car keys and told her and Jack to wait in the car while I loaded up their bags.

  ‘I was thinking about bringing them back after lunch tomorrow if that’s OK?’ I said once the kids were out of earshot.

  ‘Of course,’ said Penny, ‘that’s fine.’

  ‘And, like I said before, you can call them any time you like.’

  ‘I know, thanks.’

  ‘So you’ll be all right then?’

  Penny shook her head. She had tears in her eyes.

  ‘No,’ she said, ushering me out of the door, ‘I don’t think I will be but the kids need this so I’ll work on that.’

  The kids’ reaction to the outside of my new home was typically unrestrained in its honesty.

  ‘It looks like the kind of place a witch would live,’ said Rosie.

  ‘I think that too,’ said Jack, tucking his bear under his arm. ‘Did an actual witch used to live here, Dad?’

  ‘No,’ I replied, even though I could see exactly what they meant. Their home – by which I mean the home I used to live in – was the complete opposite of this house in every way and despite my efforts at modernisation and refurbishment it still looked like the dated, rundown home of a housebo
und octogenarian with an interest in spell casting.

  The kids demanded a tour of the house and so once we’d unloaded the car we started upstairs in Rosie’s bedroom. As she was older I’d given her the big bedroom that overlooked the garden so that she could spread out and make it her own.

  ‘What do you reckon? I’ve just given it a couple of coats of white for now but I was thinking you could decorate it any way you like. I don’t know, maybe put up some posters and make it feel homely?’

  Rosie looked around the room as it was. It had a single bed and not much else – the very definition of prison cell chic – and somehow the pastel-coloured duvet set which I had bought seemed to make matters worse.

  ‘It’s great,’ she said, but in the same voice that she uses to thank my mum whenever she knits her a jumper out of leftover wool. It was a voice that said, ‘I appreciate this, and I love you because we’re related, but this simply isn’t going to work.’

  I tried my best to salvage the situation.

  ‘Maybe you could bring round a few of your things next time. You could leave them here so that you don’t have to keep dragging stuff back and forth.’

  ‘Yeah, cool,’ said Rosie but it didn’t take a genius to see that her heart wasn’t in it.

  As spartan as Rosie’s room had seemed it was practically a palace compare to the only other bedroom in the house, which was technically mine. I still had the old carpets down and the original owner’s faded orange curtains at the window. In the middle of the room was the double bed I’d ordered from Argos which had taken me a whole evening to put up and at the far end was a half-built flat-pack wardrobe surrounded by black bin liners filled with my clothes. It looked like a squat.

  Jack shot me a worried glance.

  ‘Dad, where am I sleeping?’

  ‘Here,’ I replied. ‘I know it’s not perfect but Rosie’s room took longer than I thought to sort out. But this one’s definitely next on the list.’